Let's save Charles Smith's reputation!

 LOL. Tonight I opened 2014 El Jefe Tempranillo. 95 points Robert Parker and he nailed it, though I predicted (after tasting and before checking scores) 96 points, as Jane is my witness. This is so smooth, so big, and it's in my wheelhouse with lovely non-black-fruit flavors of purple berries and iron and bull's blood. The oak is lovely. Lots of complexity. I'm a fan! This is a $55 wine that is worth it!

...But it depends on which wine you are drinking:

Recently, I was burned by two Cayuse wines, and I blogged about that, and also about some disappointing K Vintners wines. But everything in life is complicated--tonight I opened a 2014 K Vintners "The Deal" Syrah, and it is very drinkable. Dark purple; nose is muted but at first I thought I noticed purple fruit and cola. OK--later I smell definite purple fruits and that nice "smoothness" aroma. It's a fairly big wine, but has good structure. Good with my Cuban stew. Not as much fruit on the palate as I'd like. But my point is that it is not a disappointment. At about $35, it probably doesn't make sense to buy it--most likely better Syrahs are out there at less cost. But at least this won't disappoint you.

A distributor told me that Charles Smith has now sold off most of his wine labels. For huge bucks. I'm happy for him--he turned nothing but a dream and some money, and a passion for learning about wine, into a fortune. That is great. My first meeting with him was wonderful-he spoke at about 120 mph and I couldn't catch it all but what I heard was brilliant. I guess this raises the question: How well can you continue with the nitty-gritty of making great wine, when you're so wealthy? I hope he can.

And this is a Robert Parker story. Parker was one of my wine heroes, but over the years I learned that many of the wines he gave high 90s scores to (like K Vintners' wines), were not as good as their scores. Now I trust Spectator, and James Suckling, and Wine Enthusiast, much more. It can be argued that it was Parker who made Charles Smith a multimillionnaire. OK; I can live with that. But just know that if you're willing to search for them, there are many many wines at relatively low cost, that are better than many of super-high-priced wines from the likes of K and Cayuse...

Dissing on two Cayuse wines

There is a huge benefit in following the wines from a long-established great European wine house (like Eschezeaux in Burgundy or Pichon-Lalande in Bordeaux) --they (many of them) have been in business for decades, if not centuries, and each chateau (usually) has developed and zealously maintains its own typical favor profiles and high standard of quality.

But in this infant nation we call America, most wineries don't have that kind of history. We don't see generations from the same family taking up the family wine mantle. And, here, winery fortunes rise and fall faster than the success or failure of the Seattle Seahawks. My favorite wine distributor's owners think, for example, that K Vintners' Charles Smitth, having sold out for $120M or so, is no longer able to reliably make mind-blowing wines (and I agree, having left his wine club recently for that reason--I don't mind $80 wines if they are mind-blowing, or if they perform well on the resale market, but if they seem too ordinary, or (perversely) too innovative, they leave me feeling shortchanged).

Just so, with Cayuse. I've learned the hard way that too many of their spendy wines don't perform well on the resale market. I've learned that, five or six years on, they just don't perform well enough on the palate to merit their $80 or $90 price tag.

It hurts to say all that. For years I thought Washington's two best wineries--its "First Growths"--were those two. But stuff changes. This is not Old Europe. It is necessary to stay on top of "the good wineries of today."

Tonight, we dined at the The Hammond in Camas WA, and opened our 2014 God Only Knows Grenache. It's retailing for $150 now, and got 97 points from Robert Parker. It should've been mind-blowing, but it was undrinkable. Not flawed, but just a bad wine. Both of us thought there wasn't enough fruit evident, and the wine was thin, and the finish was bitter. That bitter finish was the death knell for me, so we defaulted to our backup bottle: 2013 Foundry Malbec, which was "very good-but-not-great."

Last night, we took a 2013 Cayuse Armada Syrah to Elements in downtown Vancouver, and we made ourselves drink it, but didn't enjoy it. It also was thin and had a bitter finish. Not a very good wine. Yes, there was some bull's blood in it, and if you strained really hard, you might imagine some blueberry, but it just wasn't good or interesting. And yet Robert Parker gave it 98 points (!) and it's retailing now for $150.

When I can get much more enjoyment from a $20 or $40 bottle made elsewhere, why wouldn't I? What a disappointment.

So, who will be the next fleeting "First Growth" from Washington? I say that Cayuse and K Vintners are no longer First Growths. Maybe Thirds, if they are lucky.

Review of Domaine Pouillon "Katydid" 2014 Rhone blend

This blend has about 32% Grenache and Mouvedre, versus just 20% Syrah, and the rest Counoise and Cinsault. The winery's near Lyle WA. All the fruit's from Horse Heaven Hills (WA), a great AVA.

In style this is more French than American, but has characteristics of each. The nose was good, with dark fruits, but was fleeting. The palate likewise had good balance and nice flavors, but the flavors fade fast in the glass. What hits in the finish, reveals the problem: I think my bottle was Bretty. Brettanomyces is a spoilage yeast which, in small concentrations, is valued for adding complexity to wine, but in larger amounts it's a flaw. It robs wines of their aroma and flavor, and I think that happened here. I had Brett issues in some of my Epona wines once, and learned how to minimize the risk. So far, I've avoided Brett since that learning time. Once this winery identifies the issue and learns how to avoid it, wines like this one will be very good.

Montague 2014 Columbia Valley WA Red Wine - Yuck!

I can't recall how I came by this bottle. My notes say it is about a $20 bottle. At four years old, it should have been pretty good tonight. But out of the bottle, it was instantly and irretrievably flawed! The most awful stink of (I'm guessing:) cork taint! It could have been some other volatile flaw. It really stank. I waited and waited, to see if it would blow off, and it finally did mitigate somewhat, but who wants to wait thirty minutes before they can drink a wine they just opened for dinner?

