huevos con vino

I just received the most polite wine offer letter ever!  Tom Mortimer, who owns Le Cadeau along with his wife Deb, sent me a nice, two-page letter on very attractive Le Cadeau stationery.  Let me tell you, this sort of friendly letter, which was addressed to me personally and was also signed by Tom and his wife (and which also had handwritten notes to me too!), sure beats some of the other messages I have received from wineries lately.

Case in point: A winery that shall remain nameless recently sent me an e-mail saying, in essence, “We went to the trouble to send you a mailer after you signed up for the mailing list.  If you don’t order any wine from that mailer, we will assume you have no interest in our wines and you will be off the mailing list.”  Nice.  How polite!  I can’t wait to give them my money.

Anyway, it’s refreshing to see a winery proprietor go out of his way to tell his customers that they matter.  I know that Kerry Murphy over at DuMOL is similarly polite, although they have a larger client base and more wines on offer than Le Cadeau, so that is perhaps even more surprising.  All I know is, money is tight for me right now, and I would much prefer to make my few purchases from people who appreciate my patronage and who make outstanding wine.  Why buy from a corporate store when you can buy direct?  And why should any small winery act like a corporate store?  At least two winery proprietors get it, and that’s just so nice to see.

So, the wines.  The 2005 vintage should prove to be an interesting one for Oregon Pinot Noir.  As with many of the wineries in the Willamette Valley AVA, and specifically in the Dundee Hills AVA, Le Cadeau had lower crop levels in 2005 than in 2004 and other recent vintages.  As Tom says in his letter, “younger vines averaged under 1 ton per acre [of fruit].”  Very interesting.

As in 2004, Le Cadeau will offer 3 distinct Pinot Noir releases for the 2005 vintage, and all with the same consulting winemakers as before:

• The Cote Est has aromas of “ripe black cherries and a bit of raspberry,” which sounds exactly like the sort of Pinot Noir I love (Josh Bergstrom, consulting winemaker).
• The Diversité apparently has some secondary essences of floral and spice aromas that light up the senses (Cheryl Francis and Sam Tannahill, consulting winemakers).
• The Rocheux has the “trademark earthiness” that is imparted by the “rocky west side of the vineyard,” and if this one is anything like the 2004 I can’t wait to try some (Harry Peterson-Nedry and Mike Eyres, consulting winemakers).

I appreciate the fact that Tom tells his customers to cellar these wines for “at least six months” before opening.  Makes sense to me!  I think the 2004 vintage from Oregon is just about ready to taste, to be honest, and in some cases the 2003 Pinot Noirs are still a bit too young.  But then, that might just be me.  I know some wineries release their wines before it’s time to do so.  Again, I won’t name any names here, but I am happy to know that Le Cadeau is watching out for my palate.

Unfortunately, it might be a while before I can buy some more Le Cadeau since I’m essentially out of money until May.  But that’s okay!  I hope Tom has some left at that point…with a total of 900 cases of all 3 releases, I might need to sell some of those comic books in my closet.

Ahh, Williams Selyem.  When it comes to Pinot Noir, Williams Selyem is royalty.  It is true that, by now, Williams Selyem is more of a brand name than a reflection of the people who own and operate the winery.  But owner John Dyson and executive winemaker Bob Cabral have tried hard to retain the special style that made Williams Selyem so famous in the 1980s.  Since that initial burst of fame in 1985, the winery has continued to build its reputation as a Pinot Noir powerhouse.  They do make other wines, though, but their Pinot Noir remains one of the biggest attractions.

I can see why, too.  They make at least 437 different Pinot Noirs.  Okay, I’m exaggerating a little.  They made 16 different Pinot Noirs in 2004; once the Web site gets up to date, we’ll see how many 2005 releases they produced.  They also made 7 different Chardonnays and Zinfandels in 2004, plus they probably made some other dessert wines, ports, and more limited bottlings that might not even make it onto the Web site.  With a lineup approaching 30 different bottlings each year, these guys are serious.

When I look back at my wine tasting notes, I see that I had only tried one Williams Selyem Pinot Noir prior to last night.  That was the insane 1997 Coastlands release, a wine that I found to be absolutely delicious as you would expect.  At $95-$120/bottle by now, the 1997 is quite expensive on the gray market.  Not quite as bad as that $500 magnum of ‘97 Rochioli Vineyard Pinot, but enough to make you think twice.

