Winery review: Youngberg Hill

As always after a wine bloggers conference, I sit back and ponder what kind of wine blogger I aspire to be and how to make that happen.  The first thing that comes to mind is, "more consistent," and believe me, Hubby and I really appreciate our readers who stop by to see if we've posted something new.  Once I get through the hump of training the new colleague who just joined my practice, I hope to be able to write here and at my Random Writings blog more regularly.  Obviously, since I'm posting this almost two months after the conference, we've got some work to do.

One other aspect of blogging we've been discussing is how to portray exactly who we are and our philosophy of wine.  We've come to the conclusion that we're not wine tasters, we're wine drinkers, meaning we typically experience wine more as average consumers, not wine experts, which we've never claimed to be.  Our blog motto, as I've mentioned, is that it's by amateurs for amateurs.  We just happen to be amateurs who've drunk a lot of different wines.  We also like to look at the whole picture from the buying experience to the final sip in the bottle.

This brings me to the topic of today's blog post:  what does holistic mean? Youngberg Hill Winery in McMinnville, Oregon claims to be organic, biodynamic, and holistic.  Hubby and I were fortunate to be invited to a tasting and lunch there the day before the wine bloggers conference went into full swing. 

The whole thing was arranged through Twitter and email.  I'll admit I didn't look at the website too closely, so the night before we went, Hubby checked them out.

"They're not just a regular winery.  They say they're holistic."  He looked up at me like I'd signed us up to join some sort of wine cult.  "What have you gotten us into?"

Thankfully no tinfoil hats were necessary.  No brainwashing occurred as far as I could tell, the wine was darn good, and I got to ponder exactly what holistic means in this context.

At first it seems owner and winemaker Wayne Bailey is one of those overachieving types who's got to go for all sorts of titles and certifications.*  I mean, seriously, the winery is organic, biodynamic, sustainable, salmon safe...  You get the idea.  Seriously, this guy thinks of everything.  From the website:  "In addition, Youngberg Hill specializes in exclusive, romantic, and personalized weddings and elopement packages, everything you need in one fabulous location."  Elopement packages?!  It's a really good thing we didn't know about this in the midst of planning our wedding in 2003 (don't tell my mom I said this).

But really, his philosophy goes deeper to one very simple principle:  if you take care of the land, the land will take care of you.  That's my clumsy paraphrase.  As I mentioned in my Pinot Smackdown post, Pinot Noir, which is their one red grape, tends to show where it's from.  Luckily Oregon soil, geology, and climate play nicely with it.

So let's get back to the experience.  We arrived and immediately went into the tasting room, where we had the opportunity to try a white and three reds, and Pinots.  Others on the trip have likely written with more eloquence about the wine, so I'll just say my favorites were the 2011 Pinot Gris and the 2008 Jordan Pinot Noir.  A bottle of the Pinot Gris came home with us, where it awaits a lovely afternoon -- come on, fall! -- and my back porch.  The Jordan Pinot Noir was lovely, nice and fruity, but a little beyond our price point, although still reasonable for the area.  Besides, we were trying to be conscious of space in Bertha, our wine shipper.

Then came lunch.  I like lunch, especially when a chef gets to play and pair his food with specific wines.  Some might argue that wine is a condiment, and choice should be driven by the food, but c'mon, remember where we were.  Personally, I believe wine and food should complement each other. Chef Joel Czarnecki of the Joel Palmer House in Dayton came out to play.  He specializes in dishes made with wild mushrooms and truffles, and also with local ingredients.  To borrow a current buzz phrase, think of it as farm and woods to table.

We got to join in with the playtime for the first dish, a two-tone gazpacho that got me over my fear of cold soups. It's hard to be afraid of something topped with marigold petals.  I enjoyed tasting the pink half, tomato-pickled ginger, and the green half, cucumber-lemon balm, by themselves and in combination, and especially with the Pinot Blanc. 

