Things Change, Things Stay the Same

Not long ago I was at one of those dinners with maybe 10 people at the table and everyone brings at least two very good bottles of wine, and when it was all said and done I felt like I didn't really get to spend enough time with any of the wines. One of the wines was a real surprise, the 1991 St. Innocent Pinot Noir Seven Springs Vineyard. It's not the quality of the wine that surprised me - I honestly cannot comment on the quality because I spent maybe 5 minutes with it while consuming a soup dumpling and chatting with my neighbor. And then I moved onto my two ounces of whatever the next amazing wine was. Not being critical - this is the way it goes sometimes. These dinners happen and it's great fun to be there. I'm just recognizing the fact that wines can get lost in these settings.

And I was surprised to see St. Innocent, that's all. It was like running into an old friend, some one who I hadn't seen in a long time and had no expectation of ever seeing again.

I used to drink a lot of Oregon Pinot Noir. Not anymore, there are just too many other wines that I prefer. Seeing this wine though, it got me thinking about how I've changed since my days of Oregon Pinot.

Five ways that I'm a different wine guy now:

1) I drink way more white wine than red. My Cellartracker notes in 2011 show that 62% of the wines I drank from my cellar were white wines. So far in 2012 it's 70% white wine. The thing is, I want white wine with everything, even red meat (is brown Sherry really a white wine though?). Red wine is almost never as light as I want it to be. When I drink red now, I want it to be mature and gentle.

2) I'm much pickier as a buyer. I have a better sense of what it is I want to drink, and I drink mostly those things. I almost never spend money trying new Burgundy, or new Loire Chenin Blanc, or new anything. Too expensive. I have opportunities here and there to taste things that are new to me, and friends whose recommendations I trust.

3) Restaurants...I'm much more skeptical about ordering wine at restaurants. Even some great restaurants store their wine in boxes in the basement. No temperature control. Bad glassware. Servers who pour glasses almost to the top so they can sell me another bottle quickly. Some restaurants have good wine programs and good wine service, and I order wine in those cases. More often though, I drink beer or cocktails at restaurants.

4) Natural, organic, and biodynamic...these are not the things that drive my decisions about what to drink. Not that they ever were, per say, but I used to be a lot more concerned with those things. I still believe in eating and drinking in a healthy way, and like to support producers who are respectful of the environment. But some of my favorite wines would not fit in those categories. So be it.

5) No more industry tastings. They're not really about the wine anyway - they are professional networking events, and they are probably quite valuable in that way to wine professionals. I am not a wine professional, and I can't deal with the atmosphere at those things. I need a compelling reason at this point if I'm going to go.
-----

At some point during the dinner a friend pulled out a wine that surely could be the focal point of any wine evening, the 1976 J.J. Prüm Riesling Wehlener Sonnenuhr Auslese. A 35 year old wine from one of the great masters in Germany. It was by far the oldest bottle of Prüm that I've had, and it was in great condition. I really tried - I paid a lot of attention and focused as best I could, and I think I got a sense of the wine. But I'd love to be with it for a few hours. It got me thinking about how after almost 5 years of writing this blog, I'm still the same.

Five ways that I am still the same wine guy:

1) I still have never had many of the great wines of the world. And when I have, very few mature bottles. Great old wine is expensive, and I think that many of us who started getting serious after the '90s will need an awful lot of money if we are going to experience the great ones. I mean seriously, a bottle of Rousseau Chambertin from a decent vintage costs $1,000 now. Hard to imagine being able to afford that. I've never tasted Rousseau Chambertin. It is entirely likely that I never will.

2) But I still don't claim to have had those wines, and I still have no dogma whatsoever about what I like and don't like. I have my opinions, and now a little tiny bit more experience to back them up, that's it.

3) I'm still driven by curiosity and the desire to learn, I still ask a lot of questions, I still try to listen very carefully, and I still understand every day how much there is that I don't know. And I still rely heavily on a couple of world-class wine gurus, who continue to patiently and generously share their knowledge.

4) I still care more about who I am drinking with than I do about how rare or awesome the wine is. Even is a wine is great - if we aren't sharing the experience together in a meaningful way, it's like a tree falling in the woods with no one there to hear it.

5) I still want to be thrilled by wine, to find something that makes me want to delve deeply into the whole region from where it came, to understand all of its iterations and categories. And then sometimes write blog posts about what I learn, for no reason other than that it makes me happy.

Forcing Myself to Drink New Wines

I could probably grow old drinking exactly what's in my cellar now and be perfectly happy. I mean really - Burgundy, the Loire, Sherry, Champagne...what's not to love? It's important also to drink things from time to time that are outside of the comfort zone. I do not do this very often, and I need to do it more. There is no deep thinking behind this - it's just good to experience new things, to explore a bit, to practice being open-minded.

So, I am making a conscious effort to drink wines I don't know. Nothing major, just making an educated guess on wines here and there, nothing expensive. It's funny - I used to do this all the time maybe 5 years ago. Now I've gotten to a point where I feel like I understand what, for me, is the optimal way to spend every wine dollar, and maybe too much so. I never find myself saying anymore "Hmmm, that looks interesting, I'm going to give that a shot." So I'm trying to do this again.

This past month I bought two wines that are new to me and both, I must say, were excellent wines, things I would definitely buy again. I drank an Oregon Pinot Gris and I really liked it. Now, if you've been following this blog for a while, you know that I used to drink a lot of Oregon Pinot. My tastes changed, I stopped buying and drinking the wines. But one day in February I was browsing in a large Manhattan store in which I don't normally shop, and I saw bottles of 2010 Montinore Pinot Gris on sale for just under $11.

I haven't liked a lot of Oregon Pinot Gris, but I remember hearing that Montinore is a good producer, and the back label says the wine is 12.6% alcohol and the wine is made using Demeter certified biodynamic farming methods. I bought one bottle. Honestly, the wine was really good. It was clean and bright tasting, relying on a lean intensity. There is ripe fruit - spiced pear and apple, there is a definite mineral sensation, and the finish is long and pleasingly bitter. This is delicious wine, and not because it resembles an Alsace Pinot Gris - it doesn't. It's an Oregon wine, no mistaking that. And it's a really good one. It didn't hold up well overnight - probably not meant for the cellar, but it is a quality wine, and it would be nice if there were more Oregon wines like this, where the producer doesn't try to do too much in the vineyard or the cellar.

Another new one for me, this time a red wine. It was during the Super Bowl, I think, when my pal poured me a glass of something that looked like rosé. It wasn't rosé though, it was Grignolino d'Asti. Wow, so good - fresh and vibrant and eminently drinkable, red fruit and flowers, and complex too. I'm talking about the 2010 Montalbera Grignolino d'Asti Grignè. When I looked for it at the store I saw that Charlie Woods of Bonhomie Imports brings in this wine, and I wasn't surprised at all. In keeping with his other wines that I know, this is very reasonably priced ($15-18), and it feels old school, and very pure.

I've had a few bottles now and I really like the wine. I like to drink it cool - cellar temperature, as you would a Beaujolais. The floral and spicy characteristics come out best that way. It's great with charcuterie or lentil soup, or most anything really, and it does drink well on its own. I had a bottle with a spread of Middle Eastern food and it was an excellent partner for the chickpeas and spinach, and also the Merguez sausage. This is a very light colored wine, like a Poulsard, and as with good Poulsard, the wine has great structure and sneaky intensity. Supposedly this is what you drink while you wait for your Barolo and Barbaresco to mature. I can see that when I drink this wine, and although I've not had even one other example of Grignolino, I'm not sure that I need to because this one is so very good.

Forcing myself out of the comfort zone...so far so good.

By the Glass - Oregon Pinot Edtion

I bought a lot of Oregon Pinot when I rediscovered wine about 6 years ago. My red wine palate has changed since then, moved away from overt fruit and concentration and towards transparency and intensity. I still love Pinot, but moreso the wines of Burgundy, Cheverny in the Loire Valley, or the Jura.

Are there Oregon Pinots that I enjoy today? Yes, but the key for me is to drink them without comparing them to Burgundy, to accept them as fruit-driven wines and to enjoy them as such. Am I going to buy these wines today? No, but that's because my tastes have changed, not because they are bad wines. Within a new-world framework, I think Oregon is making some excellent wines.

BrooklynLady and I hosted our wine group this month and we used this occasion to drink a load of Oregon Pinot. I also drank a few Oregon Pinots with my old pal Deetrane this month, and so all of the sudden I have a decent sample of Oregon wine notes to share with you. Here is what I found, in the approximate order of my preference:

2002 Panther Creek Pinot Noir White Rose Vineyard, $35. Courtesy of Deetrane, my favorite of the bunch, and by a wide margin. White Rose is high up in the hills and is cool at night, so the grapes should theoretically have good acidity. I've had wines from White Rose before and they've been overly extracted, but not this one. This wine was dried rose petal red, translucent to the core, with lovely ripe red fruit and floral aromas. Well balanced and with an intense core of red fruit, this was delicious wine.

2004 Brick House Pinot Noir Cuvée du Tonnelier, $45. Started off strangely - salty umami notes, something like balsa wood, kind of medicinal, perhaps not entirely clean. But I came back to it two hours later and it was much better, with bright red fruit, good acidity, length, and intensity. Clearly this wine needs time in the bottle, as it wasn't pretty at first. Made with organic grapes, for you hippies out there.

