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.

My Brush with Greatness: the Selby Wine Dinner at Horseradish

This past Thursday, I decided to humor my tyrannical Fitbit* and walk to work so I could try to get my 10,000 steps for the day. That's harder than one would think. Apparently Georgia has decided to give tax breaks to movie companies, and Decatur was the site for the filming of a flick called Adult Children of Divorce. As a psychologist, I cringe at the title, but that's a whole different blog post.

Anyway, they're filming at No. 246 (pronounced two-four-six if you're wondering), and my path home takes me on the sidewalk right in front of the restaurant. They closed a lane on Ponce but still allowed people to walk on the sidewalk amidst the flotsam associated with movie production, mostly cords, random piles of stuff, and minions stationed every few feet to give passers-by the "don't even think about stopping, asking questions, or otherwise annoying us" stink-eye. So there I was, walking along trying not to make eye contact, and I passed within three feet of where Jane Lynch, yes, Glee's Coach Sue Sylvester, was getting direction.

That was a nice surprise, and she's not as tall as I thought she'd be, but the real excitement came that evening at Horseradish Grill by Chastain Park, where I had the pleasure of sitting across from Susie Selby at the Selby Winery dinner. Yes, the phrase "oenophile fangirl squee" applies. Sorry, Jane.

We've been in the Selby wine club since we first tasted there in 2005 and especially love the reds. Susie picked the reception wine to "support the wine industry" and chose one of my favorites: the A to Z Pinot Gris. When Jess lets me choose the wine tasting lineup at Java Monkey, I usually try to have a Pinot Gris from the Pacific Northwest on there because they're nice and crisp but with more fruit than the Italian ones. This one didn't disappoint.

Horseradish Grill has been on our list to try for a while, so we jumped at the chance to check them out and experience their version of upscale Southern cuisine. I have to admit that, excellent company aside, this was one of the most fun dinners I've ever had food-wise.

The first course, Fried Pimento Cheese & Grit Fritters served with country ham aioli and bread and butter pickles (THANK YOU, Horseradish, for not using the word "housemade" anywhere in that description) was like hush puppies with a gooey pimento cheese center. The pairing, 2009 Russian River Selby Chardonnay, gave me citrus on the nose and oak on the palate. This course was an example of how you can take two things I don't really like – pimento cheese and oaky California-style chard – and put them together to make magic. The cheese cut the oak back, and the textures complemented each other. And did I mention it was hush puppies and melted cheese?

Then the course that made everyone ooh and ahh: Georgia Quail and Waffles with sorghum and balsamic syrup. According to Foursquare, Horseradish is known for its fried chicken, and apparently they're good at frying other types of fowl as well. The waffles' dense, European-style texture, savory undertones, and pleasant crunch on the outside helped them surpass breakfast food status. The 2007 Russian River Selby Pinot Noir is big and fruity, and the pairing cut it back to resemble a more old-world style. Hubby thought the finish with the food was odd but liked both on their own.

The third course, Herb Marinated Lamb Chops served with farro with wild mushrooms and blackberry/mint demi-glaze, felt European with its combination of meat and fruit. As with the quail, people picked up the bones to get the last bits of meat off them, so it all felt very friendly and informal by this point. The 2007 Sonoma County Cabernet Sauvignon had an earthy nose but lived up to the fruity and balanced expectations I had for it. It went well with the lamb and the chocolate cake on the surprise dessert sampler we got:


Yes, a wine that goes well with red meat and dessert. Sign me up! Oh, wait, I already am. We'll definitely be going back to Horseradish as well. I hope they plan to add the quail and waffles to the menu as a permanent fixture. Meanwhile, I'll be just as happy to walk through Decatur without celebrity sightings or dirty looks from the second best boy grip (or whoever they were)…at least until the next production company comes to town. When that happens, I'll just open some Selby and toast to a real celebrity who makes life better one glass at a time.

* Codependent bossy pedometer thingy. Srsly, it tells me when I pick it up in the morning to move it. In the evenings, it asks to be held and hugged. I'm not kidding about this.

Test driving the new chef at Feast: Villa Maria Wine Dinner

When you buy a new car, you get to take a test drive with a hopeful salesman beside you. When you buy a house, you get to visit it with a hopeful realtor and have it inspected by a professional. But what about when one of your favorite restaurants gets a new chef?

