huevos con vino

Seeing as how today is my birthday, my wife and I wanted to celebrate a little.  So after all the wonderful presents had been opened, we went over to one of our favorite restaurants: Ray’s Boathouse.

Right now, it’s the season for Copper River salmon.  We love the stuff, and Ray’s does it right, with a sour cherry chutney and mashed potatoes with asparagus.  Oh yeah.  And if you’re going to have King salmon from Copper River, you need some potent Pinot Noir on the table as well.  Lisa, the wonderful sommelier at Ray’s, suggested something new that hadn’t made it to their wine list yet: the 2003 Boedecker Athena Pinot Noir.

My first reaction to the Boedecker was, “Huh?”  Lisa had not heard of it either until the staff at Ray’s tried several Pinot Noirs with some Copper River salmon.  Apparently the Boedecker was the big hit.  I was sold once I saw that it was the 2003 vintage rather than 2004 or 2005, which are still a little young for my taste at dinner, particularly with an oily piece of King salmon.  So we went for the Boedecker.

As a winery, Boedecker is one of the many newcomers to the Oregon Pinot Noir scene; they started up in 2003.  They have a couple of elements to their winemaking approach that set them apart:

• They release two blended Pinot Noirs, the Athena and the Stewart, each of which is named after the winemaker/co-owner of the winery who oversaw that blend.  Or so I gather from their Web site.
• In 2003, they released only the Athena and the Stewart at a total of 400 cases between them.  The Athena features grapes from four storied Oregon vineyards, all of which are Dijon and Pommard clones.  Nice.
• They make several single-vineyard releases, including Shea and Momtazi.  If you missed all of the 2004 Shea Pinot Noirs, perhaps you should get some Boedecker.

The 2003 Boedecker Athena Pinot Noir is 14.5% alcohol by volume.  Not a major bruiser compared to some of the California Pinots I’ve seen, but still a fair bit stronger than many other Oregonians.  The enclosure is screw-top, which makes for an amusing moment at the restaurant when the sommelier apologizes as she tears off the cap rather than unstopping the cork.  Makes it easier to take the leftover wine home, though.  I liked this wine overall; it costs $28 from the winery and that’s quite a deal compared to, say, $45-$90 for the average top-end Oregon Pinot Noir.

Here are my thoughts on this wine:

• Aroma: Lots of cherry, fresh and jammy, black and red.  Lesser aromas of blackberry and cassis.  A hint of campfire smoke, which adds a nice complexity to the fruit-forward bouquet.  A nice, slightly simple aroma that is quite inviting.
• Flavor: Black cherry, subtle black currant/red currant, and black plum.  Strong acidity, not much tannic activity.  Now is the time to drink this wine, although it needs about 60-90 minutes in the decanter to integrate that acid with the wine.
• General impression: I liked this wine.  It’s not quite a top tier Oregon Pinot, but it’s close and it costs a lot less than many of the more expensive Oregon wines I enjoy.

The verdict is positive, then, and I’d recommend finding some Boedecker.  You’ll probably need to go straight to their order page on their Web site to find this one.

After dinner, I wanted to try something else a little different.  I have read about the Alvear Solera sherries before, which are made from the Pedro Ximenez varietal, but I had never tried one before.  Tonight, I decided to give the 1927 blend a go.  Rather than write a review of this superb sherry, I think I will simply link to this entry in another person’s blog because, well, it’s about 8 pages long and fantastically detailed.

Damn.  This stuff was awesome!  It had a lot of fig/molasses/prune aspects to it, all in a good way.  Very viscous.  At $16/half-bottle from Wine Library, you’d be insane to pass this one up.  I recommend buying a bottle and keeping it in the medicine cabinet as an all-purpose tonic for what ails you.  Or late night booze-ups.  Either way.  Good stuff.

I’m a database lover.  I keep all of my tasting notes and purchases in a spreadsheet.  I have done this sort of thing since I was about 4 years old when I received my first savings account register and some shares in GE.  I liked to track my minuscule dividend and interest payments, along with the perceived values of everything I owned that might be collectible.  Scary stuff to see for my parents, no doubt.

Now, as I ponder which Washington State Cabernet Sauvignon I should try for Wine Blogging Wednesday #34, I hit upon an idea.  I wondered which WA Cabs were rated highest by the community at CellarTracker.com.  So I ran a database query or two and came up with some interesting statistics:

• There are 2,550 separate tasting notes for Washington State Cabernet Sauvignon wines (excluding notes written for spoiled bottles but including notes without comments, just ratings).
• Of the wines that rate 97 points and above, all but one are from Quilceda Creek.  The only other wine that made it into the ratings stratosphere was a bottle of 2001 L’Ecole No. 41.
• There are 480 separate tasting notes for Quilceda Creek wines, nearly double the number of notes for any other WA Cab producer (Chateau Ste. Michelle is second with 258 notes and Columbia Crest is third with 257 notes).
• The average Quilceda Creek rating, among those reviews that include ratings, is 93.2 points on the 100-point rating scale.  Next best is Boudreaux Cellars at 92.9 points/review on average.  Creighton topped out at 95 points, but that was for one rating only.
• Boudreaux, Walla Walla Vintners, Betz Family, Ross Andrew, Soos Creek, Stevens, Pepper Bridge, Fielding Hills, and Fidelitas all have average ratings of 90+ points across all Cabernet reviews.  No other wineries scored that high across 10 reviews or more (Reininger came close with 9 scored reviews and a 90.1-point average).