2004 Belle Pente Pinot Noir Murto Vineyard, $35. If I had to pick one Oregon Pinot to buy every year, it would be this one. The vines are old, the vineyard is farmed cleanly (organic and using some biodynamic principals, I believe), and the wine maker seems to be going for balance and elegance, over extraction. And at $35, I don't feel like I'm getting ripped off. This was not the best bottle I've had of this wine, but it was quite good, with floral and citrus infused red fruit aromas, and a light and graceful texture.

2002 St. Innocent Pinot Noir Seven Springs Vineyard, $35. I'm not sure where this wine is in its evolution, but it probably will be better in a few years than it was on this evening. The nose is about dark fruit and it isn't revealing all that much, even after a few hours open. The fruit feels mature on the palate, stewed cherries, the tannins have begun to melt into the wine. Pleasant wine, but int he end, not all that interesting.

2005 Adelsheim Pinot Noir Ribbon Springs Vineyard, $44. BrooklynLady and I visited Adelsheim back in the winter of '05, when the grapes for this wine were just a twinkle in the vine's eyes. We have a soft spot for Adelsheim, but as the years go by I find myself less interested in the wines. They are well made, but they are so much about fruit, kind of one-note-wonders. This wine did have lovely ripe red fruit, very clean, and there was a nice herbal note. But that's really all I can say. About a quarter of the bottle was left out overnight, uncorked, and when I tasted it the next afternoon there was more focus and intensity, but still not a lot of complexity. Very good wine, but not the style of Pinot that I'm interested in these days.

2005 Adelsheim Pinot Noir Elizabeth's Reserve, $44. This is a blend of grapes from Adelsheim's various vineyards, and it has Oregon's prettiest wine label, I think. This wine has great fruit, others in the group liked it very much in that way, but the oak is very prominent too. There just isn't a lot else going on, so it's hard to get excited.

2005 St Innocent Pinot Noir Justice Vineyard, $35. I liked this better a few years ago when it was first released. Now it's a bit muddy, with coffee and other wood elements obscuring the fruit. I drank this with Deetrane alongside another St Innocent 2005, and it is amazing how the two wines from two different vineyards showed almost exacltly the same. We fooled around, tasting each other blind on the wines, and I could identify Justice based on its slightly lighter texture, but the aromas and flavors of both wines were pretty much dominated by wood.

2005 St Innocent Pinot Noir Shea Vineyard, $39. This raw material in this wine doesn't seem to be able to absorb the wood treatment. Although I liked the 04, Shea just isn't my favorite St Innocent wine. If I drink St Innocent now, I prefer Anden or Seven Springs, both of which are no longer made.

2005 Thomas Pinot Noir, $45. This is a cultish producer who makes tiny amounts of wine, that's basically impossible to find outside of the Wilamette Valley in Oregon. We loved the 2002 and I brought a few of these home with me from Portland a year ago. I will tell you now that everyone on CellarTracker loves this wine, and that John Thomas has a great reputation as a wine maker, so take the following with a grain of salt. This wine was just no good. The alcohol on the nose was overwhelming, the fruit was candied, and the wine was utterly simple. Even those in the group whose palates are far more forgiving than my own regarding new world wines, even they didn't enjoy this wine.

Back to Your Roots - WBW #48

47 editions of Wine Blogging Wednesday have come and gone. I speak of the monthly online community wine tasting and sharing event created by Lenn, the New York wine guy at Lenndevours.

Four years. That's ancient in the world of wine blogs. Just goes to show you - our community of bloggers and readers enjoys getting together every now and then, stepping off of our individual soapboxes and being but one of many voices.

Wine Blogging Wednesday is part of what inspired me to start a blog. I participated religiously for quite some time, but I've missed a bunch now. In some cases I just forgot, in others, I couldn't get excited by the theme. But this month I'm excited because Lenn, a gentleman who in my view is one of the OG's (that's Original Gangsta, for those of you who are not bangin') of wine blogging, is celebrating an anniversary. And he's asking us to join him, to go back to our wine drinking roots.

Here is the story of my very first wine epiphany:

The year is 1990. I was home from college for the summer, a four month break from school. I got a job at a strange restaurant on the upper east side of Manhattan called The Lion's Rock. Even then I could tell that the food was unimaginative at best - every night's special, no matter what it was, featured a caper buerre blanc sauce. But they were famous for having a real waterfall - a trickle of water that flowed over a real rock (the lion's rock?) in the back next to their garden seating. Food=bad, rock=business. Anyway, I was making at least $100 a night in tips, which was a fortune.

I have no idea whether or not the wine list was any good. No one there taught me about selling wine, never mind about drinking wine. There was one other interesting thing at this restaurant, aside from the waterfall and the rock. Behind the bar, hanging on the wall, there was an inverted bottle of wine with a contraption attached to the neck that allowed you to turn a spigot and pour an ounce at a time. The Lion's Rock offered a one-ounce taste of this wine for $15 (or something like that), a ridiculous sum of money. I thought it was a gimmick, like the waterfall. And it probably was.

But one night after work when we were all sitting at the bar sipping our complimentary post-shift drink, I asked the bartender about it. Tell me how any wine can be worth that kind of money for just a sip, I asked. Is it really that much better than some other wine?

The bartender, a nice guy named Michael, a guy in his mid-forties who was really a musician struggling to make it in New York, decided to teach me something. And it turned out to be one of those moments that is way more important than you can possibly imagine when it happens. He told me to close my eyes, and he poured me an ounce of whatever Bordeaux was in the inverted bottle. He also poured an ounce of the house red. He presented me with both glasses and I tasted them blind.

I took a sip of one, and then of the other. One of the wines tasted like what I understood wine to taste like. But the other one, well this was a different story. It had depth and character, and it held my interest. I wished that there were more than just one ounce in the glass. I wanted to keep drinking it, and that was the first time I felt that way about a wine.

I almost never drink Bordeaux now, but I will always remember that experience. For the rest of that summer I tried to taste everything on the wine list at The Lion's Rock. Whenever customers didn't finish their bottle, I would sneak a taste. I visited my local wine store and stared blankly at the bottles on the shelves, not knowing anything about what I was looking at. I caught the wine bug, and it was a one ounce pour at a now defunct restaurant called The Lion's Rock that got me started. A one ounce pour of a Bordeaux that will forever remain nameless to me.

Smoking My First Brisket

No, this is not some sort of euphemism. I've used my Weber grill to smoke pork ribs plenty of times, but never a beef brisket. 9 out of 10 times at the BBQ joint I order ribs, so at home I cook ribs. But the other day while cruising the meat case at the food coop, I came across a beautifully lean slab of brisket from Slope Farms - naturally raised, grass fed, farmed by a doctor who used to live in Park Slope.

Most Important Lesson Learned - lean brisket is for braising (cooking in liquid). When using a dry cooking technique like smoking, use the fatty cut, as the fat slowly bastes the meat keeping it nice and tender.

Our brisket tasted great, smoky and delish. But in a survival situation I could have used it to craft a pair of sandals, you know, if the desert sands were too hot for bare feet. Hyperbole of course, but in truth I was not able to convince the connective tissue in this, the lean end of the brisket, to melt away. And I smoked this baby for almost 4 hours. Yes, it probably needed double that, but 8 hours - it's hot out there folks! And I didn't have that much hard wood charcoal. Even if I did, I cannot imagine my wife's reaction had I told her I'd be spending 8 hours of a Saturday smoking meat. Well actually, I can imagine, and that's why I stopped at almost 4 hours.

This was my technique:

-24 hours before smoking I rubbed the brisket with coarse salt and ground black pepper.
-played 2 different Sinatra and Basie records, including the classic "It Might as Well be Swing" for the brisket as it came to room temperature before smoking.
-removed the top rack and cooked the brisket in a pan next to the coals.
- soak plenty of mesquite in water for an hour, added it every 20 minutes or so to the coals.
-I wasn't sure how to position the window of holes on the grill's top. I went with holes above the brisket. I know...who really cares. Excuse me, I'm detail oriented.

Anyway, this was rather delicious, if somewhat tough. But some home made cole slaw, a little Carolina style hot sauce (chili flakes soaked in white vinegar), some decent but plain white bread, sliced dill pickles...yup, there's a reason that no photos of this fine sandwich exist.

So what wine to serve with this beast of a smoked brisket? I was gravitating towards a sparkling wine, like the Montbourgeau Crémant du Jura that I love so well. But in the end I decided that this meal would be a great excuse to check in on a wine that I've been meaning to revisit - the 2002 St Innocent Pinot Noir Seven Springs, $32 on release.

2002 was supposed to be the vintage of the millennium in the Willamette Valley, but I haven't been loving the wines. This wine was positively closed the last time I tasted it almost exactly a year ago. This time it showed better, although still a bit disjointed. The nose is mature, with truffles and mushrooms. After 30 minutes alcohol intrudes on the nose, then later on ripe dark fruit emerges, always with a mushroom undertone. The palate is broad and mouthcoating, but still somewhat primary with dark cherries. Seems like the palate has not matured as much as the nose. On day 2 the palate shows better integration of the fruit and soil/mushrooms and the tannins are supple and round. A nice herbal finish leaves pleasant aromas in the mouth. This seems promising, which is good, since I still have a half case (?!) of this hiding in the cellar.

