2009 Chateau Prieure-Lichine, Margaux

We opened this at the Columbia Gorge Hotel, a grand 1920s Italian-style gem right on the cliffs overlooking the Columbia River, with a 200'-drop waterfall just a few feet from the building!). Prieure-Lichine is a Fourth Growth from Bordeaux, and is considered probably better than that ranking, today.

So, the color was vivid purple, still young after nine years. The nose was good: Only faint cassis notes, but lots of coffee and some mushrooms there. On the palate, I thought the wine was delicate (as "feminine" Margaux should be), but for me it was too lean/austere, with not enough fruit or body. I am spoiled by the excellent (and cheaper--this Prieure-Lichine is $100 at retail today) Bordeaux-style wines out of Walla Walla. NO WAY does this wine deserve a $100 price tag or a 93 point score.

And, FYI-Don't eat dinner at Columbia Gorge Hotel. At least in January (very quiet season), the food is very average, though prices are reasonable and the staff is friendly. But they upgraded us to a top-floor corner room with a fireplace, for the same price--very nice! And the building is really a treat.

(photo credit: Google images)

High-flying grapes?

Kendall-Jackson, a HUGE wine business in California, is buying the complex of buildings near McMinnville OR formerly owned by bankrupt Evergreen Aviation. Here is the story.

K-J has bought 1300 acres of wine land in that area in the past few years. That is quite a commitment to Willamette Valley wines. I think that with the expensive (some would say, vastly-overpriced) Pinots there, the gross margins in the wine business there, especially in the hands of a skilled large operator, would be quite high. Good luck to them!

You can fight nature only for so long

Read this:

California's Central Valley is sinking 2" per MONTH, destroying roads and vineyards, canals and buildings. Wow. This is because farmers are drilling ever-deeper wells.  There is a limit--at some point there is no more water and you hit magma. But it is a very serious matter, as it affects the lives of many millions, for their jobs, for their food, for the future of our largest state (economically). We need stronger government; aquifers need to be protected. I do  not believe we have the right to completely destroy a precious resource, to deprive future generations of it. We must be stewards and not rapists.  This is a nightmare that one strong El Nino cannot remediate.

Just as we must pay the price of switching from such heavy dependence on fossil fuels, we must also convert to more water-smart practices, maybe capturing some snowmelt in some different state, to irrigate some other massive valley with good soil. And it wouldn't hurt many of us if there was a little less food available in the US.

And there may be a mass migration from CA resulting from this as well, which could cripple the mighty state. And Oregon and Washington are not prepared for a mass in-migration; Oregon has strict land-control laws and is already unable to provide housing to all at affordable prices.

This photo is of a dead almond orchard in CA:

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.

One of the ULTIMATE QUESTIONS: CAN OREGON PINOT NOIR AGE?

Friends, as you know, this is an important question. I've been a wine retailer for eight years now, and approximately 400 of you over that time have bought far more SE Washington wines from me, and other wines (many from Spain and Italy, which easily win the QPR (quality-to-price ratio) contest), compared to our Oregon Pinots. I think for most of you, it's either about the taste, the flavor profile, or the cost, of that wine, and/or you have been frustrated with what you perceive as these traits of Oregon Pinots:

1. They can be inconsistent from bottle to bottle;
2. They mutate, over time, more than any other grape I've known, whipsawing the poor wine lover into fear and indecision;
3. The French like to say (as they have told me, in Burgundy), that Oregon Pinots are good while young but "do they age?"; and
4. They are pretty darn expensive.

Despite all that, you have to admit, as I freely do, that, at their best, they are some of the best wines in the world. And Oregon Pinot is "Portland's Wine," and deserves our attention for that reason also.

I have had an aged Echezeaux (grown next to DRC), sold from under the table to me at a great restaurant in Dijon, and held for a few years, and, when finally opened, it was very good but not as good as the best Oregon Pinots I've had, from the likes of J.K. Carierre, Anderson Family Vineyards, Beaux Freres, Adelsheim, and Domaines Drouhin and Serene (and others; not trying to make an exclusive list here).

