The Northwest Wine Anthem

The Sparkling Arts from Oregon's Argyle Winery

noreply@blogger.com (funwithbooze) — Sat, 17 Dec 2016 18:07:00 +0000

As the holidays are quickly approaching there are ample Northwest wines that are natural go-tos for the occasions that are on the horizon. None of them perhaps more suited than sparkling wine.

Oregon's Argyle Winery got its start back in 1987 in Dundee, Oregon. The winery took shape in what was once an old hazelnut drying facility and set up shop in the heart of Dundee, right along route 99. The "nuthouse" along with the idea of repurposing older buildings would become a major part of the brand's identity. And it is that, along with their sparkling wines that have probably continued to set them apart.

While making outstanding wine is an artform of sorts, Argyle has also decided to throw their support behind the students at the Pacific Northwest College of Art. Partnering with the school to create a limited edition set of labels crafted by students who were selected by a jury.

From Argyle: "The three participating students were jury-selected from a large pool of applicants to receive an immersion in Argyle’s winemaking process. Each student produced a work that reflects a creatively researched understanding of Argyle Winery and the surrounding Willamette Valley wine-growing community.

'Talking to the people who worked at the winery, I could feel the sense of celebration, innovation and experimentation,' said Subin Yang, one of the three label artists. 'Hearing stories about the science and the experimentation that went into building Argyle’s vineyards and creating its sparkling wine helped me focus my work on the spirit of renewal.'

Sparkling wine like the Pinot Noir that this part of Oregon is so well known for takes a focus on how nature will set you up for the end result you're looking for. Winemaker Nate Klosterman who learned so much from Oregon's sparkling pioneer Rollin Soles has his approach dialed in. "We’re still looking for the same intersection of ripe fruit flavors and natural high acidity that we look for in cooler vintages, however the window to capture this intersection is much smaller, which leads to a very tight picking window. Growing fruit at higher elevation allows us enough of a window to get everything picked in short order in a warm vintage."

Sparkling wine is most famous from the cool region of Champagne, and as many are aware Oregon's Willamette Valley has seen a string of warmer years. How does that shake out for a sparkling wine? "With warmer vintages come riper, more dense base wines. Correct pressing technique is critical to maintain vibrancy and elegance in these base wines. Pressing cold fruit at low pressures for a longer periods of time will allow for much lower phenolic and color pick up, which will improve elegance. In warmer years, we will conduct lower percentages of malolactic fermentation in the base wines than we would in a cool late year to capture more freshness rather than richness. Before disgorgement, the dosage trials will be looking to enhance acidity and freshness more so than richness. This is accomplished by using dosage “vehicle” wines from older sparkling base wines that we keep in barrel rather than still wine chardonnay."

The 2013 Vintage Brut is from a warm even growing season that turned to a bit tumultuous as it wrapped up. A blend of 60% Pinot Noir and 40% Chardonnay, this wine is honeyed across the aromatics and palate. With plenty of cut apple and a hint of chamomile. If you're interested in grabbing the limited edition pack in time for the holidays you better hustle. It's here.

Live From Walla Walla; It's SODO

noreply@blogger.com (funwithbooze) — Fri, 09 Sep 2016 21:27:00 +0000

From Lucha Vino:

Hello Seattle! Please welcome your newest neighbors. Live from Walla Walla!

The Seattle urban wine scene has been gaining some serious momentum over the past several years. What started as a small group of wineries banding together in South Seattle to promote their wines has grown to a collection of about 30 wineries within the greater Seattle area.

The latest wineries to move into the neighborhood come from Walla Walla. Rotie Cellars, Sleight of Hand and Waters have all moved into the SODO neighborhood in the SODO Urban Works complex. They join Kerloo Cellars, Structure and Full Pull, who have been operating in the complex for a couple of years already.

The new neighbors were welcomed with a smashing Block Party on Saturday, August 27, 2016. Each winery featured a stellar lineup of wines, small bites and other attractions including live DJs and an aerial burlesque show! The party started at 1 PM and kept on growing well into the early evening. By 6 PM all the tasting rooms were wall-to-wall with people reveling in the party atmosphere.

Ryan Crane founded Kerloo Cellars in 2010 in Walla Walla. Ryan is a long time Seattle resident, so it was a natural move for him to bring his production back to the West side of the mountains. Ryan’s SODO operation has been open for about two years now. His space is open and inviting with minimalist modern design touches. You can see right away that this is a working space with the barrels stacked high along the wall opposite the tasting bar.

Ryan’s Majestic red blend is a classic Southern Rhone blend featuring Grenache and Mourvedre. With 78% Grenache and the remainder Mourvedre you get primary notes of dark red raspberry followed by dusty, savory, dry white pepper.

Sean Boyd’s inaugural vintage with Rotie Cellars was 2007. Prior to starting Rotie, Sean made wine with Rich Funk at Saviah Cellars and Jamie Brown at Waters.

Sean is in search of the best locations in Washington for growing each grape variety that he uses to make his wines. He figures if his quest is successful that his kids are going to be rich! He is especially excited about his estate vineyard in the Rocks AVA. The vineyard is still young and should provide the majority of the Syrah for Sean’s Northern Blend in the 2017 vintage.

The Rotie Cellars Southern White is a blend of Viognier, Roussanne and Marsanne. This wine shows excellent minerality with notes of sea breeze and herbal white flowers followed by light tropical notes of jack fruit and honeydew melon rounded out with excellent acidity on the finish.

Sleight of Hand Cellars is a collaboration between Trey Busch and Jerry Solomon. After meeting in 2002, Trey and Jerry finally started making wine together in 2007.

Also in 2007, while travelling in Spain, Jerry’s interest in Rose’ was piqued. He was so fired up that he couldn’t wait to get home to pitch his idea for making a Rose’. So he called Trey from the airport in Spain. The conversation went something like this:

Jerry: We’re going to make a Rose’

Trey: Great!

Jerry: It’s gotta be Cabernet Franc

Trey: I love Cab Franc!

That phone call lead to the production of two barrels of a Rose’ of Cab Franc made mostly for their personal consumption. The remaining bottles sold out of the tasting room in less than two weeks. Today production for the Magician’s Assistant is up to 22 barrels. It takes a bit longer to sell out, but you shouldn’t wait too long to buy some if you see it!

The 2015 Magician’s Assistant is a rose’ of 100% Cabernet Franc sourced from the Black Rock Vineyard. It fires off herbal notes mingled with strawberries and melon backed with a wicked streak of acidity.

Structure Cellars (http://www.structurewines.com/) has always been a Seattle based winery. Brian and Brandee started Structure in their home in 2008 and moved into the SODO Urban Works complex in 2014. The 2016 vintage will be the second vintage produced at their SODO location.

Brian loves Syrah and Brandee loves Cabernet Franc. Their tastes come together to produce some excellent blends that you aren’t likely to find anywhere else.

A more traditional wine is their Bauhaus Syrah. The grapes are sourced from the Destiny Ridge, Upland and Wallula vineyards. This 100% Syrah features flavors of dark berries and light white pepper followed by subtle hazelnut and cracked pepper on the finish.

Waters Winery was started in Walla Walla by Jamie Brown in 2005. Jamie moved to Seattle a couple of years ago and has been working to convince his partners to open a tasting room here ever since. He finally got his way and we’re all benefiting from the decision!

Jamie was pouring a reserve tasting lineup that featured the 2008 and 2011 vintages of his 21 Grams wine. 21 Grams is Jamie’s top flight wine, which is made by selecting the best barrels in a blind tasting. Not surprisingly, Cold Creek fruit typically drives the blend.

The current release is 2011. Not only do you get a wine made from Jamie’s best grapes, you also get a wine that has already been aged for you. If you are impatient, go ahead and drink it now. If you can wait, you will be rewarded. The 2011 and 2008 both tasted fabulous at the party.

The 2011 21 Grams is lush and lively. The blend is predominantly Cabernet Sauvignon with a touch of Malbec and Petit Verdot. The wine features notes of dark currants, cherries and earthy white pepper with plentiful silky tannins.

Full Pull is not a winery per se. Paul Zitarelli started Full Pull back in 2009 as an email list focusing on Washington wine. Fast forward to 2016 and Paul is offering wines from around the world and has also started his own negociant wine label “Full Pull and Friends.”

A new addition to Paul’s wine portfolio is the Block Wine Project. These wines are a collaboration between Team Full Pull and select wine makers. Each wine is a single variety that comes from a single block in a single vineyard.

The NV Block Wines Extra Brut Rose’ was open for tasting at the block party and it definitely got the party started! Full Pull collaborates with Treveri Cellars to make this sparkling rose’ from Pinot Noir grown in the Yakima Valley AVA. This pink sparkler features notes of bread dough, yeast, straw and herbal strawberries. There is plenty of acidity and a jet stream of bubbles to keep the party rocking!

The party may not be as lively the next time you visit the SODO Urban Works complex. But, one thing is for sure; friendly, knowledgeable people will treat you to some awesome wines from your newest Seattle Urban Wine Scene neighbors.

Experience Cabernet from Forgeron Cellars

noreply@blogger.com (funwithbooze) — Wed, 31 Aug 2016 19:20:00 +0000

from Julia Esser

For Marie Eve of Forgeron Cellars, it begins in the soil. When she was a young girl, she was always playing in the dirt. It’s no wonder then, as she grew older, she developed an interest in chemistry, studying it in college and her initial interest in soil, combined with her new knowledge of chemistry translated to a love of wine-making. Marie Eve chooses her grapes from the finest vines across Washington State, visiting each grower and hand selecting the clusters that will be used to create her wines. It is no accident when a particular vineyard or AVA is chosen for a Forgeron wine. Marie Eve utilizes each region’s individual terroir to influence each wine’s unique characteristics. While soil is only a part of what contributes to the terroir of a specific vineyard, its influence may be the most essential.

This summer, Forgeron Cellars offered an “Experience Cabernet” event to the public, focused on offering wine enthusiasts and members of their wine club Societe a chance to compare three wines across a single variety all made from Washington grapes in different parts of the state. The goal was to allow participants to experience first-hand what the terroir of a region contributes to a vintage, as well as learn more about characteristics of Cabernet Sauvignon world-wide and the history of Cabernet in Washington State.

Summer is an important time in any growing season. Having grown up on a farm, I’m most reminded of my upbringing when the heat bears down on the Pacific Northwest, bringing sun to Seattle and gold to the fields East of the Cascades. My own farmer father is constantly reminding me about the impact soil can have on crops and, aversely, the impact a grower can have on the soil, which immediately drew me to Marie Eve’s story. The bottom line is – soil matters.

These are three fantastic Cabernets, created by an inspiring woman, each chosen because of the unique terroir of the region or vintage and an excellent chance to see what this grape can do across the state of Washington.

2012 Columbia Valley Cabernet Sauvignon

Sourced from three different AVA’s (Columbia Valley, Walla Walla Valley and Red Mountain), each area was selected to contribute specific characteristics; Walla Walla’s warm growing region and loess soil likely adding earthy spices and Red Mountain contributing a tannic structure and robust desert red hue. The aromatics on this wine are spice forward with roasted herbs on the upper lip and dark fruit deeper in the glass. It tastes young and full-bodied on the palate with hints of pepper, plum, chocolate and coarse tannins. It has a lasting finish with just a ghost of tart which leaves you eagerly awaiting the next sip. With just over one year in the barrel and priced at $35 this is a great wine to keep on hand for social events.

2011 Red Mountain Cabernet Sauvignon

Grapes from the Lacoye and Hightower vineyards in the Red Mountain AVA contribute power and spice, with quite a bit of austerity. While normally the warmest AVA in the state of Washington, this particular vintage in Red Mountain was much cooler, and Marie Eve picked it specifically to highlight what a site could do in difficult growing conditions. On the nose, this wine is intensely sweet with bright aromas of strawberries and vanilla, making its dark cherry palate with chalky tannin and silky moderate finish a true delight. This is a full-bodied, smoky wine and priced at $45 is an excellent treat for guests or personal use in pairing with bold cheeses.

2012 ANVIL Walla Walla Cabernet Sauvignon

For Marie Eve and Forgeron, ANVIL wines are the top tier label and much more rare than similar wine varieties. This particular ANVIL is sourced from the Walla Walla Valley (Pepper Bridge and Minnick Hills vineyards) which both provide a slow, full-ripening allowing for good aging. Aged for almost two and a half years in 100% new oak barrels, there is an immediate earth aroma on the nose as well as deep plum. The palate is full of smooth, rich plum, oak and warm cigar smoke that lingers long on the finish like a haze in the air.

Oregon with a French Accent: Résonance from Louis Jadot

noreply@blogger.com (funwithbooze) — Sun, 31 Jul 2016 21:27:00 +0000

The Resonance Vineyard has been one of the Willamette Valley's gems for some time. It is perhaps less well known than places like Shea or Temperance Hill, owing to its small size, but it has long produced wines of intensity and focus and has overtime become synonymous with the name Peter Rosback and Sineann Wines.

The vineyard has long been organic and is certified biodynamic; it was planted in 1981 by the Chambers Family. A warm site in the cool Yamhill Carlton AVA. In addition to the Sineann Wines, there have been well received bottlings from Big Table Farm and Lemelson from fruit from Resonance Vineyard. The vineyard is on its own rootstock and includes nineteen acres of Pinot Noir including the clones Pommard, Wädenswil, and Dijon 777 as well as a bit of Gewurztraminer (one and a half acre).

