huevos con vino

I realize that all of my readers want to get me something for Christmas.  That sort of fawning attention comes naturally to you when you run a blog with about 8 readers.

So take note, all of you: One present I no longer need is a new wine fridge.  I just got a second wine fridge, just like the first, and it should be delivered fairly soon.  I can’t wait!  I am clearly out of space and the wines I have at home are suffering without proper cellaring.  I also have about 16 bottles in my friend’s basement, which isn’t optimal for either of us (and he’s out of space too).

I couldn’t be more excited about this gift, partly because the cost wasn’t bad (and the shipping was free).  Mostly I’m excited because I don’t really need any presents.  I can just buy myself whatever I need.  It’s more about the surprise of receiving something unexpected, or receiving something I really want, that makes me enjoy Christmas now.  I’m sure someday I will enjoy it even more when I can give presents to any children I might have…unless, of course, they cut into my wine budget, in which case it’s straight to boarding school with them!

Note: I went to a boarding school briefly and the few times I boarded there, I realized that Oliver Twist is a non-fiction story.

On another topic: The Wine Spectator has released its annual Top 100 list for 2006.  There were some surprises in there along with some 90-point wines that cracked the top 100, which seems odd to me.  But really this list is about positioning and marketing rather than a purely “best of the best” sort of thing.

Here are the names that stood out to me:

• A Kosta Browne Pinot clocks in at #7, the highest US Pinot Noir on the list
• Kongsgaard follows closely at #8 with their nearly untouchably expensive Chardonnay (and it’s not even The Judge!)
• A Shea comes in at #15.  Good for them, bad for those of us who like Shea Vineyard wines for less than $40-$50/bottle.
• A Merry Edwards at #21.  I need to try their wines!
• Krug at #26 with a 98-point wine.  This proves my point about marketing, etc.  How could a 98-point wine end up so low on the list otherwise?  But these are the most “exciting” wines, not the “best.”
• Archery Summit Arcus at #29.  For the money I’d take a Domaine Drouhin and a Lachini.
• Argyle Nuthouse Pinot at #49.
• All the way down at #51 is Domaine Alfred with their base Pinot release, not even the Califa!  Weird.
• Sea Smoke’s Botella clocks in at #53.  Duly noted for next year.
• #57 is a Ken Wright Pinot, the Canary Hill Vineyard release.
• #59 is Loring and their Rosella’s Vineyard Pinot.  Interesting.
• Right after, at #60, is the Gary’s Vineyard Siduri Pinot.  Two Santa Lucia vineyards at #59 and #60.  You would think they could have spaced these out a bit better on the list, eh?
• An Elk Cove Pinot Gris at #77.
• Benton-Lane Pinot at #80.

Yes, slightly interesting, this list of the year’s most “interesting” wines.  I should really read up on their criteria for the word “interesting.”  With several wines in there, Oregon seems to be doing better than Washington State and about even with California in some ways.  I find that interesting.  France, Spain, Argentina, Italy, and Australia all seem to receive strong attention in this list, which makes sense.

Personally, I don’t want to see some of my favorite low-production wines appear here.  I’d rather see Lachini and Radio-Coteau and Odisea fly under the radar so I don’t need to pay even more for those wines.  But hey, I’m sure the wineries themselves would love to submit several cases of wine to the Wine Spectator and hope they get picked for this list.  It must make a big difference in the valuation of their wines prior to release.

Every month or so, I swing by the Bellevue Whole Foods store.  It’s frustrating: Part of me dislikes the chain store approach to shopping.  Another part of me likes only this one type of provolone that only Whole Foods produces.  Yet another part of me, my better half if you will, is able to eat only turkey on sandwiches and Whole Foods has the best natural turkey lunchmeat.

To quote Grace Jones, I’m a slave to the rhythm of Whole Foods’ products.

The Bellevue location has a wine buyer whose taste is excellent.  This is the store where I have found Alexandria Nicole Lemberger long after the winery had sold out of their 55 cases.  The same store had 2004 Hirsch Pinot Noir, albeit for $60.

Well, today I found something I really wanted: 2004 Lachini Ana Vineyard Pinot Noir.  Now that’s something I’ll buy!  I was looking online for this wine but couldn’t find too many cost-effective options.  And with temperatures hovering around 7 Kelvin here in Seattle this week I didn’t want to risk any wine shipments.  I’d hate to get a box of broken glass and frozen wine.