Fast forward to J. K. Carriere. Jim Prosser built his winery a few years ago, uphill from Harry's Chehalem landmark; before that, Jim was in the barn at a B&B with a hazelnut orchard near Newberg (with a really cool representation of a viking longboat in the attic). I first learned about Jim when Cliff Anderson, my first (and best) mentor in Willamette Valley grapegrowing and winemaking, sold fruit to him, so I went to taste Jim's wines, and like Cliff, Jim was a real artist. He had some older bottles open for special customers. I wheedled a taste of his 1999 Pinot, and I'm sure glad I did--it was unbelievably great--truly outstanding in about 2004, and it cemented in me an opinion that Jim knew how to make ageworthy Pinots (because that '99 seemed built to last).

Fast forward to 2015. We're selling our city house (having moved to a farm near Woodland WA), and I'm selling some wines at auction, because our new home's cellar (and house) are smaller and we have too much wine. I have been holding a 2002 J.K. Carriere Pinot Noir with a note on the neck saying simply, "Purchased Sept 2004: Keep til 2010; drink by 2020."

If you're paying attention, and if you understand the discussions about Oregon Pinots, you will be wondering, "Can a good Oregon Pinot really last 13 years?" If you really understand Oregon Pinots, you'll know that 2002 was a special year: very good conditions for the fruit, and likely to age well. So, this bottle presented a fair test.

Life with Oregon Pinot Noirs is all about data points, like taking snapshots of a running cheetah. You can talk about the snapshots, but you cannot make too many sweeping conclusions about the "movie," because the data is too varied. Unlike Christophe Baron's marvelous, inexplicably-high pH Syrahs from The Rocks vineyard, which establish their nature early on, and then hold it, only refining and tweaking their upscale flavor profile, the best Oregon Pinots have this mystique in which we don't really know how they will evolve, or whether they will be so subtle that we miss the point, and we don't often know what we'll get when we pull the bottle out. Sometimes, the wines go dumb and just shut down for a while. Enjoying Oregon Pinots takes WORK and a willingness to take risks. It's also an expensive habit, especially when not every bottle is what you hoped for. A good Oregon Pinot is a will-o-the-wisp. You pull the cork and you ask, "what have we here?" and even if you drank its sister yesterday, today its sister may be different. Warmer summers are not necessarily a friend of Pinot Noir, either, though Gamay and Syrah may be creeping northwards. Pinot in Bellingham, anyone? So, even how Pinot grows here is changing.

So, the '02 J.K. Carriere. It was a fascinating bottle to open tonight (with a gorgeous Steelhead, roasted simply with just lemon, salt, and pepper). The first thing I noticed, AT THIRTEEN YEARS OF AGE, was the vibrancy of youthfulness--deep purple color and pleasant purple fruits in the nose.  Game over. A wine past its prime cannot, will not, look young. Without any delay or decant, this wine was energetic and ready to go--first sip was delightful. It didn't change much in the glass, but stayed faithful for a good hour or so: Wonderfully balanced, smooth, just subdued enough to support the food without clamoring for attention, and yet so elegant that through some sense of feigned shyness it drew attention to its excellence. Wow! This bottle, a snapshot in time, was pretty high up on the Pinot Noir quality scale. Vibrant purple fruits! Smoothness! A good finish! It referred not to other wines; it made its own statement. In its way, in its time tonight, it was perfect.

And chalk up one data point for Oregon's excellence in ageworthiness. Say that Oregon Pinots are too spendy (correct). Say that Pinot Noir can be unpredictable or inconsistent (correct). Say that too many wine lovers don't understand or appreciate good Pinot (correct).  Say that California Pinots are quite different (correct, and many prefer them to Oregon Pinots). But tonight, this Pinot was perfect. I just wish I had more of them. If more of them would be like this ;)

Vines sleeping under a rare blanket of snow

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

Spectator's Top 100 wines of 2013:

It's always a list of some nice wines, but it's also good for finding some wines we hadn't heard of.

Here are Oregon Pinots on this year's Top 100 list:

#3 Domaine Serene 2010 Evanstad Pinot Reserve ($65, 95 pts)

#17 Alexana 2010 Pinot Noir Revana Vineyard (Dundee Hills) ($42, 94 pts)

#55 A to Z Wineworks '2011 Pinot Noir ($18, 90 pts) - 90 points and it makes the top 100?

