huevos con vino

* - Most of these wines were not released in 2007, I just happened to taste them last year.

In 2007, I tried over 150 different wines.  Some of them were wonderful, some of them were total crap.  Let’s focus on the good rather than the crap.  Without further ado, here are my favorite wines of 2007 in no particular order; the ones with links mean I really liked those wines, or else their Web site was easy to locate:

• 2005 El Felino Malbec - For the money, this wine is terrific!  This Paul Hobbs offering is a good deal, although it’s the product of a partnership in Argentina and not from Hobbs’ US-based vineyards.
• 2004 Magnotta Cabernt Franc Icewine - My favorite ice wine of 2007, this Cabernet Franc Icewine from Ontario is amazing.
• 1998 Balthasar Ress Spatlese Riesling - My favorite Riesling of 2007…one of the most perfect, subtly balanced wines I have ever had.
• 2006 Odisea Dream Albarino - I may have temporarily ended my Journey Membership for budget reasons, but I’ll really miss getting more of this wine…my favorite Albarino of 2007 and one of my favorite 2006 wines overall.
• 2006 Odisea Muse Rose - My other favorite Odisea wine, this one is amazing every year. 
• 2004 Clearwater Creek Cabernet Sauvignon - Easily the best quality to price ratio of any new wine in 2007; terrific stuff, hard to find, quite the back story too…
• 2002 Reininger Walla Walla Cabernet Sauvignon - A great discovery!  I didn’t like Washington Cabernet before I tried this wine.  I like it now.
• 2004 Lachini “Ana” Vineyard Pinot Noir - Wonderful Oregon Pinot, better than the “S” in my estimation.  More macho.
• Everything that Le Cadeau produces - All of their Pinot Noirs are outstanding!
• 2004 Williams Selyem Central Coast Pinot Noir - As I said in my original note, “This wine is good.  Darn good.”
• 1998 Domaine Drouhin Laurene Pinot Noir - Starting to hit its stride in 2007; I can’t wait to try some in 2008.
• 2004 Sea Smoke Ten Pinot Noir - Worth it at $69.  Worth it at $250?  Not really, but maybe in 3 years?
• 2000 Betz Family “La Serenne” Syrah - Perhaps the luckiest find of 2007 for me; amazing stuff, worth tracking down.
• 1997 Argyle Extended Tirage Brut Sparkling Wine - Wine Spectator went gaga over this Oregon wine…I can see why.

So, what was my favorite wine of 2007?  It’s a three-way tie…between three different Zinfandels.  I know, I know, the heresy!  But hear me out: These three Zins are totally amazing.  Track them down, drink them, enjoy them, and then reconsider everything you know about American Zinfandel.

• 2003 Peter Franus Brandlin Vineyard Zinfandel
• 2005 Radio-Coteau Von Weidlich Russian River Valley Zinfandel
• 2004 Robert Biale Grande Vineyard Zinfandel

Taken together, these three wines would probably cause brain damage.  Aesthetically speaking, they are all that good.  I’d say the Peter Franus and Radio-Coteau are a bit more impressive than the Biale, but I did like the Biale enough to drink the whole damn bottle and then stumble into a citrus orchard after dark.  Always the mark of a good wine when you start trying to grab lemons off someone else’s trees!

If you have read my blog with any regularity, you have probably noticed that nothing new is being posted here.  It’s not a fluke, it’s actually quite simple: I haven’t had time!  Juggling a wife in a PhD program, a full-time career for a demanding employer, and a teaching engagement has proven tough to do.  Additionally, as priorities change and the economy looks to be sinking deeper and deeper, my wine budget has shrunk.  The latest casualty is my cancellation of my Odisea Journey membership, which was heartbreaking to do.  Luckily the guys at Odisea understood…still, it’s sad.

So, we’ll see how much I can post over the next few months.  My guess is that I won’t post much of anything, unfortunately.  But that could always change!  I have had some noteworthy wines lately, and I do continue to drink wine whenever possible, but it’s still not all that common.  Or at least, I don’t drink wine as often as I’d like.  In many ways that’s probably for the best, but whenever I make roast chicken for dinner I really want the flavor of a nice red wine.

Stay tuned, and send me donations if you want to see more of my effusive afflatus.

After waiting a couple of extra months because of the warn weather in Oregon this summer, I finally received my Domaine Drouhin Direct club shipments.  DDO was nice enough to combine my 3 bottles of 2005 Willamette Valley (aka Classique) Pinot Noir with my 3 bottles of 2004 Laurène Pinot Noir into one shipment.  The 2005 Willamette Valley Pinot Noir was actually released months ago, but I only received my bottles yesterday. 

Production levels for the 2005 vintage are up from 2004, although the production of Laurène has steadily increased over the past few years.  Take a look at these comparative numbers for the various Pinot Noir releases:

• Willamette Valley Pinot Noir: 8,982 cases in 2005 compared to 7,454 in 2004 and 8,907 in 2003
• Laurène Pinot Noir: 2,550 cases in 2004 compared to 2,200 in 2003 and 2,000 in 2002
• Louise Pinot Noir: 189 cases in 2004 compared to 196 in 2003

The 2005 Willamette Valley Pinot Noir sounds like a seriously bad ass wine.  A good quote from the mailer is as follows: “In contrast to the more delicate 2004, the 2005 is built on larger shoulders, with a strong backbone that will certainly reward with extended aging.”  Nice.  Veronique recommends 7-10 years of aging or more, which is quite a while for the Classique-level release.  At $45/bottle, this wine should provide nice value over time; I know the 1999 and 2000 vintages are drinking really nicely right now.

