My 2006 Pinot Noir And A Tasting Note

There's no other way to put it. I've struggled with my 2006 Pinot Noir.

There was some hydrogen sulfide stink during primary fermentation back in October 2006, but it went away with some gentle stirring of the fermenting juice. Aeration helps gets rid of stinky smells. And stinky fermentations aren't usual.

Then last January I racked the wine after it had been in barrel a few months and became stinky again. But I think I made a mistake. I was relying on malolactic fermentation to happen naturally, and when I racked the wine I knew it hadn't finished ML. But I think I left too much of the lees behind, meaning I took away the key ingredient to natural ML fermentation, the fine lees sediment that you get after primary fermentation.

Without the lees, I probably should have innoculated for ML. But I didn't. Instead I waited for spring, and indeed the wine began to fizz as spring arrived and the temperature warmed up a bit. I thought ML was progressing normally, but the fizzing never subsided during the summer.

For whatever reason, I waited until September to see if there was malic acid left in the wine. Turns out there was still 1.4 g/L of malic, not a lot if we were just beginning ML but a huge amount nearly one year after harvest. We need to get ML done and get the wine sulfured to keep it fresh. So I innoculated with freeze dried ML culture and kept the wine relatively warm (mid 60sF) to promote the acid fermentation. Immediately the fizzing increased and I was happy.

But the fizzing didn't stop, and after Christmas I tested the wine again. No malic left. Hmmm, then why is it fizzing? A winemaker friend suggested that maybe the wine isn't dry, and that the ML bacteria might be working on the sugar. But it tastes dry and seemed to ferment dry (-1.5 or -2 on a hydrometer, meaning essentially dry). And if there was even a little sugar, wouldn't the ML bacteria start on that and only get to the malic acid once the sugar was gone? The important thing here is that, when malic acid bacteria feeds on sugar, the result is volatile acidity that can make the wine smell like nail polish remover.

Who knows what was happening, but with malic definitely gone, I hit the wine with 60ppm of sulfur dioxide and the fizzing stopped. So how does the wine taste?

Before the SO2 addition, I feared that the wine lacked freshness. Too much time in relatively warm cellar conditions can take a toll on even sturdy, young wine. SO2 can mitigate the aldehydes that give that stale, not so fresh flavor, and SO2 is one of the key things winemakers use to "clean up" a wine before bottling. Meaning, use sulfur to bind up the compounds in a wine that muddy the aromas and flavors, making the wine appear fresher to our senses.

Happily, my fairly large SO2 addition seems to have helped freshen the wine. But I look back on the evolution of this single barrel of Wahle vineyard pinot noir and think of all the things I'd do differently. Beginning with staying on top of ML much better and intervening sooner.

I'll send a sample out to the lab to see how my ph and free SO2 (sulfur that still is active in the wine, meaning the sulfur I've added that is still available to react with oxygen or other compounds that can threaten a wine). Then I'll add SO2 to make sure I have enough for bottling, then rack into a bottling tank and bottle this stuff. That's probably in April.

A barrel sample yesterday seemed a little funky at first, but I was pretty happy with it as it opened up. This is ripe, typcial 2006 Willamette Valley Pinot Noir, not as delicate and lacy as I'd like, but full of stuffing and probably something that will please more people than my ideal wine. I just want to make sure it stays as fresh as possible, so that the ripe fruit flavors don't wade into cooked, raisiny areas. That's not great for something like zinfandel, but it's absolutely horrible for pinot noir.

Which leads me to a tasting note of the 2006 Bruno Pinot Noir Willamette Valley. This simply bottling is made by Evesham Wood for its local distributor, Casa Bruno. Hence the name. I found a couple bottles of this at Storyteller locally for $9. It's usually about $15 locally, and for either price it's a steal.

This isn't big, rich pinot noir. And good for that, especially considering this is a 2006, not a year known for delicate, fragrant wines. And this isn't rich wine made for aging or impressing your friends. Instead, it's indeed delicate and fragrant red fruited pinot noir, perhaps as classic a Willamette Valley Pinot Noir as I've ever tasted. Light, fresh, bright, with alluring fragrance and mouthwatering acidity, this wine simply begs you to drink and eat a bite, and drink and eat another bite, and so on.

If you find this one, do decant as there is a lot of fine sediment at the bottom of the bottle. But if you told me this was Evesham Wood's basic Willamette Valley Pinot Noir, I'd believe it and say it's good. In fact, maybe a bit better to my taste than recent WV bottlings, which seems richer and fatter than in the past.

This Bruno wine is simply delicious. If you like John Thomas' Acme nonvintage Pinot Noir, this will be right up your ally. And for $15, or $9 (!!!), it's a ridiculous bargain. It's good to live in Oregon.

2005 Mastroberardino Lacryma Christi del Vesuvio

Here's another of those bargains I found recently at a local grocery discounter. I recently tried a 1995 Taurasi from Mastroberardino and liked it quite a bit. That red wine from the aglianico grape demonstrated why some people think aglianico is the nebbiolo of southern Italy. Lots of earthy, truffly, and red fruit aromas and flavors. Nice ageing potential.

Then, amid a variety of close outs recently, I saw a stack of 2005 Mastroberardino Lacryma Christi del Vesuvio for super cheap. I've never tried this DOC white wine (there is also red wine of the same name), and generally like trying things I've never tried. Am I glad I did.

Yes, I can now say with authority that Christ's Tears of Mt. Vesuvius makes for delicious drinking, alone or with food.

Actually, this is made from 100% Coda di Volpe, and if I tasted it blind I might have guessed this was a nice Loire chenin blanc. This light yellow colored wine has a gorgeous perfume that opens up nicely after being open for a day. Honeydew melon, some lanolin that I associate with chenin, then lots of minerals. In the mouth, it's not super complex but fresh, rounded but still bright tasting with yellow fruit flavors and a savory quality that makes you salivate. And wonder what's for dinner.

