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Dying for a Drink in Portland, Part Two

Well, what I was thinking (see the last line of my previous post) was that I had better take my own advice and get me to the Indie (see my post before the previous post). So with the weight of three prime ales sloshing around in my stomach, I waddled to my car and drove (I should have walked) down to the Urban Wineworks where the second day of the Indie had just begun.

I've been in attendance, and actually part of the judging team, for all four of the Indie Wine Festivals, and I must say that it has developed into a signature Northwest wine event. I know I said that in my earlier post, but it's true (and I have no official connection with the event, other than has a happy contributor of time and an honest buyer of tickets).

While I was unable to attend on Saturday, I was most impressed with the Sunday pourings (wineries whose wines made the judges' cut are poured over the weekend, with half the wineries on Saturday and the other half on Sunday, so I missed part of the group). On average I found them to be of a higher level of quality and consistency than in previous years . . . though for the first half hour or so I had to confine myself to the wineries pouring in the one large tasting room that had a bathroom, in order to accommodate the demands of my digested beer (which brings up the question of how beer can so rapidly translate into urine. Does it actually get digested, or just beat its way to the nearest exit?)

I had fun bumping into a variety of local folks, from fellow media to friendly winemakers. One particularly pleasant conversation I had was with Alice Feiring, New York-based wine writer and author of the just released book The Battle For Wine and Love, Or, How I Saved the World From Parkerization. Clever title, that.

I had briefly met Alice at previous Indie events. She is a good friend of Lisa Donoughe (LAD Communications) who runs the Indie, and she was attending this Indie partly to moderate a panel on "natural wines," a subject of great interest to her, and on which she is an authority. She had no particular reason to remember me, so when I found myself tasting at the same table next to her, I reintroduced myself. It seems my face had rung a bell.

"Oh, I couldn't decide if you were that nasty blogger or the guy from Northwest Palate," she said. I think we were both relieved that I wasn't the nasty blogger.

We had a nice conversation about writing, I complemented her on the publication of her book (which I am happy to say she signed for me), I asked her how she did it, since I am embarking on a book of my own, and was completely intimidated by the speed with which she produced her draft (well under the year that I have!). She even invited me to drop her an email should I have any questions, which made me feel honored—not all wine writers with a national reputation have been as engaging and nice to a regional writer as Alice was with me.

We were tasting Pinot noirs from Vidon Vineyard, a label that was new to me. They had three 2006 Chehalem Mountain wines, with varying sources and degrees of oak influence. All were well done and impressive.

A few other wines that stood out for me at the Indie included these:
>2007 Chehalem Mountains Nicholas Estate Riesling from Anam Cara
>2006 Yamhill-Carlton District Estate Reserve Pinot Noir from Carlton Hill
>2006 Willamette Valley Pinot Noir from Grochau Cellars
>2006 Dundee Hills Winter’s Hill Pinot Noir from Matello (Marcus Goodfellow, or Mad Wine Company)
>2006 Willamette Valley Chardonnay from Pudding River
>2005 Rogue Valley Merlot/Cabernet Franc from Volcano Vineyards

There were others that were good. Pretty much all of them in fact. Only one wine I tasted stood out as questionable, and I'm not going point it out. Could have been a bad bottle.

But by around 5:00 pm, who was I to say a bottle was bad or good? On top of my beers, I had absorbed unknown amounts of residual alcohol from two hours of wine tasting. Sure, I spit (I am a professional, after all), but as we all know that doesn't prevent alcohol absorption.

So around 5:00 pm, with the warm sun beckoning, my cheeks glowing, and my mind beginning to wander, I quit the Indie so that I could burn off some . . . calories . . . walking around for an hour or so before I headed off to my next event of the day . . . an educational bitters-and-spirits cocktail seminar at Teardrop Lounge.

Because, clearly, I had not yet had enough to drink.

Dying for a Drink in Portland, Part One

Literally, dying . . . or at least sometimes it can feel that way. Like this morning. After a yesterday's day of drinking in Portland, mostly for work . . . really.

The libatious resources of Portland are varied and many . . . and can be dangerous.