The wines from this site are always single vineyard bottling material. The Resonance Vineyard fruit reliably produces wines of intense elegance. There's a mineral emphasis, a core of layered fruit and perhaps what makes it stand out the most is the incredible, refined structure. The site is a Willamette Valley original, while perhaps not as old as a handful of plantings by the pioneers, it is certainly among the Valley's founding vineyard sites.

All of these features caught the eye and perhaps more importantly the palate of the folks at Louis Jadot, the famed Burgundy negociant. A winery that has been in operation since 1859 and in the business of vineyard acquisition since 1826. This then is high praise for the potential they see in Oregon and in the Resonance Vineyard. This is a site that has always made notable wines and so in getting their foot in the door the folks at Jadot went straight to one of the Willamette's gems.

After forty two years heading up the wine production at Jadot, Jacques Lardière decided it was time to retire. However that retirement was short-lived and he was called into service by Jadot to head to the Yamhill-Carlton AVA and head up the stateside production. These are the only wines and the only vineyard Jadot has ever made outside of France. Lardière is producing the wines but also keeping tabs on the vineyard and learning about what makes Oregon so special. The wines are being made at the Trisateum facility initially, but they will likely continuing growing their Oregon presence and footprint.

In the first wine that the Jadot has produced you have a perfect blend of what is purely Oregon with a winemaker who has for a long time made very classic Burgundy. The wine is stunning.

2013 Résonance Pinot Noir, Yamhill-Carlton AVA

This is a really incredible first go at Oregon Pinot Noir by the uber talented Burgundian winemaker Jacques Lardière. This Pinot Noir is ripe certainly but it's richness is not in a rounded character so much as an intensity of elegance and minerality. Aromas of violets, fresh turned earth, crushed stone and clove. The palate is intensely focused and beautifully structured. Freshness of fruit pulsates through the wine's flavor profile, ripe blackberry and hints of fresh fennel around a core of mineral driven, black fruit. $65

Syrah Doctrine: Tenet Wines

noreply@blogger.com (funwithbooze) — Sun, 24 Jul 2016 05:30:00 +0000

Washington state has long been a hotbed for Syrah. A wine that the industry will tell you they have a tough time selling. It is perhaps a blessing and a curse then that Washington seems to make the best Syrah in the New World and perhaps outside of certain special pockets in the Rhone Valley, the whole world.

It has been Syrah that while not putting Washington on the map, has raised its profile as a world class wine producer. The grape is still fairly young here with its first plantings in 1986 in the Yakima Valley, at the state's iconic Red Willow Vineyard. The collaboration between wine grower Mike Sauer and wine genius David Lake launched what has become Washington's most important wine grape.

The wines of Cayuse, Betz and L'Ecole have come to be known for their Syrah, and new labels launched in recent years like Avennia, Kevin White and Rotie Cellars have shown their brilliance with Syrah. It makes sense then that the people at Washington's founding winery, Chateau Ste Michelle would look to take Washington's signature grape to the next level with their Tenet Wines project.

In a partnership with some of the most revered names in France's Rhone Valley, Chateau Ste Michelle looked to make the purest expression of Washington Syrah, (along with other Rhone varietals) that it could. Working alongside renowned Rhone winemakers Michel Gassier and Phillipe Cambie, CSM's Bob Berthau wanted to look at making the best Syrah from Washington possible.

The collaboration, rather than starting in the winery began with Gassier in the vineyards. To begin with, cooler vineyard sites were selected. Looking at canopy, crop load, irrigation and other manipulable factors allowed the team at Tenet to end up with fruit that came in smaller clusters, with concentrated, but perhaps less opulent flavors, along with ample acidity.

In the winery, the team looked at adding whole clusters, along with stems and rachis that give the wine more nuanced elements. This was certainly a diversion from the fruit focused wines typically produced by CSM. The whole clusters, along with extended maceration and only neutral oak created some very elegant, albeit powerful wines. The wines, each unique give a glimpse at the contrasts and similarities of Washington and the Rhone Valley.

2013 Pundit Syrah
A blend of Syrah (94%), with only the faintest bits of Grenache, Mourvedre and co-fermented Viognier. This is a wine with bits of whole cluster and a mixture of French and American oak barrels. It's absolutely gorgeous. Aromas of subdued elegance with notes of violet, blackberry and smoke. The palate is fruit focused with elegance and complexity from notes of crushed stone and smoke that mingle with a classically Washington fruit core. The price point on this wine has to rank it among some of the best values in all of Washington. (2014 is the current release) $20-25

2013 Le Fervent Syrah
As a bit of a study in contrast, in terms of location the Le Fervent comes not from Washington but rather from Gassier's home vineyards in the Costières de Nîmes. The southernmost AOC within the Rhone Valley theCostières de Nîmes have soils similar to the most famous southern Rhone AOC, Châteauneuf-du-Pape. The very close proximity of the Mediterranean Sea however cools this site substantially. The wine is less opulent than its stateside counterpart, though the blend is nearly identical. More elements of minerality show up in the aromatics of fennel and turned earth. Rather than seeing any American oak this week is fermented in both steel and older French barrels. The wine offers a fresher palate, with sweet blueberry, turned earth and sage. $20-25

2013 Tenet GSM Blend

The flagship wine of the Tenet experiment is not Syrah but rather a really well made, higher end Grenache(40%), Syrah (35%) and Mourvedre (25%) blend. This wine is a great demonstration of the quality that CSM efforts can attain. They largely make very good wine, when they want to it is downright outstanding. This is one of those times. Power and elegance interplay with aromas of dried rose petals and violets, garrigue and white pepper. The palate is an interplay of refined structure and opulent richness. Blackberry and cherry flavors with notes of spicy pepper. This is a mouth coating wine that unveils layers of complexity and flavor, and a long, long finish.$65-70

Home Grown Happy at Matthews Winery

noreply@blogger.com (funwithbooze) — Wed, 20 Jul 2016 23:47:00 +0000

from Julia Esser

We all have more than one happiest day. They range across times, places and categories – adding lighter hues to moments at work, with family, on top of a mountain, or out with friends enjoying a glass of wine. For Bryan Otis of Matthews Winery, one of his happiest days in the newly remodeled Matthews tasting room occurred on June 25th – the day that Matthews launched its first ever Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program.

If you were to walk in the door of Matthews on June 25th, you would have felt a slightly higher than normal buzz in the air. The new tasting room is brighter (no longer reminding visitors of the “inside of a barrel”) with seating for large or small groups and two outdoor spaces. Amidst all this, on June 25th you would have seen, stacked neatly on a back table, the last few CSA boxes, overflowing with greenery, waiting for their owners to come and claim them. These seemingly unassuming boxes represent something much greater than their simple, elegant appearance – hours of brainstorming, careful growth, constant tending and an effort to extend the vibrant Matthews community into the homes of their greatest enthusiasts.

All of the food in the CSA came from Matthews own Creekside Farm – named for the clear, spring-fed creek that runs through the winery’s property – located just feet from the main tasting room. Creekside has been producing food for over a year, providing flowers to the winery and produce to many local businesses including Sitka and Spruce and Damn the Weather. This year, Bryan Otis wanted to expand the scope of Creekside in a way that speaks to the passion for community shared by the family owners, and everyone at Matthews.

“We make the wines that we want to drink,” said Otis, who continued on to say that, if you enjoy their wines, it makes sense that you would become a part of the Matthews family – as a consumer and a figurative extension of the actual family who runs the entire venture. Creekside and its new CSA program not only expands the family of businesses with which Matthews collaborates and supports, but encourages members of the CSA to bring that family atmosphere into their own homes.

Carefully tended by local master farmer Alex Meizlish, the CSA program currently provides 14 members with fresh produce and locally sourced meats and cheeses, as well as a select bottle of Matthews wine over a span of 20 weeks. There is bread from The Commons, artisanal cheese and dairy products from Cherry Valley Dairy in Duvall, as well as local eggs and honey. Each box is carefully curated to provide families or individuals with the opportunity to savor an entire dinner experience – from the preparation to the finale – all accompanied by a phenomenal bottle of Matthews wine.

I tasted my way through several of Matthews most popular wines while enjoying a baguette (The Commons), creamy Fromage Blanc and deliciously salty Herbed Rose Butter (Cherry Valley). I want to especially highlight their flagship Claret, which makes an appearance in each of the CSA boxes.

2008 Columbia Valley Claret

The 2008 Claret has a red, desert clay color and an instant spice on the nose. The palate is dark and fruity with hints of blackberry and plum. This wine has a nice balance between earth and fruity flavors and long finish. It’s a young wine, so can be enjoyed immediately or stored for a number of years without losing any structural characteristics.

The current CSA season is already underway, but if you’re interested in learning more about the farm and current CSA pricing, you can visit Creekside Farm’s page HERE. The current release of the CLaret is 2013 and it’s available for $40 here.

Perfect 10s: A Look Across the Valley and Vintage from Willamette Valley Vineyards

noreply@blogger.com (funwithbooze) — Sun, 22 May 2016 15:31:00 +0000

The 10s were 10s they said, somehow, through all of that.

The 2010 vintage in Oregon was tough, it was a year for the birds if you remember, a cool vintage, rainy and then there were those damn birds. In the Willamette Valley, in 2010 people were a bit on the nervous side come harvest, but not because of the condition of the fruit, it was damn near perfect. The cooler vintage meant that folks had to leave the fruit out there quite a long time, with many folks picking 2 plus weeks later than they did in 2009. Unfortunately it went long enough that most of it was still out there when birds started migrating south for the winter. That made the Willamette Valley a popular stopover for birds moving through for destinations in California, or as far south as Chile.

The other factor at play was the impeding rain storms. Few vintages, even cool wet years are marked with a nearly universal end date. For 2010 it was October 23rd. The valley saw serious storms that day that lasted a few days, that was more or less the end of harvest 2010. Fortunately, most of October was just about perfect, and so, it may be argued are the Pinot Noirs.

The previous cool vintage for Oregon to that point was 2007 and while those remain my favorites, what made them starkly different from the 2010s was that the 2007s were not so obviously fantastic so early. The 2010s were such a darling because the media loved them, from the jump. The same media that more or less damned 2007 loved the 2010s for the same characteristics, only the media has zero patience and the 2010s were good for people with the patience of a 5 year old, people like Harvey Steiman.

In 2013 I wrote this about the 2010s I had been tasting: Alcohol levels are low across the board but the wines were plenty ripe from a flavor standpoint, thanks to that long hang-time and the lower yields, many vineyards produced half of what they would in a normal year. The result generally, is medium bodied wine, with lots of red and blue fruits, and really fine, pretty tannin structures. As great as they're drinking now, the acidity allows you to hold onto some favorites, it appears to be a very age worthy vintage.

As it turns out, I'd have the opportunity to taste through the vintage, across the valley, nearly three years later to see how they were doing. Willamette Valley Vineyards is one of the Valley's greatest champions. Not in that they like one a contest, but in how they conduct themselves. I liken them to the role that Chateau Ste Michelle plays in Washington state, while they are a fraction of the size of CSM. Like that big winery in Washington, Jim Bernau is committed to the quality not just of his wines, but of his region. Willamette Valley Vineyards makes quality wines across the board, but more than that, they use their resources for good, not just their good, but the good of the rest of the Oregon Pinot industry. They're also concerned with the good of my curiosity and to that end sent my a cross section of the Willamette Valley in 2010, a study in that instantly delicious vintage, and an opportunity to see how it's fared. (For brevity's sake I am going to start using WVV, I'm not paid by the word, in fact, I'm not paid, which is a great explanation for why you don't see me publishing nearly as much as I used to on this site.)

The winery has plenty of estate fruit but they also do an AVA series bottling to showcase the site specificity all across the Willamette Valley.

Let's start in the north and work our way southward.

2010 Willamette Valley Vineyards, Ribbon Ridge AVA
Ribbon Ridge along the Chehalem Mountain AVA mark the coolest parts of the Willamette Valley and are reliably earthy, at least in my experience. This 2010 bottling from WVV is from Redman Vineyard, which was a bit of a surprise to me because I was unaware that the New Jersey rapper had any stake in vineyards in Oregon, or anywhere for that matter. There's a lot to like in this wine, the structure comes to the fore, with great tannin and texture. This was a cool vintage but the palate is mouth filling and elegant, not the least bit meek, while it remains a bit angular. Aromas of brambleberry, turned earth and dried violets and a palate that is a core of blue fruit, wrapped in earthen minerality and dried fig.

2010 Willamette Valley Vineyards, Yamhill Carlton AVA
In the Yamhill-Carlton AVA the closest thing to a rapper is probably Byron Dooley and he owns the Luminous Hills vineyard which is one of the AVA's most dynamic. It's a kaleidoscope of soil types and exposures and as a result allows him to grow fruit with a variety of different characteristics. I tasted Byron's own 2010 bottling in 2013 from this vintage and it's interesting to taste the wine from a different winemaker and winery. The aromatics on this wine include a fair bit of clove and maybe even a note of cinnamon, all backed with a sweet blueberry note. The palate is more of an intensity of fruit than it's northern (sort of) counterpart. Flavors of black plum, fennel and a slight kiss of fresh mint that brings on the finish.

