Oregon Pinot Blind Tasting

I did a private blind tasting and wanted to list my thoughts and those of others involved in the tasting.

Tasting of 2006 Oregon Pinots:
#1 Rocco Private Stash Pinot Noir - smells of anise & licorice. Tasted reduced and like an '04, woody, like faux butter, and crayons. Lack much of a nose and didn't have a long finish.

#2 DDO (Domaine Drouhin Oregon) Willamette Valley Pinot Noir - smells of strawberry, tastes of Tide laundry.

#3 Ken Wright Abbet's Claim - smells of maraschino cherries, processed fruit and tastes of toasted marshmallow, broccoli, and peat. It has a very short finish and obvious volatile acid.

#4 Bergstrom Bergrtom Vineyard - Smells of sea salt and bananas (acidic acid), and tastes of cedar & fish skins linger.

#5 Archery Summit Red Hills Estate - deep in color with good clarity. Aromas of cherry and minerality (cement). Tastes of chocolate liquors, anise, and cloves. This is the wine I think I'd most prefer to sit down with.

Tasting of 2005 Oregon Pinots:

#1 Melville - deep in color, excellent clarity, aroma is vegetal like asparagus. Tastes strong of licorice and anise. Lean, dill, & peat mossy.

#2 Domaine Serene Evenstead Reserve - aromas of currants and raspberries. Tastes of chocolate and boysenberries. Fairly clear, smooth texture, light in color.

#3 DDO Laurene - Very reduced tasting! Nice rich deep color, very clear, but filmy in texture. Tastes of the ocean, salty sand. Aroma is a strong floral cherry blossom & burnt toast.

#4 Archery Summit Arcus Estate - This wine has a great thick midpalate, tasted of truffles and a bit weedy. A bit over extracted and lacks elegance. This wine will be really great in 3 years I think.

#5 Francis Tannahill "the Hermet" - Has soft acidity, is clear, but light in color. Tastes of fennel and mint, with fresh bing cherry aromas.

Bonus wine:

2001 Sine Qua Non No. 6 - Lost its color long ago. It is effervescent, numbing my tongue. Very astringent. This is such a cloudy wine, it was very unpleasing. I thought Sine Qua Non was a bit overrated with it's cult following before, and will continue to think so now. It isn't fair to call this an Oregon Pinot when they are buying Oregon fruit and making it in California with Cali style. I'm hoping their other wines were better, 2001 was a decent year for so many others though. I will say, we were all so excited to have a bonus wine, until we tasted it. We all felt pretty good financially though, none of us need to seek out another bottle for our own cellars, at $270, I'm glad I don't desire to purchase this wine.

We just got a wine fridge!!!

Well, I haven't blogged about my everyday life so you'd have no clue that I just got a new apartment. As my fiance and I gear up for marrying and moving all of our crappola out of our parents for the last time we discovered we have more wine than we knew.

You know how you buy a bottle or two here and there and don't drink them right away because you have others? Well, 2 years later you'll have 8+ cases of wine, some of them needing more care than you planned on. We kept most of our wine in his parent's basement, it's always around 60 degrees and the perfect humidity all year round, a great place, and free. But now that we have to move into an apartment, it was time to get, bum bum bum... a wine fridge.

It fits only 30 bottles, but we found a way to squeeze a few more in there. It's packed full of Oregon Pinots, a few Cabs from our trip to Australia, and several random bottles I must have picked up along the way, but don't recall where. We have a mini fridge that fits 6, but we took out the racks and now it fits 5 ice wines, 2 botrytis wines, 2 pinot ports, 1 pinot port chocolate sauce, (all 350 ml tall bottles) and 2 sparklers.

I am in the market for another one as I want to get more wine into regulated temps before it gets so cold we actually turn on the heat for the season. I just can't believe how much wine I have!!! I should get it all onto cellartracker and let you see what I have, it's disgusting! Fortunately there is plenty of Archery Summit so I know there is plenty that will lay down for several years. I just hope I keep enough $10 and $20 bottles around I don't crack them open before their time!!!

Wine Tasting: Domaine Drouhin Oregon

I recommend going to Domaine Drouhin if you're on a "Tour de Pinots." They are very different from Domaine Serene and even more differentiated from Archery Summit. They have very elegant and feminine pinots. Probably the most Burgundian in style. They are nicknamed DDO, many people call them just DDO.

Wine: The Arthur Chardonnay is probably the best chard I've had in a long while. I don't really care for many, but they are growing on me I think. Not necessarily something I'd buy, but definitely worthy of tasting. I don't care for their pinots at all. They are so light and lack complexity. They don't have much color and I like a deep, rich colored pinot. I definitely don't think these are very age worthy, as wines loose some complexity with age, I fear they'd become pastel colored water before I got to them in a few years.

Vineyards: There is a lot of unused space they could have a great flower garden or just more vines. Maybe they could just get some good turf in there so they could have an attractive lawn for wedding and reception space. Although they do have a great view, the dead space detracts from the over all experience of the view. The vines themselves were very orderly and kept rather well groomed, although I think they should have hedged the rows by the day we went, that was probably going to happen in a few days.

Tasting Room: They have too high of a bar!!! I'm 5'3.75" and my arm went numb waiting for my glass to be filled. They have a bit of sitting room and they also have some pieces of history like an old wine press. I think there were windows into the fermentation hall, but the lights were off as it was a weekend.

Service: The ladies behind the bar were great, very friendly and answered all my questions. They too use the Oregon Pinot Glass, I hope this trend is catching on elsewhere!

Something special: All of their wines are names after their children. Their sister winery is in FRANCE, hence why this is called Domaine Drouhin OREGON, there's another Domaine Drouhin. DDO was the first winery in the Dundee Hills if my history is correct.

