oe•no•phile Two Years In and "Retiring"

Hi all,

So today is the two year anniversary of oe•no•phile. I can't believe it's been two years already since I decided to sit down and really focus some energy on writing about wine. However, in the recent months I have been shamefully neglectful of my writing here given work and a number of other activities that have taken up a lot of time and left little time to write.

It occurred to me that I really have wanted to give my writing a more driven focus, and with that I'm pleased to announce the creation of Northwest Whites, a new website dedicated solely to exploring the white wines of the Pacific Northwest. Making my home now in the Willamette Valley, I realize that I came here for a reason—my passion for wine. My passion for the wines of this region, especially the under-recognized white wines, has developed quickly (and I've hardly scratched the surface in 11 months). 

You've read all about Oregon's world-class Pinot Noir and Washington Syrah or Cabernet Sauvignon ... but what about Chardonnay? Riesling? Sauvignon Blanc? Pinot Gris? Gewürztraminer? Explore those and more white varieties from Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and British Columbia.

So thank you for reading (sporadically even) here at oe•no•phile. I really appreciate your support, and hope you'll make your way over to Northwest Whites (launching on October 22, 2010) to continue following my wine journey here in the Pacific NW. 

Additionally, you can also check out my personal site, RyanReichert.com, for general wine education information and wine consulting. And for all my wine reviews, visit my profile on Adegga.

Cheers!

WBC 2010 In Short

So the 2010 Wine Bloggers Conference has come to an end. I'm back in the car, not driving, but passengering back to Portland.

I'm sure everyone is writing similar summary posts on their respective blogs, so I'll keep this brief. Aside from seeing some good friends, meeting new friends, and trying a lot of wine here are some of my highlight moments:

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The Road to Walla Walla

So that time of year has come again - it's time for the annual American Wine Bloggers Conference. This year we're convening in the city of Walla Walla over the Washington side of the Columbia, the same river that runs through my new home in Portland. I drove past the area on my way to the Willamette Valley, and now I'm headed back, seeing the scenery from another angle.

It's a four hour drive from Portland to Walla Walla, but well worth the trip. The views and changing landscape along the Columbia are just amazing. And since Lynnette is driving, I can type on my new iPad!

The conference will offer a chance to reconnect with many people I met last year (and more importantly make a human connection with all the Facebook/Twitter wine folks I follow).

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Need a wine consultant?

Wine is something that many people enjoy and I find that there are a lot of people who would love to learn more about it. Whether it's something simple like finding that perfect pairing for dinner or challenging yourself to find new obscure grape varieties there is a ton of stuff to learn about wine. What is it? How is it produced? How do you taste it? What makes all those grapes or regions or vintages so different?

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Summer looms

Despite the wet spring we've had in the Willamette there have been a handful of absolutely gorgeous, warm, sunny days. We erected a fantastic backyard canopy on our deck that provides a beautiful space for us to enjoy dinner on those warm evenings. We've even fired up the grill and enjoyed some delicious smoky fare. Lynnette has a knack for making perfect grill marks on both her chicken and the tofu Amy and I enjoy. Vegetables have made a large appearance as well: spring potatoes, red and yellow bell pepper, asparagus, and an assortment of summer squashes.

Summer is looming, and it's just a matter of weeks before this becomes our daily routine. With this all in mind I start thinking about quintessential summer beverages. For my purposes one thing comes to mind: gin and tonics.

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Something a little different

Hi everyone!

Sorry for the posting lapse. I've been busy with work and editing a bunch of great wine stories for Palate Press.

That said, I recently got to explore some of Portlands local distilleries, and had a great experience. I've written a piece for Palate Press, which I hope you'll check out.

I promise I'll get back to wine ASAP!

Cheers,

Ryan

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Palate Press: Good Vapors, or Finding the Hearts in Stumptown's Distillery Row

Quick Sip: 2007 Vouvray, floral but searing

Château Gaudrelle Vouvray, Sec (2007)
Château Gaudrelle
Chenin Blanc
Vouvray, Loire Valley, France

Chenin blanc

Another wine from our Loire Valley tasting. Vouvray is produced from the chenin blanc grape and can be dry to sweet. Always though you'll find a floral, "sweet" smelling nose. Like riesling, this grape can produces some truly deceiving wines.