I began my Sunday meeting a friend at the newly-opened Deschutes Brewery & Public House located in the heart of Portland's chic and popular Pearl District. Deschutes is one of the best-known and most-loved breweries in Oregon, and yet this is their first venture into Portland from their home in Bend. And while it may seem long overdue (Portland is nicknamed Beervana because it is home to more breweries than any other city on the planet), when you walk into the new Pub it feels like it has always been there.

The space is expansive and welcoming. Occupying an entire building, the Pub is centrally located across the street from the Gerding Theater, a block away from Powell's Books, and next to any number of galleries and other restaurants and houses of libation. So, as would come as no surprise to anyone, the place was packed on its opening weekend.

The Pub brews its own beer, and brewmaster Cam O'Connor offers the classic Deschutes line-up as well as house-only specialties . . . like Armory XPA (the Armory is the building across the street, home to the Gerding Theater; XPA is "extra pale ale"). The previous week I had attended the media opening of the Pub, and O'Connor took us on a backstage tour of the brewery part of the Pub. The mash tuns and various holding tanks seemed cramped, but well organized, neat as a pin, and impressive in their promise.

Of course, this Sunday my friend and I had to have an XPA to start. Hoppy, but wonderfully balanced, it was the perfect late-spring-finally-a-warm-day drink. So good it was, we had to have another (except I opted for the classic Mirror Pond Pale Ale).

Chef Jeff Usinowicz brings a slightly more foodie flair to the traditional pub fare menu, without endangering the emphasis on pizza and burgers--which calls for another beer (another Mirror Pond; yes, I am boring in my beer choice today).

OK, now I should have known better than to have that third beer, or maybe the second one as well. Not that three beers over the course of a leisurely lunch is normally that much . . . but this was not a normal Sunday: I had work to do the rest of the day, drinking work. Three beers at lunchtime most definitely ARE too much when one is also scheduled to attend two additional drinking events later in the day.

Which was my reality. At 3pm I was planning to attend the second day of the Portland Indie Wine Festival, and at 6pm I was to attend a cocktail seminar on bitters.

A typical Portland Sunday: beer at noon, wine at mid-afternoon, and spirits throughout the evening.

What was I thinking . . .

Get Thee to the Indie

The Portland Indie Wine Festival is quintessential Oregon, Portland, and Oregon wine. If you want to experience the character of Oregon's wine community, get thee to the Indie!

Nowhere else does the concept of "Indie Winemaker" resonate so deeply as in Oregon, where the industry was founded forty-some years ago by sharp individualists, and where today the vast bulk of our wineries are small family businesses—the stamp of corporate ownership in Oregon's wine world is unusually negligible.

2008 is the 4th annual celebration of small, independent Oregon winemakers. To qualify, winemakers must produce no more than 2,000 cases—and for many participants, that number is much smaller. Winemakers submit their wines to a panel of judges (full disclosure: I have been one of those judges) who taste the wines blindly. The top scoring wines are selected for pouring by the winemakers at the two-day event.

The Indie is the brainchild of Lisa Donoughe, founder of LAD Communications, a boutique Portland-and-New York marketing agency. It is a brilliant invention! The event honors the Indie ethic that is so much a part of Oregon's wine culture, and introduces to the wine-loving public new winery names that would otherwise struggle to get exposure in the dynamically growing Northwest wine market.

The event takes place May 2-4 at the Urban Wineworks and Chown Garage on the outskirts of Portland's Pearl District. There are a series of seminars you can buy tickets to, but the highlight of the Indie Festival is the two tastings on Saturday and Sunday. One half of the chosen wineries pour on Saturday, and the other half pours on Sunday, so to see it all you need to attend both days.

I really believe this is one of the best wine events in the Northwest . . . and my magazine is not an official sponsor this year (we have been in the past), so I am not saying this out of any vested interest . . . oh wait, that's not true: I always have a vested interest in pointing people to good Northwest wine stuff, and that's just what the Portland Indie Wine Festival is!

For ticket information, go to the Indie website.

A Wondrichful Event

It has been far too long since my last post . . . my apologies. My editor at Northwest Palate magazine resigned, I have taken over the position for the time being, and have since been mired in a morass of deadline-driven activities.