Cheers to the fatty end for next time.

Belle Pente - Old World Pinot from Oregon

Pinot Noir in Oregon's Willamette Valley is, in my opinion, still trying to figure out what it wants to be. Is it a new world style wine, dense, concentrated, and fruit forward? Or is it in the style of Burgundy, with more of an emphasis on delicate aromatics, balancing acidity, and earth tones? From what I've experienced, the majority of Willamette Valley Pinot is made in the new world style, and that's fine. Most producers have no trouble selling out their stock.

I prefer the Burgundian style of Pinot. There are several Oregon producers that I know of making old world style Pinot - John Thomas at Thomas, Doug Tunnel at Brick House, Mark Vlossak at St Innocent (for some bottlings, anyway), to name a few. One of my favorites is Belle Pente.

Belle Pente is run by Brian and Jill O'Donnell, who are dedicated to making delicious and terroir expressive wines in an environmentally friendly way. The estate vineyard was converted to organic farming in 2000 and they began to use some of the principals of biodynamics in 2005. Yields are low and production is small - there are only 300 cases of the 2005 Estate Reserve, for example. Brian uses natural yeasts for fermentation unless mildew or rot forces him to use a baking soda spray, which kills some of the natural yeasts. He then inoculates with a Burgundian yeast that he says is neutral in terms of aroma.

The Pinot lineup includes Dundee Hills and Yamhill-Carlton District wines, "entry level" wines made from grapes sourced from several vineyards. The Belle Pente Vineyard bottling is from the estate vineyard and it's a forward and youthful wine, although it can be quite complex. The Estate Reserve is a blend of the finest blocks in the estate vineyard, and although the vines are young, you'll be shocked at the complexity and character of this wine. The new vintage costs $45. I haven't yet tasted the 05, but the 04 was outstanding.

There is an older vine Pinot called Murto made from grapes from the...you guessed it - Murto vineyard. Belle Pente's 6 acres of Murto are farmed using the same principles as their estate vineyard. Murto costs about $35, and in my opinion, is one of the top three values in all of Oregon Pinot Noir.

These wines are not so easy to find outside of Oregon (and I imagine are impossible to find outside the US). A couple of NYC stores carry them, but even then it's limited quantity. You could always order directly from the winery, if your state allows this kind of brazen treachery (tongue planted firmly in cheek).

I have a small stash of 2005 Murto, and I decided to open a bottle the other night just to see how things are going. Here are a few notes:
2005 Belle Pente Pinot Noir Murto Vineyard, $37. There is a mixture of soil and brett upon opening, and the topsoil notes remain on the nose throughout the first evening, but are joined by cherry and cool herbal aromas. A lovely and elegant nose. The palate is sweet and ripe but balanced with acidity, and there is great purity. Not revealing all that much yet on the palate other than the sweet fruit and cooling herbs, but there is clearly a lot going on under the surface. I re-corked the remaining half of the bottle and left it for the next evening.

On day 2 the aromas have integrated beautifully. There is a lovely pine/herbal character that cools the bright red cherry, and still some soil underneath. This is a complex old world nose. The palate shows great purity and focus, harmonious fruit and acids, all supported by firm tannins. This is well balanced (only 13% alcohol!) and just a pleasure to smell and drink, an outstanding Oregon Pinot in the old world style.

A Few Mature Wines

I only began cellaring wine a few years ago, so if I drink a mature wine at home it means that I bought a wine that some one else cellared for me. Sometimes I'm lucky enough to taste a mature wine at a tasting, which can be a special experience also, especially if the wine is very expensive or difficult to find at stores. Here are a few recent experiences with mature wine:

2001 Adelsheim Pinot Noir Quarter Mile Lane Vineyard, $40. BrooklynLady and I loved this wine when we visited Adelsheim Winery. We toured the estate, wandered through the sleeping oak barrels, smelled the fermenting grapes in the big steel tanks. We brought home two bottles of this, their top wine (in my opinion). BrooklynLady had a birthday recently and we opened this to compliment our marjoram-crusted rack of lamb. When you see 2001 you might not think of this as mature wine, but '01 was a "classic" vintage in Oregon, a normal year in which some great wines were made, some bad ones, and everything in between. Because in most micro climates the weather never really got hot enough for long enough, the wines do not typically have the stuffing that requires long term cellaring in order to tame. Not that they're sub-par, they are not. But they are different from the same wine in 2002, for example, in that they might mature more quickly. Just like in Burgundy - they say you should drink your 2001's and 2004's while waiting for your 2002s to mature. I might compare 2001 in Oregon to 2001 in Burgundy. Many of the reds from both places are mature and drinking beautifully right now.

This wine from the Quarter Mile Lane Vineyard was excellent. Some rusty orange color was showing near the rim. The nose was mostly secondary with earthy damp wood and leaves, cinnamon, and a hint of red cherry to remind you of youthful days gone by. Lovely flavors including stewed cherries, lively spices, and something like the smell of moist potting soil. A lingering juicy finish with fleeting floral mouth aromas - this was complex and delicious wine, and it made me resolve to hold onto some of my newer Oregon Pinots, as they clearly become quite graceful with a few years of age.

2000 Domaine des Roches Neuves Saumur-Champigny La Marginale, $12 (secondary market). Deetrane bought some of this a few years ago in an internet auction and I graciously took a few bottles off his hands. This is wine maker Thierry Germain's top wine in the sense that it takes a longer fermentation and ages in oak. I always enjoy his entry level Saumur-Champigny, by the way, a good value, and much easier drinking. This wine was a monster, incredibly taut muscles, everything still flexed. The nose was secondary, with lots of tobacco and a bit of funk at first too. The palate is still fairly ripe, with mushy black plums and lots of tobacco again, some leather too. This was nice wine, but lacking in dimension. It certainly went well with steak, but it was not memorable, didn't inspire me to buy the 2005 version ($35) and lay it down.

1987 Domaine Terrebrune Bandol Rouge - IPO Trade Tasting. Now THIS, this is mature wine. Heartbreakingly beautiful, this wine. And this is just from a few swirls and sniffs at a trade tasting. This wine was perfectly translucent deep purple still. Wine maker Reynald Delille said that 1987 was "nothing special" as a vintage, which makes this all the more exciting. He smiled when he saw my face after sticking my nose in the glass - the nose is so beautiful! It's not only the tobacco, the resin, the soil that is so beautiful on the nose, but the clarity of those smells, the harmony they create together. And the palate - these aromas followed through in a simple and elegant way, still absolutely transparent and clear, still working well together, absolutely harmonious. I was completely taken by this wine, and the IPO guide says it will arrive in September and should cost just over $100 a bottle retail. This honestly is a very good deal, in that a bottle of perfectly mature wine from a top producer from other wine regions usually costs much more. You can read more about Terrebrune in Bert's excellent profile. Not sure yet if I will buy a bottle of the 1987 (assuming a retail outlet in NYC buys it first) or instead buy a few of the 2004's at about $30, and lay them down myself.

1947 Domaine du Viking Vouvray - IPO Trade Tasting. After tasting through and thoroughly enjoying Lionel Gauthier's off-dry and sweet wines from the 2002 and 2005 vintages, the woman whose name I have forgotten but who also makes and lives these wines asked me in her beautifully accented English "Would you like to taste something a bit older?" Yes, yes I would. She pulled a bottle from under the table, a bottle of chestnut honey colored wine. The label said 1947 but there was no other identifying information regarding the designation. She said it was most probably sec-tendre (the name "Viking" is new, only since the late '80s). Whatever it was, it was stunning. Still very fresh and alive, even though there were some sherry notes mixed in with the petrol, tar, caramel, and honey. This was an amazing experience, and clearly speaks to the value of a well regulated cellar. Inspiring.

I wonder...does my wine fridge have the right humidity to perform this kind of alchemy on a bottle of the newly released 2005 Sec Tendre? Is it better to simply purchase an old bottle like this, as opposed to risking the time, space, and money attempting this at home?

By The Glass - Oregon Pinot Edition

In the past month or so I've tasted a few 2005's, some old familiar faces and some from producers that are pretty much new to me. Although there are problems with the wines in general (too sweet to my palate), on the whole I much prefer them to the 2004's we tasted during our recent Five Nights of Oregon Pinot festivities. And one of them was excellent by any standard.

They're calling 2005 a "classic" vintage in Oregon. If you haven't tried Oregon wine because you're a Burgundy lover, you might try something from 2005. Alcohol levels are on par with Burgundy at about 13%, there is very good acidity, and the wines are pretty well balanced. This is an Oregon vintage that can please Burgundy lovers. Fine - the wines are still very sweet, but it is what it is.