2010 Willamette Valley Vineyards, Dundee Hills AVA
The Dundee Hills is pretty much the sweet spot for the whole Willamette Valley, it's damn near the bullseye and it's of course where David Lett set-up shop and paved the way for the best wine in all of America (Oregon Pinot Noir), if you ask me anyways. The Dundee Hills bottling from WVV is out of the Winter's Hill vineyard, which is just west of the Stoller estate. This is an impressive wine from one of the Valley's greatest AVAs, it is so loaded with floral and mineral aromas as to make you think it came from the Chehalem Mountain AVA. Red fruit intensity and minerality mark the palate of this wine, which I imagine was singing upon release. The structure has further buoyed it over time.

2010 Willamette Valley Vineyards, McMinnville AVA
Heading south to McMinnville AVA we land in the Momtazi vineyard, another growing site in the valley that has established a reputation for excellence. The vineyard itself is managed using holistic farming that integrates a lot of biodynamic practices. The wine shows up, six years on, with outstanding structure, and intense aromas of moss, earth and dried fig. Flavors of candied blueberry, herbs and soaring acidity.

2010 Willamette Valley Vineyards, Elton Vineyard, Eola-Amity Hills AVA
The WVV has most of its vineyard holdings in the Eola-Amity hills area around Salem, and so it makes sense that this is the first of the their single vineyard serious that is from estate fruit. There's an intensity of blue and black fruit aromas, dusty blackberry and clove. The palate is rich, lush and full of fruit. Black cherry, currant and black plums along with clove and cola notes. The finish is elegant, fresh and lively.

Straight from the Barrel in Lake Chelan

noreply@blogger.com (funwithbooze) — Wed, 11 May 2016 21:02:00 +0000

from Marty Sparks

Lake Chelan’s Spring Barrel Tasting Weekend is coming up on May 21st and 22nd. This event provides a great opportunity to get a sneak peak at upcoming releases, meet the area’s winemakers and escape to the East side of Washington state for some glorious Spring time weather.

The Lake Chelan AVA has been growing in acclaim, and number of wineries, since being recognized as an AVA in 2009. The area has been known as a family vacation destination for many generations. Our current generation is seeing the region gaining notoriety for their wineries. As of 2016, Lake Chelan is home to 25 wineries. Many have estate vineyards where the winemakers oversee the entire winemaking process from tending the vineyard to bottling the wine that winds up on your table.

The Spring Barrel Tasting weekend is a great opportunity to discover the wines from the wineries that surround Lake Chelan. The majority of the wineries have something special planned for the weekend.

Here are three wineries to visit:

South Shore – Fielding Hills

Fielding Hills has been making wine made from grapes grown on their Wahluke Slope estate vineyard since 2000. They are a relative new comer to the Lake Chelan area with a gorgeous tasting room that opened on the South Shore of the lake in September of 2014. The views from the tasting room and the wines are both fabulous.

The Fielding Hills 2010 Wahluke Slope Syrah is dark, lush and full bodied with notes of dark blue fruit, dusty cracked pepper and cocoa powder that all come together in a well integrated tannin and barrel spice driven finish.

North Shore - Cairdeas

Charlie Lybecker started making wine in his West Seattle Garage. He moved to Lake Chelan about 4 years ago and has settled into his current location on the North Shore of the lake just off highway 150. He is making some excellent Southern Rhone style red and white wines.

The Cairdeas 2013 Nellie Mae is a blend of Marsanne, Grenache Blanc, Viognier, Rousanne and Picpoul. The nose shows great minerality with notes of white flowers, honey dew melon and lemon zest with a palate featuring similar flavors along with some smoky herbal notes backed with a mean streak of acidity.

Manson – Hard Row to Hoe

Judy and Don Phelps are the Wine Maker and Vineyard manager, respectfully, at Hard Row to Hoe. They combine serious wine making with local history that has a slightly naughty twist. You will have to visit their vineyard and tasting room in Manson to hear the story and see some mementoes of the area’s ribald history.

The Hard Row to How 2012 Burning Desire Cabernet Franc has a nose featuring dark berries, dried herbs and flower petals with a palate of dried dark fruit, white pepper and funky herbal notes that are followed by a pencil lead and tannin spice fueled finish.

Make a plan to visit Lake Chelan the weekend of May 21st and 22nd to get a sneak peak at the upcoming vintages from this up and coming Washington state AVA. You will be met by some down to earth people making seriously delicious wines in one of the most beautiful places in our state.

Domaine Danielle Laurent: A Love Letter to 2007

noreply@blogger.com (funwithbooze) — Thu, 24 Mar 2016 04:55:00 +0000

When I was roaming the Willamette Valley back in 2010 I had already fallen in love with Oregon's Pinot Noir. I'd become pretty smitten back in 2005, a few years after moving across the country to the Pacific Northwest and discovering wine.

It was in 2010 that I fell in love with a vintage, the much maligned 2007 Oregon Pinot Noir. It was not an easy year for grape growers and vineyard managers. A cooler vintage with a a mild summer was further complicated by a deluge of rain. What happened then was the determining factor; did the wines become a huge mistake, or were they other-worldly delicious. Those who waited out the rain, as opposed to picking too soon were well rewarded.

While the vintage was a bit panned in the media, a result of so many of those wines picked too son, those who know get it, and you'll find several of us who note this as our favorite vintage from Oregon, ever.

For me, the well made wines of 2007 have become a sort of archetype of cool vintage, cool climate Pinot Noir. For me that vintage is quintessentially Oregon and the Willamette Valley. It's my favorite, in spite of 2010, and 2011, the latter maybe aspiring to 2007 but not really coming close in terms of beauty and elegance.

As I was tooling through the Willamette Valley I paid a visit to a new facility at Soléna Estate. In my recollection, I knew very little about the label at the time. I was given a short tour of the really impressive facility and then we got down to tasting. One of the seminal moments in that love affair with that 07 vintage came in a few minutes at that tasting bar. The 2007 Domaine Danielle Laurent remains one of my favorites of the vintage.

Here are a few notes from the article I wrote for The Oregon Wine Blog on my visit:

All of their Pinots are quite nice but for the sake of time I have to focus in on the Domaine Danielle Laurent Pinot Noir ($45). I strongly suggest you spend some time with this wine. First off, we had the 2007. The mystery continues for me about how people who supposedly know anything about wine could have poo-pooed this vintage for Oregon Pinot Noir. This wine is beautiful. I picked up some burnt gun powder on the nose.

The wines from this estate vineyard, which was a wedding gift from the owners,Danielle & Laurent, to each other, is planted with several different Pinot clones. The wine is handled with kid gloves, and in small lots. Punchdowns are done in rotary barrels and all fermentation is done in small batches. "

Domaine Danielle Laurent is the estate vineyard at Soléna Estate, which is a part of a larger operation owned by Laurent and Danielle Montaleiu. It's small at just over 20 acres in the Yamhill Carlton AVA but it produces premium fruit from a few different clones. The elevation is good at Domaine Danielle Laurent, topping out at shy of 700 feet on Willakenzie soils.

The wines coming out of DDL (my abbreviation) exude an elegance, and that was certainly emphatic in the 2007, there's a accented quality in the Soléna bottlings, despite the Montelieus having their hands in a lot of different pots. In addition to Soléna Estate, they produce another label Hyland Estates and the custom crush NW Wine Co as well as at least one value label making Willamette Valley wines under $20. The quality on this label and the wines from the DDL vineyard in particular remains quite high.

2013 Soléna Estate, Pinot Noir, Domaine Danielle Laurent
Evocative of the six years older version of itself this wine from this particular vineyard exudes elegance and purity of fruit. The aromatics of fresh mint, black currant and turned earth, while not quite as feminine as the 2007 vintage, announce a very feminine 2013 Pinot Noir. The palate is bright and bracing with ample minerality, vibrant blackberries and dried figs. The finish is zippy with streaks of fresh mint and elegant acidity. A structure outlined by pretty tannin really accents this vintage for me. $50

2013 Soléna Estate, Chardonnay, Domaine Danielle Laurent
A tiny production Chardonnay from Soléna Estate (120 cases) that gives us a different look at this site from a white wine lens. The site again accents elegance with lemon creme and honeyed aromatics jumping out from the glass. The palate is vibrant with crystalline fruit flavors and incredible balance that have come to be the trademark of Dijon clone Chardonnay here in the Willamette. The palate is accented by lemon creme, nutmeg and ample apple and pear flavors. Pretty, balanced rounded but very,very fresh. Sold Out

Can't Knock the Hustle... Jasper Sisco

noreply@blogger.com (funwithbooze) — Tue, 09 Feb 2016 04:09:00 +0000

Jay Z said a lot of things that rhymed in the track Can't Knock the Hustle, but most appropriately he said "I sip wine and spit vintage flows, but y'all don't know... you can't knock the hustle."

Justin Paul Russell rhymes with hustle. Coincidence? I don't think so.

When we first met Justin he was already hustling, trying to cobble together some funds via an Indiegogo campaign so that he could launch his label, Jasper Sisco named for his great grandfather. That was then and this is now, and if nothing else, we've all gotten older. Time is brutal like that. I caught up with Justin after sampling some of his new releases.

The hustle is still strong with this one, in case you weren't sure, starting a winery is not exactly a picnic. "I wish that I could say I was running a full time wine game at this point but currently I'm still juggling two part time gigs to make sure labels make it onto bottles and the lights stay on. But there have been lessons a plenty. If anything the wine game has taken my normally creative focused thinking and shifted it into high set analytical gear. And by that I mean there a lot more grey hair that has developed just from planning out the next move in the cellar, for the winery, and for Jasper Sisco in general. But it get's me up in the morning. And I hope to be able to focus full time on it by the end of the year."

While he's still "grindin'" as the kids say, (Do the kids still say that?) Justin is moving Jasper Sisco onward, and upward. There have been plenty of recent, substantial developments besides his grey hair. When the label got started he was working out of a corner of the Maysara winery's cellar and credits the Momtazi family with helping him get his start in the business. Once he moved to the SE Wine Collective location in Portland his production went from 84 cases to the 1,100 neighborhood. And now Justin and Jasper Sisco are onto a new neighborhood as he's setting up new digs in Portland's Sellwood neighborhood on his own. He's hoping to open the doors in May. Justin is also diversifying his wine offerings, and will be up to eight wines with his next release, including a sparkling Muscat, as well as a Cinsault rosé and a Pinot Noir from the eastern side of the Willamette Valley.

Justin's current releases include some different sources for Pinot Noir and a little white wine gem, fancied after the Edelzwicker style. Good luck coming up with a rhyme for that one Mr. Carter.

Like all good stories, the Edelzwicker-esque story began with too much booze at a barbecue. Justin had been tipped off by Cana's Feast winemaker Patrick Taylor that Washington was the spot for the Muscat grape with a proper concentration of flavors and so Justin set his sights there. The results gave Justin the same sort of family feeling that got him into this business in the first place.

" I found Muscat for sale in Fruitland, WA. I agreed to visit the site before opening google maps to the realization that the site was more than a 6 hour drive from Portland. But not one to go back on my word, I made the trek in early summer of 2104. The place is magic, 1400 ft elevation directly above the Columbia river. nine acres managed by the Benson family who also run the only gas station/postoffice/coffee shop/ food store/auto body shop within an hour or so drive. After spending the weekend with the family it was apparent that we were at the same place in our journey in the wine world."

2014 Jasper Sisco Gratus Bynum, Fruitland Valley Vineyards
A blend of Riesling, Pinot Gris and Muscat from this little known Eastern Washington vineyard offers a twist on varieties you may be familiar with on their own. Justin sees it as a place to be excited about "This site has a ton of potential, 2014 was the first year of viable fruit and this year I'm seeing better concentration of flavor and acids across all the varietals."For those who don't know, (Or couldn't be bothered to click the link above, lazy.) an Edelzwicker is German for "noble-blend" and is a mainstay style of wines from Alsace. This wine hints at sweet ripe honeydew and honeysuckle, maybe hey even a little honey, and to throw off our theme, sweet hay, but hey. There's a fair bit of sweet fruit on the palate as well and the rounded mouthfeel comes from the skin contact used on the Muscat. Great acid zips along as an undercurrent to sweet lychee fruit. $18

2014 Jasper Sisco James Clifton Pinot Noir, Zenith Vineyard
This is the first 2014 Oregon Pinot Noir I've tried and while a bit youthful it's apparently a vintage for my palate which prefers zip, herbal elements and earth to black on black on blackberries. Aromas of dried violets, peat and dried fig and an accompanying flavor profile of black fruit, yet quite fresh with strong mineral elements and a zippy fresh mint finish. I've found Zenith to be more concentrated fruit in the past but I love the dichotomy at play here, ripe fruit really loaded with a strong mineral streak. "Zenith for me feels like one of the heritage sites in Oregon,so when Vincent Fritzsche connected with me Tim Ramey who manages Zenith, I jumped at the chance to work with the fruit. Eola-Amity Pinot noir is something that I've always been drawn to and the wines of Vincent, St. Innocent, and John Grochau from that site have always been some of my favorites. I love the classic violet, sage, floral, more feminine style of wines that come out of that AVA. It felt like a great counter point to the depth and heft of Momtazi." $34

Don't Sleep on John Grochau and Grochau Cellars

noreply@blogger.com (funwithbooze) — Mon, 18 Jan 2016 16:44:00 +0000

(I don't know if Dee Snider is still a live, but come on man. For the love of God, those eyebrows look like hell.)

