Through the Eyes of Newbies: Willamette Valley Vineyards

Since beginning The Oregon Wine Blog, one quality we've strived to stick to is breaking down the wine industry in a way that makes it accessible to young people who don't know anything about wine. These folks are usually intimidated by the thought of driving their Honda up a long, winding driveway and parking it in front of a beautiful chateau just to belly up to the bar and not know what to ask for. We know this feeling, but the truth of the matter is it just isn't the case in the Pacific Northwest. We've broken this down numerous times, but it's time we prove our point in person.

To do this, I'm going to dedicate more time dragging people who don't know Chardonnay from Syrah out to wineries I enjoy. This provides three incredible benefits:

1. My
guinea pigs
friends get to experience Oregon wine first hand, find out what they like, and hopefully become lifelong wine consumers of Oregon wine
2. You, the reader, get to hear about their reactions
3. I get to pick wineries I already enjoy and drink great wine either way


For our first journey, Josh and I took Alyssa, Cole, Shannon, Laura, and Chelsea to Willamette Valley Vineyards. Why Willamette Valley Vineyards? For one, they make a little bit of everything. I had no clue what kinds of wines were going to be popular with this group, so it was a safe bet bringing them somewhere that produces pretty much the entire gamut of wines. Not only does this help my friends decide what kinds of wine they like, but it selfishly helps me narrow down what to bring to gatherings. I'm not saying that I particularly minded drinking an entire bottle of Latah Creek Petite Syrah by myself, but I also don't want to be that guy.

The second reason is even more important than the first. We weren't just getting any tour; oh no. We were getting a tour from Willamette Valley Vineyard's very own Wende! Wende is super rad and guided our tour during the Le Tour De Pinot Finale, so we knew our friends were in for an awesome experience.

After quick introductions, we were guided into the main hallway and given a brief history of the wine industry in Oregon as well as the story of how Willamette Valley Vineyards came to be. We even heard about how cork is harvested! While I'm sure our group didn't retain absolutely everything, it was really great hearing an explanation about the industry from somebody who actually works in it. For me, the industry itself is almost as fascinating as the wines it produces and from the feedback I got, everybody in our group really appreciated hearing about it.


With our history lesson over, it was time to hit the wine making facilities! Here we got to walk through their cellar, wine making facilities, and even saw a bottling line. Wende broke down the complicated methodology of making world-class wine into terms so simplistic that Cole even started throwing out questions regarding creating hybrid and custom grapes. While he probably won't end up changing careers to winemaking, it was clear that everybody left with exponentially more knowledge than they had when they showed up.

With the tour out of the way and one glass of Pinot Gris down, it was time to do some tasting!

Instead of bellying up to the bar and going down a tasting list, Wende had other plans for us. Upon walking out of the bottling room, we were lead into a separate event space and had a private table laid out with gourmet cheeses and five different bottles of wine.


Have I mentioned how awesome Wende is yet? Because it's a lot.

For our palate's pleasure, we all had the opportunity to try their regular Pinot Noir, Founder's Reserve Pinot Noir, Merlot, Frizzante, and Viognier. This provided quite the range of wines and lead to some surprising results. I would have guessed that the Frizzante and regular Pinot Noir would have won the crowd over, but here's how things played out:

Pinot Noir: Ranked towards the bottom of peoples favorites of the five. I was kind of shocked because WVV's Pinot Noir is fairly light, fruit-forward, and not at all offensive. It turns out that while they're all wine novices, it was actually too simple for their palates. Even Cole, who can often be found with a Coors Light, shrugged it off.

Founder's Reserve Pinot Noir: This was a home run with the entire crew. Everybody seemed to love how bold it was and how the flavors changed as each sip evaporates off the palate. Wende also showed us a cool trick of rolling a pinot glass on its side with wine still in it, so maybe that had something to do with it.

Griffin Creek Merlot: This was about as varied in opinion as I thought it would be. Surprisingly, this was one of Shannon's favorites. Shannon tends to drink Rieslings and Pinot Gris, so I'm still a bit perplexed as to how her palate works. That said, she really enjoyed the medium spiciness from this Southern Oregon favorite. I may just have myself a new red wine buddy!

Tualatin Estate Frizzante Muscat: Not at all surprisingly, this was a hit with everyone. It's practically wine soda!