#79 Ken Wright 2010 Savoya Vineyard Pinot Noir ($55, 93 pts)

Certainly we could name some equally-good (or better) Oregon Pinots that are not on this list. I wonder how a 90 point Pinot made it on the list! Maybe Spectator is flabbergasted that any decent Oregon can be found for less than $20 ;)

 

Vineyards Marching North

This article says that French wineries are buying up land in southern England, in preparation for the continuing climate change which would make it difficult to continue growing Bordeaux varieties in SW France and Rhone varieties in SE France. Those climate changes are already noticeable but the point of Bordeaux leaving Bordeaux is surely not very imminent.  But perhaps it's not as far off as one might think.

We see the same threats mentioned as to Napa Valley in California, and I hear more and more about Syrah planted in the Willamette Valley. Another way this is manifested is the planting of grapes higher and higher up the mountains; as the mountain slopes warm and undergo fewer deep freezes in winter, they become more favorable for grapes. There are wonderful grapes being grown in New Mexico's mountains (check out Gruet sparkling wines), so perhaps we can look for quality vineyards in Colorado's mountains someday? Can you imagine Chardonnay being grown here:

And (this sounds impossible to one who has grown Pinot Noir here in NW Oregon, and so often could not get it fully ripe), could it be that someday NW Oregon will produce a great Cabernet? No, surely that cannot be--Cab is one of the sun-hungriest grapes--but who knows? If a trend continues for long enough, strange things will finally happen.

Good Gracious! The rain!

It is rare indeed to see rains this heavy come so early in the Fall. We've had a LOT of rain over several precipitative spells this month, whereas usually September is fully dry for at least the first 2-3 weeks. And the first rains are usually little affairs, whereas today we're facing two or three waves of a dying typhoon.

I think that most of the Pinot Noir is still hanging in the vineyards. It should stop raining by next Thursday or so, and a few days of sun will help, but this is simply too much rain.

Modern varieties, however, ripen earlier and all mine are picked (Cayuga was the last; it came in yesterday, whereas Leon Millot was picked two weeks ago and is already finished not only with primary fermentation but also with MLF!).

Every year is different. Just look at our current radar image:

 

Venus grapes

I was out checking chemistry at the Rombough Vineyard in Aurora yesterday. Look at these:

Those are Venus grapes: Seedless, large berries in large clusters. They reached 14.9 Brix in Aurora OR (140' elev) on August 24, 2013. They will get a bit riper but are very edible now. Mild pleasant flavor.

That's an early harvest for this area. Everything will be early if the weather pattern holds, though it has been cooler and  more humid of late. We're at 1643 Growing Degree Days YTD, and it's likely we'll top 2000 but unsure by how much. 2100 or 2200 is in reach if it warms back up.

Tales of three vintages, no, four

This is taken from a great article by Andy Perdue, in Wine Press NW, about the climate for recent Washington and Oregon vintages. You can read that article here.

Washington State has seen three very challenging years in a row, for the first time since the 1970s. This wouldn't be unusual for the Willamette Valley, but in the desert of WA, the climate is consistently hot and dry for winegrapes, right? Not always.

2009: A great vintage for some WA plots, but an early freeze put an end to additional ripening at many vineyards. In Oregon, a very good year, following the great year of 2008.

2010: Springtime in the Evergreen State was cold, so buds broke late and the grapes stayed behind schedule all summer. Harvest ran late, which brings special issues to manage, but it was a happy ending with a record crop. Or so we thought, until a hard freeze before Thanksgiving decimated many vineyards which hadn't time to harden off for winter. (Let's face it, folks--vinifera vines are wussies compared to native American vines). The famed Horse Heaven Hills got it particularly hard. At Champoux Vineyard--where Quilceda Creek sourced some of its cabs--whole blocks of vines died.

In Oregon, it was a plague of starving birds which hit the vineyards during preharvest in 2010. The cold summer weather prevented the normal development of the quadrillions of blackberry vines upon which the birds had become so dependent. Over 20% of Oregon's grape crop was lost, and in some vineyards it was much, much higher than that.

2011:  This vintage was worse than 2010, with an even colder Spring and later harvest.

(that incredible photo of a staggered boxer is copyrighted by Reuters)

But as we've seen so often in the past decade, WA and OR winemakers are really getting a handle on how to cope with weird weather. Wet years in the Willamette can still produce good Pinots, for example, and Oregon's whites from the cold years of '10 and '11 can be superb (some say the 2010 Pinots are, too). The application of science, in the field and the winery, can undo some of Nature's damage in the field. Washington's wines from those three trying years were still quite good, as evidenced by their professional scores.