A few things of note with regard to the 2004 Ana Vineyard release compared to the 2005:

• 2004 was the first release of this wine.
• The alcohol content is much higher than the 2005 (14.4% vs. 13.4%).  This difference is a little confusing since they picked the grapes much earlier in 2004 than in 2005.
• The label is slightly different from the 2005.  Yes, that’s really useless information.

As I picked out a bottle of this wine (they had 4 bottles on display at $43.99 each), one of the wine department specialists came over and we talked for a bit.  I left her with the strong impression that she should try the Lachini wines.  I also learned that Casey is the name of the guy with the great wine selection taste at the Bellevue Whole Foods.  I’m thinking about contacting him for an interview at some point for this blog; I would love to learn more about how a bottle of 2004 Hirsch shows up in a Bellevue grocery store.

Finally, I saw this review of the 2005 Lachini Pinot Gris today.  Apparently the Lachini release is the class of its Oregon brethren.  Too bad it’s sold out!

Lachini Vineyards is relatively new, assuming your scale of measurement is broader than the release date of the movie Sideways.  Started in 2001, this winery hadn’t registered with me until a few weeks before Thanksgiving.  I searched around for what the search engines regard as the “best Pinots in Oregon” and Lachini was one of the hits I got back.  In this case, the Internet was correct: Lachini is certainly among the best Pinot-focused wineries in Oregon.

Grape vines outside Lachini 

We paid Lachini a visit the day after Thanksgiving, 2006.  The winery abuts Bergstrom and is also very close to Adelsheim, so they are certainly in well-known company on Calkins Lane.  From the road, you cannot see much of anything; the road rises up to meet you, so to speak.

At the end of the lengthy gravel driveway, a lovely winery building awaited us.  When we visited, we noticed a large pavilion tent set up out in front of the winery, ostensibly to accomodate all the visitors.  The winery is typically “by appointment only” like so many of the high-end, low-production Pinot wineries in this part of the country.

When I say “low production,” I’m talking about a total harvest of about 3,500 cases of wine in 2006, up from about 2,550 in 2005.  Nearly half of that production seems to go into the Family Estate Pinot Noir, a blend of their different blocks of Estate fruit.  Other wines include the Giselle (at 100 cases, this wine uses the best barrels of the vintage blended together), the Ana Vineyard and ‘S’ releases (both under 300 cases produced), and a Pinot Gris that is extremely limited (133 cases in 2005) and sold out.

Much of Lachini’s wines will probably sell out rapidly as they rely on a mailing list and point-of-sale approach so far.  I got the strong sense at this winery that the entire family was helping out: Ron and Marianne Lachini were there, along with a couple of parents and some friends who were pouring wine and collecting money.  The following photo gives you a sense of what it was like in the tent that afternoon: 

The crowd at Lachini, 11/24/06

The good folks at Lachini figured out a few of the best tactics for a successful tasting event on a busy day:

• Provide enough parking to match the approximate capacity of the tasting area
• Provide good snack food that pairs well with Pinot Noir, such as mild olives, bread, mild cheeses, and good dark chocolate truffles
• Offer free bottled water and wine alternatives to those who must drive or who don’t really want to drink
• Let everyone in without forcing them to pay; only charge those who taste
• Give each taster a terrific wine glass as part of the fee; include your logo on the glass
• Space out the different wines so you move in a discernible, logical order from wine to wine, preventing major queues at any one table
• Place one-page wine fact briefs at each table
• Educate your helpers so they can talk about wine as much or as little as the tasters want
• If you are the winemaker or winery owner, show up and press the flesh in person

Lachini did all of these things and more: They were so friendly and helpful, it was a fun experience to be there.  Even if the wine had been subpar somehow, I would have enjoyed myself.

But let me tell you: The wines at Lachini are fantastic!  They will have no trouble selling out every vintage of these wines.

• The ‘S’ is a great crowd-pleaser, with its smooth mouthfeel and delicious fruit aromas and flavors.  Women love this wine, and men are happy because they enjoy it too and because women love this wine.  Great with dark chocolate.
• The ‘Ana Vineyard’ is a massive Pommard browbeater.  I love this wine because it’s 13.4% alcohol and because it tastes like a French wine in all the best ways.  The ‘Ana Vineyard’ is focused on supple earthy flavors and, better yet, the subtleties behind the dusty, mushroomy textures.
• The ‘Family Estate’ is an excellent blend of all the Lachini Estate fruit.  This blend is in keeping with the Burgundian style of Pinot Noir rather than some of those California blends that feature 15% alcohol content or more.  Robust, delicious, clearly meant to be opened and consumed with food.
• The ‘Giselle’ wasn’t available when I visited; the price went up a lot since 2005 because, as the winery owner told me, he needs to better distinguish his “top of the line” wine from the rest of his offerings.
• The Pinot Gris sounds interesting but it was sold out and unavailable.