What a shame. This wine had some nice and fresh dark fruits. But every time I poured some more, it was full of that flaw again.

Maybe the winemaker didn't have a clue. Some problems develop in-bottle. But this is a horrible mark on that winery, whoever they are. You just can't sell wines like this. I hope I don't!

Cellar Tracker reviewers like this one, but the latest post was 1.5 years ago. Maybe it needed to be drunk in just 3 years, but that would be odd for this region and wine type.

 This winery doesn't have a website! This suggests the wine was made for a distributor, by a winemaker who usually works at a publicized winery. Maybe the distributor bought some bad wine cheap and hoped they could market it. Oh, well.

Tasting notes: 2015 K Vintners "The Boy" Grenache

This is a difficult review to write. For years I've stated that K Vintners is one of the three best wineries in Washington state (the others being Cayuse, and Barnard Griffin's white and rose wines only).  I called those three the "First Growths" of Washington.

But something has happened to K Vintners. We went to their Spring release party, and 80% of the wines weren't good to me. Who am I you ask, and it's a fair question. I'm a wine retailer and a commercial winemaker, and I've made wine for 23 years and grown grapes for longer than that. I've collected fine wines and resold them on the international market for over 40 years now. So I'm entitled to have an opinion.

Which brings us to this wine by Charles Smith. 95 points by Robert Parker, and 94 by Wine Enthusiast. Etc, etc. No doubt, Charles has reliably high reviews by the pros. Parker said:

"The 100% Grenache 2014 The Boy is a ripe, wild, peppery, meaty, rose petal and olive scented effort that has full-bodied richness, with a sensational, layered and silky texture, as well as ripe, polished tannin and a great finish. It's difficult to find a better Grenache from the New World."

Friends, I am here to tell you that, even with perfect cellaring, at four years old this wine is nowhere close to being worth $50. It has a good cherry nose, and it's rich and silky, but it's fleeting. The palate is meh. The finish is meh.  My spouse is a very tough critic on wines; she wouldn't drink this one. Wow. I gave it two days in the fridge, but it was no better, so I didn't rob the cradle with it. There is very little to commend it at this price point. Just another example of "experts" being wrong. 

Here is what you need to know: Every fiber of our imperfect mind wants to believe that a more-expensive wine is a better mind. But you need to retrain your instincts to rebel against such mistaken thinking. Italy and southern France and northern Spain and Argentina give us GREAT wines that cost from $9-$13. So why would you overpay $50 for this one? It is not ethereal. Yes, some expensive wines CAN be ethereal, and the search for them is worthwhile. But in general, any fool can overpay for wine--it is the easiest thing to do. What is very difficult is to find great wines at lower prices. That is what I've spent my years trying to master, with much success I think.

Now, understand: Charles is still a wine god to me. He can do amazing things with grapes. But I can no longer expect all his wines to be great. His Kung Fu Girl Riesling is one of the best lower-cost wines in the world. His higher-end Syrahs can be mesmerizing. But do not assume that all his wines are great. They are not. My suspicion is that once a winemaker achieves fame and fortune, it becomes exponentially more likely that their quality will slip. Just my opinion. 

2014 Grape Update

2014 in the Pac NW is a great year for grapes. Any poor wine from 2014 represents an inept winemaker.Here's my report from my winemaking:

Cayuga: Really good numbers: pH 3.38 and TA 0.68%. A really nicely low TA, due to our hot summer and long ripening period. Fermenting in carboys now; great fruit from Lon's 112 lbs and from our Le Mans vines 28 lbs. Just a great year with large clusters that got ripe with superb flavors. Will be my first dry Cayuga, given that low acid.

My Mixed Red ("Rosso Misto") from our Le Mans vines: 7 lb Cascade, 17 lb Regent; 10 lb Delicatessen. Great fruit; great flavors. I put in some Rayon d'Or (white) for color fixing but with those reds it isn't necessary. just racked onto oak and sulfited tonight. Smells good. Vivid dark rich, glass-staining purple. Drinking decently now; surprising for a raw wine. pH 3.54 and TA 0.77% (it was 1.16%!!! but MLF really took that acid down; I can drop it a further 0.05% with cold stabilization, so I'll end up with 0.72% TA, which is a bit high for a red so I might add the faintest hint of sugar to balance it up and if I do my job well the tasters wouldn't even notice.

Leon: Picked late due to my travel schedule, so the pH was higher than the target of 3.4 or less. But I wanted it to hang in our most excellent summer, to see how the flavors changed. It turned a bit bricky as pH shot up to 4.12 during primary ferm. But that was only for a few days, and I added tartaric acid to drop pH to 3.69, which returned the good purple color. When pH was 4.12, TA was 0.85%--too high--but MLF really did its job: Tonight I racked and oaked, and it tested at pH 3.73 (pretty good; wish it was a smidge lower) and TA 0.58%, which was low enough that I could add the least bit of tartaric, to squeeze down the pH and help keep the wine fresh and more-stable in terms of shelf life; I boosted TA to 0.62% and I can use CS to take it right back to 0.57% (while maintaining the new, lower pH). Color is a fairly deep purple for a Leon; I'm pleased. The wine is disjointed; hasn't come together yet, but has nice fruit. I don't pick up any off flavors that I could attribute to fermenting on the skins, but I will try a batch with limited skin contact (quick skin color transfer) next year, as an experiment, given advice received from other Leon-makers elsewhere in the US. I think adding the white grapes really does help maintain the color (the old Syrah-Viognier trick).

Need to bottle the 2013s soon. Running out of glassware!

Kenton

Vines sleeping under a rare blanket of snow

third great wave of snow hitting Portland, Oregon now 1pm 2-8-2014.