2005 Adelsheim Pinot Noir Quarter Mile Lane Vineyard, $44. The finest wine of this group, by a few lengths. This is why I got into Adelsheim in the first place. Unmistakably Oregon in the wild cherry cough syrup department, but there is much more going on here too. There is a great earthy mushroomy note on the nose, and the sweet wild cherry aspect is quite lovely. The flavors echo the nose, and the mid-palate expands to include slightly rusty minerals, the sweet cherries ride the acids all the way through to the finish, which is complex with herbal notes, and very persistent. This is delicious wine, no doubt about it. And at 13% alcohol, you can actually taste your food while drinking it. It improved on day 2, gaining both smoothness and complexity. This is the same price as an 05 village-level Burgundy and it offers at least that level of pleasure.

2005 St Innocent Pinot Noir White Rose Vineyard, $41. White Rose Vineyard is St Innocent's smallest lot. It's at an elevation of 820', pretty high up there for Oregon Pinot vineyards. This vineyard generally does well in hot years - St Innocent's White Rose Pinot was my favorite Oregon wine from the incredibly hot 2003 vintage. In 2005, not a terrible hot year, there were only 234 cases made of this wine. I didn't enjoy it as much as I did either the 2003 or the 04, this one was more simple. Certainly very pleasant - sweet red fruit flavors, lots of cherry cola, pretty good balance too and not too high in alcohol - 13.5%. It's just that there was little complexity, nothing to think about. Maybe it needed more time in the bottle, although I always drink White Rose a year or two from release and enjoy it.

2005 Cameron Pinot Noir Arley's Leap Vineyard, $28. I've tasted Cameron's wines before, but only once at home with dinner, and that was a solid four years ago. This is from a parcel of younger vines, and the wine is not meant for extended cellaring. On the nose this is brimming with dark cherries and there are also herbal hints, but there is some cherry cough syrup too, and it's a bit cloying. Beautifully ripe fruit though, and nicely balanced with acidity. Hard to put my finger on what, but there is something missing here, something preventing me from really sinking my teeth into this wine. It's kind of a one-hit-wonder. At only 12.5% alcohol, though, they've made a sweet and enjoyable young drinking Pinot that will not make you fail your breathalyser on the trip home.

2005 Evesham Wood Pinot Noir en Dessous Seven Springs, $26. Not sure why they don't just call this "Anden," as Anden is the vineyard that is en dessous (underneath) Seven Springs, but anyway...I like Evesham Wood so far, and I've tasted five or six wines, but never at home with dinner, so this was a first. Lots of cherry cola on the nose, verging on cough syrup, with hints of earth underneath. There is alcohol too on the nose, although it's only 13% according to the label. The palate is blueberry skins, vanilla, and a bit of prune. How do they make wine this sweet in an only moderately hot year, picking in early October? It's magic, I tell you. This is simple and pleasant, but it is not a style of Pinot that I prefer.

2002 Bethel Heights Flat Block Reserve, price unknown. Just for kicks, a more mature wine from Deetrane's cellar. My first ever taste of a Bethel Heights wine, and this is supposed to be their top cuvee. I thought this was in a great place for drinking, as some of the primary cherry fruit had receded and been joined by silky wet soil and iron minerality - a well balanced and elegant wine that left lovely mouth aromas of cherry and earth.

Clear Creek Douglas Fir Eau de Vie

This is Eau de Vie (water of life) made by infusing clear brandy with the springtime buds of the Douglas Fir pine tree. I heard of this for the first time on Eric Asimov's blog last summer. I had tried Clear Creek Eaux de Vie before, but I'd never even heard of Douglas fir.

Stephen McCarthy runs Clear Creek Distillery in Portland, Oregon. He makes labor-intensive brandies and liquors (and one whiskey) in the old-world style. He avoids adding sugar, colors, or flavors. If there is a problem with the crop of raspberries one year, for example, then there is no Raspberry Eau de Vie that year. McCarthy is an artisan and from what I've tasted, his brandies are delicious and worth every penny.

I'd been kind of passively looking for a bottle of Douglas Fir Eau de Vie (photo courtesy of Clear Creek's website) since reading about it in The Pour, but no one seemed to carry it. The other flavors, sure, but Douglas Fir - no dice. I was quite a happy Brooklynguy back in December when I saw a few bottles on the top of the very top shelf behind the register at Slope Cellars in Brooklyn. I've been enjoying it slowly, keeping it hidden in the secret compartment of our wooden bar (visible in the second photo in the link, the area between the two open compartments) so that only those who I deem worthy will get a taste. I keep other good stuff in there too - homemade raspberry and ginger vodkas, an original signed copy of the Declaration of Independence, stuff like that. Anyway...

The Douglas Fir Eau de Vie just so good that it's hard to explain. The color is a gorgeous bright green, much easier to appreciate after reading on the website that no colors are added. The nose is the essence of the forest, but even more concentrated. Fresh pine, very bright and clean smelling. Strong, no doubt - this is 47.73% alcohol, but also smooth and delicate on the palate, with springtime freshness and green pine goodness, and something just a tiny bit soapy in the back. A small portion of this in a wine glass after a heavy meal - I cannot imagine a better digestif.

Sorry for the rather weak descriptions, but I have not other way to describe this to you - this stuff is Pacific coast spring in a bottle, and for only about $50 for 375 ml. And it lasts a long time, provided that you enjoy it every two weeks or so and hide it from your friends. Does your bar have a secret compartment?

Five Nights of Oregon Pinot - Part V

We return to Shea Vineyard on this, the fifth and final night of our Oregon Pinot festival. A festival that took place right here in the confines of our own apartment. But a festival nonetheless. Anyway, no Brooklynguy-sponsored Oregon Pinot Noir festival is complete without an entry from St Innocent. My Oregon wine epiphany occurred with a bottle of 2001 St Innocent Pinot Noir Brickhouse Vineyard, a vineyard whose wines are no longer in St Innocent's stable. Let me tell you something right now, before we go any further - if you know of anyone who has a bottle of that wine, beg them to share it with you.

Wine maker Mark Vlossak has been in the business since he was 7 years old, with a brief break for distractions like college and graduate school. He started St Innocent in 1988 and has been making some of the more highly sought-after wines from the Willamette Valley ever since. It is interesting to note that St Innocent has no estate vineyard. All of the wines are made from purchased grapes. Mark buys from the best growers out there - this is not a statement about grape quality. I would think that someone with Mark's passion for the art of wine would ruin his pants in the mud of his own vineyard. But that is about to change. He recently bought a piece of what used to be called O'Connor Vineyard and will grow his own grapes. I am one Brooklynguy who is excited about this development.

So, what wines does St Innocent make? Among the whites there are a Pinot Gris, a Pinot Blanc, and a Chardonnay every year. There used to be a sparkling wine that was considered one of the better ones coming out of Oregon, but Mark has focused on other things in recent years. I tasted the 2000 Brut 3 years ago and I really liked it, by the way.

Then there are the amazing Pinots. Small production, amazing aromatics, mouth coating lushness yet balanced and light-footed, sensible use of oak, no filtering, sometimes no fining, delicious in youth but with the ability to improve with age for more than a decade. These are incredibly serious and incredibly delicious wines, and I think there's something for everyone here. And Mark Vlossak continues to charge incredibly reasonable prices. There is only one wine that costs over $40 (White Rose), and most are in the mid to low 30s.

There is an entry level Pinot called Villages Cuveé, which always comes in under $25. There are several single vineyard wines, and they have changed over the years as vineyards change hands. The current lineup includes Shea, Justice (young vines and released by St Innocent for the first time with the 2005 vintage), Temperance Hill, White Rose (a gorgeously fruity younger drinking wine that I always think of as the Hugh Hefner of Pinot), and the dense and structured Anden and Seven Springs. In a sad turn of events, The formerly married couple who own Seven Springs and Anden (they are contiguous vines on a big hill) decided to sell the vineyard, and the new owner will not renew Mark's lease. So no more Pinot from those vineyards after the 2006 vintage. But there is a new wine in 2006 called Momtazi. Something lost, something gained...

Alright, so how about the 2004 St Innocent Pinot Noir Shea, ($32 from the winery)? Amazing. Just delicious and interesting and satisfying wine. A great value too. It starts out with dense and dark aromas of violets and lots of blue and black fruit. And it tastes that way too at first, quite big and powerful, although there is obvious acidity and a mineral streak too. With a couple of hours of airtime the wine became almost perfectly balanced, with beautiful ripe blue fruit and floral smells and flavors, a pleasant fine grained tannic structure, and nice acidic and mineral frame. The 13.8% alcohol was not intrusive. And it was just delicious too. At four hours open it was like drinking liquid violets and blueberries. And although the wine felt nice and light on the palate, it was absolutely mouth coating and sappy, and I had dried roses in my mouth after I swallowed. I don't even remember what we ate for dinner with this wine, and it honestly didn't even matter. The wine was dinner.

So I guess BrooklynLady and I batted an impressive .400 during our Five Nights of Oregon Pinot. If I were a ballplayer, that would be hall of fame type numbers. Probably not so great when spending over $30 per bottle though. But consider that two of the five wines were outstanding, one (the Adelsheim) wine was quite good too, and now we're at a respectable .500. Still not great in wine buying, I know, but remember that this was an exercise in checking in with wine that we have moved away from in recent years.

I learned that I actually want to drink more Oregon wine. It's just a select few producers whose wine I want to drink. There are a few other Oregon Pinot producers I love, like Brick House, and one other one that is such small production that I just can't name them here because I don't want to have to have a physical fight with you over the few bottles that make it to shelves in Portland. Maybe if you're nice to me I'll tell you.