Then, beef stroganoff made with Painted Hills beef, porcini and black truffle cream paired with the 2009 Natasha Pinot Noir.

Oh, my, yes.  This pairing drew from the principle of "pair like with like," and the earthy Pinot played very nicely with the mushrooms.  I liked the wine with the food better than on its own.

Finally, a Pot de Chocolat, a baked dessert with a base of flourless chocolate cake and top layer of chocolate pudding, paired with the Jordan. Yes, I left a very happy chocoholic.

Wayne sat at our table during lunch, and Hubby and I enjoyed talking with him, Carl of Carl Giavanti Consulting, and Julia of the "Best New Wine Blog" award-winning Wine Julia blog (check out her Youngberg Hill post for complete tasting and pairing notes).  They and the rest of the fun crew on the van to and from the excursion brought the final, but possibly most important ingredient, of the wine experience together for me:  the people I've had the opportunity to meet and share wine and food with.

This, my friends, was my kind of holistic experience.

Required legalese:  The entire experience from transportation to dessert was comped, but, as always, we did our best to keep it from influencing our opinions.

* Not that I would know what that's like.  Just ask my husband, who finally had to tell me, "You've got a Ph.D., license, and extra certification.  It's my turn." 

2012 Pinot Smackdown at Purple Corkscrew

As we learned last week at the wine bloggers' conference in Oregon, Pinot Noir grapes tend to reflect where they're grown down to the soil type and the weather.  In 2010, a couple of oenophile friends of ours decided their lives needed a little excitement, so they pitted Pinot Noir wines from around the world against each other in a little event called the Pinot Smackdown.  Did I mention these two friends are both guys?  Yeah, you probably guessed.  The tradition continued last year, and you can read the testosterone-fueled intro post by one of the founders, who also happens to be one of my favorite Atlanta bloggers, here. Well, he went and got himself a job in the wine industry, so he's unable to host the usual shenanigans this year due to potential conflict of interest or something like that.

Hubby and I, being big fans of the Pinot Smackdown because it's an event where you get to have both virtual and face-to-face interaction, decided to continue the tradition of getting friends together to drink, discuss, and, if you're so inclined, tweet to help pick the winning region.

The date:  Thursday, September 6

The time:  7:00-9:00 p.m.

The place:  The Purple Corkscrew Wine Bar located below Saba Restaurant in Emory Village.

The cost:  $25 per person

The wines:

Charles Krug Pinot Noir, Carneros

Rodney Strong Pinot Noir, Russian River

Latour Pinot Noir, Domain De Valmoissine, France

Belle Valle, Oregon

The rules if you care to tweet, which is fun, but not absolutely necessary:  

We'll have three of the Pinot Noir growing regions represented, California (#CA), Oregon (#OR), and France (#FR).   Please tweet your tasting impressions, opinions, or just plain votes with #pinotsmackdown and the region hashtag, specified above.  So, for example, if you're digging the Rodney Strong, you might tweet something like:

Dude, the fruit on the Rodney Strong Pinot is outrageous! #pinotsmackdown #CA

I'll be back on the blog later this week with impressions from the Wine Bloggers Conference.  Yes, there was a lot of Pinot Noir consumed and some other yummy stuff as well.

Please RSVP for the Pinot Smackdown by commenting here, tweeting me (@RandomOenophile), or commenting on Facebook where I posted this link. Whatever you do, please let me know by next Monday, September 3 if you'll be coming.

Tasting Notes from the West Coast Correspondent!

Being an oenophile has its advantages, namely friends who are willing to drink for you and send you notes! My very talented friend James Bassett lives in Seattle and does sculpting, Qi-Gong instruction, and freelance writing and editing when he's not drinking wine. You can see his website here. Everything below is his wonderfully detailed guest post.

