Thesis: A stinging slap in the face, followed by a passionate kiss.

The Cliff Notes:The crystalline peach color fronting a nose of crisp citrus, floral and musk melon hides the truth of this wine: mouth-watering acidity. An overwhelming taste of lemon-lime, sea salt, grapefruit and tangerine goes on and on. Light front-of-mouth tannins help it to finish like icing on a lemon pound cake.

Fermentation: 100% Pinot noir -- whole cluster pressed and 100% barrel fermented utilizing a long, slow, low-temperature, wild-yeast regimen to promote vineyard characters and preserve fleeting fruit esters.

The Building of: 100% barrel aged in older French oak barrels using lees addition and now-extinct methodologies so that it portrays like a rose Champagne from 1895 ... without the bubbles. Racked and filtered prior to bottling February 2008.

A Story: These grapes should never have been here. It’s been suggested we exploited them. Nice twentysomethings from great vineyards in the right neighborhoods, normally destined for higher education in one of JKC’s more upscale Pinot institutions. Polite society might think of them as wayward, wanton, perhaps not living to their potential. Yet it’s hard to deny a person or a thing its nature. Given the reins, a few turn their back on convention and become decidedly more — more vibrant, more racy. Is it errant? Is it exploitation? Perhaps, but often it’s the cluster from which stars are plucked.

Cases Produced: 575 cases

Ageability: Drink now to five years and think about getting it some air in the first three.

Alcohol: 13.75%

pH: 3.24

Vineyards: These Pinot Noir grapes came from Temperance Hill’s 27-year-old Flat Block, plus Chehalem’s 28-year-old Corral Creek Vineyard.