Griffin Creek Viognier: This was perhaps the wine of the day. While our guests didn't have experienced enough palates to express every nuance of this wine, they all had the realization that there was a whole new dimension to white wine that they didn't know was there before.

Whole Cluster Pinot Noir: This wasn't one of Wende's wines, but I made everybody try this on the way out. This ended up being a big winner as well, which still has me scratching my head as to why the regular Pinot Noir wasn't. Oh well.

After our incredible tour and tasting session, we hit up the tasting room once again and each picked a few bottles. I was really excited to see that our wine newbies purchased a little over a case worth between themselves. While those guys were picking out their favorites of our tasting session, Josh and I got a little distracted by a few cellar wines on display:


Somehow we resisted the urge to buy the 2000 The Griffin as well as a magnum of port; instead leaving with a few bottles of Griffin Creek Cab Franc. As a somewhat regionally-respected wine journalist, it is my semi-professional opinion that you can never have enough Cab Franc on your rack.

All in all this trip was a huge success. The Oregon wine industry just gained itself five new customers and I got an excuse to visit one of my favorite wineries. A huge thanks goes out to Josh for coordinating the reservations and another out to Wende for being WVV's Senior Executive Director of Awesomeness.

Look for more of these posts as I drag my non-enophile friends to other wineries!

Not All Frizzantes Are Created Equal

I moved about 3 months ago from the duplex I was renting to the a house I am now renting. The last wine I had in my old place will hopefully be the focus of a short blog later on. I did not have any wine in my new place until about a month ago, such a travesty, but there simply has not any time for wine - I never thought I would utter those words. That brings us to the night of October 18, 2009. After a long 2 months and not as productive weekend, I decided it was time to re-instate the wine on Sundays to start off the week.

Early in the fall, I cat-sat for Jill and her husband Kelly. In response, they gave me a bottle of wine a bottle of Domaine Ste. Michelle Frizzante. Domaine Ste Michelle makes sparkling wines exclusively. Their website writes about the difference between sparkling wines and champagne - while the processes are the same (methode champenoise), because the wines D Ste M uses are grown in Oregon and Washington, they call them sparking wines.

Many of you are familiar with our like, here at the Oregon Wine Blog, of the Semi-Sparkling Muscat Frizzante that Willamette Valley Vineyards produces. When I received this bottle of Frizzante, I assumed it would be similar to the Willamette Valley bottle - fairly sweet very delicious. I was partially right on one of those. The Frizzante from Domaine Ste Michelle is a very good wine, but not really sweet, which is can be a good thing.

Unfortunately the D Ste M website does not have any information on their website about the Frizzante, so I am left to my own devices to write about it without much confirmation. Like all sparking wines, this should be served chilled, but I did not give it too much time to become room temperature after I removed it from the refrigerator. But nothing could prepare me for the taste. What I like a lot about this sparkling wine is that it isn't too sweet. The "sweetness" of this wine is very subtle - you can only taste it very lightly. There also seems to be the taste of some pears.

I really like this sparkling wine, and think that others will like it as well. A word to the wise - not all Frizzantes are created equally, so don't expect them to taste the same. A lesson I learned, and am glad I did.

Until next time...

2008 Wine Pairing Feature - Traditional Holiday Dinner

The Oregon Wine Blog staff is proud to present our inaugural Wine Pairing Feature – this edition detailing a traditional holiday dinner. This year we were privileged to have Willamette Valley Vineyards partner with us to provide the wine for the wonderful experience. Many of the staff writers here at The Oregon Wine Blog are members of Willamette Valley Vineyards’ Oregon Wine Guild, and thus have become very familiar with their wines.

In preparation for the big evening Meg Hursh, WVV's Wine Club Manager & Shelby Zadow, their Marketing Manager previewed our pre-planned dinner menu and selectively chose wines to match the courses of the evening. Our plan from the start was to provide you, our readership, with a wine-pairing guide for a typical holiday turkey dinner. Our hope is that you might take away at least one idea for a great wine pairing for your next holiday dinner whether it be with the entire family or just that one special person.

