Chateau Ste. Michelle, Horse Heaven Vineyard Sauvignon Blanc, 2010, Horse Heaven Hills, Washington

The big wine mags scored this gem in the high eighties and if I cared about such things, this wine would definitely cross that magic 90 point finish line.  True to form, it's got a water-like color with just a touch of golden rim.  The typical grapefruit notes are apparent on the nose but I also detected a nice touch of barnyard, french vanilla ice cream, and orange blossom.  The red grapefruit also rocks the palate along with sour apple and cucumber.  It lacks the grassiness of a New Zealand Sauvignon but has a lot more ripe fruit compared to anything from France.  A touch of oak adds complexity and body without taking away from the fresh varietal character.  I don't think anyone would mistake this for a Chardonnay but I do think people might mistake it for a far more expensive wine.  Coming in at the mid-teens, this wine has a nice balance and surprising structure for the price-point.  

P.S For all my Portland peeps . . . if you find yourself among all the great little tasting rooms in Woodinville, I think Chateau Ste. Michelle is one of the few larger commercial wineries that is worth a visit.  Wild peacocks wander the property and they have a huge line up of single vineyard and higher end wines to taste.  

P.P.S The kitty featured on the pictured shirt is the world famous Lil Bub.  You can pick one up at the bubstore!  

walla walla pics

spring valley tasting room line up

killer merlots

doug from elegante cellars has the cutest pup ever!

this value cab blew my mind!

walla walla vitners makes an epic sangiovese.

fucking fancy people make pretty good wine

tour with a legend

king of the vally

L'Ecole No 41, Chardonnay, 2011, Columbia Valley

This Columbia Valley entry is light in color for a chard that sees oak with glisteny white highlights.  Served on the super cold side bits of lemon and watermelon candy dominate the nose but as it warms up more bug spray comes out.  Medium to light bodied.  I think this sees a little bit of second or third year oak but it steers clear from any new French oak influences.   The roundness factor is definitely there as the flavor is dominated more by lemon curd than lemon tart.  There are hints of honey throughout and a subtle balancing bitterness on the mid palate.  Nothing particularly “bad” about this wine but still it’s pretty one dimensional.   It doesn’t taste cheap but for the twenty dollar price point I have had better.  L’Ecole is one of the first tasting rooms you hit when approaching Walla Walla from the west.  The historical old schoolhouse is definitely worth a stop as there is plenty to taste and the staff are friendly and knowledgeable.  Personally, I felt their Semillon had a lot more to say for a Columbia Valley white than this wine for about the same price.

P.S. This tasting room completely blew my mind last time I was in town and this swimming hole made my summer day!  

aloha oregon (no, not that aloha)

Okay, I moved to Honolulu, Hawaii a few months ago after in Portland for 13 years straight.  I needed to put northwest winters behind me once and for all.  Don’t hate me.  Right now, after way too many shitty light beers and overly sweet tropical drinks, I’m missing Oregon wine.  Here are some reviews I somehow forgot to put up from a visit to the lovely east-side urban Enso Winery.  More review to come soon . . . promise. 

Enso, Resonate #2

This is a nice clean if a little unassuming white wine for the summer.  It a blend Oregon Gevurtraminer and Washington Riesling.  It’s got heaps of peach and sugar cane on both the nose and flavors.  It’s got a slight syrupy sweet edge but still ends quick and clean.  I would have liked more spice from the Gevurtz or mineral notes from the Riesling.  Still not bad at all.  Also, it’s a nice treat to be able to scoop up a wine with such a tiny production (52 cases!) at under 15 dollars. 

Enso, Pinot Gris, 2010, Wheatland Vineyard

A much brighter and drier wine compared to the resonate.  Lemon, golden raisin, and pear dominate the nose with a touch of wet rock.  This gris has some real unique qualities compared to a lot of others I have tasted lately.  It’s fruit forward but loaded with lemon candy and dried apricot as opposed to a lot of the day old puckery lime flavors I get from a lot of other Oregon Pinot Gris.  The fruit from this wine comes from Arcane Cellars Wheatland Vineyard, where the winemakers at Enso used to work.  You can tell that this fruit is in good hands.

