Enobytes Wine Blog

I’m reminded every day that the appreciation and enjoyment of wine is a very personal experience. What you like may not be the cat’s meow for someone else. This was evident at the ’10 Oregon Wine Industry Symposium (OWIS), “Technical Tasting: Seeking Closure & Hi-Tech Winemaking“.

Most of the attendees were winemakers, viticulturists and industry folks in the know when it comes to high-tech stuff like RO, ultra-filtration or VA (don’t worry, we’ll get to these wine geek terms in a later post) but what blew me away at this event were all the differences in opinions between the wines we tasted.

There were a few hundred industry folks locked in a room (well, not literally) for a couple of hours to taste and discuss closures and Hi-Tech Winemaking. Harry Peterson-Nedry from Chehalem Winery moderated the session with panelists Domingo Rodriguez (Winesecrets), Clark Smith (Vinovation) and David Paige (Adelsheim Vineyard).

We kicked off the technical tasting with a comparison between cork and screw cap closures, blind tasting two white wines – identical in every way except one was bottled using cork, and the other under screw cap.  So what’s the verdict? Read the rest of this entry »

If you love Pinot noir as much as I do, you won’t want to miss the 23rd Annual International Pinot Noir Celebration (IPNC) happening July 24 – 26 in McMinnville, Oregon. It’s the crème de la crème of all Pinot festivals showcasing premium Pinot noir producers from Oregon, California, Burgundy, New Zealand, Austria, Champagne and Alsace.

This will be my first year attending the event and I am very much looking forward to it. Not only is this a unique opportunity for Pinot producers to show off their wines and for chefs to showcase their exceptional cuisine, it’s an opportunity to mingle with those in the industry including a number of highly regarded media guests.

This year, Jancis Robinson, Master of Wine, will be the 2009 Master of Ceremonies, joined by speaker David Schildknecht from The Wine Advocate. Read the rest of this entry »

Photo credit: Modern Language Center

I’m a wine geek at heart so when I heard about an opportunity to receive a scholarship to attend a 3-day Spanish Wine education course sponsored by the Wine Academy of Spain and Catavino,  I jumped at the opportunity to find out more about the program.

I’m well aware of some of the initiatives this well-respected academy has headed up in the past, including the World Conference on Climate Change lead by Pancho Campo. If you have an interest in the impacts of climate change and how to adapt to a new climate, check out some of the audio files I uploaded a couple of years ago.

As for their latest venture, Catavino is responsible for the organization and development of awarding one scholarship to a blogger in each of the twelve cities the Academy plans to visit. Integrating the social media aspect into the business model of the Wine Academy is a smart move …and lucky for me, they’ll be hosting one of their 3-day certification programs right here in Portland! Read the rest of this entry »

Today on Wine Bytes, my wine blog on OregonLive, I talk about the recent trade tasting I attended for the Chehalem Mountain Vintner’s Association in Oregon. The thing that surprised me was how many of the wineries pouring also belong to many other location specific organizations – it finally dawned on me that because of the many locations these wineries source their fruit from for a lot of their vineyard designate specifics and cuvees they will belong to a lot of different appellation organizations.

Most of the wineries I have worked for made their wine from estate-grown fruit. Nevertheless, it was a great opportunity to meet a few buyers and a number of great winemakers.

I also go into detail about some of the trends I’m seeing for Oregon Viognier and Riesling which is a surprising twist to what you’d expect.  See how these varieties fair on my latest post here…and be certain to check back soon for the full report on what we tasted in the coming weeks.

I was recently reading an article over at Wine Press Northwest and they were talking about a recent outing to wineries in the Hood River area. The story predominately revolved around how upset they were that the winery had charged

them a $5 tasting fee even though they had purchased a $30 bottle of wine. I thought it would be a good time for me to weigh in on this story because I have the rare insight of being on both sides of the Tasting Room counter. Today on Wine Bytes, my wine blog on OregonLive, I talk about how most wineries charge a tasting fee to offset operating

costs and to offer direct access to its products for evaluation prior to purchase. Most likely you will not be refunded your tasting fee just because you buy a bottle of wine. Check out my latest post here.

If I asked you what the world’s most popular white variety is, how would you respond? You guessed, it, Chardonnay – unless, of course you live in Spain, where Albariño ranks as the signature white that captures everyone’s heart. Read the rest of this entry »

Gary Vaynerchuk, who runs the infamous Wine Library TV is hosting this month’s WBW and our theme is interestingly enough, French Cabernet Franc, a variety always waiting in the wings to take over the infamous Cabernet Sauvignon.

Photo credit: The Wine Web

Like most wine regions of France, Roman conquerors originally developed the Loire valley before Monks stepped in and took over its culture. By far, France has the most Cabernet Franc plantings of any wine producing region in the world, most of which resides in the St. Emilion, Loire Valley and south west France, where Cabernet Franc is also known as Bouchet, Bouchy, or Breton. Read the rest of this entry »

This week commences my first attempt at Wine Blogging Wednesday (WBW). For those who are not familiar with the concept, Lenn Thompson from Lenndevours proposed the idea of a monthly virtual wine tasting event back in 2004.

Different bloggers send in ideas for themes or topics and then become the hosts from month to month. Participating bloggers buy wines that are consistent with the theme and blog their tasting notes on or before the Wednesday of the event. This week’s WBW host Sonadora, who runs the blog Wannabewino, asked us all to seek out any version of Petite Sirah we could find, even if by its other name: Durif.

I was excited about this particular theme since this varietal is one of my favorites; hence, I wanted to join in on the WBW fun.

My immediate reaction was to hunt down a Vincent Arroyo Petite Sirah. It’s been a few years since I tasted one of his magnificent masterpieces so I was on a mission to locate a bottle for this tasting. To my dismay, I failed to locate the wine and unfortunately did not have enough time to have a bottle shipped directly from the winery :( so on to plan B.

I selected the 2005 "39 degrees" Lake County Petite Sirah from a new wine venture headed up by veteran Roy Cecchetti, who co-founded Cecchetti Sebastiani Cellars with his brother-in-law, Don Sebastiani. Roy’s new venture, appropriately named the Cecchetti Wine Company, is committed to offer consumers quality wines at affordable prices. I was excited about this purchase for two reasons: The association of this wine with Lake County and the indirect connection between 39 degrees and Sebastiani.

Lake County typically produces good quality distinctive reds yet many wines from this region are undervalued and unappreciated. It will be interesting to see if 39 degrees can compete with other great Lake County Petite Sirah’s produced by vintners like Shannon Ridge, Steele Wines and Langtry Estate (Guenoc).

As for the indirect connection with Sebastiani, one might suspect critical acclaim received from previous endeavors to yield similar results in new ventures. I’ve been a fan of Sebastiani wines for a number of years, particularly their line of cherryblock wines produced in the late 80′s and early 90′s.

So how did 39 Degrees fair? Well, I was impressed on its initial pour; it’s a wine with a very dark inky color with a new world nose of cherry and plum. The soft entry imparts flavors of burnt cherry, blackberry and plum. Overall, it’s pretty simplistic in style, medium-bodied; unattractive hollow mid-palate with a tannic, hot finish; in general, it’s a good effort, however it’s a bit green and lackluster; giving them the benefit of the doubt I would generously rate this wine an 85 on a 100-point scale.

Value: $15.00
ABV: 14.5%