2010 Corte Pavone Brunello di Montalcino

Awful bottle. Little fruit evident. Predominant flavor is licorice; yuck. And it is far too hot at 15%; this isn't a port, people. When I consider the cost of this Brunello ($90 retail), it's a disaster compared to other Brunellos. Notice that only J. Suckling gave it a really good score; the other pros did not. Stay away! There are many better Brunellos out there, for less money. What a disappointment.

A fine Brunello should sing like an angel. Wow, but this is awful.

Latah Creek 2012 Wahluke Sloope (WA) Ellena's Sangiovese: Tasting notes

We opened our first bottle of this wine tonight, with an awesome ragu. And, for background, please recall that I found this one one a great close-out sale, and researched it and offered it, without being able to taste it first. 

Thoughts:

1. This is a well-made wine, though it is quite different from a classic Sangio from Tuscany: This one is much mellower--perhaps to the point of indolence. It does not have the acidic profile that is typical--perhaps due to the heat of Wahluke Slope compared to the Etruscan clime; instead it is very mellow, structurally. It is lazy, to my mind, but laziness bred of a confident mind. It is its own drummer. I found the dominant note to be coffee, with an dark undercurrant of cherry, but the acid is so low that it comes--THIS CLOSE--to flabby. Not a bad buy at $12, though very different from "typical." Different, even, from such WA Sangios as K Vintners' (though that one costs more than this one). I prefer a Sangio that is midway between Old World and New World in style, whereas this one is definitely all New World and even then its acid is far lower than normal for this varietal.

2. If you are willing to ignore this wine's eschewing the normal "desire to please," if you are OK with a wine that says, "this is what I am, and I don't care what you think," then this is an interesting wine. I liked it with the ragu (in fact, I was fascinated by it), but Jane didn't--she is enslaved to the world of "typical Sangio." Which type of winelover are you? Are you the one who indignantly pronounces, "but this one is different, and therefore worse?" or are you willing to look deeply into swirling mists of the unknown, to try to understand the novelty there, and being made better by the exercise?

Stoller buys out Chehalem

One good winery buying another. The story is here.

I've always liked Harry Pederson-Nedry and his wines. He was the first to plant in what is now the Ribbon Ridge AVA.  Chehalem made some very good wines that were priced low enough that buyers were grateful, compared to what some saw as aggressive overpricing by other Willamette Valley wineries.

Harry taught me about how long Riesling can hang--into November! I'm glad he will continue to grow grapes and make wine, under the RR label.

Stoller has a very large operation (very large for NW Oregon), and is committed to wine quality and environmental conservation...I like that grove of trees in the middle of their winery vineyard.

(photo of Chehalem's Ridgecrest Vineyard, from the Chehalem Winery website)

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)

The Top Fifty Red Winegrapes

A new "Coffee Table Book"  is out, on the 50 most-important red winegrapes, and one of the lauded grapes is a modern variety (Baco Noir)! It's not my personal favorite--there are so many good modern grape varieties now--but it is a huge step in the right direction.

Saying that you like wine, but also believing there are no good modern varieties of winegrapes, is like saying you are an expert on cars but you haven't heard of the Chevrolet Corvette or the Toyota Camry.

Red Wine: The Comprehensive Guide to the 50 Essential Varieties & Styles

https://www.amazon.com/Red-Wine-Comprehensive-Essential-Varieties/dp/1454918233/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1514740842&sr=1-1&keywords=red+wine

I agree that the conventional wisdom is slowly changing, as it always must, in the face of new truth. Drat that it changes so slowly. But drip drip drip goes the water, falliing fruitlessly upon the giant rock of ignorance, and one day we marvel that the rock is gone.

Breaking all the Rules in WA

Great article about the Argentine winemaker at Columbia Crest who makes wines in huge concrete eggs, and leaves the wine on its skins for nine months (9 months! That is quite unusual). And check out the part about the artist's "Lady in Red" paintings-nice!

(photo credit: This image is included in the linked article. I don't know who owns the image. It shows the artist Zimer making a Lady in red mural.)

The "H" word--and why smart people focus on the wine and what it tastes like, instead of bashing an entire segment of the industry

In wines, "hybrid" has been a bad word. It's a word used by those who want to tar an entire segment of the winemaking industry. It is borne out of wine snobbery. These critics dismiss the idea that a grape, which is bred by crossing a European winegrape with some other (probably American, maybe Asian) grape, cannot make a good wine. Nothing could be further from the truth. And there are good reasons to make these crosses of grapes, which I like to call "modern varieties:" earlier ripening, better disease resistance, and greater resistance to deep freezes. The challenge is to do this in a way that creates interesting flavors which are appreciated by consumers. This challenge has been ongoing for over a century now, as university professors and growers and winemakers have collaborated to breed new grapes and make good wines from these newer varieties.

I cannot count the good wines I've had, made from modern varieties grown in such places as Vermont and Virginia and New Mexico and Montana. I've been growing and testing modern varieties for a long time now, even though I live in vinifera country (SW Washington state, where classic winegrapes are extensively grown).

Hey--we appreciate new varieties of apples (such as Honeycrisp)--why not grapes too?

If you want to be a smarter wine lover, then take each wine on its own merits, and either like it or not, but consider it based on what it is like, not based on whether it is a modern or classical grape variety. Please don't dismiss a huge segment of the industry as no good, when that is clearly untrue.

Enjoy your winesearch!

Here is the article.

Here is a photo of the Epona Vineyard (all modern varieties of grapes) taken a couple of weeks ago, as the vines fell into the slumber of late Fall.