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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!

White Pinot noir?

OK, I promise this is my last Domaine Serene post for awhile, but I would be remiss if I didn't comment on the Coeur Blanc that Tony Rynders makes there.

This is a white Pinot noir. My business partner reminded me that this is not a unique wine, there have been other so-called "white Pinot noirs" trotted out at various times in Oregon's Pinot-centric history. Those wines are to Domaine Serene’s Coeur Blanc what wine coolers are to Bordeaux. There's been no other white Pinot noir like this one--if only because it is made as a true white wine, not as a pale blush version of a red wine.

I first tasted this wine over a year ago with Tony at a lunch at the Dundee Bistro. It was a hard wine to figure out: golden in the glass and weighty on the tongue, it had flavors of yellow fruits (or was it just my overlay of what I expected from a chardonnay-appearing wine?) with hints of . . . could it be strawberry? It was velvety viscous in texture, plump with flavor, and lingering on the finish. I liked it, but I didn't quite know what to make of it.

Another winemaker, Rollin Soles, of Argyle, stopped by, and Tony gave him a taste of the Coeur Blanc. Rollin sipped it, swallowed, thought a moment, and then wry commented "Where's the acidity?" Well, yes, the wine had a certain soft quality, but it didn't seem that it came from a lack of acidity, but rather a surfeit of smooth texture: it was like satin on the tongue.

The first vintage of Coeur Blanc was in 2004, and the winery has recently released—and quickly sold out of—the 2005 version.

Tony is justifiably proud of his two Coeur Blanc wines. He looks for large-berried Pinot noir (to reduce the skin-to-juice ratio) from estate grapes, presses the whole clusters (again to minimize skin contact) and then barrel-ages the pure Pinot juice on the lees (in this case mostly pulp since no skin contact is allowed). The wine rests 15 months in barrels and then another 12 months in bottle before release.

The color is of light crystalline amber while the aromas are a shifting blend of fig meat, apricot, and pear skin with a creamy quality and almost a tincture of caramel. In the mouth the wine has a sturdy consistency that carries complex flavors of strawberries, ripe apricot, a touch of lemon curd, and suggestions of vanilla crème brûlée. Sufficient acidity enlivens the wine, and a candied fruit finish is pleasing.

Pinot Noir made like a white wine is an intriguing novelty. Does it taste like a Pinot noir? Yes and no. There are undeniable traits of red fruits, yet the color almost forces you to taste Chardonnay-like flavors. It is rich and quite delicious. I almost want to pour it and the winery’s Evenstad Reserve into side-by-side black tasting glasses and see how easy it is to tell the white from the red.

But in the end, it isn’t important: the Coeur Blanc stands on its own as an excellent Oregon Pinot noir—that happens to be white.

2004 Domaine Serene Evenstad Reserve

So as I was saying, I’ve been on a bit of a Domaine Serene binge of late.

It hasn’t been all that purposeful, though, more the luck of the draw. It began at a dinner with some friends a month or two ago when they pulled out a bottle of 2004 Evenstad Reserve that was lush and delish and went wonderfully with the just-caught grilled salmon.

No big surprise there. Domaine Serene is unquestionably one of the most visible Oregon Pinot brands (who could miss their full-page advertising in Wine Spectator, not to mention the laudatory feature editorial piece they did earlier this year), with a reputation for top quality wines. Winemaker Tony Rynders is a deftly skilled and consistently reliable maker of richly satisfying wines from the winery’s estate vineyards in the Dundee Hills and Eola Hills area of the Willamette Valley. The Evenstad Reserve is their flagship wine, the embodiment of the winery's style and approach to Oregon pinot.

What did surprise me about the ’04 Domaine Serene Pinot I had that night was its depth and length. I’ve been a contrarian when it comes to the much vaunted 2004 vintage of Oregon Pinot noir. Most critics have lauded the fruit and the balance of the wines, yet I found an almost universal lack of depth (little or no real sense of layers of different flavors developing in the mouth) and length (the wines seemed all up-front and had little lingering flavor sensations).

It is fair to say I’m not a fan of Oregon ’04 Pinot.

But the Evenstad Reserve did have all those qualities I like to see in a top Pinot: the fruitiness had layers of flavors, ranging from a brambly, wild red cherry sort of fruitiness to ripe raspberry and even a touch of softening blueberry lurking in the background. The fruit didn’t all come out gushing forward, the flavors held back and developed, they also stayed in my mouth nicely. The tripartate balance between acidity, tannin, and fruit was wonderfully managed, with no single component outshining the others.

I don’t recall this wine being this way at release; it seems to have matured nicely in the bottle. Perhaps that is what the 2004 vintage requires: a few years of bottle age. If this Evenstad Reserve is an example of a vintage taking on depth and complexity, then it seems I should start pulling out my other 2004 Pinots to try!

Wine . . . Pouring . . . Down Her Front . . .

I’ve been on a Domaine Serene bender of late. I’ve had a number of their newer and older wines in the last few weeks (more on that in my next post), but I’ve never had a stranger imbibing experience than the one I had with a Domaine Serene wine this last weekend.

Actually, it had nothing whatsoever to do with the wine, and frankly, it was mostly my wife’s experience—but I was a part of it and it was all rather odd nevertheless.

Things went down like this: I stood in my cellar debating with myself (as I always do) which Pinot to open for a straightforward Saturday-night-at-home meal. I looked at my choices and found all sorts of reasons not to choose every wine I looked at (I’m saving that ‘02 Arcus for an Archery Summit vertical . . . there’s only two bottles left of that St. Innocent ‘98—Parker’s favorite from that vintage, as I recall . . . it’s too early to drink that Freedom Hill . . .and so on).