Sure, you hope he or she has been thoroughly vetted by people you trust, but the consumer's test drive takes place over multiple visits. It takes time to see how a new chef handles beloved menu items, specials, and timing. We got to do our test drive of Feast's new Chef Rich Velazquez recently at the Villa Maria wine dinner, where we got a preview of his creativity and ability to handle dinner for twenty-five.

In spite of its Italian-sounding name, Villa Maria is actually a New Zealand winery. I wasn't disappointed – a cute winemaker with an accent is a cute winemaker with an accent, no matter where he's from, and Simon Fell is definitely that. Hubby and I hadn't tasted any of their wine before this night, and we were on the fence about the dinner until we saw the food menu. It got our attention better than a car dealer's jerking plastic giants ever could (srsly, what's up with those things?).

There were six courses, so I'll hit the highlights. This chef test drive was particularly effective because we got to see how he'd handle some potentially tricky food and wine pairings. For example, the first course was paired with the Cellar Selection Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc. New Zealand Sauv Blanc is known for its distinct bouquet, which can range from grassy to cat pee, and undertones that can get pretty odd to sensitive palates. This wine thankfully did not make me think of a litter box, but it did have a certain funkiness that some compared to ripe papaya, and tinned asparagus came to mind for me. Chef Velazquez opened the dinner with roasted cauliflower soup with butter poached lobster and chive oil. The food cut the funkiness and brought out the fruit. My only complaint was that I got two shell bits among the tender, sweet lobster.

My favorite course, and one that our end of the table was clamoring to be added to the menu, was the second one, diver scallops with white truffle mousseline, tomato fondue, leeks, and port wine. It was paired with the Single Vineyard Taylor's Pass Sauvignon Blanc. This wine was more crisp than the previous one, and the acidity played very well with the smooth texture and flavors of the scallops. I made a note that this course was "perfect," and I could have drunk the wine on its own.



The wine highlights for me were the reds. My favorite of the evening, the Reserve Marlborough Pinot Noir, had some coffee on the nose, a lot of good fruit, and silky tannins. In other words, it was a BIG Pinot, and one that shows how New Zealand won this year's Pinot Smackdown. It went well with the fennel coriander lamb loin, kalamata olive and goat cheese farro, oyster mushrooms, and blueberry jus. Another highlight red was the Esk Valley Merlot/Cabernet/Malbec. The fruit in this Bordeaux blend tangoed with the spice of the dark coffee black peppercorn rib loin, horseradish, chive potato puree, asparagus, and rosemary jus.

One odd tasting note for those who like them… The Cellar Selection Marlborough Riesling tasted good and went well with the cheese course, but it had a bouquet of freshly opened pool toys.


The chef and kitchen had the good pacing we've come to expect from Feast, and we left impressed with his creativity. We look forward to returning for more wine dinners as well as to see how Chef Velazquez uses his Latin background to spruce up the menu for fall and winter. Overall, I would say the test drive was a success. I should've figured – owner Terry Rogers seemed more excited-hopeful than nervous-hopeful.

Oh, and the wine? Except for the first Sauv Blanc and maybe the Riesling, I would have drunk any of the ones poured on their own. I was particularly impressed with the reds. For me, a good wine goes well with food or by itself, and several of these satisfied this requirement. I'll be looking for Villa Maria on wine lists since their test drive was a success, too.

Fellow attendee and blogger Dan Browning about to dive in to the rib loin:



Disclaimer: We paid for everything, so I have nothing to disclose.

Tasting Notes: Pinot Noirs at JavaMonkey

Note: I had hoped that Hubby would write this one, and that was the original plan, but he's swamped with work right now. He'll be covering the next one for me because I'm out of town this week.

I'm spending the week in Birmingham to help Mom out after yesterday's surgery. Hubby and I were trying to figure out when we were here last, but all we could come up with was sometime last year before September. It's been kind of strange in that everything looks much the same, but older. For example, the theater that was the nice place to see movies when I was in high school is now a dollar theater. How depressing! Have I grown out of this place, or has it grown past me in a different direction? It's impossible to say.