If the 2004 Laurène is anything like the 2003, extended aging will be required here too.  I think it’s still way too early to touch the 2003, so I’m definitely putting my 2004 bottles away for a while.  Veronique recommends 8-12 years of aging for this wine, which seems right to me.  I doubt I will be able to wait that long, but we’ll see.  I love the fact that the 2004 Laurène is just being released to market after many other Oregon wineries have begun making their 2006 Pinot Noir releases available.  Now that’s simply too young yet, if you ask me.

My next DDO Direct shipment will arrive in February 2008 when the 2006 Willamette Valley Pinot Noir is released.  My next general shipment of wine may be the 2006 Privé futures I ordered earlier this year.  Now that ought to be interesting….

I was shopping today in the urban hellzone known as Whole Foods, where the other patrons seemed bent on reliving the creepy “skeletons falling on top of Karen Allen” scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark, by which I mean I felt like Karen Allen as I tried to wade past the ossifying shoppers squeezed like me into cramped antechamber-sized spaces.  I think I actually touched one of them, those “others” who always look through or past me as they wallow after their ill-mannered children, jostling me as I try to do my best Walter Payton impersonation through each aisle.  Happily, my beard makes the smaller children cry, which is always a nice point of distraction as I grab the final bag of dried organic morel mushrooms. Clearly, I love Whole Foods.

But today, as I looked in vain for fresh corn, I noticed something interesting.  They had many bunches of organic, California-grown Carignane grapes and a scant few bunches of Colombard grapes.

Usually when I find “wine” grapes around here, they are either Muscat grapes (good, but major stomachaches ensue) or “champagne” grapes (which means they’re tiny grapes, that’s about all).  But these grapes today were formidable, especially the Carignane.  I selected a good, firm bunch that looked ready to be pressed into a vat over at Jessie’s Grove Winery.  I tasted a grape after I left the store…very juicy, sweet, firmly ripe…wow!  Amazing.  I want several more.

The good people at Appellation America have cool descriptions of the Carignane and Colombard grapes in their illustrated varietal chart.  That’s a lot of links in one sentence.  Sorry about that.  But each link is worth it, trust me.

Anyway, if you have a Whole Foods near you, I feel bad for you if you don’t have dedicated parking for your SUV.  But if you can walk to your local Whole Foods, I encourage you to look for organic Carignane grapes.  They’re quite tasty!  No word on which vineyard sold their fruit to Whole Foods, but I assume there are plenty of grapes to go around….

It’s been a while since I purchased one each of the Le Cadeau Pinot Noir releases from the 2004 vintage. Here’s a quick refresher for you:

• Rocheux - Harry Peterson-Nedry and Mike Eyres made this wine for Le Cadeau; you can read my review here.
• Diversité - Cheryl Francis and Sam Tannahill made this release; you can my review of this wine here.
• Cote Est - Produced using fruit from a cooler part of the vineyard, this wine had been sitting in my wine fridge since January 2007; Josh Bergstrom had the honor of making this wine.

I also drank the 2003 Le Cadeau release a while back, which was the second vintage from this winery. All of these wines have been superlative, and so far I think the Rocheux is my favorite of the Le Cadeau wines I have tried.

The 2004 Cote Est is over 14% alcohol, but under 15%, so it’s in a good range in my opinion. The 2005 vintage added some Dijon 114 and 115 berries into the mix, so I will be curious to taste the 2005 and compare it to this 2004. I brought my 2004 Cote Est to Ray’s Boathouse in Seattle, the restaurant that is quickly becoming my preferred destination for a good Pinot Noir. I had the wood-fired sturgeon, which was insanely good with this wine.

So, what did I think of the Cote Est? Here are my notes; we did not decant this wine, but rather tasted some first, saw that it was ready to drink, and left the bottle open as we consumed the wine over 90 minutes.

• Aroma: Ripe and rich at first, with a pleasing barnyard note; opened up into a deeply rewarding cherry blossom, plum, and chocolate bouquet.
• Flavor: Complex notes of black cherry, black plum, black currant, coffee, baking spice, black pepper, and secondary notes of raspberry and dark chocolate. Extremely sensual flavor profile, very smooth with integrated tannins and acid. Very complex and deep wine.
• General impression: Delicious wine, comparable to many of the best 2004 Pinot Noirs from Oregon; well worth seeking out!

As these notes suggest, the Cote Est is probably my favorite of the three 2004 Le Cadeau Pinot Noir offerings. I like the other wines quite a lot as well, of course, but there is something more rich and complex (to my palate, anyway) and even more appealing about the Cote Est. My wife really enjoyed this wine too, saying that it complemented her king salmon nicely and that it was best at the end of the evening after 90 minutes of exposure to air.

So, another great release from the Mortimers at Le Cadeau. I look forward to the 2005, which I still need to buy!