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Quick Sip: 2008 Sancerre, just so you know "cat pee" is appropriate here!

Domaine André Neveu Sancerre, Silex (2008)
Domaine André Neveu
Sauvignon Blanc
Sancerre, Loire Valley, France

Borrowed from 2007 vintage.

Now for the classic Sancerre—herbal, grassy, zingy, cat pee... Yes. This is totally acceptable as a wine aroma term. Though I'll tell you, people will give you funny looks. If you ever hear anyone say "elderberry" or "boxwood" what they really mean is "Wow - where's the Tidy Cats?!" Sauvignon blanc from this region can be pungent, but is completely delightful and refreshing. Classic pairing with chèvre.

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Quick Sip: 2008 Sancerre Rosé, finding French pinot outside Bourgogne

Domaine André Neveu Sancerre Rosé (2008)
Domaine André Neveu
Pinot Noir
Sancerre, Loire Valley, France

Image borrowed from the 2007 vintage.

Another from our Loire tasting. This is the first time I've had Sancerre rosé, a region well known for it's crisp, grassy sauvignon blanc.

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Quick Sip: 2008 Muscadet, every oyster's best friend

St. Vincent Cuvée, Sur Lie (2008)
Michel Delhommeau
Melon de Bourgogne
Muscadet-Sèvre et Maine, Loire Valley, France

The second wine from my Loire Valley tasting. These wines are excellent with oysters - and no wonder, Muscadet is right on the Atlantic!

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Quick Sip: NV Crémant de la Loire - herbal yeasty goodness

Carte Turquoise Crémant de la Loire (NV)
Domaine des Baumard
Chenin Blanc & Cabernet Franc
Loire Valley, France

This is the first of a series of tasting notes from a Loire Valley focused tasting I took part in with some other industry folks recently. Enjoy!

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WBW #66: Your Tenderest Two-Some, Dessert & Wine

Argyle Brut Rosé (2007)
Argyle Winery
52% Pinot Meunier | 48% Pinot Noir
Dundee Hills, OR

So today is Wine Blogging Wednesday #66 which is being hosted by Jennifer Hamilton, The Domestic Goddess. Combining two of my favorite things, Jennifer has joined WBW with Sugar-High Friday for today's challenge. We were asked to come up with a dessert and wine pairing.

Desserts can sometimes be difficult to pair with wines, and I think many of us first just jump to sweeter wines. Rule of thumb there is to make sure your wine is as sweet of not sweeter than your dessert, otherwise it'll taste sour. Also keep in mind tangy/tart flavors vs. savory/milky ones in your desserts. Based on that (is it apple pie or chocolate mousse?) you'll want to pay attention to the wine's acidity.

Since I tend to gravitate towards more acidic wines, and away from overly-chocolate'd (I know, there's not supposed to be such a thing... just think, more chocolate for you!) desserts my thoughts got a little bubbly. Lucky for us, Argyle is less than 30 minutes from here!

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New site has launched & stuff

So my attentiveness to my writing here has been horrible this month. I've got some interesting wines to try tonight that I'll take some notes on, and tomorrow I'll be joining a bunch of other bloggers for Wine Blogging Wednesday. We're pairing wine and desserts, which I'm super excited about.

In other news, I've launched my personal website - www.ryanreichert.com. This will be a central place for me to showcase all my writing (concerning wine, food, travel and whatnot), photos, and to post news about what's going on in my life. I hope you'll all check it out soon and please let me know what you think.

Here's to drinking more wine and writing about it!

Cheers

Ryan

Fast and Dirty... I mean, Dark & Delicious!

Okay - so this is sort-of, kind-of last minute... but I've got two tickets to give away for Dark & Delicious, a super fantastic event featuring Petite Sirah (with an I!) put on by PS I Love You.