This is simply delicious wine and a steal at its close out price. I wouldn't have a problem buying it at the regular price either. But don't buy too much. This isn't a wine to keep very long. I suspect its charm will fade with time. Save more tightly wound whites for the cellar.

Blending Trials

A local winemaker whom I know called me recently with a nice invitation. He was doing blending trials and wondered if I could help him out. I jumped at the chance.

Winemakers it seems will let almost anyone sort fruit at harvest time. But it takes a while before you get the chance to really taste through their wines and give input on blending decisions.

Blending trials are when you taste through every barrel that's ready for bottling, evaluate the qualities of each sample, and make decisions about what wines will go into which bottlings. They are also a physical and mental challenge.

Seriously.

They are the vinuous equivalent of three days of interviewing potential new hires. Add in a mouth that feels like you've eaten a dozen bowls of Capt'n Crunch and you might understand how you can feel at the end. Wine is the last thing you want with dinner, that's for sure.

So three of us took nearly two days to taste many dozens of barrel samples in small groups, sniffing and spitting, of course, again and again. Then we talked about the wines and rated them on a rough scale, and moved on to the next group. Again and again.

It was nerve-wracking to give completely off the cuff comments in this rapid fire tasting environment, especially when I went first, ticking off the wines, what I smelled and tasted, the texture, the balance, what flaws, and what rough quality level the sample seemed to be.

The winemaker of course always spoke last. But I was amazed at how well I felt I did, finding the obvious issues in a few samples and generally feeling like I knew what I was doing. Not that we didn't disagree on things. But I never felt lost, like I shouldn't be there. And I think that the other taster and I had some valuable things to contribute to the winemaker.

We spent the last day coming up with sample blends, which were interesting to blend in cylinders and taste through. One blend of 10 barrels tasted radically different from that same blend with one additional barrel. How could they be so different?

The winemaker mentioned how he finds blending non-linear, so that adding an acidic wine to a blend won't necessarily yield a more acid tasting wine. Or more tannic, or more fruity, or whatever you might want to "add" to a blend to improve it or otherwise affect it in a certain way.

In the end, we didn't make final blending decisions, though we did come up with some blends that might end up pretty close to the final bottlings. But what a tremendous experience for me, seeing how to conduct trials and prepare sample blends. Makes me want to make a bunch of my own wine and do this for myself.

2003 Brezza Nebbiolo d'Alba Santa Rosalia

I wrote previously about finding this wine on close out locally for $6. This wine normally sells from $15 to $18, so at such a bargain price I bought six bottles on the spot.

Sadly, the first bottle was oxidized. It just tasted flat and to my mind "papery." Not "wet cardboard," which people often refer to when a wine has TCA cork taint. More like the way brown paper bags smell. Whatever it is, not good.

Of course I thought the remaining five bottles were equally shot. But the next one I tried was a real surprise. At first the aroma seemed a little flat. Then the wine began to open up, with ripe fruit aromas and a real nebbiolo perfume. All the dried flowers, tar, and spice you want in good Piemontese wine.

In the mouth, the wine was finely tannic and brightly acidic as nebbiolo tends to be. The flavors were cherry and spice, with a bit of jammy ripeness from the warm 2003 vintage. If you don't like dry wine, don't try this. And if you think that saying a wine was better with food is damning with faint praise, don't try this.

But I liked it. And more importantly, my wife liked it too. So I'm going to buy a few more. At this price, I'll take another clunker to find good wine this cheap.

If you try it, remember. Food. Very nice.

Wine Bargains in Portland

Maybe I should say "bargains," because you always need to be suspicious of deals that look good to be true.

Sometimes they are, and sometimes they aren't, even in the same shop. Or should I say, Grocery Outlet, which lately has had the best deals on interesting wine locally than I've seen in a while.

We know that I can't resist a bargain, so occasionally I check out local Grocery Outlets to see if they have something worthwhile. And no, I'm not talking about 5 year old white zin for $1.99 a bottle that's now turning amber in color.

No, once in a while they have some single digit deals on double digit wines that are pretty decent And for the skeptic, no, these wines usually aren't cooked. Damaged goods do show up at close out prices almost anywhere, but so do perfectly good bottles that, for one reason or another, simply must be priced to go away. And in my experience, the better labels I've found at the Grocery Outlet don't seem any more likely to be compromised than deals you'll find elsewhere.

So a couple weeks ago I stopped in at the McMinnville Grocery Outlet on 99W and found some closed out Italian wines from Castello Panaretta, all $10 or less. In fact, they had the same 2004 Paneretta Chianti Classico I saw as cheap as $10 at Portland retailers in the past few months for just $8. This same wine is back to $18 on local shelves now, as a new importer has taken over the line. Looks like the old importer dumped what stock remained. This isn't uncommon, but I found it interesting that the importer switch came mid-vintage, instead of with a new vintage.

The Panaretta wines all tasted undamaged to me, though only the basic Chianti tastes like Italian wine, so I didn't buy the Terrine or Torre e Destra in any quantity. But if you like them, they're just $10 each. That's well below the usual $20-$30 prices.

Then a 2003 Brezza Nebbiolo d'Alba Santa Rosalia for $6 caught my eye. I enjoyed this authentic Piedmont wine last year for $15 locally, so I immediately bought six bottles. Of course, this one tastes a bit tired as if it were poorly stored somewhere along the line. Live and learn.

After my experience at the Mac Grocery Outlet, curiousity got the better of me and I visited other local Outlets to see if different ones had different things to choose from. And did they.

At one, I found the Panaretta and Brezza deals, but also things like '04 Pieropan Soave for $6, '05 Mastroberardino Lacryma d'Christi and Greco di Tufo for $8, a stray bottle of '01 Panaretta Chianti Classico for $9, and some other unexpected things for low prices.