The "rockstar winemaker" concept makes me want to vomit in my mouth, by the way. I may be alone at this party, but I doubt it. Unfortunately there's plenty of this sort of back-slapping, pseudo celebrity anointing in the wine world. Even in this quiet corner here of the Pacific Northwest. There are folks, 1,050 Google results for that term "rockstar winemaker." More than a few of those named winemakers from Washington and I did find one for Oregon. After page 7 I got bored. There were tons of entries from Paso Robles.

There are some folks out there who are uber-talented but they're winemakers. They ain't rockstars.

Sure there are some wineries that have dialed in their marketing. They've got a great vibe, slick packaging and tons of hipster street cred. Just as there are some wineries playing to the score formula as well. Tons of tannin, new oak out the wazoo, chasing that highfalutin' Robert Parker score. That doesn't make them rockstars, just unoriginal and frankly, in some cases, insufferable.

One cat who is making super nice wines that I feel never gets enough attention, is that dude John Grouchau at the eponymous Grochau Cellars. John is not a rockstar, he'd be the first to tell you. When you think of John in fact, terms like humility and humble are the first to come to mind. While his label while not be on the lips of those who speak of what's hip and hot in Oregon wine. The wines are really some of the most consistently high quality coming out of the Willamette Valley and at a very fair price-point. (Grochau Cellars reminds me of the Portland area indie record label, Kill Rock Stars, formerly of Elliot Smith fame; John lives in Portland. Coincidence?)

I was proud to write a feature article about John in Peloton Magazine and I'll borrow a few quotes from it for this piece. The fact is I've known John now for a few years and his wines, and the way he talks about them have never changed. Except that they change every vintage as they should.

"I feel that you get the best translation of site from the wines that you do the least amount to. The more you manipulate, the more you add, the more “same” the wines can become. I don’t set out to make the same wine every year, the wine needs to reflect from where and when it came. Sameness is boring, while it is a necessity for a large winery, it is not what I want to do. There are many right ways to make wine, and a few wrong ways; everything in between is style.”

For Grochau Cellars, who opened a new tasting room last Spring in the Eola-Amity Hills, it's about those sites, special places tended by dedicated farmers that make the Willamette Valley such an outstanding place to make wine. "As I started working with more vineyards I realized it is all about the place from where the grapes come. The vineyards have their own signature, their own style; and pinot noir is such a transparent grape when it comes to showing where it was grown.” To allow the wine’s signature to really come through, John works closely with the vineyard manager, paying close attention to how the fruit ripens, and sometimes agonizing over when to pick. Being hands on with the fruit in the vineyard allows him to be hands off in the winery.

John does a number of single vineyard and AVA Pinot Noirs and they all typically have one thing in common, whole cluster fermentation. John uses the stems and rachis to add structure to his wines. John first came to appreciate wine working in the restaurant industry and has always believed a proper food-wine needs structure.

2012 Dundee Hills Pinot Noir, Grochau Cellars
A side by side tasting of two of John's 2012 Pinots demonstrates the variance of his Single AVA wines, even in a warm vintage that's been consistently well received by the wine public (while it's not necessarily my favorite). With a growing season as ripe as 2012 there's a bit of fear that consistency and fruitiness might wipe out variance and diversity. Fear not! The Dundee Hills Pinot is effusively aromatic with lots of earth and peat notes, dried violets and hints at graphite. John always uses a fair bit of fruit from Anderson Family Vineyards, one my favorites, and one that's somehow stayed fairly under the radar over the years. The wine veers toward floral as well as bramble berry, with notes of blackberry and black tea, and a touch of gunpowder on the palate. While I've not been in love with the 2012 vintage and its general ripeness, this wine's structure and elegance win me over. $33

2012 Eola-Amity Hills Pinot Noir, Grochau Cellars
Further to the south of Dundee John's 2012 Eola-Amity Pinot is a study in black fruit and earth. Aromas of ripe black plums, fennel, and turned earth. The palate balances more inky blackness with touches of minerality and firm tannin. Again, a pretty wine but notably riper and rounder than its northern neighbor in the Dundee Hills. The wine opens over a couple of hours to show a bit more depth with clove and cola also coming to the fore. $33

2014 Melon de Bourgogne, Grochau Cellars
Pinot Gris can be so ho-hum and so I'm happy to report that Grochau Cellars doesn't even produce one. Instead try a Melon de Bourgogne, as the name implies the grape originated in Burgundy but it's been made famous in the Loire as Muscadet. The Grochau Cellars' Melon is a departure from the heavy influence of lees you'll often find in Muscadet. This Melon is angular, lively and pulsing. Aromas of crushed stone, cut apple and citrus fruit. A palate that zips with nerves and high acid, lime, and wet stone dominate. $18

All wines provided as samples.

40 is the New Awesome at Willamette Valley Vineyards

noreply@blogger.com (funwithbooze) — Wed, 04 Nov 2015 18:46:00 +0000

photo of Tualatin Estate courtesy of Willamette Valley Vineyards

Forty is the age when men make really bad financial decisions that involve over-priced sports vehicles. I'm not really sure what drives that, I bought an expensive bicycle instead when I turned forty just last year. But what I've found about being forty, (I just turned 41) is that you're only as old as you feel.

Bill Fuller is perhaps a name that more of us should be familiar with especially those of us who follow Oregon Pinot Noir. Bill came to the Willamette Valley from California already established as a winemaker in Napa at Louis M. Martini. He was a pioneer in his own right in that regard as those few who proceeded him were more aptly tagged as "upstarts" as opposed to the experienced Fuller who was perhaps best prepared to hit the fresh ground in the Willamette Valley of Oregon, running.

Fuller planted his vineyards, that would be called the Tualatin Estate Vineyards over a July 4th weekend in 1973. His early wines, both a Pinot Noir and Chardonnay won acclaim in Europe in the early 80s and his 1989 estate Chardonnay was the first wine from Oregon to crack into Wine Spectators Top 100 wines. (All of this was pre-Oregon's Chardonnay revival on the strength of the Dijon clone.)

Bill's Tualatin Estate was merged with Willamette Valley Vineyards in 1997 and the wines grown at Tualatin have become a major part of the success and reputation for excellence that the winery has gone onto develop. Jim Bernau called the retired Bill Fuller who after working with Tualatin went on to become the house winemaker at the McMenamin's establishments and invited him out of retirement for a special project. The fortieth vintage of the fruit Fuller planted was coming in the 2013 wines and Bernau thought it would be fun to include Fuller in crafting the wines.

Bill was game for the project and so we have Vintage 40 from Willamette Valley Vineyards, a Pinot Noir and Chardonnay made from blocks of the Tualatin Vineyards that Bill prized most. The wines are made in uber-small lots of less than 200 cases and they're priced quite fairly given the quality and scarcity of the project.

Bill is not viewing this as a "one and done," and is back working with the winemaking team at 78 years young with 2015's harvest in the books, he looks forward to the wines of the 42nd vintage of Tualatin fruit.

2013 Vintage 40 Pinot Noir, Willamette Valley Vineyards, Tualatin Estate
Classic in all senses of the term for Oregon Pinot. Fresh, brambly fruit and earth aromas and a palate that pulses with great fruit, minerality and balance. The freshness carries through with a kiss of fresh mint on the finish and an elegance throughout. $45

2013 Vintage 40 Chardonnay, Willamette Valley Vineyards, Tualatin Estate
The Pinot is good but the Chardonnay might be the star of the show. Loaded with aromas of honey, sweet white flower and chamomile this is a complex Chardonnay aromatically and it really delivers on the palate. The wine is made from Draper Clone Chardonnay that Bill brought with him from California and in terms of the old vine Chardonnays in Oregon that remain of the California clones, it's the best I've had. I've been a huge champion of the Dijon clone Chardonnays as the only way to go in Oregon and this one proves me wrong. The palate is loaded with lemon creme, minerality, freshness and depth. $35

New School, Old Vines: Durant Vineyards at Red Ridge Farms

noreply@blogger.com (funwithbooze) — Tue, 06 Oct 2015 00:03:00 +0000

Durant Vineyards has been an establishment in the Willamette Valley since nearly the beginning. Founded in 1973 their Bishop's block Pinot Noir are among the oldest vines in the Willamette Valley. While the names on the bottle haven't always said Durant, Owen Roe, Patricia Green, Sokol Blosser, Big Table Farm and a long list of others have come to appreciate the special sites and the resulting Pinot and Chardonnay that the Durants have grown over those long years.

Originally Ken and Penny Durant came to the Willamette Valley thinking maybe they'd plant a nut orchard. At the time the valley floor was expensive as it was fertile farmland so the Durants bought what they could along a ridge that overlooks the valley in the Dundee Hills area. Little did they know at the time that it would be an incredible place to grow Pinot Noir.

With the 2003 vintage, the 30th anniversary of the establishment of the vineyards on Red Ridge, the Durant family decided that it was time that they released wines under their own label.

"These wines are a reflection of how we farm." Says Paul Durant "we don't blend, for better or for worse." At Durant Vineyards they say they're "true to the block." All of their wines are vineyard designate bottlings, blending is out, it's not an option. The nooks and crannies of their vineyards laid out along the ridge, produce individual wines, and the Durants are very, very particular about how those wines are made.

The Durants look for winemakers who believe in "adaptive" versus "prescriptive" winemaking philosophies. Instead of making a wine to a particular style, adaptive winemakers first seek to understand the fruit and site they're dealing with, and then make the wines that will best communicate that story. The folks at Durant have been selling their fruit to a number of the Valley's winemakers over a long time, and they've been able to see who does well with their fruit, who let's it be what it is.

"We've tried to match these winemakers and the skill-sets we feel like they bring to the table to these particular blocks" says Paul. At Durant they're working with six different winemakers, they don't have an executive winemaker or someone setting a sort of house style. Instead, they enlist the talents of a wildly varied group of six winemakers from the Willamette Valley. The list of names includes Marcus Goodfellow from Big Table Farm, Chad Stock of Minimus, Isabelle Dutarte from De Ponte Cellars, Joe Dobbes of Dobbes Family Wines and Jesse Lange, of Lange Estate as well as a few others.

2013 Durant Vineyard, Raven, Chardonnay,
Made by ADEA's Dean Fisher from the Raven block Chardonnay, planted to clone 96. Aromatics of key lime, white flowers and beeswax. The palate is balanced with bright citrus and stone fruit flavors that give way to rounded lemon creme and honey flavors. -$25

2013 Durant Vineyard, Bishop, Pinot Noir
These are old vine Pommard clones, the original plantings by the Durant family that dates to 1973. The oldest block on the property is entrusted to Isabelle Dutarte from De Ponte Cellars. She produces a nuanced and elegant Pinot Noir with aromas of red fruit, barrel spice and earth. The palate offers up layers of dark ripe fruit, dried herbs, clove and a kiss of fresh mint as the acid balances the finish nicely. -$65 (2012 is the current release.)

Taking the Heat: A Look at Oregon's Hot 2015 (So Far)

noreply@blogger.com (funwithbooze) — Mon, 10 Aug 2015 12:46:00 +0000

It's hot man, hot. And even our cool climate Pinot producing region, the Willamette Valley is experiencing a record heat year. While you often hear about how difficult and challenging cooler vintages like 11 or 07 are, a hot, dry vintage like this year can be equally vexing. With very little rain and record temperatures how is Oregon faring? I've asked a few folks to give us a sense of how they're taking all this heat in stride.

In Southern Oregon, where things are normally warmer than they are in the Willamette, heat has been an issue even for varietals that do well in wamer climes. Herb Quady of Quady North is trying to keep his cool, and making adjustments in the vineyards in an effort to make the best wine this vintage will let him.

"One thing, is that we are actively trying to delay maturity, in the hope that temperatures will eventually fall in September, resulting in a more normal ripening curve. To do this, I've delayed fruit dropping until post veraison. We'll also be keeping irrigation up during veraison, (at least early)." Herb has some advantages going for him in the way his vineyard was originally laid out. "My home vineyard has an open "V" type system that helps provide some partial shading, so I've felt okay with pulling leaves on the east side. However, in some tighter vineyards, we have reduced leaf pulling to prevent sun burn. The open V-type system has been really nice this year. In cooler years, we have had to really aggressively hedge, leaf, and open up the centers, but this year I'm really appreciating the part shading."

Herb expects everything to come early this year, but overall he feels very prepared. The cooler weather this week has been a welcome relief as well.

fruit set in the Elton Vineyard Photo: Christine Collier

Up in the Willamette the folks at Willamette Valley Vineyards are feeling the heat across the board and what that means, is being proactive in the vineyards. Christine Collier the Winery Director at Willamette Valley Vineyards says that decisions they're making now will hopefully put them in a good position for the current hot weather or whatever Mother Nature might throw at them later.

"We experienced near perfect fruit set that is naturally very high yielding. This presents an opportunity and challenge. The sun potentially allows us to ripen more crop, however, we want to assure we are not over-stressing our vines since most of our estate vineyards do not have irrigation. we have spent days in the vineyard assessing each block for canopy vigour, water stress, cluster size, etc. We have made very aggressive decisions to crop down to 2.5-3 tons per acre in our best blocks of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay to ensure concentration. This also ensures that the vine does not stall out late in the season due to stress. This will make our harvest dates early and hopefully escape any El Nino pressure of early fall rains that could create disease pressure."

