Friday Find, August 3rd

Each Friday we highlight a wine from the Northwest that we think is a real "find." By find we might mean that it's a steal, as all of these wines we'll feature weekly are at or under $20. We might also mean "Hey, you really need to go find this" and it might be a wine that we feel not enough people know about. In any case, with the weekend pending we're hoping to help you "find" a wine to kickoff the weekend right. We'll tell you a little bit about the wine and try to help you track it down here in the Northwest.

Oregon has come to be known for it's world class Pinot Noir, and rightfully so.  It's some of the most beautiful wine you'll find in the new world.  But Oregon, and most specifically the Willamette Valley is far from a one trick pony.  Chardonnay is finally starting to get the notice it deserves here, as well as Riesling and the seeming "obligatory" white wine, Pinot Gris.  While I feel like the Chardonnays and Rieslings are really coming into their own, I'm not as big a fan of Oregon Pinot Gris.  Sorry, just being honest. I feel like generally it's a bit dull.

One Willamette white wine however, that's both wildly under-rated and misunderstood is Pinot Blanc.  Let's clarify a few things shall we.  Pinot Blanc is not white Pinot Noir.  Those of you with rudimentary French skills, like myself may have mistakenly come to this conclusion. Some folks are starting to make a White Pinot Noir in the Willamette Valley, but it's called White Pinot Noir and let me tell you, it's delicious. (Please don't ever assume it's like White Zinfandel is to Zinfandel, nothing could be further from the truth.)

Let's dig into Pinot Blanc a bit shall we?



Pinot Blanc is a mutant.  Like the X-Men but real.  Also, it's very much not like the X-Men because it's just a wine grape.  Pinot Noir is a bit unstable and so it's not uncommon for it to have a few one-offs or mutations show up on the vine, everything's going fine and there's all these dark clusters and then, BAM! white grapes on a shoot or two, one such mutation is Pinot Blanc.

Pinot Blanc has come into it's own, mostly through the Alsatian wine region, it's a grape that factors into Cremant d'Alsace as well as the Pinot Blanc varietal, which actually doesn't have to be all Pinot Blanc, it can be Pinot Blanc, but it can also be Auxerrois, Pinot Gris and the aforementioned white Pinot Noir. Alsatians, confusing.  The grape can also be found blended in Burgundy and Champagne but for the most part it is fairly under-appreciated.

Oregon might just put Pinot Blanc on the map.  If folks would take the time to put down the often times drab Willamette Valley Pinot Gris, Pinot Blanc might just surprise you.  Aromatically more interesting and ranging in styles from a bright, crisp and sharply acidic wine to one with a bit of rounded character, Pinot Blanc might just be the other Oregon Pinot.

This week's Friday Find is just one of two Oregon Pinot Blancs I had this week.  The Amity Vineyards 2009 Pinot Blanc is a bit rounded in style, with pleasing aromatics of ripe Bartlett pear, rounded honey and soft floral notes.  The wine brings about a more rounded style on the palate with lots of ripe Granny Smith Apple and ample acidity to carry through the finish. This wine retails in the $15 range and at least in Seattle you can find it at the tiny and lovable City Cellars in Wallingford.

(As an aside we're giving away a pair of tickets to a Seattle wine event, Blend this coming Wednesday, head on over to our Facebook page to participate in the competition.)

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Do You Remember 1985?

Do you remember 1985? I don't. Not really. I was just a young kid at the time. For many of us, it's events that provide our time its context.  The birth of a child, a favorite team's glory or that year we went to summer camp.  For most of us, we move on to the next year, and the next time and our work, our families and friends and our lives move along with us.