Thanks for participating in Five Nights of Oregon Pinot.

Five Nights of Oregon Pinot Noir - Part IV

The fourth night of our 2004 Oregon Pinot Noir festival brings BrooklynLady and I back to a sentimental favorite. Adelsheim was born in 1978, although the work began in or before 1971. David and Ginny Adelsheim are true Oregon wine pioneers. Not the very first to grow wine grapes, but among the first.

I honestly do not remember how I knew to visit Adelsheim when BrooklynLady and I toured Willamette wine country in the unusually sunny and warm first week of January, 2005. Yup, basically 2 years ago on the button. But we did visit, and what a visit it was! Not easy to find on the back roads outside of Newberg, but lots of fun driving around. Inside an unassuming building was this completely modern and impressive wine making facility with enormous stainless steel tanks and wooden barrels and old vintages of wines past lingering along the walls. And a cavernous and quiet cellar where the oak barrels rested with their bounty, waiting for their chance at the big time.

After our tour of the facility we tasted through some "wacky whites," as the like to call their Pinot Blanc and other white offerings, but the real prize for us was the Pinot. Don't get me wrong - Adelsheim makes good wine period, white, red, or déglace Pinot Noir dessert wine. In fact, it was an Adelsheim wine that recently won Eric Asimov's NY Times Tasting panel sampling of Oregon Pinot Gris.

But back to Pinot. We tasted the "entry level" Oregon Pinot Noir, produced every year, Elizabeth's Reserve, a blend of the best barrels from all of the vineyards, and one single vineyard wine, Quarter Mile Lane. We were dizzy with pleasure by the time we tasted the Quarter Mile Lane - these wines were just so characterful and memorable. I still have one bottle of 2001 Adelsheim Quarter Mile Lane Vineyard that I'm saving for something special with BrooklynLady.

There are five single vineyard wines made by Adelsheim: Quarter Mile Lane, Calkins Lane, Bryan Creek, Ribbon Springs, and Goldschmidt (named after a former Governor who used to own the vineyard). They are made most years, but if conditions make it impossible, the wine is not produced. There was no 2004 Quarter Mile Lane, for example.

We've enjoyed many a fine Adelsheim bottle since that trip in 2005. One that I particularly remember is the 1994 Elizabeth's Reserve that we drank while packing the night before our Loire Valley trip. We've tasted most vintages since 2001 of both the Oregon Pinot and Elizabeth's Reserve, and single vineyard wines here and there too. The Oregon wine is good, but it is not as good in its price point as the Elizabeth's Reserve or the single vineyard wines are in theirs.

I like what I think of as the Adelsheim style - ripe and fruity, fresh and clean, and true to the terroir of the Willamette Valley, with blue fruits and pine. Not overpowering, but firm and present in the mouth, great with lamb or other gamy meat. That said, I've not been as crazy about the wines from the 2004 as I was in previous vintages. Hard to tell if it's my palate that has changed, or if it is the wines. We decided to re-taste an Adelsheim wine for the fourth night of our Pinot festival, and we approached it with excitement, as we always do with Adelsheim.

2004 Adelsheim Pinot Noir Elizabeth's Reserve ($43 from the winery). Rich purple hue but completely translucent. Aromas of black cherry, spice, and cough syrup, a bit of pine also. A very nice nose, especially after a 90 minute decant. Very smooth texture with fine grained tannins, and a ripe dark fruited palate. This is sweet and sappy, but also a bit out of focus. It might need some more time to come together, although I think that the acidity is just not there to balance out and bring focus to the wine. Certainly very good stuff, but not the finest Elizabeth's Reserve I've tasted.

Maybe my palate has changed. Maybe Adelsheim was not entirely successful at handling the challenges of the 2004 growing season. Maybe I'm a total idiot. Who really knows. But I've had too much good wine from Adelsheim to stop now. Let's see what the 05 vintage brings.

Five Nights of Oregon Pinot - Part III

On this, the third night of our little Oregon wine festival, we drank a wine we've had several times in the past, the 2004 Chehalem Pinot Noir Corral Creek. Chehalem makes three single vineyard Pinot Noirs, a Reserve wine, and several blends. Single Vineyard wines include Stoller, Ridgecrest, and Corral Creek. I have never tasted Stoller or the Reserve wine, and I hear that they are quite good. There is also a wide range of whites, and Chehalem is considered to be among the absolute top tier of Oregon dry Riesling producers. If the one bottle I had means anything, I can see why.

Of the Pinots I've sampled, Corral Creek is the wine I've enjoyed best from their lineup, as I always find it to have nice balance and fresh red fruit. Harry Peterson-Nedry describes the vineyard and its fruit better than I can so read this if you're interested. We remembered the 04 wine as being pretty spicy and juicy, so we decided to cook up a little something spicy to accompany the wine. Yup, I think of it in that order.

We made a pot of red lentil stew mildly spiced with roasted fenugreek, cumin, and coriander seeds, and threw in some lamb shoulder chunks that I hacked up from chops. I Just brought fenugreek back into the spice inventory in our house, and let me tell you - such an interesting and delicious flavor. The house smelled great for the next 48 hours (but then a week later, as our windows are taped up against the cold, it began to smell like the back seat of a shoddy car service, but what are you gonna do?). At the bottom of this post I'm sharing the recipe with you.

2004 Chehalem Pinot Noir Corral Creek Vineyard, $39 from the winery. The wine was light rose colored and translucent and highly perfumed out of the bottle. Nose was pretty red fruits and vanilla with a spicy frame. The nose faded a bit after about 15 minutes though, leaving more vanilla that I might like. The palate was pleasantly fruity with nice spice and even some herbal notes. But this wine is almost 15% alcohol, and it was all too apparent, as the flavors were rarely allowed to shine in a pure way. There were fleeting hints of ripe cherries and fleeting hints of a pine and herbal finish. But they were fleeting, and the strength of the alcohol was a bit dominant. Maybe a longer decant would have helped to soften and balance the wine. But I know that this one drinks young, so the hour we gave it should have sufficed. We wanted to like this wine, and BrooklynLady enjoyed it more than I did. I still suspect that I have not tasted the best that Chehalem has to offer. I read that the 2005 Chehalem wines have alcohol levels in the 13s. I'd like to try them.

Here is the recipe for red lentil stew with lamb and fenugreek:

In a large pot, put maybe a pound of rinsed red lentils under about two inches of water. Bring to a boil, let boil rapidly for two minutes or so, spooning off any nitrogen-white-scum that rises to the surface, and then lower the heat to a simmer and partially cover the pot. These will be cooked in under a half hour, but I like to book them a bit longer until they completely fall apart.

Wash and dry about one pound of lamb shoulder chops (don't use loin or rib for this), cut into small pieces keeping the bones and the meat, salt liberally, and set aside. Take about one teaspoon and a bit more fenugreek seeds, one teaspoon of cumin seeds, and one teaspoon of coriander seeds (use fresh spices - old ones taste old) and roast them in a hot thick-bottomed pan on the stove top over medium heat until you can smell the aromas wafting up. Shake the seeds around in the pan as you go. When they smell nice and toasty, put them into a spice grinder or a mortar and pestle and grind them. Try not to swoon.

In another pot on medium-high heat cook one large thinly sliced onion in vegetable oil, stirring a lot to prevent sticking. Add one large clove of finely chopped garlic and if you like (and I like), some freshly crushed dried red chilies. I would stop at two if you want to taste the other spices. Continue to stir a lot - garlic browns easily at high heat. When the onion and garlic mixture is well cooked - at least 10 minutes, probably more - it should be translucent and aromatic, but not brown, add the ground spices and continue to stir for another 5 minutes or so.

Add the lamb chunks and keep stirring. When they are browned on all sides, lower the heat to low-medium, and pour the red lentils into the lamb pot. Oooh yeah. Let this simmer for a while. It will be delicious after a half hour but the lamb will become more tender if you can wait at least 45 minutes, especially if you are using good local organic lamb - it cooks faster. Before you serve this, add a fair amount of good coarse salt. I like this with flat bread - you can use it to pick up the stew. But rice is fine -whatever you like. We actually ate it out of soup bowls with no starch, along with a green salad with tangy dressing - have something acidic to cut the stew's rich lambyness. You might even squirt a little lemon juice right into each portion of stew. With a spicy and fresh Pinot, this is right on.

Five Nights of Oregon Pinot Noir - Part II

Our second wine more than made up for the disappointment of the first night. We drank a wine by Belle Pente, a producer whose wines I've tasted on only a few occasions, but I have been really impressed each time. Most recently back in March at a wine bar in Portland.

Brian and Jill O'Donnell, owners of Belle Pente, practice biodynamic and organic farming in their estate vineyard, and they buy grapes from Murto Vineyard that are also grown according to those standards. Their reds are fermented using only natural yeasts.