So it was a pleasing relief a few weeks ago when I attended a spirited mid-morning event at Portland's Teardrop Cocktail Lounge, hosted by the newly formed Oregon Bartender's Guild (the only independent bartender's guild in the country). David Wondrich, author of the fascinating recent book Imbibe!, was in town and would be preparing and presenting a series of cocktails from his book, created by the seminal and mysterious 19th Century mixologist, Dr. Jerry Thomas.

Thomas, for those who don't know, was perhaps the most flamboyant bartender—certainly the most famous one—of his century. He helped legitimize craft bartending as a credible liquid culinary profession, and left to posterity a variety of tasty cocktail recipes that have mostly been forgotten in today's lamentable flood tide of vodka-and-muddled-fruit based abominations called such-and-such "martini".

Here in Portland, a thriving center of craft distilling, there is also a vibrant community of creative bartenders crafting intriguing cocktails . . . so the room was full of the regional bartenderatti (and the sun was shining, a rarity this spring!).

Wondrich gave a fascinating introduction to what we do and don't know about Thomas—who seems a larger than life figure. Then Wondrich, whipped out his vintage cocktail-making accoutrements and and had at it with the other assembled experts.

Jeffrey Morgenthaler, of Bel Ami in Eugene, and Daniel Shoemaker of Teardrop together concocted Thomas's Japanese Cocktail--from aged Cognac, Teardop-house-made orgeat, and Jeffrey's own Boker's Bitters. It was a fantastic drink, with depth and flavor that was surprising. I'd never had one, and given the specialness of the ingredients, I will never have one that is quite the same.

Other drinks followed: the Improved Whiskey Cocktail (that I now make at home), a Stone Fence cocktail made by Lance Mayhew, a Buck and Breck crafted by Alyson Dykes of Teardop (using Remy Martin VSOP Cognac and Argyle sparking wine), and a Coffee Cocktail made by Kevin Ludwig, of the soon-to-open Beaker and Flask. This latter is not technically a cocktail, since it has no bitters, and is not made of coffee. So go figure how it came to be so delicious!

All in all, it was a very tasteful way to spend a Saturday!

P.S., after that great event, my wife and I went and bought a new car. Now, would we have done that if we hadn't spent the earlier part of the day . . . imbibing?

Photos: Above: David Wondrich, author of Imbibe!, extolling the virtues of Jerry Thomas. Middle: cocktail cravers crowd in to see Wondrich make the Blue Blazer, a spectacular juggling of flaming liquids between two cups. Below: Kevin Ludwig making his ambrosial Coffee Cocktail.

Writing Down the Wine

There was something surreal about going so immediately from presenting/discussing six 2006 Oregon Pinot noirs as examples of polyphenolics at the Oregon Wine Industry Symposium, to attending the 4th Professional Wine Writers Symposium at Meadowood (in Napa Valley).

Consider: here I am one moment telling career winemakers what I make of the phenolic character of their Oregon Pinot noir wines (like I know), and the next moment (ok, it was really two days later, but it seemed like the next moment), sitting in the audience at one of Napa Valley’s most prestigious (and therefore expensive) wine venues (Meadowood), while the likes of Lettie Teague (wine editor for http://www.foodandwine.com/ magazine and author of the recent best-seller “Educating Peter”), David Rosengarten (author of numerous cookbooks, former Food Network TV star, and writer of the Rosengarten Report newsletter--and James Beard Journalism Award-winner), Bill Le Blonde (the food & wine editor at Chronicle Books), Karen MacNeil (author of “The Wine Bible” and head of the Wine Education curriculum at the Culinary Institute of America at Greystone in Napa Valley), Linda Murphy (former editor of the San Francisco Chronicle newspaper’s Wine Section—the only stand-alone wine section in a daily newspaper in the country—for which, I may add, I have written an article), and Alder Yarrow (the best-known wine blogger and author of the most widely read wine blog, called Vinography) tell us about the ins and outs of wine writing, wine review writing, and all the myriad considerations of publishing, ethics, and making a living as a freelance wine writer.

Quite a transition.