The event is taking place on February 19, 2010 from 6-9p PST at The Rock Wall Wine Company in Alameda, CA (just outside Oakland). If you're a) a local or b) are going to be in the area then I would highly recommend going! 41 different producers are being featured alongside 26 SF/Bay Area restauranteurs and caterers. Tickets are $60, so this prize is worth $120 total.

So here's the deal - to qualify you must head over to Twitter and send a message (140 or less!) about why you (LOVE) Petite Sirah. Make sure to send it to @oenoblog so I see it. Given the crunch on time though, I'm going to limit this to entries through Sunday February 14th 2010 (Valentine's Day). This way I'll have time to mail the tickets to the winner.

I'll assign each entry a number as it comes in and use a random number generator to get the winner.

Good luck!

Other stuff:
1) You must be 21 to attend
2) No ticket refunds or exchanges
3) Please drink responsibly! (because abusing good Petite Sirah is a crime!)

Patz & Hall Twitter Taste Live: Pinot, Chard and Tofu!

Patz & Hall
Chardonnay & Pinot Noir
Sonoma Coast, California

Last night was the launch of the Patz & Hall Winery page on Twitter Taste Live. They divided the country in two and had bloggers on both coasts do a tasting of two of their soon to be released wines. I was really pleased to see how seamlessly the upgraded TTL is working, and we had an enjoyable time tasting the wines.

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Seven of Hearts - Part 3: "Estate Grown Pinot Noir" or "The Pinot Clone Wars"

In a late-coming third part conclusion (see part 1 and part 2) here are my final notes from our visit to the Seven of Hearts tasting room in Carlton. These last two wines are both estate-grown from Byron's Luminous Hills Vineyard in the Yamhill-Carlton District AVA. Pommard as well as clones 667, 777 and 115 are used...

Wait, wait, wait - what clones? Makes wine sound like some kind of science-fiction plot from Lucas Films, right? And just when you thought all you needed to know were some basic French (noir, blanc, gris) color words to get you through Pinot.

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WBW #65: Snow Day Wines - Bodegas El Nido 2003 Clio Jumilla

Clio (2003)
Bodegas El Nido
Monastrell 70% | Cabernet Sauvignon 30%
Jumilla DO, Spain

This month's Wine Blogging Wednesday topic (No. 65) hosted by Michelle Lentz was choosing a wine that you'd enjoy drinking during a full out precipitous attack of the white stuff. Thankfully, since moving to Oregon I've only had to "endure" the snow once, while I know back in Ohio and most of the Midwest in general they got pretty much slammed. Thanks Lake Erie!

That said, I think I had a pretty good idea as to what kind of wine I was in need of - big body, dried fruits, and a warmer level of alcohol. My first choice? Port of course - and I think a lot of people turned there at first. But then something shiny caught my attention. A bottle from El Nido (The Nest) winery in Spain. The pearlescent label was really familiar, and it turns out I sampled another of their wines in my Spanish Wine course last year.

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Spanish Wine Dinner at West Cafe

Tuesday night I headed out with some friends to Portland's West Cafe. There we enjoyed a six course dinner paired with different Spanish wines. Our group had two vegetarians (me included) and one vegan. So we really got the full gamut of offerings at our table. Overall the pairings were very well done, and so I'd like to share the menu with you and some of my comments.

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Twitter Cheap Wine Challenge

So this week Wine Ophelia (Raelinn Schmitt) proposed that a bunch of bloggers all post notes for one of their favorite under $10 bottles of wine. Then after everyone has posted, we should gather (locally) to do a big blind tasting via Twitter (à la Twitter Taste Live) to share these great buys with our friends and followers. So it took me a while, going through some of the notes that I have from the past year, and I was able to narrow my selection down to TWO bottles.

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Seven of Hearts - Part 2: Exploring Burgundy & Pinot noir

Hopefully you enjoyed the first part of this series of posts on Seven of Hearts.

Today we'll explore four different Pinot noirs which we tasted in their Carlton tasting room with owner and wine maker Byron Dooley. As mentioned, Byron's focus is to create wines that reflect the old-world French styles of Pinot noir from Burgundy. So let's start by briefly exploring this famous French region.