Belle Pente bottles a range of whites, including a Pinot Gris, a Riesling, a Gewurztraminer, and of course a Chardonnay. There are "entry level" Pinots are called Carlton District and Dundee Hills, wines typically made from younger wines from an assortment of vineyards. Single Vineyards wines include Murto, their own Belle Pente Vineyard, and a then the Estate Reserve, a selection of the best barrels from the best blocks of the Belle Pente Vineyard. Prices really are quite reasonable. Entry level wines cost less than $30, and Murto and the Estate Reserve cost in the mid $30s from the winery, about $40 at a store. If you can find them, that is. This is very small production and the wines sell out basically immediately.

We've had Belle Pente wines a couple of times now, mostly red, and a white or two thrown in for good measure. Our experience with this bottle cemented for me that this is absolutely one of my favorite Oregon producers. We enjoyed this wine, the 2004 Belle Pente Pinot Noir Estate Reserve with pan roasted lamb shoulder chops, purple top turnip purée, and green salad with this yummy tarragon white wine vinegar dressing I've been working on.

The wine was exceptional, just fantastic. So hauntingly delicious and complex. I think that there is a definite sense of place in this wine, as that Oregon blue fruit and piney earth is easily recognizable on the palate. But where some Oregon Pinots can be heavy, this one is light and graceful, like a tai chi master. This is fresh tasting, elegant, balanced, and compelling wine, worth sitting around and talking about. BrooklynLady said "this smells old world and tastes new world," and I think I know what she meant, as I might easily mistake it for Burgundy on the nose, but not on the palate. Here are my notes on the wine:

2004 Belle Pente Pinot Noir Estate Reserve ($38 at Great Wine Buys in Portland).
Gorgeous rose petal color and absolutely translucent. This might give the impression of lightness, and the wine is elegant and light-medium bodied, but don't be fooled - this is very powerful stuff. The nose is perfumed and heady, with clean and pure sour cherry and dried rose petal aromas, and prominent clove scents amidst the other spicy dried orange peel hints. Such a complex and beautiful nose. After two hours, when the wine was nearly gone, there was some alcohol (13.8%) heat on the nose which was odd - why now, after so long open? The palate is juicy and fresh, and piercing with acidity at the same time. There are cool dark lush layers of fruit framed by gentle tannins, and kept in check by vibrant acidity. This is honestly one of the best bottles of Oregon wine I've ever had.

Five Nights of Oregon Pinot Noir - Part I

I've been a bit neglectful of my Oregon wines lately. I've become such an old world wine nut that I seem to reach for a Burgundy every time I want Pinot. But I went to Portland recently, I will have to go several times again this year, I have a load of Oregon wines in my cellar, and I need to refresh my Oregon wine palate. You know, time to re-visit some old favorites and see how I feel about them nowadays.

In that spirit, BrooklynLady and I dug into the ol' wine fridge and sampled five Oregon Pinots from the Willamette Valley. We drank these wines with dinner, not all together in the typical tasting format. Why? Because I evaluate and enjoy wine better when I enjoy it with a meal. We were looking for some sort of continuity in the wines, though, so we decided to taste wines from the 2004 vintage.

2004 was a tough year in the Willamette Valley because a cold spell and then later on a rainy spell threatened the crop. Yields were lower and in some vineyards acids were also a bit low. Low yields can be a good thing, but low acids generally do not make for long aging wine. Many producers made very fruit forward wines in 2004 that need not be aged for too long in order to fully develop. There are exceptions, of course, but we figured that the wines we selected for our Five Nights would be ready to drink now.

We began our Five Nights of Oregon Pinot Noir festival by looking to Shea Vineyard, what must surely be considered one of the "Grand Cru" vineyards of Oregon, if there were such a classification. Dick and Dierdre Shea have been growing and selling Pinot grapes since 1989 in the Willamette Valley. Many of the region's big name producers source their grapes from Shea. I'm talking about Mark Vlossak at St. Innocent and Panther Creek, Josh Bergstrom, Craig and Claudia Broadley, Lynn Penner-Ash, Scott Paul, and Beaux Freres (the label partly owned by Robert Parker). Until recently Sine Quo Non, the cult California-based producer made Pinot from Shea grapes (and charged a whole heck of a lot more than anyone else did).

The Sheas began bottling their own wine under the label Shea Wine Cellars in 1996 and shared the Adelsheim facility for wine making. I have tasted Shea Wine Cellars wines from several vintages in the past and enjoyed them very much, notably the 2000 and 2003 Estate wines (a blend of grapes from many of the vineyard blocks). I remember being impressed the the light and elegant, yet powerful feeling of the wine, and the complex aromatics.

So is Shea vineyard a stamp of quality for any wine? Or is it more like Clos Vougeot, the village that gives its name to the enormous Grand Cru vineyard near Chambolle-Musigny in Burgundy, in that the wines of each vintage emerge with huge differences in quality depending on the producer working with the grapes? Not that our little festival will in any way answer that question, but for me it's a start...

We included two wines made from Shea grapes in our Five Days festival, and we started with the namesake - Shea Wine Cellars. The Shea 04's got a lot of attention from Wine Spectator last year, their Estate Pinot coming in 15th on their top 100 list. The other wines did well also with lots of 90+ point ratings. This is interesting in that they used a new wine maker for the 2004 vintage, Chris Mazepink. Also beginning with the 2004 vintage Shea reclaimed the plot Sine Quo Non was leasing and used the grapes to make their own wine, called Wädenswil Clone. I tasted this wine a year ago and re-reading those notes, I was clearly impressed, although the wine was not my favorite style of Pinot. Why not begin our little festival by re-tasting this powerhouse wine?

We drank the 2004 Shea Wine Cellars Wädenswil Clone (about $48 from the winery) with chicken thighs pounded flat and rolled with a grated Parmesan and flour mixture (hello umami), then fried until crisp, and a green salad full of sunflower and green pea sprouts. It was a Friday night and we were feeling pretty loose.

To be really blunt and honest, as is my main resolution for this blog in 2008, even if it means being negative, I just didn't care for the wine at all this time around. BrooklynLady was seriously underwhelmed too. Why? Well for one, it bore little resemblance to the liquid that comes from pressing grapes and then fermenting the juice. It seemed totally mechanized and manipulated, so artificial. The main flavors were wood and some dark fruit, but in a candied and artificial way, and a fleeting way too, as the wood kept banging me in the mouth. It seemed to me that there was little that was natural about this wine, and that bothered me. BrooklynLady just didn't like the taste.

Okay, so far so good. No, really - it's a good thing to understand if you no longer like a certain wine, and why you no longer like it. Everyone's palate changes over time, and accepting that and learning from it is part of what makes this fun...isn't it?

Sips and Vittles in Portland

It was pouring on Wednesday in Portland. Sometimes it would slow to a drizzle, but mostly it rained hard, from about 2 pm onward. I don't own a car and I don't often drive. Imagine a Brooklynguy hunched up behind the wheel of a rental Ford, straining to see the street signs through the rain, occasionally missing a stop sign, generally posing a bit of a danger to the drivers and pedestrians of lovely Portland. Hoping against hope that the drive would soon be over and I could just unwind from a day of meetings and have some Oregon Pinot.

So you understand that by the time I parked (safe and sound, no one injured) outside of Noble Rot, I was pretty psyched to settle in at the bar. It was early and I was the only one there but the staff interrupted their various set-up duties to make sure I was comfortable and felt welcome. Can I just take this opportunity to say that I find Portlanders to be so genuinely helpful and friendly to strangers - a breath of fresh air, it is. But back to Noble Rot - a stylish but unaffected place, really nice looking. Comfortable space at the bar, plenty of booths, an upstairs party space, rows and rows of wine bottles on shelves lining the walls, framed wine maps too.

There were no fewer than 25 wines by the glass. They emphasize flights of three 2 oz. pours, at reasonable prices. On Wednesday there was a Crozes Hermitage flight, a Portuguese red flight, a New- World Sauvignon Blanc flight, and a flight of local wines from the Willamette Valley. Other by the glass options included mostly younger wines from South Africa to Burgundy, and there was a 1993 Leoville Barton for $16/glass, if you like that kind of thing.

I ordered an onion tart that was truly excellent. Rich and sweet caramelized onions on a short and flaky crust. So far so good. No way I'm drinking anything other than Oregon Pinot when I visit Portland. The first in the flight was a wine I'd never heard of called Matella (I think), and it was borderline undrinkable. High pitched with a turpentine edge to the nose, all out of balance, simple candied cherry fruit flavors. Bad wine, bad bad bad.

Then came the 2006 Chehalem 3 Vineyards Pinot Noir. I've enjoyed Chehalem's Pinot in the past, particularly the Corral Creek single vineyard bottling. There are Corral Creek grapes in this wine, also Ridgecrest and Stoller vineyard grapes. I think this is Chehalem's entry level Pinot, but I'm not positive. This didn't do anything for me. The nose was dark with some earthy blueberry fruit, but it was pretty one dimensional. And the palate was somewhat dilute. It lacked vibrancy and had none of the inspiring floral, earthy, or fruit notes that excite me in Pinot.

I was excited to taste the last Pinot in the flight, the 2006 Ken Wright McCrone Vineyard Pinot Noir. I've heard some good things about Ken Wright's wines, abut I've never tasted. Probably because they cost at least $40 a bottle, a lot to spend on a wine I've never tried. It had the best nose of the bunch, with a mellow cinnamon and blue fruit character. But the palate was completely uninspiring. Just no punch to it whatsoever, nothing to get excited about. No acidity that I could discern, the wine seemed flaccid.