So as 2012 approached there was not a little trepidation. And Spring was cool, with budding a bit late. But summer was grand, with heat units off the charts (OK, much higher than average) for the Willamette and a great growing season was had in both states. Record harvests strained all available tankspace. Too early to know for sure, but it appears 2012 will produce many great wines in the Pac NW.

Pinot Noir: Two styles

(The following piece pulls extensively from a good article by Craig LaBan, Philadelphia Inquirer Restaurant Critic; his complete article is found here.

Pinot Noir is on just about everyone's "very short list" of the greatest grapes (along with, most likely, Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah, Sangiovese, Riesling, and Chardonnay). But Pinot is infamous for being ephemeral and inconsistent: It varies from one bottle to the next, and it can even vary from month to month. It is more difficult to grow and to vinify. It can disappoint, or exalt, and you never know which until you pull out the cork. Personally, I do not appreciate the "what will I get?" aspect of Pinot Noir (or, stated another way, I prefer a baseball batter who hits lots of singles and doubles, compared to one who strikes out a lot but also hits a few home runs). However, I agree that, at its best, it is the greatest grape on Earth. However, it's a shame that we don't get to see it at its best very often. It's also a shame that Pinot is so expensive, but that is mostly because the variety loses its varietal character if it's overcropped--and thus, much of the fruit must be cut off and discarded while still green. This drives up the cost of the wine, obviously, because the yields are lower.

There are two fundamental styles of Pinot Noir:

1. The classic French style: thin, watery, often with weak color, with subtle flavors and suppressed fruit. For reasons I do not fully comprehend (other than Gallic tradition and dominance), this is the most popular PN style, and it is growing in prominance.

2. The "New World" style: more fruit-forward; a darker wine; richer/more body (thickness in the mouth).

LaBan's article contrasts Kosta Browne (a cult CA Pinot producer) with Littorai (which makes classic Pinots). The two wineries share the same zip code in Sebastopol, CA, yet cannot be more different.

Kosta doesn't grow any grapes. They make Pinot from other people's grapes, in a warehouse. Their expertise lies in skillful blending. Their wines sell for $52-$72 and are typically big and fruit-forward, though not too hot (alcoholic). There are over 10,000 people who are waiting to get on their mailing list.

Littorai (Latin for "coasts") loses points with me because it adheres to one of the greatest hoaxes of all time: Biodynamic farming. The only science behind it is that which can be easily gained by studying organic farming practices, which predate the Biodynamic farce and which are well-supported by science and proved in the field; all the rest of Biodynamic farming is hocus pocus dreamed up by a snake oil salesman who knew nothing about botany. Wineries, and their consumers, should be embarrassed to fall for it. Littorai's wines are lighter-styled but reknowned for rich berry and earth elements.

In Oregon, we are heavily influenced by the great Domaine Drouhin winery, which of course was begun pretty long ago now, in an epic move here by the historic Drouhin family of Burgundy fame. I think our wetter climate probably lends itself to the classic style, as well.

I am sick of all the mediocre Pinot being made in Oregon. The great bottles are fantastic and the skill of their makers is remarkable. But there is just too much Pinot Plonk here, too many pretenders. The variety's seen a  quadrupling of acres planted in the past decade, and a lot of that is being made into poor quality wine.  We shall see what the market thinks, over the long term. Meanwhile, YOU should see which style you prefer.

Roco

Rollin Soles, a very friendly and talented winemaker from Texas, has been making wine at Argyle for many years. A few years ago he started Roco, his own place.

Now they're opening a new tasting room, and Spectator gave one of his wines 95 points! Pretty high score for an Oregon Pinot; not many have scored so high.

You can read about all that here.

Oregon wine grape harvest 2012

Today's Oregonian has an article (front page of the Business section) about the Oregon Pinot harvest. The photo (of Alloro's Pinot Noir grapes on the vine) looks pretty bad to me--many grapes are shriveled from this near-record-setting drought we've had this year. The loss of water in the grapes drives the sugar level crazy high. The article talks about the risk of excessive sugars and the resulting "hot" (high-alcohol) wines.

So I'm modifying my earlier statement about how this is likely to be a generally great vintage; I now think it might be great for some wines. I think the best wines may come from (a) vineyards that irrigated a bit in the past month, to keep the grapes plump but not so much as to dilute flavors; or (b) older vineyards whose roots have better access to groundwater even in this drought.