The first week of August was brutal in particular. "Most growers are also experiencing sunburning from last Friday and Saturday when temperatures got above 100 degrees. Rumor has it some sites had 50% loss. We experienced up to 15% sunburning in our estate vineyards and are removing all this damage during crop thinning. In general, at our Elton Vineyard we consciously left more leaves for dappled sunlight, which provided more protection. "

crop thinning at Elton Vineyard Photo: Christine Collier

While we always hear about how stressed vines make for complex and wonderful wines, there is a such thing as too much stress as Christine explained. "Stressed Vine Syndrome creates a tequila-like smell and taste in both red and white wines. It has been most pronounced in Oregon vintages like 1992, 1999, 2012 and 2014. These were all very hot and dry years. It seems to be an Oregon-specific issue, since it isn't a major problem talked about in California (possibly due to irrigation). There isn't a known cause in red wines, but in whites it is suspected to be from an amino acid imbalance."

John Grochau at Grochau Cellars is seeing similar things and while he's never one to jump to conclusions, he knows that what he's doing now has impacts this vintage and beyond. "We are setting up to have the earliest harvest ever… But that can still change. Even though we have had another warm dry year, the plants are still healthy, the exception being the younger vines which are starting to show stress a bit."

"We had a heavy crop load that we are having to cut back pretty far to insure that we don’t stress the plants too much. Normally in a warm year we will look to carry a slightly heavier crop load to lengthen the ripening a bit. But with two warm dry years in a row, we are having to keep our crop levels tight so that we don’t stress the plants. If we stress them too much you can get this stressed agave like character in the wine, you can also set yourself up for problems in the 2016 growing season.

So we hope for some rain and no more heat spikes, or at the very least, the cool weather we have been enjoying this week."

At Stoller Family Estate, vineyard manager Rob Schultz is worried less about young vines, and more about just keeping up as well as getting the work done that's needed in what can be tough conditions on vineyard workers as well.

"We’re holding up well in the heat, but it can be a challenge, both to the vines and ourselves.

For the vines at Stoller, we’re pretty deep-rooted, and without irrigating, our older vines weathered the heat this summer well. Too well in some cases, as the heat propelled to vines to grow more rapidly than I’d ever seen, so the big challenge of the season became one of keeping up with the pace set by the vines.

That extreme heat that can come in the late afternoon can cause fruit that’s been recently exposed to the sunlight to burn up or shrivel away. The key to avoiding that is to expose the fruit as early in the season as possible. That way, our thin-skinned grapes will have built up something like a “suntan” and won’t burn up later. We were able to do that this year, and didn’t have any issues even when the heat rose to 107.

For those of us who work in the vineyard, there aren’t any secret tricks; you do what any farmer does and get to work before the sun rises. On those hottest of days, those early morning hours are pretty pleasant, and they’re always the most productive of the day."

Knudsen Vineyards: Knowing Your Roots

noreply@blogger.com (funwithbooze) — Mon, 03 Aug 2015 04:23:00 +0000

When listing off the names of the Willamette Valley's wine pioneers one of the names that many consumers don't necessarily recognize is the name Cal Knudsen.

Cal, along with Dick Erath went on to found the Knudsen-Erath wine label, but that particular partnership stopped producing wines in 1987. Erath, a name we all know, took the winery and Knudsen took the vineyards. After parting ways amicably, Cal Knudsen went on to become a founding partner of the Argyle Winery operation when the company was started in 1987, and his Knudsen Vineyards became the source for nearly all of Argyle's wines, from their Pinot Noirs to their sparkling program.

Cal Knudsen though was one of those most important pioneers whether your average Northwest wine fan knows it or not. Cal was a Weyehauser executive who took seriously the "go big or go home" adage when he bought into vineyard land in the Willamette back in 1971, only a few years behind David Lett. He bought in at around 200 acres (it's closer to 230 these days) and planted in large plots of 20 to 30 acres, in 1975 the Knudsen vineyard was the largest in the state at 60 planted acres at the time. Today it's grown to 130 planted acres of Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Pinot Meunier, all of which had become an important part of Argyle's sparkling program.

Cal Knudsen (courtesy Knudsen Vineyards)

Cal passed away in 2009 at the age of 85. He was a very accomplished man, both within the wine industry as well as beyond. He came from very humble means and left his mark on both his family and the growing Oregon wine industry. Cal's children have decided to revive the Knudsen name as a wine label with a Pinot Noir and Chardonnay bottling that is just recently hitting the market.

The wines are being made by Nate Klosterman who took the reigns at Argyle after Rollin Soles departed. The folks at Argyle, including the vineyard management team, are well versed in what the Knudsen vineyards are capable of as they've been working with them for years. For Cal's children, though this is more than just a vanity project and so they're working with Nate and other's at Argyle, tasting the wines and ultimately playing a role in the final wines that go into the bottles that bear their name.

I was fortunate enough to taste through the wines with Colin Knudsen and Page Knudsen Cowles. They have a sense of the importance that their father has played in the growth of Pinot Noir in the Willamette Valley and the treasure that they have inherited in their father's legacy and the vineyard that their father planted. They've decided to build on their father's legacy and sort of revive their involvement as a family (there are four siblings total) in what their father created. While they live all over the country, the travel to Dundee a few times a year to taste through the wines, and make decisions about what to do about the aging blocks of the vineyard.

The wines are outstanding, and they're certainly priced at a premium level, but the production is tiny and so they don't stick around for long. The inaugural release, the 2012 Pinot Noir is already gone, almost exclusively snatched up by list members. The first release was done on the strength of a gathering of friends, those friends snatched up every last bottle of the Pinot before it reached beyond the friends and family list.

2013 Knudsen Vineyards Chardonnay $45
This is a beautiful wine and demonstrates that by transitioning a winemaker, Klosterman who's familiar with the site and it's fruit there are zero growing pains from this new label. The Chardonnay would certainly stake its claim among those in the top tier of the Willamette Valley. Aromas of nutmeg, baking spice and poached pear hint at the time in new French oak (35%). It's rounded but the oak is very well integrated with a palate of honey, lemon creme and almond. The acid accents what is a very pretty wine, with weight and lift. (Only 100 cases were produced.)

2013 Knudsen Vineyards Pinot Noir $55 (Not yet released)
Classically Oregon, the acids are great, light to medium bodied, and loaded with those fresh bramble-berry aromas we all love and a dash of wet stone. The Pinot is a blend of a few different blocks, block 3, 6 and 8. The first two are 777 clones and block 8 is Pommard. The north facing block 6 imparts a lot of dark notes to the wine's aromas and palate. There is great minerality, it's a mix of 15-8 year old vines, the acid and finish with lots of fresh wintergreen, lasts what feels like a lifetime.

1985 Knudsen Erath Oregon Pinot Noir, Yamhill County
A thirty year old wine shows, for any fool who is still skeptical that this place is world class. This is a holy shit wine as far as I'm concerned. Aromas of peat moss, mushrooms and earth. Dollops of black fruit and acid that just goes on and on and on. For the record the wine is unbelievably pretty. The wine was liquefied brick in color and while the aromatics were completely muted upon opening it was a remarkable wine that even continued to develop as opposed to deteriorate over the course of a meal.

1983 Knudsen Erath Oregon Pinot Noir, Yamhill County
Some how even more aromatically lively than the 85. What I've learned over my somewhat limited experiences with older wines are that it's not always prudent to expect much in terms of aromatics but the 83 opens up with loads of red fruit aromas. It's insane how alive is wine still is while the palate doesn't pop as much as the wine two years its junior, it's still showing lively red fruit, and berries for days, or in this case 32 years.

The Knudsen's have history on their side, and the prudence of their father's vision is apparent in these older wines. The site is just right ;and right there in the Dundee Hills. The wines make a case for this new venture of the next generation of Knudsen. Far from a fool's errand these two wines make a compelling case for what they hope to accomplish and the staying power of both the Willamette Valley and the vineyards Cal Knudsen laid down.

Wine for the End of the World: Northwest Rosé

noreply@blogger.com (funwithbooze) — Tue, 28 Jul 2015 00:06:00 +0000

Have you been paying attention? The outlook is grim. Half of the West Coast is burning, even Canada, and word is there's a giant earthquake coming to shake us off into the Puget Sound. Doom and destruction await. Drought, fire, mishandled fireworks, maybe bedbugs or something too. Robert Frost wondered aloud, how would the world end? Fire or ice. I got news for you Bobby, it's fire, just turn on the news.

Fire & Ice

Some say the world will end in fire,

Some say in ice.

From what I’ve tasted of desire

I hold with those who favor fire.

But if it had to perish twice,

I think I know enough of hate

To say that for destruction ice

Is also great
And would suffice.

What I would suggest is that we all should at least be grateful it's not death by some ridiculous zombie meme. Then not only would we all be dying but I'd be highly annoyed by the sorta smugness all of those annoying zombie survival t-shirt idiots would undoubtedly have on their faces. They'd of course be dying some sort of painful zombie death too, so I imagine their sense of over-self-satisfaction would be really short lived. But, none the less.

The thing is, if we've gotta go, and we all do, we should at least choose appropriate wine for the occasion. If we're all gonna burn into a sorta fiery ash covered hell, and it's going to be hot, we should be drinking rosé.

Fortunately for this unfortunate occasion the Northwest continues to deliver on rosé vintage after vintage. Seemingly, you could almost drink a half dozen or so new pink wines each year and never repeat producers such is the growth of rosé in this here doomed corner of the country.

Oregon
I think across the board Oregon is blessed with better rosé conditions than Washington. I do think there are some spectacular Washington examples of the pink stuff, but if I had to generalize, and sometimes we do I think Oregon sets up better. The growing conditions, particularly in warmer vintages, like 2014 allow Oregon and the Willamette Valley in particular to retain acidity where in some Washington examples the finish can fall a little flat. Both of our Oregon examples are skin contact wines, and so they bring an added dimension to our apocalypse party drink.

2014 Fossil & Fawn Pinot Gris $17
So, our first rosé isn't technically a rosé from a production point of view, but in my view, pink wine is pink wine, and it'll go good with our impeding doom. Those flaming zombies aren't going to split hairs on a technicality.

Salmon hued and you'll catch a bit of sediment as well as this wine sat with it's skins while it fermented for eight glorious days. (Pinot Gris turns a light reddish color when it ripens believe it or not.) The wine then even spend a fair bit of time in oak before it's release. While so many folks tend towards steel fermenters and lip-smacking acid the folks at Fossil & Fawn, Jim and Jenny went for texture and they succeeded. The wine is balance of angularity and texture, with plenty of acid to deal with the sort of creaminess that the time sur lie has imparted. Aromas of rhubarb, stone and grapefruit followed on by a wild mouthfeel, and flavors of citrus, ripe nectarine and apricot, maybe.

2014 Kramer Vineyards Rosé of Pinot Gris $24
Okay, so technically both of our Oregon rosés aren't rosés in the most technical sense of the term. We're all gonna die, we're just trying to get you the right wines for the occasion, stop being such a contrarian. Another cool pink wine with character out of Oregon. Where rosés often hit the spot because of their sheer simplicity, these Oregon offering actually turn up the dial on complexity. This wine, like the Fossil & Fawn sees extended skin contact, four weeks in this case, as well as time with the lees. The result is an outstanding mouthfeel, and deep aromatics of cut strawberry, stone and fresh mint. The acid remains outstanding, and the complexity puts the lie to rosé's reputation as "summer water."

Washington
Washington has seen the same rising tide of pink wine that Oregon has for the past 7 or so years and over that time it's produced some really outstanding examples. This year my favorite rosé came from Seven Hills Winery in Walla Walla. The warmer weather sometimes proves a bit challenging though in some cases and the 2014 rosés from Washington saw some superstars but across the board could have had higher acid and better balance. The wines are solid though and they may prove an excellent way to convert your "red wines only" friends to rosé.

2014 Tamarack Cellars Rosé of Mourvedre $14
The Mourvedre rosés are wildly popular and incredibly made in Bandol and frankly, if you're going to select a variety for your rosé you could do way worse. The Tamarack Cellars rosé comes from Wahluke Slope one of the state's growing regions, outside of perhaps Red Mountain and this wine come directly from the highly regarded Weinbau Vineyard. Aromatics are all red fruit and flowers, the wine is a bit fleshy and round and doesn't deliver any zest or zing on the finish but it does have a dash of spritz to it. (I couldn't find the wine available online but it is or was, at Ballard Market.)

2014 Amavi Cellars Rosé of Cabernet Franc $24
The rosé from Amavi comes from their estate vineyard in the Walla Walla Valley. It's aromas are reminiscent of watermelon, ripe peach and late season strawberry. The palate is fairly full, and rounder for a rosé with ripe raspberry, and watermelon flavors. The finish is one of depth but there's not zesty acidity to carry the wine out.

Efeste and the Game of Rhones

noreply@blogger.com (funwithbooze) — Sat, 13 Jun 2015 20:13:00 +0000

There is plenty of wine in Westeros. The continent (or perhaps island, frankly I'm not sure) and its inhabitants do plenty of drinking. Particularly Tyrion Lannister, that guy can put it away.

The Game of Thrones, unless you've been living under a rock for the last five years, has captivated many of us, myself included, and I don't even own a television. The story of the Seven Kingdoms and the struggle for the Iron Throne is riveting, and ruthless. Leading characters are never sacred. Sunday nights without football are way more interesting, although the finale for Season 5 is nearly upon us.

Washington winery, Efeste has taken their Game of Rhones to an epic level as well. The winery has long been a stalwart of fine wine production in Washington since their founding in Woodinville nearly 10 years ago. Like the watchers on the wall they have stood guard over Woodinville's warehouse district protecting the state's reputation for quality wine with a focus on site specificity and broad shouldered, powerful wines. Winemaker Peter Devison can perhaps be likened to the young John Snow. Having come from the wilds of a place called Canada, to take his place at The Wall, continuing the tradition laid down by Brennan Leighton and Chris Upchurch before him.