2007 Columbia Valley Syrah
Waters Winery
Columbia Valley, WA

Tremendously aromatic, this fine Syrah is “made of 100% Syrah from select ‘cool climate’ sites in Washington State.” Which means it is a blend, rather than being made from grapes all from a single vineyard. Which means that it is half the price of Waters’ impressive single-origin Syrahs -- yet it is nearly as good, in my opinion!

Black and red cherry, black pepper, cola, licorice, vanilla, even olive and watermelon swirl on the tongue, along with smoke, black tea, and subtle hints of a mushroomy muskiness that strengthens as the finish lengthens and lingers. The complexity on the tongue, along with an acidity that sneaks from the front of the mouth to the back as of the palate develops, though, will have you taking another sip long before that finish is finished. This is what Syrah at all about -- and it comes at a great price.

Hedges CMS Red 2009
Hedges Family Estate
Columbia Valley, WA
39% Cabernet Sauvignon, 45% Merlot, and 16% Syrah.

Wine is a fascinating, sometimes baffling substance. It is so easily affected by so many factors, so dependent on both weather and winemaker, and can change drastically from year to year. Take the Hedges CMS, for instance. Two years ago I called the 2007 vintage one of the best wines in Washington -- in fact, one of my favorite wines, period. When your lovely hostess and her equally lovely husband visited the PNW last summer, I provided a sampling of several of my favorite local wines for them, picked from my guest reviews here on Cecilia’s site; the 2007 Hedges CMS was no longer available, so I got the 2008 instead.

The consensus: Meh.

For a number of reasons, 2007 was a truly spectacular year for wine across the state of Washington -- pretty much every grape in every region produced great wines. And 2008 seems to have been just as uniformly unspectacular. We were all completely unimpressed with the 2006 Hedges. It wasn’t at all *bad,* just completely and unremittingly *bland* from weak start to pale finish -- and a huge letdown after the 2007 (especially considering Cecilia and husband’s anticipation after my review). It was so unremarkable that neither Cecilia nor I bothered to review the wine at all. (Though perhaps we at least should have warned you, her valued readers, to Save Your Money. Well, better late than never: consider yourselves warned. . . . )

But now we have the Hedges Family’s effort for 2009. And the pendulum has swung away from the disappointment of 2008 and back toward flavor -- we can only hope that this is indicative of 2009 for Washington in general.

Now, before you get too excited, I have to say that the 2009 is not nearly as wonderful as the 2007. It is far less aromatic, and attacks with a disconcertingly acerbic bite on the tip of the tongue, almost as if this wine is trying to be sparkling. Hopefully that will soften as this wine ages. In any case, once you recover from that surprise, this settles down to a very enjoyable and well-behaved wine, grapey and peppery/herby with undertones of slate, cedar, tobacco, and tar. While it lacks the richness and character of 2007, it is nicely balanced (perhaps a bit on the hot side at the moment, but that should also fade with age) with a medium body and just enough tannin that it should pair well with most foods.

A to Z Pinot Noir 2008
A to Z Wineworks
Newburg, OR

Above and beyond the earth and spice we expect of any Pinot Noir, this medium-bodied wine sourced from across the state (hence “A to Z”) pretty well typifies *Oregon* Pinot Noir -- not much aroma, but in the mouth a strong minerality cuts the bright sweetness of red cherries, blueberries, even a hint of strawberries. Fruit dominates, but the palate has enough layers of flavor that it maintains its strength all the way to the end of the very long finish. Keeping in mind that 2008 wasn’t a very good year out here overall, you can certainly find better Pinot Noirs from the PNW (especially from Washington, but I may be biased. . . .), but it would be hard to find an easier-drinking wine appropriate for any occasion with any group, from connoisseurs to those friends who think that any wine that comes in a glass bottle is fancy (you know who I mean. . . .).

2007 Cabernet-Merlot
San Juan Vineyards
50% Merlot, 25% Cab Franc, 25% Cab Sauv

Very small vineyard on rustic, scenic San Juan Island -- closer to Victoria BC than to mainland Washington. When I saw small, I mean they have just seven acres planted -- mostly Madeleine Angevine and Siegerrebe, with one acre of Pinot Noir (the San Juans don’t get hot enough to grow reds). So 70% of their output is sourced from other Washington AVAs.

With Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon sourced from the Yakima Valley and Cabernet Franc is from Horse Heaven Hills, this beautiful, ripe hand-crafted vintage spent 20 months in French, Hungarian, and American oak barrels, and that extra care is apparent as soona s you pull the cork.

The beautiful deep plum color, complimented by a very dusty aroma full of tannins, let you know just what to expect from this bold wine: cola and cocoa and smoke (oh my!) leap onto the palate with the first taste followed immediately by a perfusion of blueberry, cherry, cassis, and cedar. The high fruit is perfectly balanced with earthy, foresty bottom notes that carry through into a long, strong tannic/mineral finish. Wow!

They don’t make much of this -- or any of their wines -- but they do ship, so I’d suggest ordering some. Meanwhile, I’m going to try to get my grubby little mitts on some of their other products. And, say -- a good friend of mine just so happens to live on San Juan Island. Maybe it’s time I pay her a visit. . . .

Flying Fish Merlot 2008
Wahluke Wine Company
Columbia Valley, WA

Cherries (red and black), plums (very purple), chocolate and caramel, with touches of pomegranate and blueberry leading into silky vanilla-draped tannins in the long, subtle finish. This should pair quite nicely with just about anything as long as it’s not *too* spicy.

And if the wine itself doesn’t make you feel good enough about drinking it and you need even more reason, Wahluke donates a portion of the profits to Ocean Conservancy to protect wild healthy oceans “in honor of the waters that are home to the great salmon that travel thousands of miles from the ocean up the Columbia River past several of our vineyards.” So what are you waiting for?

Shooting Star Blue Franc 2008
Steele Wines, Lake County, CA
100% Yakima Valley (WA) Lemberger

Made in California, this surprising wine is made from Lemberger grapes grown in Washington’s Yakima Valley AVA. Lemberger is the American name for the Austrian Blaufränkisch -- or “blue grape from France.” Confused yet?

Well, don’t worry about it. All you have to know is that this crisp, medium-bodied wine starts out cinnamon-hot (from the alcohol showing through) and peppery, with coffee and plum swirling through, but that quickly gives way to big Merlot-y fruit. That, too, fades quickly, leaving soft tannins to carry that transparent alcohol heat An odd assortment of flavors, perhaps, but a good one. This wine is fine by itself, but you could also try pairing it with the hearty flavors of its Austrian (not French!) homeland

And as long as we’re immersed in geographic confusion, let’s go even more international and pop a cork on some bubbly (yes, French this time!):

Nicholas Feuillatte Brut Champagne NV

Okay, you may be asking yourself “Why is the West Coast wine correspondent reviewing French champagne? Especially when he doesn’t really even care for champagne?” Well, let’s just call this the special International Edition of my guest blogging. I was introduced to this particular French champagne in Miami by a dear English ballet-dancer friend of mine who lives in Las Vegas and is married to a Russian pyrotechnics expert. International, indeed!

Brighter and more floral (what some snobby types might call “unrefined”) than what you would expect from champagne, this wine is rich with hay, honey, green peppers and olives, grass, and melon/citrus flavors. This is not your typical champagne, and I say that’s a good thing -- and for only around $35, this from now on will be my go-to choice for those situations that absolutely call for champagne.

Tasting Notes: Oregon and Washington wines at JavaMonkey

Talk about timing! Hubby and I are working on our plans for our upcoming trip to the Pacific-Northwest, and Jess decided to taste Oregon and Washington wines as part of her Thursday Wine Series! I know we just took a trip to California, but I have a conference in Seattle the second week of June, so we decided to make a trip of it since Hubby has relatives in Portland, I have friends there, and yes, we really like the area and the wines. Plus, I can count my plane tickets as a business expense. We'll have to work hard to empty out Bertha before we go -- oh, the sacrifices we make!