The Appetizer:
To start the evening off as our guests were arriving we enjoyed a delicious cream cheese based smoked salmon spread with dill, capers, and red onion on crackers. This was a dish prepared by Chris, our Culinary Specialist and will likely appear on the menu of a new restaurant soon to open in Corvallis. WVV paired a 2004 Griffin Creek Cabernet Franc with this appetizer. The Cab Franc was a “perfect complement” to the smoked salmon dip most agreed. The subtle creaminess of the salmon spread was accompanied well by the peppery finish of the Cab Franc.

The Salad:
To begin the main part of the dinner we gathered around the table to enjoy a candied walnut and bleu-cheese pear salad with Oregon mixed field greens and a red wine vinaigrette dressing prepared by our Public Relations Director Megan. For this salad, rather extravagant for mid-January in Oregon, WVV paired two wines a 2006 Willamette Valley Vineyard Riesling and a 2003 Griffin Creek Viognier. For those who found the bleu-cheese to have added a pungent and powerful flavor to the salad, the Riesling enriched it with a “soothingly sweet yet balanced” contrast. However, for those who do not care for the sweetness of the Riesling, the Viognier also added a balanced dryer perspective for both the bleu-cheese as well as the candied walnuts, and was noted as having a subtle taste of summer melons. Overall, our staff and guests were very evenly split between the two wines. Both were excellent pairings for the strong flavors found in this salad, both sweet and bold. In the end our recommendation for this salad will not be settled on one wine but rather recommend them both.

The Main Course:
Before I can begin to describe the delicious wine pairings available to us for dinner, let me take a moment to define the dishes which were brought by each of us that comprised the main course:

• Traditional Holiday Turkey – The turkey, stuffed with orange, lemon, onion and carrot wedges, had whole stocks of rosemary inserted under the skin of the breast, lightly sprinkled on top with salt and pepper.
  
• Cranberry Cornbread Stuffing – cornbread, cranberries, and thinly sliced onions.
  
• Garlic Rosemary Mashed Potatoes – Potatoes with finely chopped fresh rosemary, mashed with boiled whole garlic cloves.
  
• Roasted Green Beans with Prosciutto – Green beans lightly sprinkled with salt and pepper roasted with thinly sliced prosciutto and onions.

On the side we also had traditional homemade turkey gravy to each of these dishes as desired by our guests and staff.

WVV paired two wines for this dinner, a 2005 Estate Vineyard Pinot Noir and a 2006 Whole Cluster Fermented Pinot Noir. These two wines, albeit very similar, are indeed worlds apart in flavor, each with their own beautiful noses and palettes. Pinot Noir would not usually be a wine paired with a turkey dinner, as these fares are more traditionally paired with a subtle white wine like a Sauvignon Blanc or a Chardonnay. However, Meg and Shelby thought it appropriate to pair with a bolder wine like the Pinot Noirs because of the bold flavors we’ve added to the dishes of the evening.

Our guests and staff began enjoying the main course in silence for a few minutes as they savored their first wine selection and its balancing tones with each dish, followed by a change in wine to make an adequate comparison. After the personal enjoyment of the wines with the food the conversations began and lasted into the evening. At the end of the main course we regrouped to discuss our thoughts and provide comments on each of the Pinot Noirs.

First we examined and discussed the Whole Cluster Fermented Pinot Noir. It was unanimously agreed upon that this delicate wine needed time to air out and decant prior to enjoying it to its fullest potential, so heed that warning before you enjoy it too. This wine in particular matched the prevalent flavor of rosemary in the meal very well. We all agreed that this wine was absolutely meant to be a complementary wine to great cuisine, and not a stand alone wine. Pairing this with dinner made for a great experience, however, most having tried this as a stand-alone sipping wine agreed it needed some strong flavorful fare to augment it best.

Secondly we examined and discussed the Estate Vineyard Pinot Noir. This wine was a mellow and smoother wine than the Whole Cluster, however it did not pair as well with the food. A great wine, nonetheless it was much better as a post cuisine drink making it more of a companion to great conversations and less to the food on the table. This wine is among the staff favorites for everyday drinking because of its versatility, however all agreed it was best enjoyed alone, as it needed no complement with which to pair.

At the end of our course it was evident that the crowd favorite for dinner was the Whole Cluster Fermented Pinot Noir, followed up with a small sample of the Estate Vineyard to finish off the meal.