High-alcohol Pinot is no fun, and if water is added by the winemaker to reduce the alcohol, that can dilute the flavors.

The Fall rains come tomorrow night and hit in earnest on Saturday or Sunday. Goodbye to one of our longest, deepest summer droughts ever in NW Oregon.

Check out the shriveling/raisining on Alloro's Pinot Noir grapes (photo taken from today's Oregonian article):

Pretty Darn Good Harvest Weather

I have a few "modern varieties" of grapes still hanging, but have harvested seven varieties already (they ripen earlier than vinifera do, as a general rule). But I think most vinifera grapes are still out there on the vines. Their growers are glad to see a later-than-average start to our famous Fall rains.

The 15-day forecast shows 100% chance of of our first heavy rain on Oct 15, so that is a target date for some growers who will want to pick before it hits. But other growers who need a touch more ripening may wait through that cycle (they'll rightly say that their grapes needed a quick freshening from some rain; they may even rightly say that a bit of rain can push more carbohydrates (sugars) into the fruit, which at first seems counterintuitive). Too early to tell, yet, when the next rain will come, after the first wave hits. There is typically a following period of regained nice weather, after the first rain.

But usually the first Fall rains come in late Sept or early Oct.

We've had a very unusual drought this year--only 0.25" of rain in the July 1-Sep 30 quarter! That's the least in EIGHTY YEARS! And we always get rain until July 4-5 or so, so this is quite unusual.

Wed, Oct 3		Sunny. Mild.	68°F	48°F	16 mph / NE	22%	66°F	Low	4%
Thu, Oct 4		Sunny. Mild.	69°F	41°F	11 mph / NE	24%	66°F	Low	5%
Fri, Oct 5		Passing clouds. Mild.	69°F	43°F	11 mph / ENE	22%	67°F	Low	5%
Sat, Oct 6		Passing clouds. Mild.	71°F	39°F	10 mph / NE	23%	67°F	Low	8%
Sun, Oct 7		More sun than clouds. Mild.	74°F	37°F	5 mph / ENE	23%	69°F	Low	13%
Mon, Oct 8		Scattered clouds. Mild.	72°F	39°F	4 mph / W	27%	69°F	Low	19%
Tue, Oct 9		Scattered clouds. Mild.	71°F	39°F	6 mph / NW	33%	68°F	Low	27%
Wed, Oct 10		Sunny. Mild.	69°F	35°F	4 mph / NNE	45%	69°F	Low	0%
Thu, Oct 11		Sprinkles late. Mostly cloudy. Mild.	72°F	35°F	7 mph / SSE	73%	74°F	Minimal	26%	0.08"
Fri, Oct 12		More sun than clouds. Mild.	69°F	35°F	1 mph / NE	69%	69°F	Low	10%
Sat, Oct 13		Mostly sunny. Mild.	70°F	36°F	7 mph / NE	50%	70°F	Low	0%
Sun, Oct 14		Light rain late. Partly sunny. Mild.	72°F	39°F	9 mph / S	70%	74°F	Minimal	37%	0.09"
Mon, Oct 15		Rain late. Mostly cloudy. Mild.	70°F	39°F	14 mph / SW	83%	70°F	Minimal	100%	0.71"
Tue, Oct 16		Scattered showers. Mostly cloudy. Mild.	68°F	36°F	11 mph / SW	76%	68°F	Minimal	63%	0.24"
Wed, Oct 17		Light rain late. More sun than clouds. Mild.	64°F	32°F	6 mph / SSE	79%	64°F	Low	20%	0.11"

(above forecast info is taken from myforecast.com)

Somebody's list of Oregon's Top 50 wines

This list, like all such lists, is, of course, condemnable for the many good wines it leaves off.

However, it's useful to peruse it, for several reasons. First, some wines you may not have had are listed, and those would be fun to try. I know White Rose pretty well, including its winemaker Jesus, but W.Rose hasn't gotten a lot of press recently; however, they hold down the #1 and #2 Pinot Noir spots!

Also, notice the high score given to Gamay (the '11, by Division Winemaking Company). Gamy is a grape grown between Burgundy and the Rhone, which suggests it could be grown here, in the warmer parts of the Willamette Valley, because there is good Syrah made here now, too.

The list is here.