2015 Horsepower Sur Echalas Syrah - Review

 First, this is a well-made wine. I can see how it received 98 points. But I hated it.

I think that, as wines are made from grapes, and as grapes are a fruit, wines should taste like fruit. There is no fruit in this wine. But it is a fascinating cornucopia of aromas: Bitter coffee; bitter chocolate; blood; spam. Problem is, I don't like any of those things. That's why I don't like this wine. 

California wine buyers must agree-I couldn't sell this profitably at auction, so we opened one to drink, instead of selling it. Man, was it painful. I could not drink it. I know Christophe is an artiste, but I wish he would allow his wines to taste like winegrapes.

My grade on this wine: The bouquet is A+ but the palate is D-. Not a very good use of $140.

Update 2 days later: The wine is marginally better--I can even sense a faint hint of some slight bit of purple fruit--but it is so bitter on the palate that it's not drinkable. This winemaker has made many supremely wonderful wines, but this one is a failure in the mouth, where the bouquet is so wonderful that perhaps this product's best use is as perfume, not for drinking?

My Secret Squirrel was almost a bad wine

 2015 Secret Squirrel Cab Sauv: $27 retail. The appeal is that this is made by Corlis and Tranche, from the same fruit that goes into their $50-$100 wines (I don't personally now that bit is true-I found it online). Various online tasting notes are quite effusive, but this wine didn't do it for me. It's a lovely inky dark purple, but has no bouquet (if it has any, it's just alcohol). The Palate seems silky at first, which I appreciate, but later there's just no "there there." I swirled and splashed it, hoping it would wake up, but no dice. It's just bad. It's dead. Don't waste your money. I bet they knew there was something wrong with this wine, and they resorted to pushing it out into the market using an alternate name that wouldn't harm their primary labels' reputation. Not necessarily a smart plan. Two hours later, in the glass, it's still dead. Ugh.

2015 Pra Vinera Reserve Cab - WOW!

I can't recall who gave this to me, but WOW! If you ever wanted to find out what a true Cab Sauv flavor is (it's black currants), this wine has it in spades. So smooth. Liquid velvet. The sensation just rolls. Perfect body. Perfect balance. THIS is how it's done.

Napa at its best. Wow.

More on that $9 dry Riesling that won the Wine Press NW's Platinum competition

2015 Chateau St. Michelle Dry Riesling

I can't (or, more properly, shouldn't, and therefore won't) sell this to my customers, because my minimum markup is $2 per bottle, and at the extremely low end of the price range, it is almost always cheaper for them to shop at the grocery stores. Safeway is selling this wine now at $6.99, and even cheaper if you buy six, whereas my price would be $7.75. So don't get it from me.

But why would you want to buy it at all? Let me count the ways:

1. It just was awarded Wine Press Northwest's top wine in the Platinum wine judging--this humble mass-market dry Riesling, which was probably made in sufficient volume to cover the entire country of Belgium two feet deep, beat out all the $15 and $25 and $50 and $100 wines that were tasted, and a whole great many of those were tasted in that competition.  So when I noticed that, I went out to buy one, to try it. I opened it last night with homemade Thai curry, and:

2. It really is outstanding. It's good enough to make me keep saying "wow." The nose is redolent with honey/floral notes, with a subtle petrochem hint. (The better Rieslings from Germany have powerful petrochem notes, not a flaw but a prized attribute, which I don't much care for, but in trace amounts it adds to the complexity and somehow seems to be a real positive.) The wine has great citrus notes on the palate and good body for a Riesling, with enough acidic zip to keep it fresh. And it is dry! (Yes, the copious fruit will fool you into thinking it's sweet, but if you measured the sugar in it, you would see it is dry--maybe only a very small amount of RS.) And, in case you're wondering, the wineries don't add diesel to the grape juice--it's just that one of the many many biochemicals naturally present in this grape happens to smell and taste like that.

3. Wine experts of the world ALWAYS class Riesling as one of the world's top six winegrapes (Cab Sauv, Pinot Noir, Merlot, Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Riesling). That means they agree it's better than: Syrah, Viognier, Malbec, Cabernet Franc, Tempranillo, Nebbiolo, Sangiovese, Pinot Gris! Just think about that! Yes, I know that many of you eschew Riesling--maybe you drank cheap sweet versions of it when you were younger (as did I), and your logical mind convinces you that better versions of it surely cannot exist. Get over it ;)

Marry this wine to Asian foods, or salads, or poultry, or most vegetarian dinners, or drink it by itself. If you know young people on a budget, who want to learn about fine wine, direct them to their nearest large grocery store to buy some.

This is one more nail in the coffin of the myth that says, "Wine has to be expensive, to be good."  Anybody can overpay for wine; it requires no skill at all. Why waste your money? Much smarter to let others do that.

Oregon lands five Pinots on Spectator's 2015 best 100 list, and guess what?

Here is Spectator's list. The five Oregon wines are:

#3 - Evening Land 2012 Seven Springs Pinot Noir

#11 - Big Table Farm 2012 Pinot Noir

#14 - Bergstrom 2013 Ribbon Ridge Pinot Noir

#38 - Solena 2012 Grande Cuvee Pinot Noir

#45 - Colene Clemens 2012 Margo Pinot Noir

What we see, first, is that all the wines are Pinot Noirs. I think it's unfortunate that Oregon is best known for that grape, to the exclusion of some wonderful Chardonnays, Rieslings, Pinot Gris, and even (in the southern part of the state, and up near the Gorge and near Walla Walla) Syrahs, Merlots, etc.

The next point is that of that list, only one is what most folks would think of as a prominent, long-standing Pinot label, such as Beaux Freres or Domaine Drouhin, or Dom. Serene, or Ken Wright. Only Bergstrom is that. I barely know Evening Land and Solena, and I don't know Big Table Farm or Colene Clemens, even after 16 years of visiting wineries in the area. Congrats to the lesser-known wineries.

Next up for consideration is the vintage year: Of course some 2012 Oregon Pinots will prevail; it was a magnificent year. But look at Bergstrom's 2013 at #14 on the list! 2013 was a wet, disappointing year, and at Bergstrom they made the tough decision to harvest early, and ended up with this result. Kudos to Oregonian winemakers, who can create great results from mediocre weather. All Pinot enthusiasts need to applaud that kind of risk-taking and skill.

Finally, it must be said that:

a. All wines change, over time, in the bottle. I just finished my last 2009 Tamarack Syrah, which got 94 points Spectator, and it was spent, with no nose, hardly any fruit noticeable, and just not a pleasure to drink. And yet, just four short years ago it was a thing of magic. If Spectator re-sampled its Top 100 list today, I bet more than half of the honored wines would be replaced by something else.

b. Rest assured there are plenty of GREAT Oregon wines in the market, which didn't make this list. Any Top 100 list is going to create catastrophic sins of omission.  But we all love lists, so there you go.

Spring! (early, but we'll take it)

I always try to remember to post a photo of one of my grapes emerging from winter's slumber. This is Jupiter, a superb seedless, oval, purple grape bred by the University of Arkansas. It grows well in the PacNW. It is emerging about 3 weeks early this year, but I think we won't have a late freeze (and it was a very mild winter), so the grape leaves/flowers should be OK.

It does mean we may have an early harvest, though.