Interesting, eh?  I realize that CellarTracker isn’t the authoritative site for determining which Washington Cabernet Sauvignon I should drink for WBW #34.  For example, a bottle of Kestrel received a score of 78, which probably hurt their chances at getting into the 90+ club shown above.  Abeja also missed the cut with an average score of 89.5 points per Cab review.

So, which wine will I try?  That’s the essential question, and I’m still not sure.  The best balance of high scores in reviews and sheer quantity of reviews is clearly Quilceda Creek.  Betz Family is a distant second, and from there the field clumps up again, with Pepper Bridge and Ross Andrew receiving the most reviews and highest average points.  The problem is that Quilceda Creek wines cost too much, Betz Family wines are also expensive and really young, and I tried a bottle of Pepper Bridge once before and didn’t really get too thrilled about it.  That leaves Ross Andrew as a possibility, but their wine comes from the Columbia Valley for the most part, and I’d rather try a Cab sourced from elsewhere in the state.

Ho hum.  Back to the drawing board, perhaps?

When I saw the theme for WBW #34, I got excited.  I was excited because I live in the Seattle, WA area, so I know a thing or two about Washington wines.  I went to school with the daughters of at least two renowned Washington winemakers.  I grew up watching my parents drink local wines and going to wine stores to examine shelf talkers and buy cases for the hidden wine cellar in our basement.  And as I have come of age in the Seattle area, I have tasted quite a variety of Washington wines, Cabernet Sauvignon and otherwise.  I have also visited a number of the best Washington State wineries, tasted their wares, and had a great time in the bargain.

But I was also nervous about WBW #34.  Why?  Well, mostly because I have tried so many Washington wines and felt let down by the vast majority of the WA Cabernet Sauvignon wines that I tasted.  More on that topic in a minute.

So, for this Wine Blogging Wednesday, I took the spirit of the challenge to heart: I wanted to review the Washington State Cabernet Sauvignon wines that I had tried to date, and I wanted to find a new one to taste that would set my pulse racing, so to speak.  I have a few such wines in mind, all of which I need to buy first.  But let’s take a stroll down memory lane and see which Washington Cabernets I have tried in the past 18 months:

• 2002 Abeja Reserve - I enjoyed this wine quite a bit, although at $70+ I would expect to enjoy it even more than I did.
• 2001 Woodward Canyon “Old Vines” - Consumed from a magnum, decanted for a while, thin and bland.  Very disappointing.
• 2003 Cadence Ciel du Cheval - Weird, not good at all, either it needed lots of decanting or a lot more time in the cellar.  Again, very disappointing.
• 2003 Powers, 2002 Seven Hills, 2003 L’Ecole No. 41 Perigee, 2001 Terra Blanca Onyx - I had all of these in one night and the Terra Blanca stood out as the best, possibly because it was 41% Merlot and somewhat less dry and tannic than the rest.  The others ranged from drinkable to bland and boring.
• 2003 Pepper Bridge - Left me flat.  Once again, a disappointing wine, even after lots of decanting.
• 2004 Arlington Road Monolith - Decent, but too young yet.  Fairly expensive, too.
• Summary - Out of nine different Cabernet Sauvignon wines, I would definitely enjoy drinking two of them again: the Abeja Reserve and the Terra Blanca Onyx.  As for the other seven, I would give one or two another chance, probably.  That’s not a good sign.

In the same period of time, I drank six different California Cabernet Sauvignon wines (excluding a seventh that was corked); of those, I would drink all six of them again.  Four in particular were really worthwhile…of course, that assessment includes a bottle of 1997 Joseph Phelps Insignia.  Still, the odds are in California’s favor so far. 

I think about this issue a lot.  Perhaps California Cabernet Sauvignon is a palate preference of mine: I know the Harlan Estate and Hestan Cabernets that I have tried in the past utterly blew me away.  Perhaps I need to lower my expectations of Washington Cabernets, as I do like some of them.  Perhaps I am tasting the wrong Washington State wines, although I do love some of the other varietals grown in this state, and I like the resulting wines a lot more than the WA Cabernets.  I guess WBW #34 is my chance to change my own mind about Washington State Cabernet Sauvignon. 

I think, until now, I have had two factors working against me:

1. Many of the Washington Cabernets I have tried were either too young, or not decanted long enough first.
2. I don’t like tons of acid in a Cabernet Sauvignon, and young, freshly opened Washington State wines tend to contain more acid than a Coca-Cola.  Yikes.

I’ll do things right this time.  I’ll try to find a WA wine with some age on it, or else I’ll spend some time decanting first based on user reports at CellarTracker.com.  Alexandria Nicole and Kestrel both stand out as possibilities with regard to my options for WBW #34, as I know I like their wines in general.  Cowan also makes some good wines that deserve more attention than they receive.  Or maybe I should go for the jugular and get a bottle of 2003 Quilceda Creek Cabernet Sauvignon?  At $200 minimum per bottle, perhaps I’ll taste something a little more in my league….