It bothered me that these were the wines they're pouring at Noble Rot. I mean, don't they taste the wines they feature on their flights? They can't honestly be recommending these as the stars of the currently available local scene...can they? These bottles were opened and re-corked before I arrived and I noticed that the fill levels were pretty high on each of them. They weren't open too long and dead or anything. They just were very mediocre. Sad, because there are plenty of great current releases they could pour. Sorry if this sounds harsh, but they should know the local wines better than that. How am I supposed to want to go back there if that Oregon flight is the product of their tasting and deciding what to offer their customers?

I was so disheartened that I decided to race back over the river to Oregon Wines on Broadway, a wine bar that offers 15-20 Oregon Pinots by the glass, including the heavy hitters, which I craved by that time. I found this place back in March on another trip to Portland. I breathed a sigh of relief as I dug into a flight that included the 2005 Evesham Wood Cuvée Broadway, the 2005 Cristom Louise Vineyard, and the Ayres Piper Vineyard (which I actually didn't like so much, although it seems to be the new wine on the block).

Okay, sated with local Pinot, time for dinner.

Le Pigeon was fun, but I'm sorry to say that in the end it left me wanting more. Not more butter though, as I had about a half pound clogging my gut when I left. I sat at the cook's counter so I can tell you that the chef and the two cooks have lots of funky tattoos, laboriously mussy hairdos, they keep up a steady stream of hipster banter, and the music is loud (but good). There is a silver sautée pan hanging on the wall with the following engraving: "Best New Chef 2007 , Food and Wine Magazine. There is no mistaking it: you are in a hip place that has received lots of critical acclaim so far. The chef knows it, and you know it.

The menu was the most interesting I've seen in a long time. I enjoyed a flute of NV Ampelidae Armance, a Loire Valley bubbly that Nick G. recommended while perusing. Nothing like a glass of bubbly while looking over a menu. It just makes everything sound better. It wasn't easy, but I chose the bone marrow gnocchi with parsley, garlic, and snails for an appetizer. I could have ordered beef neck terrine, or scallops with sea urchin, or egg noodles with truffles, or bitter greens salad. So many nice sounding things!

Imagine my sadness upon discovering that this dish was completely overrun by one, and only one flavor: burned garlic. No surprise, as there must have been two or three tablespoons of the stuff in the dish. And at least an small ice cream scoop of butter (I saw it happen people, it was a lot of butter). Blindfolded, there would be no way at all to know what you were eating. Bone marrow? Parsley? Forget it. The snails were really good though, so I ate those and tried to make it through some of the gnocchi, because after all, the chef was standing right there.

I chose beef Bourgignone for an entrée because the server said it is the signature dish. It was perfectly fine, but nothing special. Beef cheeks braised to ultimate tenderness, some veg, an intensely rich and buttery stock reduction. A nice touch was the (maybe slightly pickled) red onions, which added a welcome shock of acidity to cut through the heart-stoppage. No way to think about dessert after a meal like this. I still feel kind of full.

The cooks bar was a lot of fun, very social. I spent the evening talking with guy named Benoit, a French guy living in northern California also in Portland alone on business. And this place was packed on a rainy Wednesday. I'm talking an hour wait for a party of two people. So as always, take everything I say with a grain of artisanal sea salt as there clearly are plenty of people who love this place. Unlike with Noble rot, I would happily go back to Le Pigeon and order differently (Benoit said his pork loin was excellent). Only I would sit at the communal tables because I don't want to know how much butter goes into my food, in situations like this.

Anyway...I hope you don't take this to mean that I didn't enjoy myself. I had a great time. And I appreciate very much all of your suggestions about where to go. I'm just an opinionated SOB, that's all, and I find the food at most restaurants with lofty aspirations to be disappointing. I'm looking forward to trying the other places next time - I am undeterred. And I brought back one hell of a case of Oregon wine too - another time though because somehow this post is already 4 miles long.

Your Portland Suggestion Box --- HERE

I'm in Portland Oregon this coming Tuesday evening for a few hours before heading to the airport. I've been told that I have to have dinner at Le Pigeon, which from the looks of the menu and wine list, should be a pleasure.

Anyone have any other Portland suggestions for a Brooklynguy with a few evening hours on a late December solo Tuesday evening? I'd be eternally grateful. C'mon, don't be shy - tell me what I can go do with myself.

Recent Sips - July 2007

Some interesting wines from July that did not get individual posts:

Loire Valley

2006 Olga Raffault Chinon Rose, $15 (Chambers Street Wines).

I'm not taking sides in the rose debate. Instead I will just say that this is my favorite rose this summer. A rose of Cabernet Franc, this wine is more pink than salmon colored, but its a muted and classy pink. Very floral in the nose, fruity but dry with snappy acidity, this wine is a pleasure.

2005 Francois Cazin Cour-Cheverny Vendanges Manuelles, $13.50 (Chambers Street Wines). Cour-Cheverny is a tiny appellation in the north-west part of the Loire Valley. It is the home of Romorantin, the highly acidic grape beloved by acid-freaks and wine geeks everywhere. I usually love this wine, but oddly, I have tried the '05 version a couple of times now and I am not inspired. I prefer the 04. Again, strange - '05 was supposed to have been perfect growing conditions. I have high hopes for Cazin's Cuvee Renaissance, the late harvest wine with lots more residual sugar. You know, the one that ages like a great Riesling, but costs about $18?

2005 Champalou Vouvray, $16 (Big Nose Full Body).
In my pantheon of Vouvray producers, Foreau and Huet are both Zeus. There are lesser gods - gods yes, but not Foreau or Huet. Champalou is one of those producers. Champalou puts out small quanitites of highly prized moelleux (sweet wine), and also several cuvees of dry Vouvray. This is the entry level bottling. I very much enjoyed the crystalline and incredibly drinkable 2004 Vouvray, so how would the "vintage to end all vintages" 2005 be? Not as good, as it turned out. Too big for its britches. Lemon curd and meringue on the nose and palate, with lots of fat. Even on day two, and there is not enough acidity to balance things out. This is good wine, with fresh flavors, but it is in the end, not all that drinkable. Too much meringue. Was this just too ripe, or did the wine maker indulge too much, and not rein things in?

2005 Chateau de Hureau Saumur-Champigny, $14 (Chambers Street Wines).
You know, between Roches Neuves, Filliatreau, and Hureau, Saumur-Champigny has become my go-to appellation for food friendly, delicious, but inexpensive Loire reds. This wine is just fantastic at this price. A nice nose of dark fruit, some flowers, and a bit of tobacco, and a juicy and lush palate that mingles dark berries with some earth and a bit of cocoa. This is not a very complicated wine, but it's SO good, guaranteed to make you smile. This is absolutely a $15 Beauty.

2005 Chateau de Hureau Saumur-Champigny Les Fevettes, $22 (Chambers Street Wines). Hureau makes three reds, this being their version of a 1er Cru, if you will. In a vintage as wonderful as '05, I'm not sure why this wine was so uninspiring, but I prefer the basic Saumur. I don't think it's a drunk too young thing - '05 was plenty ripe and this wine is not tight and tannic, its just not as flavorful as the entry level wine. Strange...

Oregon

2004 Adelsheim Pinot Noir Goldschmidt Vineyard, $40 (Winery). A venerable Willamette Valley producer, Adelsheim has been putting out quality wine since the early '90s. I must say, though, that I have not been as impressed by their recent offerings as I was by wines from 2002 and earlier. I heard they replaced the wine maker, but I'm not sure. I have yet to really enjoy one of their 2004 Pinots, and that is really sad because I was on the mailing list for their entire (expensive) Pinot lineup. I first tasted this wine in the company of a few phenomenal Burgundies, and it was clearly the inferior wine. But with another 18 months of bottle age, what about now?

No better. Here were my notes from our dinner that night: Nice blueberry and earth smells right out of the bottle, but they drift away rather quickly, leaving not much in its place. Good wine, but so uninteresting, and at $40, incredibly overpriced.

What's interesting, is that this wine received 92 points from Tanzer. Would he have liked it less with dinner? Am I missing something? Who knows. Points are a bit silly anyway, no?

2004 Sineann Pinot Noir Resonance, $46 (Avalon Wines).
Sineann makes several Pinots, a Zinfindel, Syrah, a Cabernet, and plenty of white wine too. The fruit is sourced from all over Oregon and Washington State, Peter Rosback the wine maker is a bit of a cult figure, and the wines get consistently high scores. I figured out a little while ago that although I recognize the quality, the style is not my favorite in Pinot Noir.

I paid a load of money for this wine about two years ago when I didn't understand what I could could get for the same $. Can't hold onto the bottle forever, and a recent good review by Dr. Debs made me think that it's time to open mine.

I don't know - everyone on CellarTracker who tasted this wine LOVED it - 95 points, 94 points, etc. Not this Brooklynguy. I thought it was huge and hot, with little Pinot character, and with nothing to think about. A mishmash of bigness, if you will. My favorite Pinots are elegant, with several, often conflicting aroma and flavor characteristics. This was dull and uninspiring, and honestly for my $45, I could buy almost two bottles of far superior Pinot today. Sorry for the rant, but it's really against myself and my proclivity for spending way too much on sub-par wine a few years ago (and probably today too but the jury is still out).