Dessert:
As our staff worked to prepare the menu we were equally torn between two wonderful, yet vastly different desserts for which we could choose. The first was a Pear and Ginger Galette, which is best described, for those who’ve never seen or had a galette, as a fruit pie made without the use of a pie-tin. The second delectable dessert was a chocolate-stout mousse, a menu item for the soon to open Block 15 Brewery in Corvallis, Ore. for which Chris, our culinary specialist, is the head chef.

So, rather than choose between two equally delicious desserts, we opted for the route requiring less self-control and kept them both on the menu. Meg and Shelby from WVV paired a wine with each, thus providing us once again with the task, and some may say burden, of sampling both desserts and accompanying wines, all for the sake of our readers and friends. Regardless of the burden for which we all undertook, we were happy to do it, and provide all those reading with our feedback.

First up for our reviewing, was the Pear and Candied Ginger Galette, with which was paired a 2006 Semi-Sparkling Muscat Frizzanté made by Tualatin Estate of Willamette Valley Vineyards. To nearly identically associate with the pear in the galette was the strong pear flavor and nose of the Frizzanté. These matching flavors provided for a perfectly logical pairing on the part of WVV. However, the truly amazing part of the entire pairing was the final anchoring point of the cuisine, and that was the matching of the traditional flavors of the Muscat grape with the candied crystal ginger pieces in the Pear and Ginger Galette. These two final flavors of Muscat and sweetened ginger were the capstone of the pairing.

For the Chocolate-Stout Mousse, WVV paired their amazingly delectable, and hard to find, 2004 Quinta Reserva Pinot Noir Style Port. This Port, which I’ve only found and tried once before is absolutely amazing. Retailing for approximately $50, this is a wine that if you ever find yourself in an opportunity to buy, do not hesitate. If you like Port, or know someone else who does, spend the money and buy this Port. Alas, I digress. The pairing of the mousse with the port created a warm feeling that made for a smooth and relaxing finish to a holiday gathering of friends and colleagues. Not much else can be said for the Port, other than pointing out the fact that with eight people present for the dinner, the only two wines we finished in their entirety were the Frizzanté and the Pinot Noir Port. This fact alone says something about these two wines. Even the few spouses in the group who are not as big of wine fans as their partners were able to enjoy both of these exquisite wines.

In closing, we’d like to thank our partners and friends Meg Hursh and Shelby Zadow from Willamette Valley Vineyards for their professional wine pairings and most especially for agreeing to be the sponsor for our inaugural Holiday Dinner Wine Pairing Guide. Look for this publication again, however next year it will be published by early December of 2008 so that its advise and ideas for both menus and wine pairings can be utilized to the fullest in the holiday seasons with friends and family. We are also kicking around the ideas of having a Summer BBQ Wine Pairing Guide, as well as a possibly others. So look for more to come as we continue to be a source of wine enthusiasm and advice for people looking to enjoy the fruits of the vine with the fruits of the land.

Until next time, Cheers!

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Editor's Note: The staff of The Oregon Wine Blog plan to run quarterly feature length articles on various topics, including the previously noted Summer BBQ Pairing feature, as well as in depth looks at local wineries of the Oregon and Washington viticulture.

2006 Tualatin Hills Semi-Sparkling Muscat

Frankly I was a bit surprised when I opened a bottle of this wine this evening and looked at our blog, only to find that none of us had written about this much loved wine. To the best of my knowledge this wine, the Tualatin Estate 2006 Frizzante (site not up-to-date) is a favorite among each of us here at The Oregon Wine Blog.

The wine has been described to me as "Sprite in a wine bottle" but it is really so much more! The amazing fruit-forward qualities of this wine make it drinkable on the hottest of summer days as well as the coolest of winter evenings. This evening just so happened to be one of those record hot summer evenings here in the mid-Willamette Valley. The wine is specifically a mild semi-sparkling muscat. For those who do not like muscat, they may have a hard time enjoying this wine. However, if you can enjoy a sweet wine, you will most certainly enjoy this one. With a great palette of peaches, citrus rind, and orange blossoms, this wine serves as a great intro into the realm of wine for those who have never had the wine experience required to get them started.

If you would like more information about this delicious wine please visit Tualatin Estate's mother company Willamette Valley Vineyards' online store. The price is $15 per bottle and can be found across the Oregon area in many local markets and retailers, as well as a list of local retailers on other locales across the country.