In an effort to celebrate the Game of Thrones and their own commitment to the Game of Rhones Efeste invites you to celebrate the finale with your own Game of Rhones tasting party. They've done all the leg work for you. The kit comes with four great wines, two of them are highly limited and only available to wine club members, royal blood red velvet bags, that allow for a blind tasting and outstanding Game of Rhones wine tags. You can buy the kit here and guarantee that when it comes to the Iron Throne of party hosts, you reign supreme.

Instead of a struggle between the Seven Kingdoms for the Iron Throne, this is a pitched battle between four Rhone style wines expressing a specific sites and the outstanding potential for Rhone varietals in Washington. While the battle is sure to be long, in the end, we stand to be the winners.

2011Efeste Emmy Mourvèdre Blend
From the Kingdom Wahluke and the family Stonetree comes a wine that makes a case of the Iron Throne given it's iron, garrigue and stone aromatics. The palate is full, weighty and forceful; driven by minerality, White pepper, iron and black fruits lead into a wine with a full, full finish. A powerful wine that proves the importance of terroir and the exquisite site that is Stonetree Vineyard. A balance between mineral focused terroir and ample oak influence. $wine club only

2012 Efeste Eleni, Syrah
The castle (chapel) of the Kingdom Red Willow stands before the great Mount Adams on the wine-growing edge of the Yakima Valley. It is here that Syrah was first forged in this kingdom of man. Brought from other lands by the family Sauer and the great and legendary Lake. Red Willow fruit is highly sought after in Washington and the Eleni makes it clear why. Aromas of pencil lead, blueberry and dried violets. The palate is substantive, layered and loaded with red fruits and ample acidity. $54 wine club only

2011 Efeste Ceidleigh, Syrah
A wine that blends three vineyards from the hallowed Kingdoms of Red Mountain. The Kingdom of Red Mountain might be Washington's most famous, as the home to the land's most famed wines. This Syrah is bold, full and boisterous. Aromas of crushed stone, fennel and blood. The palate fills up your mouth with iron, ripe bramble-berries and licorice. $39

2011 Efeste Jolie Bouche, Syrah
From the a name that rings with Washington wine royalty and the Kingdom Boushey comes some of the most elegant and aromatic Syrah you'll find in Washington. Aromatics are funky, and signature Boushey, blue fruit, smoke, black licorice and olive. The funky aromas that Boushey Syrah has come to be known for are also accompanied by a savory elegance on the palate, Fruit, minerality and pretty acids make this a wine fit for a queen, even like a Dragon Queen. $39
These wines were provided as samples.

The battle for the Seven Kingdoms will go on past this season but the battle for your palate will likely be won over by one of these Rhone beauties. I'm partial to the Jolie Bouche but no matter your leanings the Game of Rhones is one worth playing. Pick up the kit and invite your friends over, and let the games begin.

Old School; Literally

noreply@blogger.com (funwithbooze) — Thu, 30 Apr 2015 19:48:00 +0000

There are few icons in the Washington wine industry as recognizable is that old schoolhouse that you pass on your way into Walla Walla. The list of easily recognizable visual icons of Washington wine is short and I count them at two. Perhaps only the stone chapel at Red Willow vineyard is as synonymous with Washington's wine as the schoolhouse that plays home to L'Ecole 41. This year, that icon turns 100, making it by far the oldest winery in the state, while it didn't start out that way, (technically if you built a schoolhouse to be a winery, it would be a winery that looks like a schoolhouse) it has become synonymous with Walla Walla, Washington wine and of course L'Ecole 41.

In recognition of that centennial L'Ecole is releasing a wine in commemoration. The first settlement in the Walla Walla Valley was a place called Frenchtown, established by French Canadian settlers was founded in the early 1800s. By the 1860s it was a vibrant community and one that even set down roots for what was to become the future of the area, viticulture and winemaking. The Frenchtown Schoolhouse itself was built in 1915 and was actually in use as a school until 1974. In 1977 the Ferguson family took ownership of the building with designs on opening a winery there, which they did in fact do in 1983.

These days a visit to the old schoolhouse gives you a sense of the original building's charm from a lot of the original finishes to re-purposed classrooms now used for tasting wine complete with chalkboards.

The wine the 2013 Frenchtown Red Wine is an evolution of what we're seeing more and more of Cabernet and Syrah blends. For winemaker and owner Marty Clubb it's about delivering a wine that's unique enough to stand on it's own. "There have been more and more wineries exploring blends of Bordeaux and Rhone varieties, particularly Cabernet Sauvignon and Syrah. We did some early trials ourselves in earlier vintages of what evolved from Schoolhouse Red. Over time we felt that the mix of 70 to 80% Bordeaux with 20 to 30% Rhone added fruit complexity that made the wine richer, with vibrant fruit yet underlying earth and mineral tones. This "style" then set this wine apart from the other Columbia Valley varietal focused wines, and also uniquely different from the more traditional Bordeaux blends of our single-vineyard Walla Walla Valley terroir driven wines. Maybe another way of saying it is that Frenchtown is meant to display a broader array of fruit, whereas the other Columbia Valley wines are more laser focused on each variety."

2013 L'Ecole Frenchtown Red Wine
This wine is a blend of blends if you will, a complete Bordeaux blend of Merlot, Cabernet, Malbec and Cabernet Franc, then blended with a traditional Rhone blend of Syrah, Grenache and Mourvedre. It's Bordeaux heavy though at 75%. What strikes me about this wine is the emphasis on bright red fruits, and the surprising influence of the Grenache given that it only makes up 7% of the wine. Lots of great structure on the palate as you'd expect from a Bordeaux style blend, great tannin and weight to the wine but the Rhone varieites bring an earthiness as well as the prominent fruit character. A great value at $22.

Coloring Outside the Lines: Portland's Jackalope Cellars

noreply@blogger.com (funwithbooze) — Mon, 13 Apr 2015 23:34:00 +0000

As a civil engineer Corey Schuster designed roads; but it was a winding road, and certainly not one of his design that landed him at a Willamette Valley tasting room and ultimately opened his eyes to the possibility and joys of making wine.

Corey was in the midst a successful career in civil engineering, growing up outside of Chicago it seemed like the right direction, and frankly he really didn't have much else in mind. From there he landed in Colorado and eventually in a bit of a rut, to hear him tell it. Corey retired early, in some sense and from there he traveled throughout Southeast Asia and eventually he'd come to find himself at an engineering firm in Portland.

When the economy went bad Corey along with a lot of folks with good jobs were out on the streets and he bounced around a bit before he landed in that aforementioned tasting room. From there his wine interest led to working harvest at Owen Roe, and it was soon after that he started making his first wine. In the 2012 vintage Corey launched his label Jackalope Wine Cellars. For Corey the draw has always been the community as much as the wine, and that hasn't changed in the five or so years that he's been involved. In fact, now producing his wines at Portland's SE Wine Collective, that community is a bit of an incubator and think-tank for Corey and its other burgeoning wine-making talents. (He worked there managing the bar for awhile too.)

"We're all relatively new, and we are going through a lot of the same things, it's great to feel like you've got that in common, and it's nice to be a part of something like that. We're all having the same issue, like How am I going to pay for bottling? I don't know."

The first wines in 2012 were Cabernet Franc and Pinot Noir, and his second vintage, and current releases are the same varietals from some different sources. "I got into Cabernet Franc while working at Owen Roe, I talked with David O'Reilly about what fruit he might have available and he sold me some Pinot Noir from Eola-Amity and Cab Franc from Six Prong Vineyard in Washington's Horse Heaven Hills."

Corey's first three vintages (through 2012, 13 and14) have been "warm" years but he's learned a little bit from all of them. "That first year I decided to make the jump late in the year, so I really didn't even have time to think about the vintage. While 2012s are not my preferred style I couldn't have done any better, the fruit was perfect, the wines made themselves and the wines sold really easily. In my first vintage it was important that I sold everything."

"As an engineer I never had something I could hold in my hand and say, I made this. I've definitely had the scientific background but I've never tapped into my artistic side. I mean, as a civil engineer you're making roads. I chose this though, versus engineering which was more or less chosen for me." Corey's been getting great reception from the wines, and has found it's a great feeling when for example friends asked to have his wines at their wedding.

The 2013s were a bit more challenging for Corey and while it was a warmer vintage compared to recent years like 2010 and 2011 the wines are lean and elegant. Both wines are absolutely outstanding and unique, Corey has found that artistic side, and it suits him.

At the risk of using too much hyperbole his Cabernet Franc is the most interesting I've had from the Northwest. There are some stellar examples in both Washington, at Chinook and Oregon's Quady North. Corey walks between both styles with a definitive wildness but really, it's a sort of wild elegance. The parcels are tiny so normally I would recommend you go online and pick some up for yourself here but they're sold out. Call one of these places and tell them to hold it for you. Seriously.

2013 Jackalope Cellars Cabernet Franc, Quady North Vineyard Applegate Valley
This is an out of sight wine. Aromatics are wild lavender, smoke, earth and savory herbs. This wine takes the peppery elements that can be so much of the signature of a great Cab Franc and balances them with bright red fruit and earth notes. This wine is alive, the alcohol is low, the acid is beautiful. This wine is pretty, intellectual and a little bit crazy. Do what you gotta do to find this wine it'll change your opinion of the variety. $27 (Sold Out)

2013 Jackalope Cellars Pinot Noir, Sojourner Vineyard Eola-Amity Hills
Pretty, pretty Pinot Noir. I've had very few examples of 2013 at this juncture and I'm aware of the mini-controversy but I think this vintage will pan out for folks like myself who like a cooler more elegant wine, despite the overall warm growing season that was 2013. Aromatics of dried violets, clove, and early season blackberry, with a lively palate that gives balance, fruit and minerality. For $25 this is ridiculously good. $25 (Sold Out)

These wines were provided as samples.

The Search for Guido: From Craigslist to Red Mountain to Vashon Island

noreply@blogger.com (funwithbooze) — Mon, 06 Apr 2015 17:58:00 +0000

It is perhaps one of the most unusual wine purchases I'd ever made.

The guy's Craigslist post said that he had accumulated some interesting and older wines over the last few months and the prices were unbeatable, in my opinion. Late 90s Washington wines, some 05 Amavi in a magnum and a few other odds and ends. I arranged to meet him, like any smart Craigslist shopper in a public area, the Southcenter Mall parking lot. In hindsight not necessarily a safety move.

The prices on a lot of these wines were in the $5-10 neighborhood though and if this was someone trying to rob me, they were looking to get like $40, which didn't seem like such a risk. So I wasn't worried. I bought about 8-10 bottles of wine. Given the prices of the 98 Columbia Crest Two Vines, at $5, I had taken a wine glass and a cork screw with me, I bought one and opened it. It was pretty darn good for a value wine going on 15 years old. I bought more or less everything the guy had. (His brother was a contractor who would often buy homes from estates and he wasn't into wine at all. They ended up in this guy's hands and he'd sell them to make a few extra bucks on Craigslist.) No attempt was made on my life.

One of the wines I picked up was a 1998 Andrew Will Merlot, from Ciel du Cheval vineyard on Red Mountain. I think I paid like $20 or $25 for this wine from this Craigslist guy's trunk. I bought it because probably a year or so before this weird Craigslist ad came upon my radar I had a Andrew Will Sangiovese from 1992 and it was pretty fascinating so I thought why not give this one a try.

The bottle sat for a couple more years and it was only recently that I had the occasion to open it.

So, what can you expect from a 17 year old Red Mountain Merlot? I think it's important to first point out what happens to wine over time. First off, everything changes. Some wines age better than others. Perhaps the most often thought of wines when it comes to aging are Burgundy and Bordeaux, but German Rieslings, the really nice ones, age unbelievably, and maybe better than anything.

But none of those last two or three sentences answer the question. Over time wine is exposed to oxygen via the cork enclosure, it's permeable in a very tiny sense of the word. The wine and little bit of air inside the bottle exchanges oxygen with the air outside the bottle. Over time the wines can change substantially. If you like the wines you buy and open immediately, you may not necessarily like the same wine in 10 or so years. The fruit character often fades and gives way to earthen or herbal elements. The acids typically fade, and the wine tastes old, nuanced but certainly different. Old wine though can be pretty fascinating in their own right. Most Washington wines benefit from a few years of aging, say three, but typically top out in terms of an upwards pointing trajectory around eight years in my experience.

The two most salient factors in aging wine are supposedly tannin and acid. Both of these elements of a wine's chemistry protect the wine from oxygen. I've had a lot of Washington wines which typically have good tannin that tasted over the hill after about the 12 year mark. On the contrary, I've had lots of Oregon wines, think lower tannin, higher acid that have aged unbelievably. Given that this wine was from Red Mountain, which is known for it's tannin, not for it's acidity, I really had my doubts.

The 17 year old Merlot was a wildly pleasant surprise. I don't know that I would have picked it out as Merlot blind but for 17 years, the wine showed a lot of freshness. On the first pour, it was a wild color, almost like liquefied brick, and it was seemingly lacking any fruit character whatsoever. Instead the wine showed lots of earth, dust, mushroom and peat character. But that changed over the next hour or so. The strictly earthy wine went to tart cranberry and Montmorency cherry. The acid on this wine was truly unbelievable given its origins.