Overall Wine Experience Score: 79

Stats: Domaine Drouhin Oregon (DDO)
Address: 6750 Breyman Orchards Rd. Dayton, OR 97114
Tasting room is open Wednesday through Sunday 10am-4pm
Tasting Fee: $15
Website: http://www.domainedrouhin.com/
Wines: Chardonnay, Pinot Noir

Wine Tasting: Domaine Serene

If you're in the Dundee Hills, you have to make a stop at the "Domaines." There are three wineries you can't afford to miss in the Dundee Hills AVA, I suggest going in the following order: Archery Summit, Domaine Serene, then Domaine Droughin. And trust me, you should go with your gut when deciding to purchase, they are all good, but Archery is the best, followed by Serene, then a delicate finish with Droughin.

Wine: Domaine Serene's tasting consisted of 3 Pinot Noirs and 1 Syrah. The Jerusalem Hill 2005 Pinot Noir is amazing. I can't even put in to words, but I'll try. It has layers of cherry, raspberry, and yes, even chocolate. It reminds me of the dark chocolate cherry cordials you can only get around Christmas time. The syrah is my fiance's favorite syrah around. It is the Rockblock, we had a 2004 a few months ago and had to go back to get more, but they've moved on to the 2005. It is still really good, many think so, as it got a 93 from WS. The other pinots were good, but the JHill is the only one that stuck out to me. I think we tasted a white too, 2006 "Clos du Soleil" Chardonnay.

Vineyards: They have a long private drive up to their "villa" that is rather lovely. But there is a lot of wasted weedy space with unkempt grass. You can tell they round-up around the trees along the drive too as the leaves on the trees turned early. I don't think many non-ag people would notice that but it really doesn't make me excited about estate pinot when I see potential close proximity to round-up. The vineyard surrounding the winery is very lovely. They source the syrah from Del Rio and Seven Hills vineyards;)

Tasting Room: They have a great tasting room with lots of seating and a fire place. Great intimacy. The first time I went to Domaine Serene it snowed while we were in the tasting room and it was very homey! They have a less than intimate counter for tasting though, the ladies behind the counter often don't even stand to pour the wine for you.

Service: Like I said the ladies didn't stand to pour the wine, they seemed a bit disinterested in us too. They do use the Oregon Pinot Noir glass that is very awesome. It isn't crystal, but it does a great job of showing off all of the wines. They also use a 1-ounce pour top that I think is kinda tacky as the tasting fee is $15. I thought for $15 they could set a bit of a better mood without the pour tops.

Something special: There isn't much that distinguishes this winery from others, except the outside of the building and the walk to the tasting room really set a tone for a fun tasting. Like many wineries there are wines you really like and then those you don't. You have to dump sometimes, and sometimes you spit too. I just wish the service matched the ambiance.

Overall Wine Experience Score: 83

Stats: Domaine Serene

Address:6555 NE Hilltop Lane, Dayton, Oregon 97114

Tasting room is open Wednesday-Sunday 10am-4pm

Tasting Fee: $15

Website: http://www.domaineserene.com/

Wines: Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Syrah

WORDS NOT TO USE

Here is a list of words I don't want to hear, read, or TASTE when drinking wine:

Cat Pee (common in Sav Blanc)
Barnyard (moo or poo)
Deer, Musk
Mint
Banana (Petit Verdot)
Smoke, Burnt, Cigar Box, Tobacco
Sweat (eww, high school locker room flashback)
Dirty Laundry (ie body odor), Leather, Dusty, Chalky (All things that shouldn't be in your mouth - ever)
Vegetal, Asparagus, Green Bell Pepper (this isn't a salad)

and although it's typical in oaked chards: Butter

The funny thing is words like Mold, Vinegar, Garlic, Onions, Nail Polish, and Burnt Matches are off aromas and bad. If you look at the list above, couldn't mold = musk; dusty, burnt matches = smoke, burnt, cigar box, tobacco; onions, vinegar = dirty laundry, peppers?

Hmm...wine for thought

Wine Scores

So...I look at the wine scores, I find it interesting who knows and loves the wine I'm drinking. But sometimes you get someone writing about the wine who is so up their own butt, they can't taste straight anyway. I don't like that Jay Miller is the only person scoring Oregon wines for the Wine Advocate and erobertparker.com. How can the whole world trust one man. What if he's having an off day, allergic to our Oregon molds, and heaven forbid he have a hang over :) Even the Wine Spectator has individuals critiquing wine in this fashion. I like the idea of a panel of people tasting the wines, every time. I mean, wineries send 2 of each wine to be critiqued, why on earth wouldn't 5-10 people get a taste of it. I know there's a lot out there to taste, but there are a lot of different pallets too.

I think Wine Spectator only likes big TASTING wines. By that I mean they like the taste of the wine when they sip it. But sit down with a 15% alcohol wine and you're loose before the first glass is finished. And don't even think about pairing these wines with food, they will overpower the entire menu. These are usually Cabs, Merlots, and Zins. And don't get me started on the California Pinots they score high. They are all freaking fruit bombs, I can't handle them.

I think the best thing to do is to take each score with a grain of salt. As much as I like to see scores, the best ones for most people are those Wine Enthusiast is known for "Best wines under $15" and other "Best Value" columns.

I like good wine, but I think that I will keep tasting them for myself. I think the "drinking well now" wines are some of the best deals because WS, WE, and WA don't necessarily think highly of them. As for aging, I keep to the wines under 14.5% and I stay clear of Cabs, Merlots, and Zins as much as I can. (Although I found some great Cabs in Aussie last year. I'll talk about them some other time.)

Cheers!