Then came the mother lode. One Grocery Outlet locally had a few cases of the '04 Drouhin Chassagne Montrachet Laguiche for $17, which I wrote about previously. Had, of course. It's gone now, thank you very much. One stray bottle of '03 Jadot Chassagne Montrachet may still be there.

And this same location also has estate wines from HdV, the Hyde/de Villaine project from Carneros down in southern Napa Valley. There's an '03 Estate Chardonnay for $19, an '04 Estate Syrah for the same price, and an '05 En La Guerra Chardonnay, the second label, for $13. That's a far cry from the usual $50-$60 prices on the first two or the $30 tab for the last one.

Even if these wines aren't your style, you have to admit these are amazing discounts. And nothing besides the Brezza Nebbiolo seems damaged, though taste for yourself before buying in quantity. This isn't a fine wine merchant we're talking about, and who knows what goes on in the back (or front, for that matter) of this chain's locations.

And no, I'm going going to give out specific locations. Do some searching, or email me. These deals aren't meant to be advertised, and even if the old practice of the wines business regarding unmentioned close outs isn't going to last in the internet age, I'm sure I've already said too much to keep from getting angry emails from in the business types who don't like their secrets published.

Weirdest Wine Gadget Ever

[edited after encouragement on the home front]

...Such as many bottles of the best wine buy I've found in a long time. That's the 2004 Joseph Drouhin Chassagne Montrachet "Marquis de Laguiche" that's really 1er cru white Burgundy from the Morgeots vineyard (according to two authoritative sources that I'd report if I were more academic and less lazy).

This wine retails from $50 to $90. I found some for $16.99 at a local discounter who has this and a few other treasures for a song. More on that soon enough.

Tonight's bottle was my tester to see if this stuff is damaged. Um, no. This is a gorgeous green gold in color with a fragrance of apples, clay, and subtle spices. No assertive, agressive oak, no weird buttery notes. Just pure, luscious white Burg.

Of course, I first tasted this "warm" after the failed [snip] experience. But it was so good, and only better after 30 minutes in the fridge. Which, you know, does a marvelous job chilling wine. Oh, the texture and flavors here. Definitely high thread count stuff, almost lacy if you can use that term for something other than red Burgundy. Just a baby now, I plan to cellar a bunch for the next decade.

That's more than I can say for the [snip, sorry].

Storyteller Wine Company

I'm not one for end of year "best of" lists. But I know this. One of the best things to happen in the Portland, OR, wine world this past year was the opening of Storyteller Wine Company.

I first met Head Storyteller Michael Alberty in the summer of 2006 at a wine gathering at the Manning's house. Alberty was the mysterious Christopher Walken-looking guy with a bottle of 2001 Pegau Chateauneuf du Pape Cuvee Laurence in his hand.

I immediately liked him. He's funny with a deep but totally unpretentious wine intellect, a great palate, seriously good taste in wine, and he tells great stories. It turns out he's a really good wine merchant too.

Storyteller is two stores really. One is virtual except for the back office of the John's Landing shop itself. Most of the sales here are internet and phone driven, with email specials, a website, and special orders of just about anything available out there. I'm on the email list but I don't special order much. But if you're looking for local stuff, or great Rhones or whatever, Michael's a really good guy to know.

Then there's the shop itself, open officially only Friday evenings and Saturdays. And when Michael's around (look for the Suburu wagon). Or by appointment. The shop is in a former day spa, with a few separate rooms that are different but work well, especially with events.

The tastings here have been consistently good so far, sometimes exceptional. I won't drop names, but Michael's not afraid to open pretty much anything ('05 Tempier Bandol Cabassou, oops) if the mood strikes him.

And it's just not for me, a sort of friend. I pay full price here by the way. No special favors. And I've been in the shop repeatedly where a lady walking her dog or who knows who else has stopped in only to end up drinking grower Champagne or three vintages of Vieux Telegraphe or whatever the line up was. "Oh, that is good, yes. What is that again?"

This is just a plain and simple good wine shop, and definitely one of the best wine things to happen around here in the past year. I look forward to seeing where Storyteller goes in 2008. Alberty's suggesting that bigger things are on the horizon. I'm usually skeptical of anything like that, but knowing Michael, I'm guessing this store has only just gotten started.

Wine from the Nandi Hills in India

Ever had wine from the Nandhi Hills? After trying the 2005 Grover Vineyards Sauvignon Blanc Nandi Hills, I can say I have.

I had been meaning to try this wine for months, after seeing a number of Grover bottlings in the Portland area. I've even seen some tasting notes online but they largely scared me away. The only really positive thing I recall reading was about the white wine. So when I saw this bottling for about $6 in a local bargain bin, I couldn't resist entering the world of Indian wine. Never mind the label's boast of enology services from the internationally employed Michel Rolland. That doesn't suggest artisanal wine, but I can't be picky with wine from the tropics.

So how is the Grover Sauvignon Blanc? Pretty good, in fact better after a couple days open in the refridgerator. It's clearly a modern, clean wine, but with a piercing acidity that seemed disjointed at first, then turned more pleasing over a few nights. The wine smells more like chardonnay or pinot gris than sauvignon, but it has some varietal character with grass notes mixed into the tart citrus flavors.

I understand that the grapes are grown at 5000 ft outside of Bangalore, well south of the Tropic of Cancer. I imagine the altitude allows for cool nights. Wikipedia says there is eucaplytus in the area, but also coffee and what sounds like high humidity. Hmm. Who knows how they grow vinifera grapes in such conditions, but the results are pretty good.

This isn't earthmoving wine, but if you see it in the low teens or less, it's worth a try. If only to say you've had wine from the subcontinent.

