Merlot Bottling
Nearly a year after crushing the grapes, my first vintage is in the bottle! On August 29th Rachel, Tim, and I bottled the Merlot. I filled the bottles and Rachel fed the bottles and corks to Tim who operated the corker. A few days later we added the capsules and labeled the bottles. They're all quietly resting now for a couple of months to get over bottle shock. I may break one out around Thanksgiving to see how its doing. There are only 2 cases, but they represent a lot of work over the year. As I write this, I'm preparing to pick up the 2009 Merlot grapes tomorrow and start the process all over again. I'm also getting Cabernet Sauvignon and Sangiovese this year, so I guess that means I'm tripling my production!Yamhill-Carlton Tasting
On Monday, Aug. 31st, Rachel and I attended a tasting of wines from the Yamhill-Carlton district at the Gerding Theater in the Pearl District of Portland. It did seem a little odd to be driving into Portland to taste wines that were grown closer to Forest Grove, but it was a great opportunity to taste a lot of different wineries in one location. The price was hard to beat too - $25 admission with no additional tasting fees for 24 wineries and light snacks from 5 restaurants.
The Yamhill-Carlton district is a sub-AVA of the Willamette Valley in the northwestern part of the valley. The predominant soil type is marine sedimentary and like all of the northern Willamette Valley, this is Pinot Noir country. Several of our favorite Pinot producers were at the event. What was particularly interesting about this event was that regardless of where the winery was located, all of the wines being tasted had come only from vineyards in the Y-C district.
Now, the frustrating part of this is that I took lots of notes on the wines that night, but I can't find them! For some reason I didn't use the little notebook that I usually take to tastings, and the paper that I was writing on has just disappeared. So, until I find my notes, I'll just list the wineries that were there: Anne Amie Vineyards, Atticus Cellars, Barbara Thomas Wines, Belle Pente, Biggio Hamina Cellars, Bishop Creek Cellars, Carlton Cellars, Carlton Hill Wine Co., Elk Cove Vineyards, Ghost Hill Cellars, Ken Wright Cellars, Kramer, Lemelson Vineyards, Monk's Gate Vineyard, Panther Creek, Resonance Vineyard, Roots, Shea Wine Cellars, Solena Cellars, Sotor, Stag Hollow, Twelve, Wahle, and Willakenzie. All were pretty good, with Lemelson having the best Pinot Noir, and Roots with a killer Melon. Ken Wright and Anne Amie were a little disappointing, and Ghost Hills is one to keep an eye on.
After the tasting, we walked about four blocks and had a wonderful dinner at Andina, a Peruvian restaurant. They serve small plates and recommend 5 or 6 different plates for 2 people. The selection was overwhelming, so we put ourselves in the hands of our waiter and asked him to bring 5 plates that he thought represented a good cross-section of the menu. We were not disappointed! Our meal included quinoa-stuffed pequillo peppers, a Spanish-style potato fritatta, a fresh fish ceviche, crisp prawns, and of course, empenadas. Although they have a fantastic wine list, we were pretty wined out, so I just ended up with a glass of Malbec from Mendoza. We ended the meal with a trio of creme bruleés. Very tasty!
Matello Winemaker's Dinner
We first met Marcus Goodfellow (winemaker and "head fool" at Matello wines) a couple of years ago at a Memorial Day wine tasting event. We had driven by the Adea Wine Company on the way to McMinnville for years, but because they aren't usually open, we had never stopped. However, they are open over Memorial Day weekend, so we were excited to visit. The winery itself is host to several winemakers in addition to its own label, and nearly all of them were tasting their wines. The Adea wines themselves were not very good, and I really don't remember the wines from any of the other winemakers, except for one - Marcus. He was tasting a couple of his Pinot Noirs, a mostly dry Riesling, and a great dessert wine. All were wonderful, and we bought a couple of bottles. We have gone back to Adea since then, just to get more Matello.
Fast forward to late August of this year as we were driving home from the Oregon Star Party. As were were approaching Madras, I was able to get signal on my iPhone and decided to check my email. There was an email from Marcus describing a winemaker's dinner that he was doing at clarklewis restaurant in Portland featuring samples of wine from his first commercial vintage in 2002 up through 2008. What a cool concept! As there were only 20 seats available, I replied right then and there as we drove into Madras. You gotta love technology!
So, on Wednesday Sept. 2nd, we drove into Portland to the restaurant on Water St. near OMSI. clarklewis (http://www.clarklewispdx.com/) is fairly new on the Portland restaurant scene, and is housed in a building along the river that used to be a loading dock. It was a very pleasant temperature that evening, and they had all of the garage doors open, giving us the feeling of al fresco dining. The cuisine is generally Italian-inspired using fresh local ingredients, much of it cooked in a wood fired oven. All of the food was served family style, and it appeared that this may be the norm, not just for the winemaker's dinner.The menu was a six course extravaganza paired with 11 Matello wines! Up first was an incredible combination of watermelon slices topped with raw goat's milk feta cheese, gaeta olives, shredded mint, and fleur de sel. It was absolutely wonderful, and was Rachel's favorite dish of the night. It was paired with the 2007 Rosé of Pinot Noir - one of the nicest rosés we've had. The second course was a housemade spaghetti with shredded Oregon dungeness crab, fennel, heirloom tomatoes and summer herbs. The pasta was perfectly al dente and the sauce was a great light summer red sauce. It was paired with the 2003 and 2008 Pinot Gris. Marcus had said that he only brought the 2003 to torture us, and it was definitely past its prime. It was musty and waxy and oxidized, but it was interesting to see what 6 year old Pinot Gris was like. The 2008, on the other hand, was wonderful - crisp, floral and acidic. The third course was pork belly - yum! It was a cube of melt-in-your-mouth tastiness seared and slightly sweetened with black currants, summer corn, and purple orach. This was the first course where there was nothing left on the serving platters when we were done. It was paired with the 2004 Hommage a'A&D and 2004 Souris Pinot Noirs. Both were very good; I preferred the slightly more structured and complex Souris to the more approachable and fruity Hommage. Moving on to the entrée, we were served slices of lamb saddle with cannellini beans, baby mustard greens and black plum jus. The flavor was excellent, but the lamb was slightly too fatty for me. Rachel loved it! This was served with the 2003 Hommage and Souris Pinots. These were obviously 2003s (big, warm, fruity) but quite nice. The cheese course was a hard raw goat's milk cheese that was paired with the 2002 Hommage and 2002 Willamette Valley Pinot Noirs. The pairing was perfect and the older Pinots were structured and very interesting. Finally, for dessert we had a tasty apple tart with blackberry ice cream. The menu indicated that we were going to be served the 2008 Whistling Ridge sweet Riesling with this, but first Marcus brought out the 2006 slightly sweet Riesling - the first wine of his we ever had. What a treat - and it was still as good as I remembered it.
Fortunately, the dinner took over 3 hours, so even with the 11 wines, we were still seeing straight when we left. It was a great time, with great food, and we ended up sitting fairly close to Marcus, so we had a good opportunity for some conversation. These winemaker dinners are a lot of fun, especially when they're held at great restaurants.
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