Typically older wines tend to drop off after they're opened. The sudden exposure to oxygen doesn't do them any favors and so they go into a quick fade. Not so with this Andrew Will Merlot, it got more interesting. Was this wine better now than it was then? It's highly unlikely as Chris Camarda makes some really nice wines, but it was certainly interesting and worth what little I paid for it to take a look. Another point of note was the alcohol percentage of the wines. It's often the case that red wines from Red Mountain are fairly big, this wine in particular is from perhaps the states most well known vineyard for producing structured, ripe wines, but the abv was 12. something. The acid was present, lively and it really delivered a somehow fresh 17 year old wine.

Perhaps the strangest part of this story, even more than the Craigslist car trunk acquisition was the cork. After about an hour of drinking I picked it up, parts of it has broken off when it was opened. It said "Guido" and had a 206 phone number on it. I started punching the number into my phone and was about to hit send when my friend Sean Sullivan stopped me. "Wait, let me see if that's still his number." It turns out it was Chris's home number and I had nearly dialed him up at 11pm.

I ran into Chris a couple weeks later at an event on Vashon Island. He chuckled at the idea that he still nearly got a late night phone call from one of his older wines. "I used to get a lot of phone calls like that, and they typically started around 10pm." He was excited to hear that the wine was still holding up. I asked what he remembered of the 98s, and he called it a vintage that produced exotic wines, and he'd had one recently. "The vintage didn't get great press and so it was slow to sell at first but eventually people came around to it. I had one the other night and they're still very interesting wines." Guido is his nickname and he's (smartly)gotten away from putting his home number on his wines these days.

Taste Washington 2015 Strategery (Which by the way is not a word.)

noreply@blogger.com (funwithbooze) — Mon, 16 Mar 2015 21:34:00 +0000

Taste Washington is a wine tasting extravaganza and it's not for the faint of heart. (In that spirit I have reprized a post from a few years ago to hopefully provide some advice on how to navigate the event.) With 250ish Washington wineries in attendance, this is serious tasting business. Multiply the number of wineries (250) by the average number of wines each table will pour (2 or 3) and the numbers start to get serious. What's clear is that this is perhaps the greatest wine tasting event in the free world and given that the un-free world probably doesn't have any wine tastings, maybe just the world. I already mentioned the 250 wineries, but there's also an oyster bar, a desert bar, beer, coffee, an incredible array of some of Washington's finest chefs and restaurants. Along with chef demonstrations.

What all of this means, however, is that you would be ill-advised to show up at Taste Washington without a plan; you would be eaten alive. Didn't you read the previous paragraph? It's serious. Here's the thing, it's a week out and you need a game plan if you're going to do this right. Luckily for you, we're here to help.

The best way to approach Taste Washington is to have a strategy. I would hazard a guess and say that you're not very strategic. I mean, maybe you do okay, but you're not as strategic as, say, a General. My point being there's a lot of military history, you're busy, let's just borrow what's worked well for them. You're far from Sun Tzu and General Patton; you're more a General Tso's than anything. So, ladies and germs we bring you the Anthem Military Strategy Guide to Taste Washington:

-Blitzkrieg: German for "Lightning war" is the use of speed, maneuvering and the shock of sudden attack at an enemies fortifications. It was often thought of as a mechanized war maneuver. Since tanks are frowned upon in the CenturyLink Event Center (if not outright illegal), we've pared it down considerably. Basically, the Taste Washington Blitzkrieg has you just drinking Germanic varietals. I count 33 of them from just the website. Largely these are Rieslings with a handful of Gewurztraminers throw in the one Gruner I counted too. Some notable producers include a Riesling from Cote Bonneville, Figgins Family. and Cooper Wine Company as well as the always fantastic Riesling from O-S. I'm happy to see there are more Rieslings than there were just a few years ago including a lot of newcomers.

-Scorched Earth: typically the military strategy by which a force goes about destroying anything that might be of use to the enemy, including roads, bridges, food sources etc. Because this is a wine tasting and not an actual attack on anyone, we're going to change it up. Go after the high alcohol wines or "hot" wines, (get it? 'scorched'). Approach each table and ask, "I'd like to try your highest ABV wines." Or you could simply say "if it's below 15% then I ain't drinking it." You will absolutely get strange looks and will likely be drinking a lot of Zinfandels and Primitivos but with alcohol percentages creeping up you'll also likely be drinking several of the Bourdeaux varietals and sadly some Syrah as well. The thing is, there are some really well made wines with higher alcohol percentages where the high alcohol is so well integrated that it's damn near imperceptible. While on its face this seems like a bit crazy, it'll give you a sense of how Washington is dealing with its rising alcohol issue. I highly recommend that you spit.

The Flying V: a strategy developed by perhaps one of the greatest minds of warfare, Alexander the Great. When times were simpler and people fought hand-to-hand, this tactic was used to push into enemy lines. People would form into the shape of a V or wedge and force their way through enemy fortifications. In our version, again, no violence: you're only drinking Viognier. Lucky for you Washington produces some pretty beautiful examples of Viognier. In this strategy we're also allowing White Rhone blends that include Viognier. My count includes 8 such wines being poured.

Tactical Positioning: from Sun Tzu's timeless classic The Art of War comes the concept of defending existing positions until one is capable of advancing. The Taste Washington version of this is to stick to the varietals that you know you love. If you love Merlot, Miles be damned, then try as many Merlots as you can get your hands on. If you're a big fan of Washington Syrah

(and why wouldn't you be?), then go ahead and stick to Syrah. While staying comfortable is nice don't forget the "advancing" component. If you love Syrah, try some Grenache and Mouvedre as well, stretch your legs a little. If you love non-vintage rhubarb wine, there's only one of those, so probably pick something else to base your strategy off.

Shock & Awe: is the last and least recommended approach. One may go about this approach by drinking as much wine as possible, exhibiting boorish behavior until everyone around is thoroughly shocked. Don't be that guy.

At the end of the day, Taste Washington is great opportunity to sample some of the best wines in Washington State. Many of the people pouring at the event made those wines they're pouring you. Talking to the winemakers, the winery staff and the many guests and you might be talking to Bob Betz or Dick Boushey. Learn what makes Washington special and certainly, don't miss out on the oyster bar.

The Clone Wars: The Oregon Chardonnay Symposium

noreply@blogger.com (funwithbooze) — Mon, 23 Feb 2015 05:39:00 +0000

In 2012 Paul Durant of Durant Vineyards and Erica Landon, of Walter Scott Wines collaborated on the first of what has become an important and successful annual event, The Oregon Chardonnay Symposium. The event has sold out every year (maybe go buy your tickets before you finishing reading this.) This year the technical panel and tasting is being moderated by Rajat Parr, and will include some of the Willamette Valley's most vocal champions of the clone debate. Jason Lett of The Eyrie Vineyards and John Paul of Cameron. (More on this later.)

The event features a technical panel, as well as a grand tasting to follow. This year's iteration, The Attack of the Clones, yes really; takes place on March 14th.

After Paul had returned to his family's business in the Willamette; one of the things on his mind was a childhood memory; chardonnay. "I'd always had an affinity for chardonnay and I think it goes back to when I picked it as a kid. I loved the taste, it's always been a strong memory for me; it's like that smell you remember when you walk into your parents' house."

While at this point it's safe to say that Oregon's chardonnay has arrived, it is very much a comeback story. Chardonnay remains under-planted in the Willamette Valley, The Durant family who have been one of the vineyard stalwarts in the Valley since just about the beginning originally had a fair bit of chardonnay. Much of their chardonnay though was for years, going towards sparkling wines made by Rollin Soles at Argyle. After phylloxera forced a large replanting at Durant, many former chardonnay rows gave way to pinot gris or pinot noir.

That story is retold throughout much of the Willamette Valley. While chardonnay's star has undoubtedly risen, it still has a way to go to gain the sort of respect it surely deserves. Not only in acreage planted but in the marketplace as well.

Despite Paul's fondness for the grape, the market for Oregon chardonnay has shown a real lack of appreciation. "We started making really impressive chardonnay in around 2007, they were showing some promise. But you know we weren't getting paid (that much) for chardonnay and it's growing on some of the best vineyard ground in the Valley." One of the goals of the event is to draw attention to the kinds of chardonnays the Willamette Valley is producing, and make a case for a wine that deserves a higher price-point.

To that end the Oregon Chardonnay Symposium began as an opportunity to educate consumers and showcase what winemakers throughout the valley were doing with their chardonnay. "It can still be a hard sell in the tasting room. You'd be surprised how resistant some people are to trying it." Which is a shame, as Oregon's chardonnay has the potential to make any doubters a believer.

The number of participating wineries have nearly doubled each year and what Paul has really found encouraging was the number of consumers who were attending the technical panel. One guy is flying out from Minnesota.

Aside from the overt quality, there's a bit of a chardonnay counter culture movement happening right now in the Willamette Valley, which brings us back to that clone debate I mentioned earlier. The rising tide of Oregon chardonnay has coincided with the popularity of Dijon clones being planted in the Willamette Valley. Get the back story here. The fact of the matter is though, the Valley was originally planted widely with 108 and Wente clone chardonnay. Those in the Dijon camp claimed they were simply not able to get these California clones to ripen in the cool Willamette Valley. While many folks perhaps pulled their vines, either to plant more pinot noir or as they did at Durant as a result of phylloxera, there's a lot of folks who didn't want to or didn't have to. Some of them are making dynamite chardonnay from those older "heritage" clones and so all this Dijon or the highway talk is rubbing them the wrong way.

Others just think that a lack of diversity, or a sort of hegemony of Dijon chardonnay stunts the growth of a region, in the case of Eyrie, it's hard to argue with the kind of success and longevity they've had with their original plantings. The Eyrie original chardonnay planting is made up of what is called the "Draper Selection" a collection of clones that David Lett brought north from California.

So it'll be great to hear from both clone camps at The Oregon Chardonnay Symposium. If you care about what's going on in the wine scene here in the Northwest, I recommend you think seriously about this event.

2012 Stoller Family Estate Reserve Chardonnay Melissa Burr reliably creates some of the most compelling Chardonnay in the Willamette Valley each vintage. Aromatics of coriander, honeysuckle, lemon zest and pineapple. Mostly neutral French oak gives this wine depth, texture and complexity and ample lemon creme, wet stone and peach skin. Mouth watering acidity and overall elegance. $35

2013 Kramer Vineyards Reserve Chardonnay Rich, rounded and redolent. Aromatics of baked apple, cinnamon and nutmeg. The wine really evolves over the course of an evening, fruit forward particularly with tropical notes and hints of spice. The combination of stainless steel and neutral French oak produces a great mouthfeel and texture, but the acidity seems to drop off a bit at the finish. $28

2013 Walter Scott Cuvee Anne, Willamette Valley A blend from vineyards in both the Eola-Amity Hills as well as the Chehalem Mountain AVA. The result is super. From Walter Scott who produces tiny quantities, this chardonnay is what I have come to think of as Oregon's wheelhouse. Bright floral and citrus aromatics give way to a substantial mouthfeel and texture. Classic lemon creme elements that have become for me a signature of these Willamette chardonnays are the signature of the palate. The mouthfeel is both rounded and vibrant with a pulsing current of lively acid. $45

2013 Durant Vineyard Chardonay "Raven" Made by Isabelle Duarte of De Ponte Cellars for $25 this is an out of sight and overtly elegant chardonnay. Can something be overtly elegant? Beautifully aromatic with chamomile, white flowers and jasmine, and early season nectarine. The palate is layered citrus, stone, fleshy and yet streaked with minerality and lively, lively acidity. This wine screams buy me and punches well above it's price-point. $25

2012 Evening Land Vineyards, La Source Chardonnay Old vine Dijon clones from 1995 create a powerfully pretty and robustly ripe chardonnay. The floral aromatics are effusive, white flowers, jasmine and green tea. The palate continues a strong case for Dijon clones in the Valley, super balanced lemon creme core along with a stone, chalky minerality. Fresh, vibrant yet loaded with layered fleshy fruit. $65

These wines were provided as samples.

Chelan Celebrates With Bubbles

noreply@blogger.com (funwithbooze) — Tue, 27 Jan 2015 20:57:00 +0000

From Marty Sparks(ling wine)

Bubbles!

If you thought that sparkling wine was only for ringing in the New Year, toasting newlyweds or christening yachts you should think again.

Sparkling wine is great throughout the year for all sorts of occasions. Pop the cork on some bubbly and watch that magical sound bring a smile to anyone’s face. Not only do bubbles bring fun to the party they also bring great acidity that makes them an excellent pairing for all kinds of food.

The sparklers are bursting on the scene in Lake Chelan like the jet stream of aromas and flavors carried on the millions of tiny bubbles bursting forth from a champagne flute. Lake Chelan has a thriving wine community that is growing in number of wineries and quality wines. With the dynamic collection of wineries, Chelan is becoming a destination that is about more than summertime fun in the sun.

Each January Chelan celebrates the beginning of the year with their Winterfest. It is a fun way to kick off your new year and explore the wines of the Lake Chelan AVA. This year the organizers added a new event, the Bubble Bar.

The Bubble Bar featured sparkling wines from four Lake Chelan wineries and amazing small bites from Erik and Adrianne of Canella Kitchen. Three of the winemakers are using grapes grown in the Lake Chelan AVA and there is good reason for that. The climate surrounding the lake is proving to be ideal for growing the grapes most commonly used to make sparkling wine – chardonnay and pinot noir. In fact, the microclimate created around the lake is proving to be one of the few locations in our state where pinot noir will grow happily.