Recycled Wine Reviews

Let's be clear about one thing. Matt Kramer is a terrific wine writer. We should only wish other writers (myself included) were half as good.

That said, no one's perfect.

Kramer might be best known these days for his long running column in the Wine Spectator magazine. That's not to discount his small catalog of well regarded wine books. He also writes a column that appears in our local newspaper, The Oregonian.

That weekly column usually has two or three terrific buys, mostly around $20 or less, each one picked for its value and distinction. For local producers, getting a review is good for selling at least a palate of wine (that's 56 twelve bottle cases). I highly recommend you check out his reviews if you don't already.

That said, after reading about a super cheap 2006 Spanish garnacha a few Sundays back, I search online for the column to remember the name of the co-op that produced the wine. Here's what I found:

This helps explain just why Castillo de Monséran Garnacha 2004 is so improbably good. The Cariñena district is recognized as a good spot for growing better-than-average grenache. And like so many other vineyard areas in Spain, these vines are old, which tends to lend character to the grapes.

This is terrific, bursting-with-fruit grenache (the label, by the way, is marketsavvy: It declares both grenache and garnacha). It's silky red wine that slides down the gullet without a catch and is mercifully free of any oakiness.

Hmm. That sounded familiar. But this was Kramer's column in the New York Sun from August 2006, about the 2004 version of the same wine I had read about recently.

Searching further, I found the review I had seen in the Oregonian:

This helps explain just why Castillo de Monseran Garnacha 2006 is so improbably good. The Carinena district is recognized as a good spot for growing better-than-average grenache. And like so many other vineyard areas in Spain, the vines are old, which tends to lend character to grapes.

This is pretty, bursting-with-fruit grenache plumped with the grapey/black cherry flavors that characterize this variety. It's a silky red wine that slides down without a catch and is mercifully free of any oakiness.

Now this is just a $7 large production wine from a Spanish cooperative. I'm sure the '04 wasn't much different than the '06.

But are we that short of writers that our newspapers just recycle content? I'd gladly write for the local rag if the regular guy is too busy to write something new. Don't people realize that, with the internet, you can't do this anymore without getting caught?

I do like how there are subtle differences between the "different" passages. I'm sure it's just editors doing their thing. But does "gullet" not resonate on the west coast? Can we not handle it? Does the local rag have something against accents in foreign words? There are many questions.

For what it's worth, I bought a bottle of this 2006 Castillo de Monseran Garnacha for $6.99 at a local market. And it's terrific. In a world where budget Spanish red wines have largely become candied, oaky, sweet, fruit punch wines, this wine actually has aroma. It tastes delicious, too. It's the best, cheapest red wine I've had in a while.

Too bad the Kramer review leaves such a bad taste. Better luck next time.

Wine Anxiety

Are you ever reluctant to buy a wine because of what the wine shop staff will think?

I know I am, and I’m not alone. In fact, I recently wanted to write about this situation, but initially decided not to when I thought maybe it was just me. You know, buck up, don’t worry about what people think.

But it’s not so simple. Just the other day, I was in a local wine shop talking to the proprietor and the subject came up. And the stories I heard made me think about the situation in a whole new way. The experience made me want to write about it again.

What originally brought all this on was a visit a few weeks back to another local wine shop that had two different wines from Loire producer Denis Jamain. Click here for a write up I did last year when Denis himself was here pouring at yet another local shop.

Jamain makes nice if light, delicate wines from a lesser known Reuilly appellation. Only instead of bottle prices ranging from $14 to $20, here were cases of the 2005 Jamain Reuilly Pinot Gris Rosé for $5 and the 2002 Jamain Reuilly Les Pierres Plates for just $7.

Usually such startling discounts suggest damaged goods. Here was “old” rosé from a grape you’re not “supposed” to make rosé from, and a five year old sauvignon blanc, albeit from a terrific vintage. But this wasn’t some lowbrow shop. They wouldn’t bring in wine that was damaged, right? Right, as it turned out in this case.

But I’ve worked in a fine wine shop that occasionally had wine for sale at bargain prices that wasn’t very good. It happens. And if you think that you can just ask the staff for an honest opinion, even at a “good” shop, what could I say when a customer asked me for my opinion. Usually I hemmed and hawed, unsure of how honest I could be and completely uncomfortable about the whole thing. One time I was completely honest and I got in some trouble. I didn’t work there long and the owners were probably fine with that.

Still, I asked a staff member who I know for his opinion on the Jamain wines, and though he was fairly positive, I could tell he was hesitant. He ended with the faint praise that the wines are priced “appropriately.” Hmm, what does that really mean? Is that code for “don’t buy it, it’s only here to satisfy our cheap ass customers who can’t tell Gallo from Maxim Grunhauser?”

I knew he couldn’t be completely honest with me. His boss was right there. And he didn’t want to rain on my parade if I was interested in the wines. These are delicate situations to be sure. But I know that it’s common for wine shops all over to have wines that are sold with at least some amount contempt. Were these such wines?

Which brings me back to the conversation the other day with the proprietor, who had joked about his wife asking him, “what, another gruner veltliner?” when he came out of a store a while back after having to buy a last minute pinot noir on the way to a dinner party. He’d gone in for one bottle but felt the need to buy something else to keep the staff from snickering.

Now why would this matter? Surely we’re above such adolescent behavior, right?

Wrong. The proprietor rolled into a few stories – and I have plenty of my own – of being in wine shops when a customer leaves with a bottle of, say, high priced California cabernet, only to have the wine geek staff, and even the shop owner, tear the customer to pieces for buying such awful wine. Let’s not get into the rumors you’ll hear about what supposed crap some famous winemaker adores, or how drunk he or she got toasted at one event or another.

