huevos con vino

I have been trying to write a new entry every day, but lately I have been too busy to do so.  I feel a little guilty but not too much since, well, I have a day job and that’s how I pay my bills.  But still, I have plenty to talk about and I want to keep this site fresh!  So here we go.

On Monday I received a letter from Privé Vineyard.  I had been eagerly awaiting this letter, but I wasn’t entirely prepared for what I received.

Privé Vineyard is an ultra-exclusive winery in Newberg, Oregon.  They make three Pinot Noir releases: Le Nord, Le Sud, and Joie de Vivre, the latter of which is sort of a “best barrels” type of wine.  Total case production is about 250 for Le Nord and Le Sud, and I doubt there are many cases of Joie de Vivre sitting around.  Overall, then, this winery has a tiny production level.  Only three restaurants are even able to carry their wine, and two of them are within a short drive of the winery itself (the third is the Herbfarm in Woodinville, WA).

This limited production engenders a certain cult quality, I believe.  Privé Vineyard has some devout customers since their wines are extremely good based on the reviews I have seen, at least.  One such review comes from the Prince of Pinot, who stops just short of telling his readers not to contact the winery because they get so overwhelmed with requests for their wine!  Other reviews discuss the 2001 vintage, the awards those wines won, and the amazing fact that 2001 was the first vintage for Privé.  Now that’s a good start.

The names of the wines derive from the physical locations of the grapes in the vineyard plots.  Le Nord features grapes from, appropriately enough, the northern block of grapes, which are located higher up the hill near the winery building.  Le Sud features grapes closer to the winery that also ripen earlier.  The Le Sud release also gets 100% new French oak compared to 25% new French oak with Le Nord.  I can’t wait to taste these wines someday.

So, the letter I got from Privé was notable because they were offering their 2006 Pinot Noir futures for sale now.  That’s “now” as in February 2007.  Now that’s early!  I decided to place an order quickly since their last offering sold out in less than two weeks, apparently.  I requested 6 bottles of Le Nord at $45/bottle, and I will be splitting that half-case with a good friend who knows his wine.  The Joie de Vivre and Le Sud are both highly tempting, but you have to order wine in quantities of 6 or 12 only.  Also, those two releases take longer to mature in the bottle so they aren’t necessarily as drinkable as quickly as Le Nord.  I want to start with Le Nord and then progress toward the other releases if I have the money and the patience.

I guess sometime in 2008 I will get some bottles of Privé Vineyard wine.  Happily, there are private tastings and barrel samplings offered at different times throughout the year, and I do expect to visit Oregon again this May for a few such events at places like Privé and Le Cadeau (hopefully!).  So perhaps I can be privy to the Privé in private.  Yes, this whole post has been proceeding toward that one horribly contrived sentence.  Clearly I need a drink.

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 8th, 2007 at 6:27 pm and is filed under commentary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.