Enso, Rose, Alder Ridge, 2011

This bottle was tasted about 3 weeks after being bottled.  It’s a southern French style blend of Syrah, Grenache, and Mouvedre.  The fun factor on the nose (strawberry, watermelon, and bubble gum) is balanced out by some nice background herbal notes.  The strawberry carries through on the flavor profile with the addition of vanilla bean and tar.  The tannins are a bit bitter on the end.  This wine is definitely still young even for a Rose.  The 2010 Enso Rose was made up of different varietals.  It wasn’t as focused or clean as the 2011 but I do think it was a little more interesting.

Enso, Resonate #2, Washington, 2009

This 50/50 blend of Sangiovese and Counoise has super enticing nose with lots of clean earthy notes,  musk, and shoe leather polish.  Considering the strength of the nose, the resonate #2 is light on its feet on the flavor profile.  It’s a medium bodied wine dominated by plum, cinnamon, and cocoa powder flavors.  There is a nice acidity running throughout as well.  The winemakers call the resonate #2  “dominate yet strong” and I couldn’t agree more.  This wine would pair really well with lots of food and I think is a real value at $16 a bottle!

Enso, Resonate #3, Washington, 2009

The #3 is a blend of 50% Mouvdre, 25% Grenache, and 25% Syrah from the Alder Ridge Vineyard in the Horse Heaven Hills AVA.  This wine is also a brand new release for Enso.  It’s got a much darker color than the #2.  The nose is not as open ended and much darker.  There is a hefty dose of creamy oak rounded out by rose, violet, and crushed blueberry.  The #3 is closer to full bodied with a milky mouthfeel.  I found this wine to have lots of awesome sweet notes but still not dominated by fruit.  Think caramel, coffee, and fudge!  There is also a nice dose of black pepper and currant.  This is quite a rich wine that I couldn’t find much acidity in.  Still it’s far from flabby.  Good stuff to drink on its own once the weather cools down a little.

Helioterra, Syrah, 2009, Columbia Valley

I tasted a glass of this wine at the lovely Enso Winery tasting room that is located dangerously close to my apartment. Helioterra is one of a handful of new urban wineries that have cropped up in Portland in the last year or so. With Portland’s proximity to excellent growing sites in the Columbia and Willamette Valley, it’s a wonder to me that this has taken so long. This Syrah is dark purple to almost black in color. The nose is dominated by bacon fat, oaky vanilla, burgundy dirty sock, and manure. Something about the flavor of this Syrah reminded me of the warm-mulled wine they serve at the Sylvia Beach Hotel in Newport, Oregon. I got heaps of pine resin, pepper, bacon, tar, and sweet cream. This wine brought together a lot of disparate flavors I tend to like in once slightly awkward package. A unique big bold wine for sure but maybe not for every occasion! This Syrah was co-fermented with 5% Viognior and the fruit comes entirely from the Coyote Canyon Vineyard in the Horse Heaven Hills. I really look forward to tasting more from Helioterra.

Mt. Defiance, Merlot Reserve, 2008, Columbia Gorge

Phelps Creek is hands down my favorite winery on the Oregon side of the Columbia Gorge. Their Pinots rival a lot of Willamette Valley wines at a fraction of the price. They also have one of the best bone dry Gevurtzs I have ever had. Rich Cushman in my mind is a real unsung hero in the Oregon wine industry. Mt. Defiance is an offshoot label from the folks at Phelps. This particular Merlot comes from a 12 acre parcel of the renowned Celilo Vineyard on the southeast facing slope of Underwood Mountain on the Washington side of the gorge.

The nose on this Merlot is not particularly fruit-driven. I get lots of red pepper flakes, sea salt, rust, and campfire-infused hoodie. The Mt. Defiance is medium bodied. It is super lively and not round, fleshy, and boring like the Merlots what’s his butt was screaming about in the movie Sideways. The fruit really pops on the flavor profile though with nice red raspberry and cranberry notes. Still it’s quite a dry wine with interesting secondary flavors of rhubarb and apple wood chips. A whopping 280 cases of this baby were produced and thus it can only be found online or at one of the wineries tasting rooms. On a side note, I think Merlot goes really well with roasted salmon and potatoes!

a jaunt to a few wineries in newberg and carlton

Nora and I set out with my parents for some wine tasting on the day before my birthday and hit a few places I have never been to before. The first stop was August Cellars. August is actually the first winery one comes upon when taking 99 from Portland out to wine country. August has a rather upscale and open tasting room. Unfortunately, the wines were pretty uneven to say the least. The first of the line up was the 2008 Oregon dry Riesling. The nose was a mixture of canned pears, lime, and balsa wood. It was an extremely fruit forward wine with a very thin body. A one dimensional puckery lemon flavor dominated the profile. Nora said it was like drinking water with citrus fruit in it. I concurred.