The fact is, this happens a lot, maybe more than you think. And while we must rise above that fray, it can be tough in the moment to feel comfortable buying what you want to buy. Call it what you want, but that’s the honest truth we all go through in any purchasing situation.

I appreciated the proprietor’s take that it’s bullshit for wine shop staff, and especially an owner, to participate in the somewhat public hazing of a customer. Who knew who else was listening, or if they knew the person or, at the least, might take the opportunity to tell a stranger what the shop really thinks of him.

Why’s this important? Because it’s at the heart of the weird feelings people have about some wine shops. That snobby sense of not belonging or not measuring up, when we’re at most trying to satisfy an intellectual passion or at the least just trying to get some hooch to make the night a little more fun.

I’ll be honest. I’ve passed up some things that I just couldn’t, for whatever reason, bring myself to bring to the counter. And I’ve done as the proprietor and mixed in some coded wine in some weird attempt to display my alleged wine cred. I’ve quietly enjoyed compliments at some of my selections. And I imagine I’ve been the butt of some jokes about the “bargains” I like to purchase.

This time, of course, I bought one of each Jamain wine. The rosé wasn’t so hot. Not tired or oxidized, just a bit tart and more phenolic than I remember. Maybe we shouldn’t make rosé out of pinot gris after all (though secretly I want to try it myself…oops). Yet the blanc was delicious, more like a light, dry chenin than sauvignon with a waxy roundness that kept my interest over a few nights. This isn’t a wine to cellar much longer, but I bought another and will enjoy it in the coming months.

In the end, yes, we should be resolute with the confidence to buy what we want to buy. But it doesn’t always play out that way, and that’s what interests me in the whole affair. What do you think? Ever been ashamed to buy a wine? Maybe next time, we’ll be a little less reluctant to be who we are. And hopefully those who exchange our big bills for change will keep their oh-so-knowledgeable opinions to themselves. That includes you too, boss.

Thanksgiving weekend in Oregon

Has it been two weeks already? You might think I should post more often, but really I'm saving you from the worst of my posts.

Such as the one I wrote and never posted last week about my experience pouring wine at a winery this past Thanksgiving weekend, then later my experiences tasting at two different places.

I even mixed in some historical information about the beginnings of the Thanksgiving wine weekend tradition here in Oregon, when most local wineries hold open houses.

But it was dull. Really dull. So off to the virtual trash it goes.

Instead, let's just say I enjoyed pouring wine for a day at the winery where I worked this fall. The crowd was mostly fun, and there was the expected happy drunk person who confused me for someone she'd been talking to. Not that she noticed, as she carried on the conversation. Good stuff.

And I had an odd experience tasting at another winery where the flagship wine smelled like bank aids, which makes geeks shout out the word "brett!" only confusing newcomers not familiar with this controversial yeast and the smells it can create.

Who knows what caused the smell. Without a test, we can only speculate. But it wasn't pretty and I tried my best to be gracious and back away carefully. Friends I brought to this place weren't thrilled. But we had fun.

Tasting note for tonight is something initially lackluster that, on day two, might be showing some potential. That is, considering you can still get it for less than $7 a bottle by the case. It's the 2005 Seven Terraces Pinot Noir Marlborough, the second label of Foxes Island.

On night one, the wine is a bit confected smelling, with an odd herbal streak that makes me think this comes from highly cropped vines. In the mouth, it's a bit harsh and cola marked and generally unattractive. On night two, the wine is similar at first. But with some time in the glass there's a pretty fruit and earth aroma, even perfume. Yet the taste is still simple and charcoal chunky, with a slightly bitter grapefruit pith note and tangy acidity.

What to make of this? At the original $18 price, this is dreadful. For $7, it's not bad. But you can do better. Though a close out is hard to pass up, this ain't worth the liver.

Thackrey Library

I've met winemaker Sean Thackrey exactly once in my life. He doesn't remember me, of course.

The year was 1992. I was a 20-something guy living in Mill Valley, CA with my cousin, working in town at Peet's coffee and going across the street on my breaks to speand time in Don Pozo's wine shop.

I didn't love the place to be honest, but they had old wine magazines that I could stand around like an idiot and read for free. These were pre-internet days (don't be the one to correct that), and while you can now happily surf the wine web from a wireless connection in a coffee shop, in those days it required something like a public shaming.

I think the clerk dude felt sorry for me, and one day he offered me my first big wine break. How would I like to attend a big wine trade tasting at Greens restaurant featuring new release 1990 Burgundies? All I had to do was show up that afternoon and say I was with Don Pozo's. I think I said yes, my name's Vincent, thanks, wow. Or something like that.

Like they say of Olympic contenders, I was too young to know what a big deal this was. What a break.

Turns out I can't remember any names of the Burgs I tasted, but it was clearly a top tasting and I definitely had a Burgundy "epiphany" that day. I think I can trace the pinot noir thing for me to that day.

What about Sean Thackrey? Well, he was there too, pouring his wines named after constellations, Pleidies, Taurus, Orion. Thackrey was something of a cult figure at the time, and I think that's still true today. I enjoyed his wines and talked to him for a few mintues. He seemed like a good if not especially warm and outgoing guy, but that was fine. I liked that he seemed like an intellectual but also made earthy, delicious wine.

Now I see that Thackrey has what might be the coolest wine site out there, at least for us old wine loving English majors. It's the Thackrey Library, a collection of old and ancient wine texts going back more than 2000 years.

According to the website:

The object of this library is to present an anthology of early texts on the making and understanding of wine, with many, many others just thrown in because I think they're pleasures. These texts span the entire spectrum from obscure to more so. Some are known, although actually read only under academic duress; some are unknown altogether. The fact is, inexplicable though it may (and to me does) seem, that apparently no such anthology has ever previously been published, in print, on the internet, or anywhere else.

