Inspired Imbiber 2.0

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.