Cairdeas Sparkling Grenache Blanc is 100% Grenache Blanc from the Boushey Vineyard in Yakima. Charlie Lybecker, the wine maker, originally picked these grapes to use in his Southern White Rhone style wine. He was inspired by the floral aromas and acidity of the grapes to use them in his latest sparkling wine.

Charlie makes his sparkling wine in the Italian style used to make Prosecco. The wine undergoes secondary fermentation in tank rather than in the bottle. The result is a crisp, light and delicious sparkling wine that really lets the character of the grape show through. The nose features notes of white flowers, light honeysuckle and citrusy lemon zest. The palate follows with lively bubbles featuring light crisp flavors of lemon and green apples.

Karma Vineyards, Hard Row to Hoe and Tsillan Cellars all make their sparkling wines in the French method champenoise style. These sparkling wines all undergo secondary fermentation in bottle. The wine remains in contact with the lees until the bottle is disgorged to remove the yeast and cork the wine for consumption. The additional time the wine spends in contact with the yeast cells results in the yeasty bread characteristics found in Champagne and sparkling wine made in the champenoise style.

Karma Vineyards specializes in sparkling wines (you can read an earlier profile here on the Wine Anthem). They offered two choices for the Bubble Bar. The 2011 Pink made from 80% Pinot Noir and 20% Chardonnay and 2008 Brut de Brut. My favorite was the 2008 Brut de Brut made with 60% Chardonnay and 40% Pinot Noir (60/40). This sparkling wine had beautiful notes of yeast, pears, green apple and a hint of lemon zest.

Tsillan Cellars provided their 2013 Sparkling Brut Pinot Gris made from grapes grown in their estate vineyard on the South shore of Lake Chelan. This sparkler had notes of pear, yeast and green apples. It paired very nicely with the bite sized smoked salmon quiche from Canella Kitchen.

Hard Row to Hoe produces their Good in Bed Sparkling wine from Pinot Noir grown at the Clos Cheval vineyard on the South side of Lake Chelan. Judy Phelps, Hard Row’s wine maker, picks the grapes in mid-September with the intent to make her sparkling wine. Picking the grapes early results in higher acidity that you typically find in sparkling wines. The grapes are whole cluster pressed which results in a beautiful sparkling wine that is slightly salmon colored. The nose shows notes of yeasty pear followed by a palate that features lively tight bubbles bursting with green apple, pear and lemon zest. Good in Bed paired well with the sweet and savory Pear and Blue Cheese tartlets.

Lake Chelan is becoming a year round destination for fun, especially if you are a wine lover or explorer. Many of the wineries are open through the winter. If you are looking for adventure you should head on out to Chelan to explore the burgeoning wine scene. Most of the winemakers work in their tasting rooms. That provides the perfect opportunity to learn about these fabulous wines from some of the friendliest people in the Washington wine industry!

All Horses Go to Heaven...The Horse Heaven Hills AVA

noreply@blogger.com (funwithbooze) — Mon, 29 Dec 2014 18:53:00 +0000

the view from Coyote Canyon Vineyards

Whenever I'm out in the Yakima Valley I always look to the south side of the river along highway 82 at those beautiful rolling hills and think, "those are the Horse Heaven Hills." And sometimes I even say it out loud, if someone is with me in the car. I suppose it makes me feel smart or informed, but in reality, while that is technically correct, that's really just the tip of the Horse Heaven Hills AVA and nowhere near where all the big work in the growing region is being done.

To get to the Horse Heaven Hills, really get there, you gotta go up over those pretty hills just behind Prosser and then drive for sometime. You'll pass some conventional farmland and then eventually you'll come to the Columbia River. This is important because as you note along your drive, much of the Horse Heaven Hills is arid, high desert. It's the Columbia River's moderating influence that even makes quality wine grape growing something you can consider out here.

It's a confluence of conditions, the Columbia, the canyons that run up from the river into the plateau above and the dry, sandy soil. In 1972 Walter Clore approached Don and Linda Mercer and convinced them to take a chance on wine grapes. Their family had been farming the Horse Heaven Hills since the 1930s growing a cornucopia of crops, wheat, onions and carrots, to name a few. The Cabernet they planted in 1972 has gone onto 100 point greatness in what is now known as Champoux Vineyard as an important part of the Quilceda Creek reputation.

Mercer Estates Spice Cabinet Vineyard

Horse Heaven Hills has certainly grown since then, McKinley Springs planted in 1980, and in 1991 Chateau Ste. Michelle planted what has become one of the AVA's most signature sites in their Canoe Ridge Vineyard. The AVA has really grown up, it's total acreage is 570,000 so it's an expansive region with only about 12,000 acres planted to vineyards. I say only but the HHH AVA comprises 25% of Washington's total wine acreage.

The wines from the area have developed a style certainly that has become a signature of the AVA, Raymon McKee the winemaker for Chateau Ste Michelle's Canoe Ridge finds the signature to be "an expression of the soil, particularly in the tannin." The tannins tend to be the most notable, they bring a real sense of elegance, and add a dusty or powdery backbone to the wine. The palates are marked with redder fruits like cranberries, or red cherry. As warm as the area is, there's definitely a structure to the wines that leans more towards Old World wines like those from Bordeaux than you'd expect.

The region is in good hands and its reputation only continues to grow as it benefits from seeing how its older vines produce outstanding fruit. The pioneering vision of the Mercer family, the talents of someone like Paul Champoux and reach of Chateau Ste Michelle, along with the fine wines the region has gone on to produce will make it a region, that while perhaps a bit out of the way, is deserving a noteworthy stake on any map of the American wine landscape.

2013 Mercer Estates Reserve Chardonnay, Horse Heaven Hills While the Horse Heaven Hills seem heaven sent for Cabernet; Chardonnay from the region can be outstanding. The Mercers are the original wine growers in the HHH,but they haven't rested on their laurels and continue to push the region forward as both growers and a winery. Jessica Munnell shows a skill set where Chardonnay is concerned with this wine, it's opulent and oaky without being buttery and boring. Aromatically rich with hazelnut, toasted bread and baked apple, the wine carries through on the strength of it's fruit and acidity. The palate is rich, balanced and ripe. $32

2012 Columbia Crest Reserve Chardonnay Horse Heaven Hills Columbia Crest has over 2,000 acres of vineyards in the Horse Heaven Hills and with their H3 line has showed an incredible commitment to the AVA. That line of wines represents one of the state's best values year to year and in the sub $20 price point is a go to Tuesday night wine for many serious wine aficionados as the quality is just so high. This Chardonnay is another case maker for the wine in the HHH. Aromatically round and ripe with notes of vanilla, nutmeg and ripe pear the palate shows a vibrancy that is too often lacking in American oaked Chardonnay along with rounded fruit flavors of pear and creme brulee. $20

2010 Double Canyon Cabernet Sauvignon Horse Heaven Hills Cabernet is king of course, and that holds true here in the Horse Heaven Hills, whether it's Champoux Vineyards or just across the street at Phinny Hill it's Cabernet that made this region famous. The Double Canyon Vineyards are just north of the Champoux Vineyards at a total of 88 acres and the connection to Phinny Hill is not just as neighbors. (Family is a thing that you hear time and again here in the Horse Heaven Hills and so Will Beightol son of Phinny Hill's Dick Beightol is managing the vineyards for this label with Napa and Willamette Valley roots.) The quality is present from the start with the fine tannin and superb structure that the more you familiarize yourself with it, you come to expect from HHH Cabernet. Aromatics of anise, black tea and dust, the wine is offers depth, and a elegant structure along with a present acidity. Flavors of mocha, red fruits and barrel spice. $40

2013 Chateau Ste. Michelle Sauvignon Blanc, Horse Heaven Hills While Cabernet and Chardonnay show so well from the HHH this wine is ridiculously good each year. Stainless and a heaping dollop of acidity make this vibrant white from one of the states warmest growing regions pulsate with citrus and stone fruit aromatics. The palate is cut fresh fruit and wet stone. For the price one of the state's best white wines year in and year out. $18

2010 McKinley Springs Malbec, Horse Heaven Hills There are many different varieties planted in the region and Malbec is one you're really seeing distinguish itself. This wine is elegant and while it offers plenty of blue and black fruits it is structured (again those dusty tannins) and very lively. (I tasted it beside a well regarded Argentinian Malbec which frankly seemed down right dumb in comparison) This wine shows aromatics, acidity, earth, spice and stony minerality along with it's dark fruits. $24

2012 Columbia Crest Reserve Malbec, Horse Heaven Hills This Malbec is a part of the limited release wines from Columbia Crest and the wines are made with an incredible amount of care. An inky black wine to behold as well as on the palate. Black fruits, smoke, earth and clove spices. Fantastically structured, with a core of black fruit. $45

Feels Like Family: Jasper Sisco Wines

noreply@blogger.com (funwithbooze) — Thu, 18 Dec 2014 22:29:00 +0000

In May of 2012 one of our writers Megan, visited with a guy named Justin Paul Russell who had come to the Willamette Valley from the Alabama. He brought with him a dream of making Oregon Pinot Noir. Two years have past and Justin has successfully launched Jasper Sisco with his first wines, including a 2012 Pinot Noir and a 2013 Riesling.

Jasper's story, sorry, Justin's story is illustrative of the kind of community that the Willamette Valley has always been and frankly remains, in spite of it's growing stature in the wine world. The California wine giants' land grab hasn't done any damage the family fabric of Oregon's Pinot Paradise. Quite the contrary; what Justin has found is an extended family in his home away from home.

Justin has landed at Portland's SE Wine Collective, a sort of "maker space" of the city's young wine talents. The Collective allows those interested in making wines, who also aren't land barons, to take a stab at making Pinot in Portland's city limits. In my opinion some of the wineries working out of there, are making some of the most imaginative wines in the Northwest right now. The collective gives them a sense of community, a little help with labor and equipment borrowing and a library of shared experiences to draw from to tackle any challenges they might see in wine production.

Justin has also benefited from a fantastic extended family relationship with the Momtazis of the Willamette's Maysara winery. It's there that he really got his foot in the door, working harvest and crush for two years as well as developing relationships with the broader Willamette wine community.

Now that his vision for Jasper Sisco has become a reality, that family feel remains important. Whether that's choosing his fruit sources or where he makes his wine. "Biodynamics are important to me, but at the core sustainable farming and the growers are what drive the vineyard choices. I want to be able to connect with the people I purchase fruit from, I want them to be people I'd have dinner with or better yet a beer... Momtazi is a site that I feel connected to in a lot of ways, I love the entire family and owe a deep amount of gratitude to them for all the help along the way."

"Cherry Grove was about being in the right place at the right time, in 2013 Tom of Division Wines and of SE wine Collective was sourcing Pinot Noir from there and he knew I was on the hunt for Riesling. He knew that Bob had just opened up a parcel that used to be contracted by Matt of Love and Squalor."

2012 Jasper Sisco Pinot Noir, Momtazi Vineyard A warm vintage that has been the recipient of many accolades given its fruit forward results. I find the Jasper Sisco Pinot to be overtly aromatic with aromatics of dried violets, dirt and white pepper. A bit more complex than many of the "fruity" 2012 Pinots I've come across this wine's got a high sense of minerality, the acid is soaring and the wine is leaner than it is robust. Which I dig personally. Dried figs, cocoa powder and earth driven minerals. Justin on where the fruit comes from: "I source from two blocks on the site BD (clone 114) and JJ (Pommard) both planted in 2001 both mostly Jory Soil based." $32

The label is an interesting story that ties back to that family theme. "That's Jasper in the middle of the photo. The photo was taken in West Virginia when he worked in a coal mine. The two people with him are relatives but nailing down who they are with the family I have left that knew Jasper has been dicey. The consensus is that they were cousins. The use of his name as the parent label is a tie not only to family, but work ethic, wit, and a persnickety nature that were central to his personality."

2013 Jasper Sisco Clara Estelle Riesling, Cherry Grove Vineyard A wine as pretty and distinguished as the woman who graces its label. Beautiful aromatics of wet stone, coriander and lime zest. The wine's palate is zippy and alive, flavors of wet stone and grape fruit, and thirst slaking acidity. One of my favorite Northwest wines I've had all year. In Cherry Grove Justin is rubbing elbows with some of the Valley's heavy hitters in terms of sourcing fruit from there. "Cherry Grove Vineyard is in Gaston, Oregon. The others who source from it are Antica Terra, Boedecker, Andrew Rich, as well as Love and Squalor. The riesling portion of this vineyard is just .8ths of an acre. It's a twenty three year old planting at the base of the site. An amalgam of soil types, the site is Live certified." $18

The woman on the label? "Clara Estelle is the great grandmother of my dear friend Wesley Sloman who helped with harvest in 2012 and has remained closely connected with the vintages since then. Clara was the first lady of Tarrant, Alabama in the sixties. She was the lady you went to if you needed to get something done, or needed to know something about someone in Tarrant. I've spent time connecting with Wesley's mother for stories."

In his first go-round Justin has produced a pair of impressive wines. He thinks though the best is yet to come. "The largest feedback loop I find myself in is the one at the Collective. We share info on production and the business aspect of things almost daily. As far as the wines go, I think my stylistic choices in the cellar draw the most feedback, People tend to think my style is risky. But as I was once told that what you risk reveals what you value."