Flat Rock Clone

When we were in Niagara, we had dinner at a place called On the Winery. It was a great place - simple, rustic foods, very fresh, and in season as well. The wine we ordered was quite interesting. It was the 2004 Flat Rock Cellars Clone 667 Pinot Noir.

I've seen these clone bottles at LCBO before. They were offered in a box of four, with four different clones of pinot noir. That's really interesting - I suppose they were experimenting with which clone worked best and decided to bottle for it, for fun. When you taste them side by side, they're just so different.

I'm quite familiar with Flat Rock's estate pinot noir, so I was looking forward to this wine. It's much more herbaceous, and has an interesting minerality to the wine. But a problem I'm noticing in many of these wines, is that they're quite soft. This doesn't apply to just Flat Rock, I noticed it with a 2004 Malivoire Pinot Noir as well. These aren't very old wines, but are softening up already. Can't say for certain if this is really the case - there's too many variables, like storage conditions, my taste buds........yes, maybe it's just me.


This bottle was interesting. I can imagine this being one of the wines the blend to make their estate pinot noir with. Fascinating.