As I said earlier, Lachini is moving toward the mailing list allocation model for selling their wine.  I think many more wineries will be shifting in this direction as the market continues to expand for top quality Pinot Noir.  I also think that the more this progression occurs, the less inherent prestige each new winery will be accorded simply because they sell on allocation only.  If everyone is doing it, the differentiation value of mailing list allocation diminishes, although it won’t vanish altogether.

Lachini is a very promising young winery.  They have the right focus, attitude, and range of wines: They aren’t trying to be all things to all people.  I think it is commendable that they don’t release a “cheap” ($20-$25) Pinot Noir, although their ‘Family Estate’ release lacks sufficient price differentiation from the other more limited releases (the ‘S’ and ‘Ana Vineyard’ cost $42/bottle right now, same as the ‘Family Estate’).  Compared to other fairly new wineries in the Willamette Valley AVA, I believe Lachini stands an excellent chance for future success.  I know I’m looking forward to each successive vintage from them!

My wife, mother, stepfather, and I headed out at about noon on “Black Friday,” a peculiarly American holiday that is sort of like the devil’s advocate to Boxing Day.  The four of us wanted to check out 3 or 4 wineries, but not more than 4, before heading to dinner at the Joel Palmer House.  More on that dinner later in this post.

After some planning, we narrowed the list to three wineries, but that list changed once we got to Penner-Ash and found it closed.  So, here’s the final list, in order of visitation:

• Beaux Frères
• Lachini Vineyards
• Adelsheim Vineyard
• J.K. Carriere

Note that I am only going to recap the wines I tried at each winery in this post.  In a few upcoming posts, I plan to write more detailed profiles for each winery we visited, including wine details and my personal observations about the wineries themselves based on this trip.  So watch for those entries.

We decided to visit Beaux Frérès first because it’s not usually open to the public.  We found out why as soon as we pulled into the non-descript driveway: There’s no space to park!  We wound up parking on the edge of a cliff, essentially, and wandered toward the winery entrance.

Beaux Frères Tasting Notes 

At Beaux Frères they were pouring these wines in the following order (the 2005 wines were futures that had yet to be bottled):

1. 2004 Belle Soeurs Pinot Noir ($45/bottle)
2. 2005 Beaux Frères Willamette Valley Pinot Noir ($40/bottle)
3. 2005 Beaux Frères The Vineyard Pinot Noir ($60/bottle)
4. 2005 Beaux Frères The Upper Terrace Pinot Noir ($75/bottle, 2 bottle maximum)

At a separate table, they had some wines from Ana Vineyards, where the Beaux Frères winemaker (Mike Etzel) also works:

1. 2004 Ana Vineyards Dundee Hills Reserve Pinot Noir ($40/bottle)
2. 2005 Ana Vineyards Dundee Hills Reserve Pinot Noir ($210/half case, futures only, available in May 2007)

At first I didn’t get the connection between Ana Vineyards and Beaux Frères, and I wasn’t alone: Lots of people seemed to be skipping that table.  This turned out to be quite a shame as their wine was wonderful and worth the $15 admission fee.

I skipped the Belle Soeurs wine and went straight for the Beaux Frères.  Don’t ask me why, or what I expected to be tasting, but I was excited to try their futures offerings.  The women liked the Upper Terrace release, which was still far too tannic yet (of course), and the men strongly preferred The Vineyard, which was more balanced even now.  The Vineyard tasted like morel mushrooms and earth, and it had a dusty clove background to it.  The Upper Terrace was too tannic and dry yet to say much about it, and the Willamette Valley was too acidic.  Overall, these wines disappointed me because, well, they were futures and they weren’t drinking terribly well yet.  They were interesting, but I didn’t buy anything here.

I did talk to some of the guys pouring their wines and they told me The Vineyard was made from mostly Pommard with some Wadenswil grapes too, while the Upper Terrace was Dijon clones 667, 777, 114, and others too I think.  You could taste the vast difference between these clones…it was startling, really.  This difference remained a theme throughout the day.