Many of the texts of course are in languages other than English. But pay special attention to The Countrey Farme, which the notes say is the first detailed description of the wines of France in the English. The book is Richard Surflt's 1604 translation of Estienne and Liebault's Maison Rustique, from a time when Shakespeare held court with the King's Men in London. If that isn't cool, what is?

Good for Thackrey for this invaluable website. Just wish my French were better.

Wine Blog Weirdness

When I started this modest web log, I was a little worried that people might receive it as some sort of self promotion tool.

Which it is, I can't deny. But self promotion wasn't and isn't my goal. I simply want to share what I am learning and think I know about wine.

I'm not qualified in any way to write about wine. I simply started doing it and continue doing it, and occasionally I get a nice comment from a reader. And that's nice.

But this site seems to generate more negative attention for me than positive, or at least it seems to be that way at times. I won't go into the details, but let's just say people can be pretty insecure if you write anything non-positive about what they're doing.

That's not just negative stuff, but even neutral or dare I say honest comments that people simply can't handle. I'm not into hit-and-run blogging, but I can't fake enthusiam well. Yet that's not good enough for some people, and it's even more annoying than it is pathetic.

The latest incident is only the strangest yet. I got a call recently from someone posing as a writer for a well-known wine newsletter based out of Maryland.

The individual, whose name didn't sound familiar (to say the least), pressed me about what I'd written about the grapes from one particular local vineyard that I had seen harvested this fall. I had written honestly that the grapes, like virtually all grapes harvested locally this October, had some rot and were "ok" but not great.

The caller referenced other things I'd written as if they were also about this vineyard's produce, which they weren't. Apparently this alleged wine writer wasn't a very careful reader. I was left wondering what the heck was going on. Who was this?

Well it turns out the winery who got those grapes that I saw got a nasty call from the vineyard owner. I guess harvest is over if we're on to bullshit like this. Isn't there vineyard work to do? Something, anything? Surely we don't need to perpetuate fraud to root out the source of such controversial comments as those of this little-read site.

It all leaves me depressed. I'm not interested in being a muckraker, but I want to be honest. Yet I know I have the difficult position of wanting to make my own commercial wine, so I don't want to piss people off in the local industry. More than one person has warned me to be very careful, which makes sense but at the same time leaves me wondering why I want in so bad into this business. Are people that ridiculous? I guess so.

Which leaves me wondering how much I can write about Oregon wine, the cause of all this weirdness. Of course, it's the very thing I probably know the most about and about which I have the most interest in learning more. Can I be only positive and call this blog anything but marketing?

One person suggested I simply write more about what I'm doing, and I think that's the right way to go. At least I can be honest with what I'm involved with and not risk compromising people who are kind enough to give me access to what they're doing.

Of course add a heavy dose of non-Oregon wine content. I suppose I've done a good bit of that to this point, so there doesn't seem to be a huge change in the blog. But I'll do my best to fulfill an original goal to catalog the best (as I see it) of the wine web. Things are changing all the time, but there are some really cool things I don't see mentioned widely that I'd like to share here. We'll see if you find it useful. And don't be shy. Comment, especially if you think it's as absurd as I do that this minor site would ever be a threat to anyone.

Home bottling at Wine Terroirs

I've mentioned the Wine Terroirs blog before, but I have to point out the latest post on what is one of the few must-read wine blogs out there.

Bertrand, the author and photographer, reports on buying bulk wine from a Loire winery and bottling it himself at home. I wish bulk wine sales were common here in the US as they are in many other countries. Bert mentions that it's not so profitable for the vigneron, so it's understandable that we don't have it. And I can't imagine buying bulk wine here as cheaply as he gets it. Pay special attention to the plastic bottles he uses to transport the wine to his cellar. And the bicycle in the background in the corking photo is a nice touch. Great work.

Blackbird wine shop

The weather lately has been sunny and dry, and this past weekend was September warm, the kind of weather that brings people together and makes for funny stories.

While I was pressing last Sunday in my driveway in shirtsleeves, a guy from Blackbird wine shop walked by. He was handing out fliers to publicize this new shop off NE Fremont street here in Beaumont village in Portland. I was helping my kids across the street and he walked up and asked if I liked wine. I laughed and said, are you kidding? Come with me.

Up the driveway we walked and I showed him what I was up to. And his jaw dropped and he said, I can't believe this. Can I take pictures? Out comes the cell phone, I'm posing next to the barrel I was cleaning, and maybe I'll be in the store's newsletter as an obscure neighborhood winemaker.

How's the shop? Not bad at all. In fact, great for the neighborhood but not a geek's paradise. Sure, they have the Muscadet of Marc Oliver and the Alsatian wines of Barmes Beucher. But it's more a great place to buy a last minute bottle than a must stop for wine geeks. You'll get a good producer and a good example of where ever the wine's from, but there's not much depth in the offerings. Not that there should be, and perhaps the collection will grow in time. Still, it's a good shop with well picked wines and I'm glad to see it in the neighborhood. And they have free tastings. How can you beat free?

Clean Up Time

I'm delighted to say...harvest is done. Sure, the latest pickers and the people who make things like Riesling might even still have some grapes out there. But for me, the season that began in mid-September when the first white grapes came in is finally done.

Last Sunday I pressed my 2007 Pinot Noir after fourteen days of contact time, or having the grape juice and now wine in contact with the grape skins and seeds. I expected to yield about 300 liters of wine, but I ended up with around 290, and that's with some heavy lees in one carboy of press wine. I could have pressed harder, but perhaps the grapes simply weren't as juicy as I expected. No matter what, I ended up with plenty of wine and I can only hope it will be at least decent.