The Professional Wine Writers Symposium at Meadowood is a unique event. It is, to my knowledge, the only happening of its kind in this country that is focused on the particular issues facing the niche career of writers who aspire to making a living writing about wine (as opposed to writers who don’t have to make a living writing about wine—some of whom were in attendance—either because of an independent income, or an understanding spouse, the latter of which has been important to me).

This is the fourth year of the Symposium, and my second year in attendance. It was a valuable experience, both from the standpoint of things learned (Jack Hart’s writing seminars were a much-needed tutorial) and people met (Lettie Teague actually asked me for my business card).

It was also a whirlwind of wine, food, wine, and more wine . . . not to mention an interesting re-exposure to the Mecca of American wine . . . of which more soon.

(I apologize for the poor quality of the photos. I used my iPhone, which so far has stood me in good stead, but I discovered that fingerprints on the lens don;t improve the quality of the images! Captions: Top photo, l. to r.: Bill Le Blanc, David Rosengarten, Lettie Teague; Bottom photo: David Rosengarten, Karen MacNeil, Brett Anderson of the Robb Report).

Poly want a . . . phenol? Part Two

So there I was (see my last post for the full context of this post), up on the dais, famous winemakers to the left of me, PhD chemists to the right of me, and the floor was mine . . . all mine . . . did I succeed—or fail?

Mostly, I think I failed . . . at least in the key reason for my being on this technical tasting panel.

I began my portion of the panel by confirming the suspicions of the audience: “A lot of you are wondering why there’s a wine writer sitting on the technical tasting panel . . .” I could see the confirming nods of some audience members, their eyebrows raised in query, pointed in my direction.

“I’m here because what I do is translate the phenolic character of Oregon wines into terms the consumer can understand.” That was my story, and I was sticking to it. Luckily, it was true.

Now, I’ll admit that “translating phenolic character” is not the normal way that I think about my job, but when you get down to it, it wasn’t a bad description. I taste and review Northwest wines for the general public. I tell them what my impressions are of the myriad smells, tastes, and experiential—what is rightly known as the “organoleptic” characteristics of a wine—are to my palate. This is to a good degree the province of phenolics.

My role in the technical tasting panel, was to bridge the gap between the winemaking technique/technology and the chemical/scientific theory, with the actual results the consumer experiences in the glass. To validate that end, I had chosen 6 Oregon Pinot noir wines, bought at normal commercial outlets, to present to the assembled Northwest wine industry experts as examples of how Oregon Pinot noirs from he 2006 vintage illustrated different expressions of polyphenolic character (if you are dubious about polyphenolics, please see my previous post).

But here was the unfortunate rub: while I made it clear that the wines I had chosen were to be presented blind to the assembled 250-or-so winemakers, I apparently did not make it clear that their identities would NOT be revealed (under pain of death). This was a critical point.

The object of my presentation of these wines was to encourage a full and complete discussion by the assembled winemaking audience without fear of insulting what turned out to be a friend’s wine (or worse, their own wine.) We wanted a vigorous discussion, and to get it we were guaranteeing the anonymity of the wines I was presenting. Only I knew the identities of the wines, and that identity would not be revealed.

But I didn’t make that clear.

After what seemed like a lukewarm discussion—with me covering up the lack of discourse with my own diarrhea-of-the-mouth ramblings—the panel concluded and we all began to disassemble.

“So what are the wines?” shouted one winemaker from the audience.

“I’m not telling!” I replied.

Another winemaker . . . an important one . . . came up to me and told me that if he had understood that the wines would not be identified he would have said much more (especially about how wine #2 was made with enzymes and dry ice . . .), and there would have been much more discussion.

Ooops. That was the goal: more discussion.

I had blown it.

OK, so it wasn’t a disaster. There was reasonable interchange, the wines were varied, the rest of the panel had cogent things to say . . . but in the end the principal goal of my participation on the panel had not been achieved.

Bummer.

Perhaps I’ll have a chance to redeem myself at some future Oregon Wine Industry Symposium.

Poly want a . . . phenol?

When I received an email invitation to participate in a technical tasting panel on polyphenolics at the Oregon Wine Industry Symposium, I was nervous. Poly what??