The Ana Vineyards releases were 100% Pommard from 30-year-old vines planted in the Ana Vineyard in 1976.  As it turned out, though, everyone liked the next winery’s take on the Ana Vineyard fruit.

Lachini Vineyards Tasting Notes

I found this winery online by chance while researching places to visit for this trip.  It’s right next to Bergstrom, which we skipped since they had no parking available.  Parking is a huge problem for some of these wineries, and Bergstrom is one of the bigger and more notable wineries too, so it’s a little sad.  Ahh well, I guess the lack of parking means fewer yuppies and oldsters in $200 jeans crowding the tasting table, eh?

Lachini (pronounced “La-key-nee“) is a relatively new winery; they have some interested Pinot Noirs and they do make a Pinot Gris that is already sold out.  In addition to offering terrific food and free bottles of water, they were pouring the following wines in this order (all were $42/bottle):

1. 2005 Lachini Ana Vineyard Pinot Noir
2. 2005 Lachini ‘S’ Pinot Noir
3. 2004 Lachini Family Estate Pinot Noir
4. 2005 Lachini Family Estate Pinot Noir

The entire family was there, along with their friends, so the tasting was quite fun and friendly.  I drilled a couple of their friends for information about the wines and was impressed with their depth of knowledge and candor about the wines, other wineries, the 2006 crop and the brix levels of those grapes at other wineries, etc.

Laurent Montalieu has been the winemaker at Lachini since 2004; he makes everything except the ‘S’ release, which is made instead by Peter Rosback of Sineann.  It’s an interesting point of comparison, in fact.  The guys preferred the Ana Vineyard wine here, while the women preferred the ‘S’ release.  However, unlike the other wineries, we all liked every wine we tasted here, enough that I bought my only bottle of the day from Lachini: a bottle of 2005 ‘S.’  I wish I had purchased a bottle of the Ana Vineyard, though.  Here’s why:

• The Ana Vineyard release is 100% Pommard clones, planted over 27 years ago on 2 acres in the Dundee Hills.  The alcohol is 13.4% and the taste is pure Burgundy - amazing forest floor aroma and taste with some nice cherry fruit and a touch of that “barnyard” essence that is endearing to some and off-putting to others (who can’t seem to explain its presence, actually, when they simply say they don’t like the taste).  My stepfather and I picked this wine as the best of the day, partly because it has amazing presence for a 2005, but also because the Pommard clones yield such a rich, earthy texture and flavor.  It smells like a glass full of pine forest mushrooms and ripe cherries.  An intense wine that is muscular, potent, uncompromising, and well worth finding.
• The ‘S’ release is a more balanced blend of 50% Pommard and 50% Dijon, including 667 and some other clones.  Rich, supple, smooth, more fruit-forward, more easily accessible…however you want to describe this wine, it’s a major crowd-pleaser.  Not as intense as the Ana Vineyard, but rather more graceful and elegant and equally drinkable.
• The two Family Estate releases were remarkably good as well.  They feature broader blends of Pinot clones from all across the Lachini vineyards.  The 2005 smelled more like pencil lead than wine at first…amazing clarity of aroma and flavor for such a young wine!  I have never smelled a stronger lead/graphite aroma outside of a schoolhouse.  Very nice stuff.

Overall, Lachini was an excellent find with excellent wines.  I look forward to becoming a major customer of this winery!

Adelsheim Vineyard Tasting Notes

A stone’s throw from Lachini is Adelsheim, which is a bit larger and more established nationally than many of the other wineries we visited.  I will provide as much of a description as this winery deserved, particularly considering their approach to the tasting: $20 to taste, $10 to walk around with tasters (they had catered food, so they had to charge everyone who entered).  Major faux pas in my book.

Anyway, here’s what we had, along with the catered accompaniments:

1. 2005 Willamette Valley Pinot Blanc, butternut squash crepes
2. 2005 Caitlin’s Reserve Chardonnay, pork belly and apple profiteroles
3. 2005 Willamette Valley Pinot Noir, venison paté on crostini with red wine chutney (and mustard)
4. 2005 Elizabeth’s Reserve Pinot Noir, duck confit strudel
5. 2004 Calkins Lane Pinot Noir, fried polenta with wild mushroom ragout
6. 2005 Deglacé Dessert Pinot Noir, pear and almond tart

These wines were fine for the masses.  That’s how we all felt about them, to be honest: They lacked the individual character of the wines we really like, or at least that I really like.  They just didn’t excite me, I’m afraid.