"Pressing" might be a misnomer for the whole exercise of separating new wine from the skins. Most of the wine is free run, meaning it just drains out of your fermentation bin. In the winery, you pump or use gravity to drain fermentors. At home, I use a pitcher to scoop wine and skins into a basket press, allowing the wine to drain freely into a bucket at the mouth of the press pan that catches the wine underneathe the basket. The free run can be about 80% of your yield of wine. So pressing is only a small part of the wine you end up with, and in some wineries, press wine is hardly used at all.

After draining and pressing, I did something different this year. Instead of going to barrel "dirty," where you don't let the wine settle before putting it into the oak barrel, I gently poured the buckets of wine from the press pan into a few Rubbermaid bins. I filled a big one as high as I could with free run wine, then filled a small one with free run and another small one with press wine. The following night I bucketed the wine into a 5-year-old French oak barrel that I got in August at a local winery that has their barrels made especially for them in Burgundy. Only a bit of press wine went into the barrel, the rest going into a three glass carboys. After cleaning up everything, harvest was finally over.

Now I'm left with a lot of wine for a home operation. First, there's a barrel and more of Pinot Noir from 2006, still quietly going through its malolactic fermentation months after I expected it to be done. It tastes good for 2006, meaning it's riper than I'd like but certainly crowd pleasing. Then there's a couple of carboys of fermenting Chardonnay from 2007 as well as a carboy and more of 2007 Pinot Noir Rose. And of course, a barrel and more of 2007 Pinot Noir. All together, nearly 600 liters of wine, or...800 or so bottles.

Yikes, that's a lot of wine.

Meanwhile, a tasting note. Tonight, it's Dead Guy Ale from Rogue Brewing. I've loved Rogue since my brother brought home a "Rogue ingredients" bottling from a fair he attended in Humboldt County, CA. This was the late '80s I think, when Rogue was just starting out. Maybe that bottle of malted barley, hops and other things got me first thinking about fermenting stuff. This beer is delicious, smelling malty and clean with a bright but rich fruity, malty and hoppy flavor. Somewhere between a summer and winter beer, as you'd expect for a brew that's perfect for autumn. You have to love the Dead, no?

Waiting to press

My 2007 Pinot Noir is nearly done fermenting, 12 days after harvest. Normally I'd want to leave the new wine on its skins for up to several days to gain more winey complexity, but this year wasn't so ripe so I'll press Sunday. That's exactly two weeks from the October 14 harvest date. Leaving it any longer would probably lead to too much tannin in the wine, though I even wonder if two more days is already waiting too long. So far it seems fine, so I'm not going to worry about it.

Meanwhile the rose and chardonnay are still bubbling away, as I expect them to do for a while longer. They've seemed to go a bit faster than I might have expected, so I shouldn't be surprised if they finish up more quickly. I'm not taking brix readings until they slow down considerably. With fermentations, I've learned that if they're doing well then don't worry about them. It's really that simple.

Down at the winery, I spent a few hours this afternoon labelling 2006 Pinot Noir and then punching down the remaining fermentations. There are only eight 1.5 ton bins left, and they're getting pretty soft. We'll press most of them tomorrow, maybe Sunday but I hope not. I haven't worked 12 hour days every day, but I've worked every day for about the past three or four weeks and I'd like a day off. Still, the harvest guy works when there's work to be done. Plus, no matter how it shakes out, this is the end of harvest. Next weekend I'll definitely put my feet up.

Leaving the winery around 5pm on what was a stunningly clear afternoon, I couldn't help but stop and stare for a moment at the autumn scene. Vineyards and orchards on Ribbon Ridge looking east to the vine covered southwestern slopes of the Chehalem Mountains...simply beautiful. I ended up driving over Worden Hill Road through the heart of the Dundee Hills to see the yellowing canopies and nothing but second crop on the vines. Certainly there are grapes still to be harvested, but in many high elevation vineyards, I saw nothing left. I was surprised, actually.

Tonight's tasting note, the 1998 Domaine du Joncier Lirac, an old favorite bargain wine from the southern Rhone. In its youth, it tasted like a nice Edmunds St. John Syrah that's California wine that tastes French. Now the Joncier smells bottle sweet and beautiful, but in the mouth the wine is coming apart with medicinal flavors and disjointed alcohol. Not a total washout by any means, but certainly something to have drunk sooner. Of course, I was warned not to age this, but I couldn't help trying with one. You win some, you lose some. And I suppose if this is losing, it ain't all bad.

Fermentation is peaking

The garage is filled with the sweet smells of fermenting wine. I have 50 liters of Chardonnay, 25 liters of Pinot Noir rose, and the main event - nearly 300 liters of Pinot Noir spread over three garbage can fermentors, all fermenting without added yeast.

After picking the grapes last Sunday, I let them soak without any cooling for 5 days before warming the fermentors with a space heater and an aquarium heater. This morning the bins all smelled a bit like nail polish, or ethyl acetate, but a brix reading showed that sugar levels had hardly dropped so I knew fermentation hadn't yet begun in earnest. Sometimes at the beginning you can get "ea" smells, before tempertures in the fermentors has risen significantly. Sure enough, things smell great again.

The garage is pretty cold, so I have the heater on to help get the fermentation temperature up. I don't want it to get too high, because the grapes this year aren't as ripe as I'd like. Higher temps can extract more tannin than I want. Sure enough, one bin shot up to 92F before punchdown and stirring tonight brought things down significantly. The other bins are staying in the low 80s, right below where I want them but since the one went so high, I think a mix of the three will be just right. My goal now is to get the yeast to slowly complete fermentation without sticking as the temperature falls. I want it cooler after this peak period, but not too cool so that the yeast go inactive. It's a delicate balance.

Of course, with the low brix level I mentioned previously, I chaptalized (added sugar) some this morning and will do more tomorrow as I add approximately 1.7kg per 100L of wine, per Emile Peynaud, to raise the wine one degree of alcohol. I'm loathe to chaptalize as I did in 2005, but this year especially there's no avoiding it.