My notes from that night: Fine fresh cherry smells and flavors, velvety texture. But simple and unidimensional, and a poor value at this price.

Wine Dinner Envy

I received this email from St Innocent the other day. I normally delete these things rather quickly, but I find myself reading the menu again and again, and sweating the awesome wine lineup. The thing that kills me is that the last St Innocent wine dinner in NYC was also at the Tasting Room and cost about $275 before gratuity. This dinner in Portland features wines from St Innocent and also from the esteemed Domaine Voillot, a producer I am very fond of. There are library wines, truffles, fois gras, and all sorts of goodies, and this event somehow clocks in at $100 before gratuity. Hello Portland!

There is another dinner in NYC, again at the tasting room, but I bet the price will be more than double what it is in Portland. The price for the NYC dinner is not listed in the email, and the NYC dinner will not feature Voillot wines.

I have serious wine dinner envy. If I were only going to be in Portland that day...maybe I can use frequent flier miles. Maybe I can participate via live aroma-feed. Anyway, those of you in the northwest - you should go and let me know how it was. here is the email:

3 Wine Dinners - one in Portland, OR (Thursday, July 26th), one in Seattle, WA (Tuesday, July 31st) and one in NYC (Wednesday, Sept. 5th).

Mark Vlossak, St. Innocent's winemaker, will be doing two outrageous wine dinners jointly with Volnay Burgundy legend (in Mark's mind anyway) Jean-Pierre Charlot of Domaine Joseph Voillot (Volnay).

Sorely missed Salem Chef Bernard Malherbe (formerly Fleur de Sel) agreed to re-invigorate his French genes and cook a six course dinner at his current Portland restaurant, Pata Negra. The following week in Seattle, the two will pour their offerings at the fabled Canlis Restaurant. Both dinners will feature 2005 red and white Burgundies from Voillot and 2005 Pinot noir and Chardonnay from St. Innocent. As a bonus, both wineries will pour Pinot noirs from the great 2002 vintage and in Portland, library wines from the early 1990's.Here is the sample menu for the Portland event:

Black Lentil and Citrus salad with Mussels
D. Voillot 2005 Meursault Chevalieres / St. Innocent 2005 Chardonnay Freedom Hill

Peking Duck Breast with Goat Cheese Polenta and Fig Vincotto Reduction
D. Voillot 2005 Pommard Vielle Vignes / St. Innocent 2005 Pinot noir, Justice Vineyard

Free Range Beef Ribeye with Blue Cheese and Fingerling Potatoes
D. Voillot 2005 Volnay 1er Champans / St. Innocent 2005 Pinot noir, Shea Vineyard

Wild Mushroom Risotto with Truffles and Fois Gras
D. Voillot 2002 Volnay 1er Fremiets / St. Innocent 2002 Pinot noir, Seven Springs

Watercress and Arugula Salad with Crotin Chavigniol and Carmelized Walnuts
D. Voillot '93 or '95 Volnay / St. Innocent 1993 Pinot noir, O'Connor Vineyard

Dessert
St. Innocent 2000 Brut

Sound tasty?
for Portland 7/26/07 call: Pata Negra 503-227-7282, 1818 NW 23rd Place, Portland, OR 97210
Price is $100 per person (plus gratuity)

for Seattle 7/31/07 call: Canlis 206-283-3313, 2576 Aurora Ave. North, Seattle, WA 98109
Inquire for details

Recent Sips - June 2007

I kept meaning to write posts about some of the interesting wine I tasted in June, but I kept getting derailed. Here are some notes on wines that did not get their own post:

Burgundy

2005 Jean Manciat Macon Charnay Vieille Vignes, $21 (Chambers Street Wines).
I loved this wine back in March at the real Wine Attack Tasting. I asked about the wine but was told that it would not be imported. But then, all of the sudden, there it is on the shelves and at an enticing $21. An incredible value, I would assert. The new oak is very obvious right now, not overwhelming at all, but obvious. So is the baby fat on the very ripe fruit. Delicious now, this wine will be such a star with a few years of age, when everything integrates. Right now there are lively and fresh aromas of citrus and pure water, some minerals, some tropical oak smells. Clean and balanced, with citrus, mineral, and stone fruit flavors, and some tropical flavors from the oak. Good acidity. I opened this too early - the wine was best after an hour open. I will look forward to cracking open the other bottles in a few years.

2005 Lafouge Auxey-Duresses 1er Cru Les Duresses, $28 (Chambers Street Wines).
I finally got around to tasting the 2004 version of this wine, really liked it, and boom - we're on to 2005 already. I am so glad to report, however, that this is just awesome, and at under $30 a bottle, you're crazy if you don't grab a few of them. I've been recommending this wine to my friends who are looking to get into the 05 Burgundy game without breaking the bank. Of Lafouge's three 1er Cru Auxeys, this is supposedly the one for drinking young. Maybe so, but I found this to improve tremendously after an hour plus open, and then overnight. At its best it had lovely floral and cherry aromas with complex undertones of leaves and earth. Very light and elegant, yet assertive and potent with great acidity. A balanced and interesting wine that will be lots of fun to share over the next few years.

Rhone Valley

2003 Domaine Pierre Usseglio Chateauneuf-du-Pape, $40 (Chambers Street Wines).
I'm a fish out of water in the Rhone Valley. I try but I just don't get it. I find the wines hard to sip on their own, and I only think of pairing them with the heaviest of foods. Maybe that's because the alcohol levels tend to be high, or maybe because of the intense nature of the wines, with tar, meat and roasted flavors. This wine did not bring me closer to a Rhone epiphany. Deetrane and Mike really liked it, but I found it heavy and very roasted, especially at first. The nose eventually showed some nice raspberries and dusty earth, and there was a pleasant mingling of raspberry liquor and meaty flavors. I could appreciate this as interesting, but not particularly enjoyable to me for drinking.

2005 Domaine Monpertuis Cote du Rhone Vignoble de la Ramiere, $14 (Chambers Street Wines). This wine, like the above CDP, is mostly Grenache (90% in this case). Monpertuis is a reputed producer making reasonably priced CDP. I tasted the 2001 Monpertuis CDP a few months ago and enjoyed it, but not as much as this wine. It is clearly a style thing, because any southern Rhone lover would find that insane, and me a Rhone ignoramus, I imagine. But I liked this wine because it was drinkable - clear raspberry red color, almost a hint of fuchsia. Yes, there is roasted meat, herbs, and blood on the nose, but the texture and flavor of the wine is much lighter than the CDP. I could roll the wine around in my mouth and enjoy it, it was pure tasting and full of fresh fruit, with fine grained tannins. We sipped it while making dinner, and then enjoyed it very much with our turkey burgers.

Oregon

2002 St Innocent Pinot Noir Seven Springs Vineyard, $25 (secondary market).

I hope that this wine is going through a dumb phase, because it was most restrained and reserved. Revealing almost nothing on the nose – some dark cherry and spice, but that’s after 45 minutes and enough swirling to make a dervish dizzy. Completely closed on the palate too, although the texture was nice. On the St Innocent website wine maker Mark Vlossak says “Maybe the best wine I have ever made. Drink some now and age some for 12-15 years,” and he wrote that on January 1st 2006. So my “now” might be a year into a dumb phase. Or the wine might be disappointing. Or the guy I bought it from might have abused it. Time will tell, as I have enough of this in the cellar to water your lawn.

2004 St Innocent Pinot Noir Temperance Hill, $25 (Winery).
This is one of St Innocents less expensive (but they are all reasonably priced) early drinking Pinots, and I have always enjoyed it. I drank my three bottles of this wine last summer, but Deetrane is more patient than I. He opened this the other day at a BBQ and boy was it fantastic. Everyone at the table loved it, and this was a table cluttered with several pricey big-name wines. Light and lively on the nose with clean red fruit and earth, and bursting with red cherries on the palate, some nice pine and herbal characteristics on the finish. Impressive balance and texture. An excellent Pinot, and I defy you to find a better quality American Pinot at the $25 price point. C’mon, I double dare you.

New York

2002 Castello di Borghese Cabernet Franc Reserve, $32 (winery).

I liked this wine enough to buy a couple bottles last August when BrooklynLady and I visited the North Fork. I know I should wait, but when we made delicious herbed local lamb skewers earlier this month, it just seemed like a good time to give this local wine a go. I really liked it again! Very different style, to my palate, from the Loire Cabernet Francs I usually drink. This wine is bright garnet red and translucent, with dark fruit, flowers, and cedar on the nose. When I get cedar on the nose I think of Bordeaux blends, and Cab Franc is certainly a part of that. Maybe the producer was going for that style? In any case, the wine was just delicious, medium bodied with pure and clean plummy and blackberry flavors, and undertones of that same pleasant cedar. The earthy leathery funkiness that is usually there in a Loire red wine was absent here. An interesting and highly enjoyable departure from my usual Cab Franc habits. Hard to make a habit of it at $32 a pop, but certainly a yummy and distinctive wine.