Drouhin's Oregon Pinot Noir One of Very Best

The Oregon Vineyards of Domaine Drouhin

Most wine drinkers have a bottle or two - or many - stashed away for a special occasion. While much can be said for popping one open on a Tuesday night just because you ARE special, we do tend to squirrel them away with a purpose.

I had such a purpose this week for a friend who will be moving out of town for a year. Patrick is my best wine buddy. We normally taste something at least once a week so he will be missed.

In Patrick's honor I went to the storage system and snooped around and decided on a Domaine Drouhin 07 Laurene Pinot Noir. I picked this up in the summer of 2011 while visiting the Willamette Valley and the gorgeous Drouhin winery.

Here are some photos from that day in the valley. Photos include stops at Domaine Serene, Winderlea, and Sokol Blosser, three more great Oregon wineries

Simply put, the Laurene was one of the best Oregon Pinots I've ever enjoyed. I think Patrick might agree. The 07 Oregon vintage has gotten a lot of press for its up and down quality as its aged. But tasting the 07 wines last year was a real job. I was actually in Oregon when most of the 07 vintage was released and there wasn't much to like, though I didn't visit Drouhin.

Last summer the 07 Pinot Noir really came to life. The 07 Laurene is Domaine Drouhin's top bottling. It doesn't come cheap at $75 a bottle, though I did find it as low as $57 on the internet.

The wine had wonderful complex fruit much more pronounced that some wines of any vintage. There was lovely dark cherry but with a bright freshness you only get in the best Pinot wines. It had strong but well-balanced acid which would have been perfect for some sockeye salmon or steelhead trout. But when I open a Pinot of this quality I just want to sip it. Maybe a little matching chocolate with this Pinot but it should be savored.

I didn't even have to look to guess the critics liked this wine, but I did. Josh Reynolds of Tanzer gave it 90 points. "Brisk, finely etched red fruit flavors carry no excess weight and gain intensity with air. The lingering finish echoes the strawberry and blood orange notes." That geeky enough for you?

Robert Parker scored the wine 91 points, Wine Spectator agreed with the 91 score, and the Burghound jumped it up to 93 points.

Again, the price point will scare off many and I understand that. But this is a great example of you get what you pay for.

Domaine Drouhin 2007, SRP $75, Very Highly Recommended


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Re-visiting Ladies at Republic of Jam in Willamette Valley

Any travel to wine country turns up some real gems when you look beyond the glass and check out the businesses around the tasting rooms and what wine country has to offer beyond the juice.

Lynnette talking jam with me.

One of my best all-time non-wine discoveries in wine country occurred last year in the Willamette Valley. At the insistence of a wine writing friend, Ryan Reichert, I made sure to stop at the Republic of Jam in Carlton.

 I had a bunch sent home and have found some great uses for their unique products. The jams will work on a piece of toast but best when used more creatively. The jams are not your traditional sweet jams. For example, I love to put their Spiced Strawberry Pinot Noir jam on a dab of goat cheese on a cracker.

I wrote about the experience the day I visited, which you can read here.

But I also did a quick video interview I had hoped to use as part of another project that never materialized. I've been posting of few of those videos here in recent weeks. This is the last of those vids.

Check out Lynnette Shaw and Amy Wilder's chat about Republic of Jam.


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Vidon One of Oregon's Great Boutique Wineries

A few weeks back I started posting a few of the individual videos I had shot while in Oregon last summer.

Don Hagge .. Apollo Engineer and now a winemaker.

These were videos I shot for a full Oregon feature for a national online site that didn't pan out. I wrote several pieces about my visits, the winemakers, the region, and the wine. But the videos sat untouched until earlier this year.

I have two more and should have gotten them up by now. These two are arguably the most interesting stops of my four days in the Willamette Valley.

First up today is Don Hagge of Vidon Vineyards. I wrote about meeting Don the day we met him. He has such an interesting background story that I mention in that blog post. He also makes some of the most fabulous Pinot Noir you'll sample in the valley.

What really got us on our trip is we asked at two or three different wineries what spot we should visit not on our agenda. Nearly everyone, knowing we were seeking small boutique wineries, said we just had to go see Don.