Anyway, we went to Nishino in Seattle last night with a couple of old friends from my grad school days.  They’re a lot of fun, and they enjoy good wine so I decided to dig into my cellar a bit.  I pulled out a bottle of 2004 Williams Selyem Central Coast Pinot Noir.  The guys at Nishino went crazy over the bottle, which made me smile since it was only about $30 at release (and $45-$65 by now).  Not too bad at all!  I guess ever since I brought in a bottle of Sea Smoke, they love to see what I’ll bring in next.  Williams Selyem is also a well known name in restaurant circles; one of the waiters talked about a few other Williams Selyem wines he had poured for people over the past few years.

For dinner, I had some terrific food (as usual):

• Tara nabe - mildly smoked black cod in a broth with mushrooms and greens, served in a metal cauldron
• Moriawase - chef’s choice of sashimi, with a couple different kinds of tuna, salmon, etc.
• Fresh homemade raspberry/cranberry sorbet - incredible purity of fruit flavor

The 2004 Williams Selyem Central Coast Pinot Noir is an interesting wine.  The grapes come from a vineyard fairly close to Castroville, which is known for its artichokes and its tainted spinach of late.  Luckily, these grapes come from the Vista Verde Vineyard, which is a converted cattle farm.  I’m certainly glad they sold off the cattle and planted Pinot Noir instead.

On to the wine, and my notes:

• Aroma: Lots of nice, ripe red cherry, wild strawberry, and raspberry, with an interesting secondary note of burnt caramel and butterscotch, sort of like a creme brulee.  Very focused aroma, a little lean and supple in a good way.  Hard to tell this is 14.1% alcohol.
• Flavor: Everything that was promised in the bouquet makes an appearance here, plus a streak of cranberry and a lovely, vibrant acidic undertone.  Well balanced flavors but not much tannic activity.  Definitely drinking well now.
• General impression: This wine is good.  Darn good.  It makes an initial impression that you like, and it just keeps improving from there.  It looks like this wine is in perfect form now, so drink it if you’ve got it!

I want more Williams Selyem in general and more Central Coast in particular.  Happily, I have a few bottles of the 2005 showing up soon; I hope they’re as good as the 2004 vintage!

Ahh, the first of the 2005 allocated wines to show up.  Radio-Coteau is one of my favorite wineries, although there is no actual winery building, nor have I ever attempted to visit the winemaker, Eric Sussman.  But I have read the Web site and tasted a few of his wines, and I’m definitely a fan!

I decided to split my 2005 allocation with my friend, the one with the nice wine cellar.  We have a plan to get more wine together, build up our allocation points, and not spend thousands of dollars each.  The plan is simple:

• Whenever possible, we split wine evenly (1 bottle for me, 1 bottle for him, and so on)
• When our allocation only allows 1 bottle, we place that bottle in the “community” section of the cellar for consumption together sometime in the future
• When our allocation only allows an odd number of bottles, we split them 50/50 and put the remaining bottle into the community section of the cellar

So, how did we fare with our total allocation this year?  We chose not to buy any Syrah because, although we like Syrah, we honestly couldn’t afford to get everything that was offered to us.  Here’s what we did buy:

• 3 bottles of 2005 La Neblina Pinot Noir (all for my friend)
• 2 bottles of 2005 Alberigi Pinot Noir (1 each)
• 1 bottle of 2005 Savoy Pinot Noir (community wine)
• 2 bottles of 2005 Von Weidlich Zinfandel (1 each)
• 1 bottle of 2005 Savoy Chardonnay (all for me!)

Yesterday I finally received all of the above, except for the Zinfandel and one of the Alberigi bottles since I purchased those a bit later.  It’s a shame they had to be shipped separately, but that’s okay.  I am really looking forward to that Zinfandel as I am a big fan of a nice Zin.  Same with the Chardonnay…at only 290 cases, and as Sussman’s first Chardonnay offering, how could I say no?  I love white wine but it can be hard to find time to drink in, especially in blustery, damp Seattle where you more often want a hearty red wine.