First and foremost, I love maps, and this is a useful one showing most of Burgundy.

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Seven of Hearts - Part 1: White Wines

We joined owner and wine maker Byron Dooley for a flight at the Seven of Hearts tasting room in Carlton, OR. With a proclivity for old-world style French wines, Byron and his wife Dana moved to the Willamette Valley after leaving their tech careers in Silicon Valley and establishing their passions in Napa. Dana is the owner of locally based Honest Chocolates with two locations and a candymaking kitchen in the same space as the tasting room.

Inspired by classical French wine labels, the wines at Seven of Hearts depict an old playing card embellished with a crest-like image of one of the couple's cats, Seven.

I'll be sharing my tasting notes for these wines in thee parts this week - our first tasting notes will cover the two whites that Byron shared with us.

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Quick Sip: 2003 Soléna Klipsun Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon - grapes from the other side of the Columbia

Soléna Klipsun Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon (2003)
Soléna Estate
Cabernet Sauvignon
Red Mountain AVA, WA

The final warm weather varietal tasted at Soléna's Carlton tasting room with Lynnette.

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New publication in Willamette Valley

You'll know find my work published in Willamette Valley Life Magazine. This is a new quarterly publication that will be distributed throughout the Willamette Valley in Oregon. I'm very pleased to be working with Randy Hill, owner and publisher, and am looking forward to many issues to come.

If you're not in the area you can also read the online version of the magazine at their website in an easy to download pdf. You can access the first issue by clicking on it's image to the right.

Cheers!

Ryan

Quick Sip: 2005 Soléna Wooldridge Creek Zinfandel - another for the "dont like" Merlot crowd

Soléna Wooldridge Creek Vineyard Zinfandel (2005)
Soléna Estate
Zinfandel 96% | Merlot 4%
Applegate Valley AVA, OR

The third warm weather varietal tasted at the Carlton, OR tasting room with Lynnette.

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Quick Sip: 2005 Soléna Wooldridge Creek Merlot - for those that "don't like" Merlot

Soléna Wooldridge Creek Vineyard Merlot (2005)
Soléna Estate
Merlot 96% | Zinfandel 4%
Applegate Valley AVA, OR

The second of four warm weather varietals offered by Soléna. We tasted the Merlot at the tasting room in Carlton with Lynnette.

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Quick Sip: 2004 Soléna Del Rio Syrah - rich, inky, and delicious

Soléna Syrah Del Rio, Rogue Valley (2004)
Soléna Estate
Syrah
Rogue Valley AVA, OR

This is the first of the warm weather varietals produced by Soléna. The Syrah you can try at the Grand Cru Estate or you can sample it and the other WWVs at their tasting room in Carlton, OR where we joined Lynnette for a flight.

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Quick Sip: 2006 Soléna Domaine Danielle Laurent Pinot Noir - the vineyard that began it all

Soléna Pinot Noir Domaine Danielle Laurent Vineyard (2006)
Soléna Estate
Pinot Noir
Yamhill-Carlton AVA, OR

The last Pinot Noir tasted at Soléna Estate's Grand Cru tasting room. The grapes are sourced from a special vineyard.

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What?! Wine bloggers don't make any money?!

Well, for the most part it's true. Very few of us actually do what we love because it pays well. Sure, some have ad revenue, and some get sent samples... but really very little of the compensation in wine blogging is of the monetary sort. Many of us have regular jobs (in technology, marketing, healthcare, consulting, etc.) that pay our regular bills.

With those bills and such, I can tell you there isn't always a lot left over to go towards our hobby and passion, wine. Just last year I found myself in this very situation after learning about the 2nd Annual Wine Bloggers Conference in Santa Rosa, and knowing that it would be a great event for me to attend to network, meet other wine bloggers, and to learn. Then, as if the clouds parted and a shining bottle of Pinot Noir (likely held out by friend and chairperson, Thea Dwelle) descended towards me, I found out that there was a special fund for bloggers just like me! A bloggership if you will aimed at helping Citizen Bloggers get to attend WBC.

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