The 2007 Washington Riesling didn’t fair much better. Its nose reeked of laughing gas and the inside of a balloon with a hint of confectionary sugar. The awkwardness of the nose carried through on the body. Finally, the sweet Riesling with fruit from Eola-Amity Hills had a nose like gummy candy and mashed over-ripe peaches. Its touch of acidity and understated sweetness gave it a better balance than the other two efforts but it was still nothing to write home about.

The only Pinots on the tasting menu were from the 2004 vintage. The staff admitted that it was an extremely difficult vintage and that the grapes got picked a little later than they would have liked. He further explained that they tried to make up for the watered down flavor profile with exposing the grapes to more oak. There was a Willamette valley pinot as well as a single vineyard designate from the Aubre Vert vineyard. Both the wines were still alive and vibrant but without a doubt overly-oaked. They had a crimson color with hints of brown beginning to take over on the edges. The smells reminded me of smoke from a BBQ with hints of smoked cheese and a bit of cherry. The wines did have a silky big body for such a rainy vintage probably imparted by the oak. Nora said they tasted like an oak sponge. I got beef jerky, tar, and bitter fruit as well.

The 2005 Washington Merlot was probably the best of all. It also had a big punchy nose with English garden rose, chocolate cake, red fruits, and a hefty dose of alcohol. It was a rather simple wine with an explosion of strawberry on the front end and a white pepper tinged acidity with a fairly short finish. There was a fair amount of burning alcohol on the end as well.

Our next stop was the Dark Horse Wine Bar in Newberg. The wine bar operates as a tasting room for Sineann Wines, Medici Vineyards, and Ferraro Cellars. We were able to taste through a number of selections. Sineann sources most of its fruit from vineyards in Willamette and Columbia Valley. But they also make some wine from California and even New Zealand. We tasted two northwest gewurtztraminers that both had beautiful fresh fruit and spice noses and round exotic flavor profiles. A Columbia Valley Sauvignon Blanc proved to be clean and full bodied with hints of peach and candied nuts. It’s Marlborough counterpart was true to the variatal and style with an overwhelming fresh red grapefruit flavors and a persistent acidity.

A pair of 2008 entry level Pinot Noirs from the Columbia Valley had pleasant dark fruit flavors with toned down acids while still remaining balanced and lean. Next up was a 2002 and 2003 estate block designate Pinots from Medici. Time in the bottle had rounded out the tannins beautifully and brought to the foreground hints of spice and caramel. Still the cherry fruit notes were lively as ever. The 2003 block 1 and 2 designate was my favorite wine of the bunch with its abundance and purity of fruit. It’s a great value at $30 and will drink well for at least another 5 years. The Columbia Valley Cab-based wines from Ferraro and Sineann were all about candied and sweet pastry fruit. Still they were fairly elegant for the price point.

Trisaetum Vineyards is a fairly new project based in the Carlton AVA. They have gotten a lot of buzz recently for their Rieslings. A 94 point rating from Wine Enthusiast for their twenty some dollar 2008 release had me excited. Though it wasn’t quite up to the hype, I was still impressed with how open the wine already had become with layers of ripe lemon and pear fruit and spice. The tasting staff gave us a sneak peak of the 2009 dry Riesling which was still quite tight and lean but showed good potential. We tasted an entry level 2008 Pinot as wells as a 2008 artist series (barrel select) and a higher end 2007. As so often is the case, I was most impressed by the entry level with its wet stone and brambly fruit notes on the nose. Those same notes came through on the flavor profile as well as a strong dose of anise. It had a medium body and a nice long finish with those seamless fruit flavors carrying through to the end.