My only disappointment was the lack of Terra Neuma Pinot Noir in either offering that I received.  However, they only made 59 cases.  That’s almost not worth the effort on their part, but it’s really cool to see they went ahead with that release.  In addition, that wine received the best Parker scores, if you believe in that sort of thing….

I like the theme much better this time around.  The Wine Cask blog is hosting the April edition of Wine Blogging Wednesday (WBW) and I think the topic is terrific!  Here it is: Regular vs. Reserve.

Very interesting.  I love comparative analyses in general, and when it comes to wine I love them even more.  I still need to do my own WineKeeper “Keeper” vs. cork enclosure test, but that will have to wait.  I’m also heading to Finland on April 14, so this WBW deadline of April 11 is perfect.  It looks like I’ll need another WineKeeper Stopper Faucet, though, so I can preserve two bottles at the same time.  How exciting!

Here are the WBW criteria for this “regular” vs. “reserve” challenge:

• Same winery
• Same vineyard (as much as is possible, I assume)
• Same vintage

Another consideration is whether the wines were aged for the same amount of time, and in the same types of barrels with the same levels of toast, etc. (this could be hard to control between a “regular” wine and a “reserve” wine).  But something has to be different between a “regular” wine and a “reserve” wine, right?  Otherwise, why label them differently?  I know, I know, there are marketing considerations here, and price points, and assortment issues, and all the other characteristics that make the retail industry such a cutthroat business.  Still, I don’t know if I can find two identical wines with different labels, but that’s not quite the point here.

So, which wineries interest me in terms of this particular challenge?  That’s a good question as there are plenty of “regular” vs. “reserve” wines out there.

• Alexandria Nicole has a “regular” Destiny Ridge Viognier and a “reserve” edition of the same wine, but the “regular” is sold out.  I’ll see if I can track it down locally, though.
• Lange, with their “regular” and “reserve” Willamette Valley Pinot Noirs.  But they’re sold out and I have already tried at least one of these wines.
• Rex Hill, with their “regular” and “reserve” Pinot Noir selections.
• I’m wondering whether the Domaine Drouhin Willamette Valley and Laurène Pinot Noirs would count, but they’re a little expensive and part of the purpose behind the WBW events is to try something new.
• St. Francis, with their Merlot, Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Zinfandel releases; again, though, there’s a problem because the “regular” wines have different vineyard sources, different aging times, different barrel preparations, different harvest times, etc.  So are the “reserve” wines really all the comparable?  They are essentially different wines; they might as well be from different wineries at that point.

In the end, I’ll probably just take my $100 gift certificate to EVS in Seattle and see which wines meet the criteria for this WBW.  Ultimately, I get to decide which wine is “better” based on my own set of criteria.  I think I’d simply use two criteria: Is the wine good for everyday consumption with dinner, and would it fit my limited budget?  Those criteria seem fairly useful to me and my dear readers.

Well, my vacation in California came to a crashing halt the other day when we spent our last several hours in CA visiting a hospital.  My wife had some sort of food poisoning and it wasn’t much fun for her at all.  I have had food poisoning three times and I can recall all three with vivid detail.  I won’t do that here, of course, but if you’ve ever had food poisoning you know what kind of fun it would be to fly for 2.5 hours right in the middle of it all.  My wife is a trooper.

Anyway, we got back this weekend and I wanted to try that bottle of 2000 Chateau Kefraya that my coworker had given to me.  It’s a Lebanese wine and apparently somewhere between Lebanon and Seattle, some cork taint managed to get in and do its business.  So, I couldn’t drink this bottle.  It’s a shame because it smelled pretty good at first, but the flavor was really off and kind of disgusting in a non-wine sort of way.  I definitely need another shot at this wine.  Someday…

On a separate note, I am busily writing and revising my entry for a seminar that is coming up in a few weeks.  I will be traveling to Finland for this particular seminar and the paper is due this week, which means my writing effort has been focused on this paper rather than this blog lately. 

However, I do have some stuff to report: I need more money.  I got the 2005 Hirsch Vineyards offer letter this weekend, and clearly I can’t afford to buy any right now.  Between the Domaine Drouhin Louise and the Privé Vineyard releases that I pre-ordered, and with other more fundamental bills to pay, I need to stick to what I’ve already purchased for a while.  On the plus side, I should have more wine reviews in the near future and I also want to follow through with that wine comparison I promised to do.  Stay tuned…