OK, so I'm no chemist, but I did have an understanding of the basics behind phenolics (or polyphenolics--multiple phenolics), a group of chemical compounds that occur naturally in grape skins, seeds, and stems. But on the panel would be true scientists who study, test, and measure the intricacies of phenolics, as well as true winemakers who constantly deal with managing phenolics in their wines. Their knowledge of the subject is chasms deeper than mine . . . as was the audience who would consist of pretty much all the leading winemakers in Oregon. What value could I lend to such a panel?

Well, it turns out that I did have something to contribute: the consumer perspective.

But first a bit about polyphenols. To simplify, phenolics in red wines are commonly associated with color depth and mouthfeel. The deeper the color, the more phenolics in the wine, and the more astringent the mouthfeel, the more phenolics in the wine. Phenolics develop as the grapes ripen (see photo), so there is a big vineyard-based element to the phenolics that appear in the final wine. But there are also many things the winemaker can do in the cellar to manage the phenolic profile of their finished wine . . . hence the value of a panel such as the one I was on. Of course, there's a lot more to polyphenolics than that, but for the purposes of this blog (and for how consumers experience phenolics), we'll go with that simplification.

Our panel consisted of two leading experts in the analysis and understanding of phenolics: (Dr.) Jim Kennedy, of Oregon State University, and (Dr.) Doug Adams of UC Davis, and two leading Oregon winemakers: Anna Matzinger of Archery Summit Winery, and Lynn Penner-Ash of Penner-Ash Wine Cellars.

Oh yeah, and one wine writer: me.

The first flight of wines were "experiments" from Anna and Lynn. For instance, Anna showed two Pinot noir barrel samples from the 2007 vintage. One was fermented in wood and the other in steel; the object was to see what the differences in phenolic composition were depending upon the type of fermenting vessel. It was an interesting comparison. The steel-fermented wine seemed decidedly fruitier and freshly forward, while the wood-fermented wine had more detectable tannin and carried a greater sense of weight in the mouth.

That is pretty much what I "wood" have expected of the wines, and the chemical analysis of the phenolics bore out the sensory impression quite nicely. Anna commented that what she gained in the wood-ferment was greater complexity and depth, but what she lost was a sense of brighter fruit. She was quick to add, though, that both of these approaches would be part of the final blend for her 2007 wines, and were not intended to be examples of wines she would release . . . these were pre-blending samples to illustrate the kind of polyphenolics that resulted from the two fermentation regimes.

Lynn presented two pairs of wines that illustrated some of her experiments as she grappled with the rainy and difficult 2007 vintage. The first was Pinot noir as it was fermented from the field, compared to the same wine with a measured addition of enological tannins. Again, the difference was clearly detectable on the palate, as well as demonstrable by the chemical analysis numbers. Though I found the flavor differences to be negligible, the mouth feel was definitely more grippy with the small tannin addition, and I thought the nose was more complex as well.

Lynn also showed the difference between wine samples that included a Pinot that had been saigneed (bleeding off a portion of free-run juice in order to concentrate the phenolics in the remaining juice), and one that had added tannin and no saignee. And as expected, the differences ran true to form, and true to the numbers.

Each of the wines was accompanied by a chemical analysis done at UC Davis by Wynne Peterson-Nedry (daughter of Harry Peterson-Nedry of Chehalem, who helped organize the panel). In this first flight it was interesting to correlate the phenolic numbers to the experience of the phenolics on the palate. Jim and Doug spoke knowledgeably (as you would expect) about how protein-precipitated phenols helped influence the mouth feel . . . and other such chemically stuff . . .

Frankly, the wine geek in me found it all fascinating and helpful, and even for the assembled winemakers, the comparison trials were informative.

But once the "real" wine people were done with their samples, it became my turn to conduct the second flight of wines: 6 samples of commercially available 2006 Pinot noirs selected to illustrate a range of phenolic characteristics in finished wines . . .

. . . of which more in my next post.

I Held My Breath

Right after my last post, dissing the low-brow marketing of an Oregon winery who seems to do little more than slap on wine labels that play off crude sexual innuendo, I had the pleasure of manning a festival booth for our magazine, right behind the winery's booth at the show.