Our final stop was Lemelson Vineyards and admittedly at this point I was feeling a bit of palate fatigue. We tasted a decent Pinot Gris and dry Riesling. The 2007 reserve Chardonnay was a real stand out. It was the most fragrant wine of the day with exotic notes of sandalwood, sweet incense, ginger bread, and key lime pie. It was silky smooth on the palate with a pronounced lime flavors and a nice acidic lift in the middle. The oak had been integrated so beautifully and was a perfect platform for the fruit to shine. The higher end Pinots leaned more toward a lush style and were perfectly fine but I was slightly unimpressed with their 2007 “6 vineyards” Pinot. It was fairly fruit forward with fresh strawberry but fell off pretty quickly. The acidity was super salty throwing it off the balance. The “6 vineyards” goes for only 20 or so dollars but I have had better Pinots even at that price-point.

Corvidae Wine, "The Keeper" Cabernet Franc, 2007, Columbia Valley

I am a huge Cabernet Franc fan but I tend to be pretty hesitant when it comes to domestic bottles. They aren’t always so cheap and tend to to often be made in a style resembling a ripe, fruit-forward Cab Sav. Still whenever I hear about a new Cab Franc, my ears perk up a bit. I was really excited when I found out that Owen Roe was introducing the varietal into its second label lineup, Corvidae. It’s called “The Keeper” (a subtle reference to the resusable menstrual cup?) and I have to admit its pretty impressive.
Right away from the nose I could tell I wasn’t dealing with a boring domestic fruit bomb. Like a higher end Chinon, The Keeper smells like jalapeno peppers, pencil shavings, and lettuce! A little bit of candy apple, Werther’s Original toffee, wheat, and rubbing alcohol balance out the nose as well. Unlike a lot of cheaper Cab Francs from the Loire Valley, this is a medium to full-bodied wine. The flavor profile is dominated by plum, green pepper, and milk chocolate with just a hint of sweet melon rounding out the rather short finish. I love that this wine has all the nice subtle vegetal notes of the variety while still remaining clean and free of brett. However, the Keeper is a little on the flabby side and lacks good acidity. It also has a pretty short finish and doesn’t have the most complex flavor profile. Still for a domestic Cab Franc at less than 20 bucks, you would be hard-pressed to find something better

Chateau Ste. Michelle Dry Riesling, 2007, Columbia Valley

This is probably the best wine I have ever had that costs $6.99. Honey-dew, lemon jolly rancher, bar soap, and a hint of vanilla own the nose. Michelle is translucent in color with slight golden and green tinges. She smacks you across the face with a really lively almost carbonated acidity on the front end that carries through to the finish. This is a fairly simple Riesling but it definitely overdelivers for the price-point. The flavors are true to the varietal but unfortunately don’t really develop and change. A little bit of that honeydew, cantaloupe, and florality kick in after the initial attack. The melon carries through the medium length finish. There is a bit of weight and oily texture that once again is really fucking surprising for a 7 buck riesling. The residual sugar is definitely there but it is kept in check by the even acidity. In summary, this wine does what it says its gonna do and a little bit more. It’s a workhorse.
P.S. Chateau Ste. Michelle also makes a non-dry straight Riesling. I think it’s an oversugarfied mess

Charles Smith, Velvet Devil Merlot, 2007, Columbia Valley

Okay, I kinda fell for the marketing and I know Robert Parker has wet dreams about Charles Smith. Still after going to Walla Walla and K being closed, I wanted to try some of this stuff out. On my trip, I was overall way more impressed with the merlots and right bank bordeaux style blends than the cabs. This 12 dollar bottle didn't dissapoint me. The wine was really opaque and purpley crimson in color. The aroma was dominated by mollasses with a bit of the heat of the alcohol also coming through. There was a definite sweetness to the flavor profile, but unlike most wines in this price range the sweetness was balanced by other interesting flavors. I got a nice big dose of coffee with hints of milk chocolate, cranberry, and sweet tobacco. This is a medium bodied wine with a roundness one would expect from an entry level merlot. The finish is definitely pretty short but I appreciate how the alcohol is kept in check and your pallate is left feeling clean. The Velvet Devil is pretty rad to drink on its own but I bet it would be great with a black bean burger from Burgerville or some chocolate sorbet with rasberries