Oregon's relative lack of Chardonnay is downright weird. And in Portland, rare and weird is good. So you know where this is going. Some of the most exciting wines being made in Oregon today are Chardonnays. These are not your grandma's butter bombs; they're taut, lean wines with terrific mouthfeel.
The nose is rich, with coffee, dark chocolate, smoked meat, tobacco leaf, and blueberries. Upon opening it is lush and sweet, with big blueberry and chocolate flavors. With a couple of hours, though, it seems to move from Barossa to the northern Rhone, showing blackberries, smoked meat, coffee, and olives.
Not a super-young wine, probably at its peak now, it has the distinction of being a Napa Valley red with only 13.7% alcohol: nicely restrained level. And nicely touched up with oak that is barely there – refreshing in a wine from this area (which unfortunately does affect the pricing).
If you find a bottle of this wine lingering in a wine shop, buy it. According to my sources, it averages around $15 – if you can find it. This is a very good red wine made with Bordeaux varieties of grapes, and it won’t get any better so drink
The streets of old Europe can be hauntingly quiet. In small villages, one can walk along cobbled corridors in the middle of a weekday afternoon and hear nothing but the breeze. The streets are lined with stone buildings, some of them homes, some of them businesses. Trousers hang to dry
This past weekend in Sonoma County, California, 17 vintners gathered for a wine tasting they dubbed “The 7 Percent Solution.” As the organizers explained, “roughly 93 percent of Northern California vineyard acreage is planted to eight major grape varietals. The remaining 7 percent is home to numerous lesser-known varietals, [which]
At first, the aromas of this deep purple wine are of just-picked grapes and new wine, but it soon evolves in the glass to a dark fruitiness. And on the palate, the wine is light at first, but becomes bigger and then gives up dark fruit with accents of wild,
In a tasting of Finger Lakes Rieslings, this wine stood out because of its finesse and complexity. It has a classic Riesling aroma of minerals shading into honeyed pear. The flavor is somewhat crisp, layered and mineral, with citrus too. More tropical fruit and grapefruit appear as it warms in