The Dessert Pinot Noir was a shocker to me.  They took Pinot Noir grapes, froze them, and then pressed them to make this 10.5% alcohol wine.  It tasted very syrupy and fairly good, but it was more like a Chenin Blanc dessert wine than anything unto itself.  Seemed like a waste of good Pinot grapes to me when there are so many other dessert wines you can drink.

J.K. Carriere Tasting Notes

Our final winery of the day was J.K. Carriere.  It was the only winery that didn’t let you keep the glass, or even give you a proper Burgundy glass, which was a shame as their wines cried out for real Burgundy stemware.  They did have awesome Italian cheeses available, though.

Here are the wines we tried, in order (the first was $42/bottle, the rest were $65/bottle):

1. 2004 Willamette Valley Pinot Noir
2. 2004 Antoinette Pinot Noir
3. 2004 Shea Vineyard Pinot Noir
4. 2004 Anderson Family Pinot Noir

All of these wines were fun; the Shea had the most fruit-forward taste while the Anderson Family was probably the most enticing to me.  But at $65/bottle and 75 cases per release, the latter three wines just seemed a little overpriced and underwhelming.  They were darn good, don’t get me wrong.  They just didn’t excite me the same way as some other wines I have tried.

That said, I would love to sit down with a bottle of any of those 4 wines listed above and a nice meal.  My sense is these wines needed food to bring out their flavors and depth even more than the rest of the wines we tried on Black Friday. 

Joel Palmer House

After a hard day of trying new wines and spending money on tasting fees, we headed to the Joel Palmer House for dinner.  The JPH is located in Dayton, Oregon, which is roughly the size of one city block of Manhattan, but with more shacks and DirecTV satellite dishes.

The JPH is a phenomenal restaurant set in an historic house.  It’s the sort of place you go once before you die, much like the French Laundry in California.  We all split a bottle of very special house wine: a 2005 Joel Palmer House Private Label Cuvee Pinot Noir.  Peter Rosback of Sineann makes this wine especially for the JPH; it contains fruit sourced from a few vineyards, including Lachini.  It’s an incredible mix of damp earth and mushrooms on the nose and black cherries on the tongue.  Damn good wine with this food, much of which focuses on wild mushrooms.

Speaking of food, here is what I had at the JPH:

• White Truffle Porcini Risotto
• Heidi’s Three Mushroom Tart
• Wild Boar Ragout with Lotus Root and Chanterelle Mushrooms (special)
• Apple Tart and Fresh Hazelnut Ice Cream

This food ranks in my lifetime top 10 for sure.  The tart was clearly shipped here from another planet, a planet where all the chefs are French, the police are British, etc., etc.  The wild boar ragout was complex and delicious, with a hint of chipotle in the rich brown gravy.  The dessert was terrific and featured some wonderful ice cream.  On the whole, the meal was as good as you could hope to get anywhere on the West Coast of the US.

Summary

Now that I’m at home, relaxing, I guess my favorite wine of the day was the 2005 Lachini Ana Vineyard Pinot Noir, followed closely by their ‘S’ release and the ‘J’ release unique to the Joel Palmer House.  I will write up some more detailed notes and observations soon for each winery, along with a few photos.  With words alone, it can be hard to do justice to the wine tasting scene on Thanksgiving weekend, particularly when you are trying to describe a Hummer H3 full of drunk schmucks who are more intent on hitting 9 wineries in one afternoon than on learning anything new about wine itself.  Oh, you’ll see…just watch this space for all the details.

A quick note to relay what we drank with our Thanksgiving meal tonight:

• 2003 Ketelsen Tudor House Reserve Pinot Noir (decanted for 2-2.5 hours) - very nice, better than last time even!
• 2004 Ramian Page One Grenache - big hit…great wine for $15.
• 1999 Kauber Bluchertal Riesling Spätlese (Mittelrhein region)

• Aroma: Rich, sweet, honey and apricots.
• Flavor: Amazing sparkling mineral flavor, almost like that highly sought after petrichor experience I’m looking for.
• General impression: A nice sweet Spätlese straight from Germany, with about 4-5 years of age on the bottle.  Nice surprise!

Tomorrow we’re off to a few wineries…we’ll see which ones soon enough!