I spied a 1998 Domaine Serene Reserve, counted off five additional bottles in the racks, and decided I could live large with that one. I took it upstairs, opened the cabinet where we keep the Riedel, and pulled out two glasses: an ordinary Riedel burgundy glass and a Riedel Oregon pinot noir glass that had the Domaine Serene label etched on it. That was my glass—heck, why not? Andrea could have the standard glass.

I opened the wine, poured a bit into one of the glasses, smelled it, and poured a serving out into each glass. One in each hand, I took them downstairs where Andrea was sitting reading the paper. I handed her her glass and turned to go into the other room to get something.

Suddenly Andrea sharply exclaimed “AHHH! What happened?” I whirled around to see a pained and puzzled expression on her face as she rather frantically waved her hand with the wine glass—that was empty. “Is there a hole in my glass, or what?” she asked with a panicky edge.

Ha, ha, I thought, very funny. Yes, there’s a big hole in your glass, it’s right up there at the top.

I was about to tell her how irritated I was that she downed that fine, aged, and rare pinot noir in a single slug when she pleadingly said. “I never had any wine! It never reached my mouth! What happened?”

I was trying to understand what she was babbling on about. What did she mean she never had any wine? Her glass was empty. She didn’t pour it out over her shoulder . . . did she?

“It just disappeared,” she said plaintively, “I never tasted it!”

It was then that I noticed a hefty drip of red liquid coming off her arm and spilling onto the rug and not knowing what to say, I just pointed. She looked down, and we both saw a large red stain across her arm, and then a splatter of wine across her chest. The fact that she was wearing a red sweater had at first obscured the spilled wine.

“I didn’t spill it!” she said.

“Yes,” I replied casually, “I’m afraid you did.”

“But I didn’t! I just raised the glass to my mouth and there was nothing there.”

Uh huh. At that point I was getting a little worried. Had she suffered some kind of mini-stroke and was not aware of how her hand must have just missed her mouth as she poured the wine down her front?

“I . . . did . . . NOT . . . spill it," she said with firmness tinged by rising fury, "I don’t know what happened.”

With some concern I gently took the empty glass from her hand. “You just sit there and I’ll clean up things.”

I took the glass and held it up to the light. It looked normal. I turned it a bit. It was fine. A little water on that side perhaps, where a slight reflection caught my attention. I turned to look at the spot. Everything was normal . . . wait, is that . . .?

I turned the glass again and brought it closer. Right there at the widest point of the bowl a small, neat, kidney shaped hole could just be seen. It was reasonably large, but remarkably difficult to see. There WAS a hole in the glass: a strange, unaccountable and barely visible hole in the Riedel glass.

Andrea was right; she hadn’t spilled the wine. The wine had spilled itself!

Apparently the nearly invisible hole had been positioned just right, so that when she tipped the glass to her mouth the wine neatly poured out of the hole so that none of it got to her lips. The bulk and color of her sweater meant that she neither felt nor saw the wine pour out of the glass.

How the tidy little hole got there we’ll never know. But we’re both happy—in the end—that we found it . . . it explained a lot of things that were beginning to become worryingly puzzling.

And the wine? Well, once we got things cleaned up, laughed off a lot of relived tension, and sat back with a new and more carefully inspected glass, the wine proved wonderful (more on this wine, and other Domaine Serene releases I've been reveling in, soon)!

Now It Can Be Told

OK, our issue is out the door and in subscribers' hands, so I can get on with talking a bit more about Kelley's Autumn Sunset cocktail, one of the three drinks we commissioned for our magazine (see the earlier posting "Kelley's Concoctions". . . as well as the image of all three cocktails at upper left).

We had asked Kelley to use a Northwest spirit, which was the basic idea behind the three cocktails we were featuring on our cover. He fiddled with some favorites, and settled on the toughest local spirit I can think of: aquavit.

Portland distillers Lee Medoff and Christian Krogstad make up House Spirits Distillery. Their products are damn good in my mouth, and partly because they tend to be bold. Their Krogstad Aquavit is just that: bold with the flavor of caraway and herbs . . . a difficult base upon which to build a cocktail!

Aquavit is a traditional Scandinavian beverage often consumed with a meal, and particularly favored around Christmas. It is not particularly popular in America . . . the Krogstad Aquavit may be the only purely American-made and authentically-styled aquavit on the market.) The predominant flavor is caraway, and plenty of it—a minimum of 5% in European products. It can be aged in casks to acquire depth and color, or presented as a perfectly clear and somewhat daring shot. In fact, many people drink their aquavit ice cold as a fast shot. Me, I prefer to sip mine.

But Kelley mixed it. To the aquavit base he added the sweetness of Cointreau and the bitterness of amaro. He added two dashes of his house made bitters as well.

The result is a deliciously unctuous cocktail with a distinct herbal edge, lightly sweet, and with a bit of a kick.

When my wife first tasted the drink she said it should be called the Elke Sommer after the Scandinavian sexpot of the Sixties. The drink was sultry like Elke, and Scandinavian to boot. Kelley . . . who is of a younger generation, was not aware of Elke's allure for males of my generation, but he did comment that he liked the edgy aspect of the name.

But, Autumn Sunset won out for Northwest Palate readers. And to look at the drink, you can see why it was given that name: it is a rich hue of warm auburn-to-mahogany color, with a golden glint. Just like a fall sunset in the great Northwest.

If you want to impress Kelley, go into the bar and ask for an Autumn Sunset (it is not on ten 01's drinks menu)! Or better yet go get the ingredients and make one for yourself . . .