Drinking Pinot Noir can be like visiting a familiar place in that by now, we pretty much know what to expect, but sometimes we do get surprised. This one would've been interesting to do as a blind tasting (just ignore how much I've ranted about blind tastings in the past) with guesses as to where they were from. Here are the wines:

2008 Sherwood Estate Pinot Noir (Marlborough, New Zealand):
Okay, I have expectations for Pinots from France, California, and Oregon, but none for New Zealand. It started "hot," but opened nicely. We got pours from two bottles at the table. One was cranberry-pomegranate, and one tasted more strawberry, which was interesting. It was also "insect-approved," so be sure to keep your glass covered, or the little bugs will dive right in. And they don't spit it out easily.
Rating: Very Good; would've been Excellent at cellar temperature

2007 Lechtaler Pinot Nero (Trentino, Italy):
Another surprising place for Pinots! I'm still debating as to what sounds cooler, Nero or Noir. Berry all the way, nose to finish, with a bit of butter. We deemed this one to be "berry scone in a glass."
Rating: Good

2008 Montinore Estate Pinot Noir (Willamette Valley, Oregon):
Clove on the nose and darker fruit, moving from berry but not quite to cherry yet. Has interesting savory and earthy notes as well, kind of like good cheese. This one is certified biodynamic.
Rating: Good to Very Good

Roncier (Burgundy, France):
When you've been making wine since 1842, you don't need to give much info? Cherry nose, butter balanced with fruit. Hubby noted, "Mais oui!"
Rating: Very Good

2008 Mark West Pinot Noir (California):
This one is a good, basic Pinot for beginner oenophiles. We brought it to a party last month, and it went over really well. It's kind of meaty for a Pinot with nice fruit in the middle and a hint of licorice at the end.
Rating: Good to Very Good

2008 Lange Pinot Noir (Willamette Valley, Oregon):
Earthy nose, full and fruity with good acidity. Lange is always a good bet for Pinots.
Rating: Very Good

Tasting Notes: Pinot Noirs at Java Monkey's Thursday Night Tasting 3/27/08

Wow, there's nothing like sitting down to write a blog entry and having one's husband come in with a red-stained shirt saying something in a fake Italian accent about having to hurt someone. Unfortunately this tasting notes entry isn't about the Sangiovese brothers or their cousin Chianti, but rather Pinot Noir, who is quite the sultry dame herself. As my wine P.I. wrote to me last week:

It was one of those days in a week that seemed to go on longer than the "Knock Knock" bit on "Prairie Home Companion" or the wait at the doctor's office that's just switched to a paperless system that no one understands yet. Everyone was on edge due to the schizophrenic spring weather, and the only constant -- the pollen that covered everything like a poisonous film -- didn't make moods any better. I hid in my office and studied the backs of my eyelids, hoping that something refreshing would come through the door.

Something, or should I say someone, did.

She wore a pink coat with a hint of rust in it. Her whole demeanor said, "light," "dry," and "pairs well with just about anything." It was like an Oregon springtime had appeared in my office.

"Can I help you, miss?"

She perched on the edge of my desk, peered at me from under a burgundy beret, and said in an accent straight out of those black-and-white French movies: "I need to get drunk."

"Excuse me?"

"It's my lousy ex-husband. He's driving me to drink."

"Well, first I need your name."

"It's Noir, Pinot Noir."

--

He didn't go into any detail beyond that, but let's just say that a lot of Pinot Noir got drunk last Thursday even without many of the usual suspects in attendance. Here's the lineup:

2006 Ramsay North Coast Pinot Noir, California (50% Mendocino fruit, 50% Napa-Carneros)
Very good. Light, dry, and crisp with a hint of oak, it would be a good summer wine. I have a note that it's "very pinot."

2006 Domaine de Regusse Pinot Noir, Provence, France
This one was excellent after allowed to breathe a bit. It had an interesting butter-tobacco finish.

2006 Foris Pinot Noir, Oregon
This one is a favorite. Try it if you haven't.

2006 Jovino Pinot Noir, Oregon
A little bigger and with some dark fruit. The table said, "yum!"

2006 Araucano Pinot Noir 2006, Central Valley, Chile
This one could have stood up to a steak with its meatiness and spice.

2006 Cartlidge & Brown Pinot Noir, California
Very good with a hint of caramel on the finish.

Overall, this tasting was an excellent start to a fun weekend. More to come about that!