For the winemaker, a given year goes on forever, trapped behind cork and glass; picked, pressed, and bottled and representing that particular vintage.  Jim Croce said that if he could save time in a bottle... Well Jim, winemakers do just that.  The wines don't sit in stasis but rather they evolve over time, realizing a vintage's full potential. I was recently fortunate enough to be invited to dinner with a number of the Willamette Valley's winemaking pioneers, including Susan Sokol-Blosser, Luisa Ponzi, Jim Bernau of Willamette Valley Vineyards and Myron Redford of Amity Vineyards.

Throughout the evening these folks shared some of their wines with us, and we walked down their memory lanes. We began where I'd like to end; the Amity Vineyards 1985.

From the 2008s of Sokol Blosser and Willamette Valley Vineyards through that 1985, we saw that each vintage meant a story, a lesson or an image that tells a complicated story of hard work, a bit of luck or regrets and lessons learned.  The 2008s were the youngest wines we tasted and both examples were so young and aromatically closed up, particularly in contrast with those lively 2007s.  Jim Bernau  shared that his wine, and the vineyards from which it came was owed in part to Susan Sokol-Blosser who went down to help him plant it in 1983. There was a sense that the connection to the wine and the Valley was also a connection to and an appreciation for one another as well.

For 2007, and for what has become known as the Ghost of 2007, (given the initial less than complimentary press that still dogs the vintage), for Luisa Ponzi 2007 was an invaluable experience as a winemaker and grower.  "I learned a lot from that vintage, while it's raining, things are still happening in that fruit."  Luisa picked some of her fruit before the rain, and she waited on some of it, and therein was the lesson for her. All agreed that those that hung on, and picked later ended up with fantastic wines. While the vintage was given a rough treatment early, the wines are beautiful right now.  The 2007 Amity had all the forest floor, spice and gun-powdery aromatics that I've come to love about that vintage.

The 1999 Sokol Blosser was our lone example of what many call the single greatest vintage in Oregon Pinot Noir.  A cool summer led to a bit of trepidation for the winemakers and of course doom and gloom from those wine writer/critic types.  All of that was for naught as an extended Indian summer allowed the grapes an extraordinarily long hangtime.  The result is complexity, depth of flavor, great acidity and balance and a 13 year old wine that is drinking like it could last an eternity.  The Sokol Blosser Willamette Valley Pinot was stunning with bright fruits, great depth of character and a long life ahead of it.

The 1985 Amity Vineyard Winemaker's Reserve was the undisputed star of the evening. (Myron decanted it to clear off the sediment.)  It was a 27 year old Oregon Pinot Noir, and a history lesson on both the vintage, winery and the Willamette Valley itself.  The vines at that time were fourteen years old, a Pinot droit clone used by both Myron and the man whom many consider the father of Oregon Pinot, David Lett.  Prior to 1999 it was 1985 that was the gold standard for vintages in the Willamette Valley, and it was because of the 1985 vintage that Oregon Pinot was discovered.  For Luisa Ponzi, it was after 1985 that things in Oregon really got going. "It was in 1985 that the press, that Robert Parker and others really stood up and started paying attention to us. 1985 was a big vintage for Oregon." I asked Myron what he remembers that was special about it.  "It was a long warm growing season and everything ripened perfectly in the fall. The low pH to brix gave us great, ageable wines."  Susan Sokol Blosser remembered 1985 as "her favorite vintage in Oregon." Unfortunately Sokol Blosser lost their library due to heat damage, yet the impressions of 1985 still lives with her.

The 1985 Winemaker's Reserve are specially selected for aging.  This bottle did so beautifully, tart cherries and raspberry flavors follow classically forest floor aromatics.  The wine is a Willamette Valley veteran, and thanks to that vintage it's still singing at 27 years old.  Jim Bernauer explained that the low ph levels lead to a high concentration of hydrogen ions.  These ions provide a natural defense against oxygen, and the longer the wine is protected from oxygen the longer it can age.  "The low pH wines that Oregon produces allow for great natural acidity and that's the key to a wine aging well."

The saying goes "Age before beauty," but in Oregon Pinot Noir, you can have both.



  

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