The video is most unedited - just clipped at the beginning and end. It gives you more of a feel for being there and chatting with the winemaker.


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Domaine Serene Delivers Vintage to Vintage

Domaine Serene Tasting Room

I visited Oregon's Willamette Valley in July, 2011, and had one of the best 'wine times' of my life hitting up a number of prominent wineries.

I did a photo essay for Palate Press, blogged each day here about the trip, and wrote a newspaper column about the experience. Part of my wine-writing work got left in a folder for way too long. I had pitched a full video about the experience to Palate Press but they never bought into the idea. So I have some really interesting interviews with prominent winemakers and others who make Willamette a special place.

Obviously, those pieces have set too long. But the information is as fresh today as the day I first heard it. I'm going to share a number of those over the next two weeks. I had a long chat with Don Lange of Lange Vineyards, Don Hagge of Vidon, the two delightful ladies who own/make and entertain at the Republic of Jam and more.

One of our most enjoyable stops on that trip was Domaine Serene. That winery consistenly scores big points from the two leading national magazines and wine critics for its supurb Pinot Noir. The price points are a bit higher than the already significant prices of most Oregon premier Pinot. But you have to taste the wines to understand.

Talking and touring with Serene's Willett

The entry level is "Yamhill Cuvee" at $45, though you might find it slightly lower at retail stores. What you learn when you visit vineyards is how premium producers take extraordinary care in every step of the winemaking process.

During my July visit we met Lucas Willett, Hospitality Director, who gave a great tour and fabulous tasting of the Domaine Serene wines. He also shared what was my first white Pinot Noir. Yes, you read that right.

These videos I'll share over the next two weeks are largely unedited or raw. It puts you in the tasting room and vineyard in a way that a slick edited piece doesn't. I decided to leave the vids as they were shot.

Below is Willett talking about the care Domaine Serene takes in making its wines and also about Serene's very unique white Pinot Noir.



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Wabash Magazine: Above the Rim

My wine writing and work in marketing at Wabash College do cross paths. I have written about a couple of our graduates in the California wine industry for our alumni magazine.Last summer I visited Willamette Valley in Oregon and have written extensively about that here, my newspaper column, Palate Press and elsewhere.

Our alumni magazine editor Steve Charles was preparing an issue with a travel theme. He asked me to write about my latest wine trip from a travel perspective. I really enjoyed telling the story of those behind the tasting room counters and behind the scenes.

Here is a PDF of those four pages as they appear in this issue of the Wabash Magazine.

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A Lovely Tempranillo - NOT from Spain!

When you think of Spain's wines the first one to come to mind is the noble Tempranillo grape!

If you think about Oregon's wines, it has to be Pinot Noir off the top of your head!

But, when you mix the two what do you get? Lange Estate Winery and Vineyard's Tempranillo.

When I visited Lange in 2009 I was purchasing a case of wine and threw in a bottle of the Tempranillo to round out the case. I tasted it in the tasting room and thought it was "okay." I've tasted enough through recent years to know when I really like them.

I opened the 2007 Tempranillo last night to walk down to my neighbors for dinner. They serving a roasted pork loin and it sounded like a good match. I snuck a sip when I opened it and was frankly unimpressed - but wait!

As the wine opened up it really lived up to the Lange name. I got some chocolate, spice, and those earthy tones I love from Oregon Pinot Noir and France's Cotes du Rhone wines.

Two wine drinking friends at the dinner were singing Lange's praise before dessert was served. It was a little lighter than some Tempranillo you'll have from Spain but Lange's masterful touch which results in balanced wines makes it worth the price.

Lange buys these grapes from Umpqua Valley in Southern Oregon. It sees a combination of American and French oak. The alcohol is 14 percent on the '07. The other thing I like, which is so true with Lange and other Oregon wineries, is this is a small batch wine.

It isn't inexpensive is the catch, especially for a Tempranillo. The '08 is listed at $35 on the Lange website. Frankly, I don't remember what I paid but I recall full retail being just over $30 when I bought this one.

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