I suppose it was my imagination that someone from the winery always seemed to engage eye contact whenever I walked by. Yeah, right. They were way too busy to notice me! Every now and then, as part of their oh-so-clever-marketing, someone from the winery would bellow out across the hall "Did you say five men and two women just got Naked?!?" . . . meaning, of course, that five men and two women just got some Naked Wine.

Of course the crude provocation worked: their booth was swamped the entire time with people giddily making bad sex puns. I'm sure it is all very much fun. I've got a pretty randy and risque sense of humor myself, and am not afraid of using it in mixed public company, but to hang your entire marketing message on it still seems base to me.

But not to them, nor to their customers. The winery folks weren't watching me with daggers in their eyes; they probably don't even know I exist. And even if they did, why should they care? Their schtick is working just fine, thank you. And I know in any argument over taste and wine they'll have the last laugh . . . all the way to the bank!

Bad Labels = Bad Wine?

It's just a working hypothesis, but I'm beginning to think that the design quality of the label on the bottle is a good indicator of the taste quality of the wine in the bottle.

Here in the Northwest there is an abundance of small and undercapitalized wineries. Often, the people who own these wineries also have their own particular ideas of what constitutes good marketing, branding, and design imagery, and since it's their dollars, they insist on creating their own vision of a wine label. How else to account for the presence of a black and white dancing dragon on one label, or a mini-skirted lass suggestively astride a wine barrel on another label--let alone wines with brand names such as "Missionary, "Dominatrix," "Virgin," "Foreplay," and--yes, these are all for real--"Penetration"? One wonders where the TTB is on names such as these.

Interestingly, most of the wines that sport these tasteless (whether design tasteless or message tasteless) labels turn out to be big losers in blind tastings . . . though they are undoubtedly big winners at food and wine shows (can't you just hear the dudes laughing over their bottle of Penetration as they "taste" the wine at any of the raucous "wine and food" festivals around the Northwest?).

Some badly designed labels are sincere: they reflect an owner's desire to express a brand image with little financial resources to execute the design and no real ability to understand that the design they have is so poorly done as to turn off a large segment of potential buyers. With all else being equal on the wine shop shelves, the wine label that looks the best will attract more buyers at the expense of the label that looks bad--but some owners have neither the resources nor knowledge to create a label design of competitive quality.

But other labels are so purposefully designed to appeal to questionable tastes that I wonder whether the owners have any interest in wine at all. Rather, they have figured out a marketing scheme that attracts prurient attention, gets people drunk enough to not care whether the wine is any good or not, and to giddily think the overt sexual innuendo is "fun" and "cute." In the end these wineries sell a lot of wine. . . wine that in my tasting experience is substandard . . . so why should the wineries care that their marketing is crass--they're making money.

There's a market for everything, even vulgarity.

Anyone who knows me knows I am no prude (far from it!), but using bad taste to sell bad wine offends me.

Thanks, TIME, for Ignoring the Northwest

While we've been writing about the craft distilling movement for two years or so (and those of us in Oregon have been living it for, oh, about 20 years) TIME magazine finally took note of the trend with a story entitled "Local Spirits" in its January 14, 2008 issue.

Good for them for noticing.

Of course, their story had a nearly total east coast bias, completely ignoring the burgeoning craft distilling scene in the Northwest . . . where there is a critical mass of artisan producers that far outweighs the states TIME called out in their story.

Oh, but wait . . . that's not strictly true. There is a Northwest angle to their story--but the writer and her editors didn't know it. One of the four "Haute Hooch" products that they highlighted was actually distilled in the Northwest: Idaho, to be exact, even though the brand owner (and therefore the location listed on the label) is in California. Square One Vodka is actually contract distilled by Distilled Resources, Inc., with offices in Ketchum and a production plant in Rigby, Idaho. The so-called "California" vodka is really a Northwest product.

The Northwest has long been a center of craft distilling. Portland's Clear Creek Distillery was one of the earliest in the nation, and still one of the best and most widely-known of the hands-on distillers. But, they weren't mentioned. Nor were the over 20 other distillers in the Northwest.

Even California, a vital home of craft distilling, was given only a glancing nod. No reference to Anchor Distilling, Hanger One, or Germain-Robin, all clear leaders on the national scene.

Oh well. Big national magazines can hardly be expected to get far-away regional stories right!