At the winery, I did some labelling today and the evening punchdowns. Only 11 bins fermenting in earnest, so punchdowns weren't so difficult. There are a few more bins about to be kicked off, the last of the year. This weekend we dug out 12 bins in five press loads, giving me lots of time to learn the finer points of working a 3-ton bladder press. Fill, press, spin, press, spin, press, spin, etc. empty, repeat. Lots of shovelling, lots of nice new wine aromas, satisfying to be done at the end of the work day.

Tasting note - France, yet again. This time, the 2004 Perrin Cotes du Rhone "Nature" from one organic vineyard apparently near Orange. This is simply one of the best old school grenache driven Cotes du Rhones I've had in a long time. For just over $10, it's a steal. Rich earthy plum and black pepper aromas with a full body, ripe tannins, and delicious blackberry, stone, and pepper flavors. There's not a ton of acidity here, but it doesn't matter. I think you could hold on to this for a few years, not that it will improve. But if you're looking for a great value French wine that you don't have to worry about drinking up in the next 12 to 24 months, here it is.

Harvest at home

There's been no time to write, but there's a lot to write about. First, I worked a lot last weekend as my own grapes came in at the same time as the last 15+ tons of fruit came into the winery, along with some press loads and lots on punch downs. After three brutal days, I was wiped out Monday but pretty happy about everything.

In the winery, I got to run the press a few times and otherwise just feel like I'm getting more and more comfortable with the idea of leading winery processes rather than just contributing to them. Not that I'm there yet, but for all I still need to learn, I've come a long way. This year has been something of a quantum leap toward doing this stuff commercially. It all feels very real now, even if I still just homebrewing.

On the home front, I picked 200 pounds of Chardonnay from Courting Hill vineyard near Banks on Saturday morning. The weather was beautiful all weekend, though the mornings were foggy. The Chard is Dijon clone 76 on 101-14 rootstock, the vines are about 10 years old. The fruit looked pretty good with a mix of firmer and softer clusters. I sorted out a little rot in the vineyard, brought it home, stomped on it in my small totes, and pressed it in my new basket press. After settling, there's about 14 gallons of juice that's now fermenting in carboys with VL-2 yeast. I'm looking for a crisp, early drinking chard. At 22 brix with bright acidity, I think it should be pretty good.

Then Sunday I got a little more than a half ton of Pinot Noir from the Meredith Mitchell vineyard in the foothills west of McMinnville. I got the fruit through a friend and checked it out in the vineyard a week before harvest. Things looked good then, with ripe looking clusters with little rot and ok flavors even if there was some green in the seeds. Two weeks ago a brix sample showed 20.8, bu that hadn't moved a week later. I hoped another week of better weather might help things dry out and bump sugars up a bit. But when the fruit showed up, there was more ruby color on the insides of the clusters than I noticed in the vineyard. The flavors were still ok, the stems pretty mature, the fruit in good shape and even falling off the stems easily like riper fruit. But my hydrometer showed only 21 brix in a settled juice sample. And after a couple days soaking, the brix is........20.1 according to ETS labs. I was stunned when I found out. But the ph is 3.27, which isn't as low as 20 brix suggest. And there's nearly 4g of malic acid without a lot of potassium, the ph will I hope go up a good bit and soften what might otherwise be a hard, acidic wine.

On Monday morning, after about 14 hours of soaking on the skins, I bled off about 8 gallons of Pinot Noir juice to make rose and, I hope, give a little more concentration to the red wine. I will chaptalize, or add sugar, to the red wine during fermentation to boost the alcohol level. I won't do more than one percent of alcohol, maybe less. The rationale is that the fruit is riper than the sugar level suggests, so I don't think I'll imbalance the wine by boosting the sugar minimally.

The past few days I've been at my normal job. But tomorrow and Saturday I'm back at the winery. We're done bringing in fruit, but there are literally tons of Pinot Noir, Syrah, and Tempranillo in fermentors filling the winery. Lots of punchdowns to do, and lots of pressing and barreling, not to mention cleaning things before putting them away for the season.

Harvest has peaked, the leaves in the vineyards are yellowing, it's already time to start thinking about the coming winter. Despite the crazy highs and lows of the season, it feels amazing to be doing all this. And great to see it coming to an end, for this year at least.

And a tasting note. The 2006 Quercus "Cadmus" Pinot Noir from the irrepressible Michael Beckley up on Ribbon Ridge. This is 2006 all the way, full of rich black raspberries and spice. I found it a bit zinfandel-like, but that's not uncommon with this vintage in Oregon. The group I tried it with seemed to love it. If you like big wines, it's a buy at $32 or something like that.

Oregon harvest update

The harvest is at peak at the winery where I'm working. We have 75% of the grapes in and the rest is coming in this weekend.

I've been hoping the weather would warm up and dry out, but last night there was some light rain and today was mostly cloudy down in Yamhill County. Where's the sun? Apparently it's due to come out the next two days, as we might hit 70F probably for the last time until spring.

But it's interesting. There are some people who still aren't picking everything, who want to hold out for more sunshine and riper flavors on the other side of the coming week's rain. I'd join them if I had a choice, and if the forecast was at all positive. Even the 15-day outlook shows rains everyday from Monday onward. I suppose people will find brief dry periods and bring in what they have left. But the latest picked Pinot Noir is going to be a test of cool summer and rainy harvest winemaking. Should be worth watching.

Tomorrow I pick my chardonnay, process it at home, then head down to the winery for lots of pressing and cellar work to clear space. Then Sunday we get 14 tons of mostly red grapes. At a little winery, that's a lot. More soon.

The tasting note for tonight is Anchor Steam beer. To put it simply, my old San Francisco favorite still does the trick. Good night.