The evening began with the 2008 Snoqualmie Naked Gewurtztraminer (Columbia Valley, Washington), which had a lovely apple blossom and honey nose. The wine itself followed with a chewy, almost syrupy texture over a mineral backbone. I would call it interesting and have it as an aperitif.
Rating: Good/Very Good

The second wine, the 2007 Chehalem Willamette Valley Pinot Gris (Willamette Valley, Oregon) was grapefruit on the nose. Another interesting texture that felt a bit fizzy, but still carried some of the bitterness of the grapefruit to the beginning of the finish with some of the citrus on the end. I rated it "Meh," but Hubby, who typically does not like Pinot Gris, deemed it "not bad," so I have to give it some credit there.
Rating: Meh to Not Bad

Another wine from Chehalem, the 2007 INOX Chardonnay, followed. This time, a mixed citrus nose preceded a somewhat acidic wine that had a little cream and steel to it.
Rating: Okay

Yay, reds! Yes another Chehalem, this one the 3 Vineyard Pinot Noir, was a typical Pinot with a lot of cherry and some earth.
Rating: Good

Another repetition, this one from Naked. I can't help but wonder, if they made Muscadine wines, would they label them Nekkid? The 2007 Snoqualmie Naked Merlot was black currant at the front, pepper in the middle, and butter on the finish.
Rating: Good

The closer for the night, the 2005 Orphelin (Columbia Valley, Washington), was a nice Rhone blend with 56% Syrah, 15% Mourvedre, 10% Cinsault, 8% Grenache, 4% Cab Sauv, 3% Petit Verdot, 2% Touriga, and 1% each of Pinot Noir and Viognier. I'm picturing them tossing in individual grapes by the time they got to the end of that blend. All that made it a little raisiny, but it had good dark fruit.
Rating: Very Good

This tasting brought up a pet peeve. It drives me nuts when the distributors push one or two wineries so heavily, especially if I'm not a big fan, as I wasn't of the Chehalem wines. However, my sources tell me that the distributor kept her limited Oregon selection a secret until the day before the tasting, when it was too late for Jess to find other options. That said, it's nice to know which wineries to avoid.

Tasting Notes: Del Rio Vineyards, Rogue Valley, Oregon (JM Thursday Wine Series 9/18/08)

Normally I'm wary of tastings limited to just one winery because as we've discovered on our wine trips, sometimes you just don't like anything from a particular place. Luckily the featured vineyard, Del Rio Vineyards and Winery, located in Rogue Valley, Oregon, had a good range of wines, several of which were very nice.

2007 Chardonnay:
Flowery nose with mild citrus on the palate and a mineral finish.
Rating: Very Good

2007 Pinot Gris:
Peach nose, lots of mineral on the palate, but a somewhat harsh alcohol finish.
Rating: Good

2006 Viognier: 96% Viognier, 4% Chardonnay
In spite of the blending, this one was a rather basic Viognier. It didn't have much on the nose and was a little bitter on the finish.
Rating: Okay

2007 Rose Jolee:
Slightly sparkling. The nose is very sweet with notes of summer flowers. It was floral with strawberry on the palate. The tasters generally rated this as being slightly more sophisticated than Cold Duck. I thought it was a fun pink wine and hit that sweet spot between too dry and too sweet.
Rating: Good/Very Good

2005 Syrah:
The nose is a subtle blend of grape and dark fruit. It's smooth with dark fruit and butter. The final finish at the back of the palate was a little bitter. It probably wants food.
Rating: Good

2005 Claret: 41% Merlot, 36% Cabernet Franc, 14% Cabernet Sauvignon, and 9% Malbec
This was the favorite of the evening, at least for me and Hubby. It has a nice nose that promises a lot, and then delivers with dark berry, cedar, and butter. Plus, who doesn't feel sophisticated when drinking a wine called Claret, even if it turns your teeth purple?