The Vintners Voice

    I was sorry to have missed Clark Smiths appearance at the Portland Indie Wine Festival.  By reading his most recent post on his blog GrapeCrafter ( http://www.grapecrafter.com ), I was even more sorry.  In a post titled "Yest innoculation- Threat or Menace " Clark throws a long bomb into the Community of Wine.  He points out that there seems to be a bias against the use of cultured yeasts by wine critics, writers and consumers and tries to make the argument for their use.  The gist of his argument is that: 1). the imprint of  cultured yeast on wine is quite minimal, 2).  the use of cultured yeasts minimizes the development of microbes that DO have an imprint on the wine.   This was all discussed in the framework of 'Natural' wines.

    There is a commonly held opinion that 'native' or 'wild' yeast fermentations somehow express 'terrior' while cultured yeasts somehow destroy it.  Mr Smith then turns the argument to the age old one of 'what is terrior'.  Like Clark, I agree that cultured yeasts leave a minimal imprint on wines and that 'place' is much more resilient  than wine critics would have us believe.  I, and I suspect Clark too, is tired of people defining terrior as a wine that smells earthy.  I hear it all the time, someone sticks their nose into some wine that clearly has a flaw and declares that the wine shows terrior.  I suspect that Clark is frustrated with people mistaking the band aid character of Brett or the toasty funky hints of pediococcus or the blue cheese tones of lactobacillus as 'terrior'.  I know for  a fact that I am.  

    I have stopped using the word 'terrior' precisely because it means so many things to so many people.  What it means to me is that a wine reflects the place it was grown, that the unique combination of geology and geography that defines every vineyard is expressed in the wine, that a wine has a 'sense of place'.   There is nothing unique about aromas and flavors generated by spoilage microorganisms.  Let me be clear:  in my opinion, in order for a wine to express place it must be clean!  So I can see how Clark might be frustrated by the prevalent attitude about 'terrior' and the bias against things that are wrongfully perceived to destroy it.

    However I do not take Clark's stance on the menacing nature of 'wild' or 'native' yeasts, not completely.  I do agree that there is considerable risk in allowing these yeasts to conduct fermentations.  I would however point out that each cultured yeast was itself, at one time, a wild yeast.  It was simply selected for because it had beneficial properties and was propagated  to become a cultured yeast.  Therefore, I believe, there is nothing inherently wrong with these 'wild' yeasts.

    I employ what I call 'spontaneous' fermentations exclusively in my Pinot Noir, that is I allow the yeasts living in my winery or vineyard to ferment my wines.  These yeasts perform very well, in fact the only problems with stuck fermentations or microbial spoilage I have had have been in wines fermented with cultured yeasts. I do think that these yeasts do impart a unique character to the wines, as would any yeast, but never to the point of dominating the characters I believe are the result of 'place'.  I go to great lengths to prevent the development of spoilage microbes that would otherwise destroy this sense of place, as many winemakers do.  I simply find that using native yeasts works well for me.

     Part of the appeal of cultured yeasts is the degree of 'control' they allow a winemaker to exert.  They allow winemakers, with the help of a variety of tools, to more fully shape a wine.  The use of ever increasing technology, cultured yeasts included, allow winemakers to, like god, create wines in their own image.  I have heard california winemakers say that by manipulating vines with irrigation they can choose thier harvest date months in advance.  All of these things no doubt have led to an overall increase in wine quality and should be considered a good thing.  Why wouldn't a winemaker embrace these technologies?

          Because someone has to do things the hard way.  Someone has to explore the greatest rewards that only come by assuming the greatest risks.  I don't want winemaking to be easy, I don't want it to be predictable.  Like a craftsmen working with period tools; a blacksmith with only fire and hammer, a carpenter with only hand powered tools, I approach my work.  Not because there is no other way but because it is the way that feels most right.

     2005 was my first vintage at Patton Valley Vineyard.  It was a tough one.  Intense disease pressure all summer long.  Cool and wet weather at harvest forced us to condense our picking to a few days between rain.  When we got dry days we picked and stayed up all night processing the fruit.

      In barrel the wines showed what I thought was intense  fruit, great depth and brooding complexity.  All of this buried beneath an aggressive tannic core.  Time smoothed things out and going to bottle I was very proud of the the wines.  I had been with them every step of the way, I knew where they were weak and what made them strong.  I was proud but I knew they weren't perfect.

     We do a small reserve blend, all from our estate, a mere 90 cases, the Cuvee Lorna-Marie.  It gives me an opportunity to show just what our vineyard can do in a given season.  It is meant to be the best wine we can make. 

     Last week Harvey Steinman of the Wine Spectator ( online ) gave the 2005 Patton Valley Vineyard Cuvee Lorna-Marie Pinot Noir  94 points.  The next day my e-mail was packed with people inquiring about the wine.  Wine buyers who had tasted the wine, sometimes on numerous occasions, were now wanting to get some.   New customers faxed, called and e-mailed.  I was being congratulated by friends around town.  My bosses were thrilled. 

     I have met Harvey and I believe he carries himself in a very professional manner.  I will admit, that like most wine makers, I have mixed feelings about wine critics and the 100 point scale.  I will not raise Harvey or any other wine writer to the level of villain, include them in some sort of conspiracy theory or blame them for the current state of wine.  They have a job to do, and they do it.  I sent him the wine and am glad he liked it.

     It is the same wine it was before it got the 94 points.  It is the same wine I punched down twice a day during fermentation.  The same wine I topped weekly and racked carefully.  The same wine that hung on those vines all summer, threatened by powdery mildew.   More flattering than the 94 points have been the comments from fellow wine makers, customers and sommeliers.  To be honest I always believed in  the wine.  I had a sort of  secret crush on it, I loved it.  Deep down inside I honestly believed that it wasn't just good but great.

     It is good to know that some else does too. 

From within every great wine region comes wines that carry the weight of legend, wines that have reached the status of being fabled. We’ve all heard the stories and blushed in jealousy at reports of groups of millionaires and Masters of Wine assembling in some expensive hotel ballroom to sample wines that most will assume, that like Zeus and Hercules, are mere myths.

Most of these regions are so old that today is but a point in a continuum of wine production that offers no view of the regions early claims to greatness. Today is just too far from the beginning to be able to offer any idea of what those early days were like. Even in the New World, notably California and Australia, the age of the industries are too old to remember their true pioneers, except in old pictures and news clippings.. Time serves to erase memory and effectively obscures the people and conditions that not only create wine regions but elevate them to peaks of greatness.

It was May 7^th 2001 that the Oregon Wine Industry began for me. I had moved to Oregon just year earlier and was touring wine country with a group of ‘wine people’ that included a chef friend of mine. I had increasingly become not merely interested in Pinot Noir, but damn near obsessed. This tour was to visit a number of wineries and vineyards, most arranged to meet and taste with the winemakers. In addition to meeting some of the top winemakers in Oregon, Steve Dorner of Cristom and Terry Casteel of Bethel Heights among them, I also met the starting point of Oregon Pinot Noir. David Lett, of the Eyrie Vineyards, hosted us at his winery in McMinnville.

The wall of the Eyrie winery was covered with old black and white photos of a young man and his wife, brimming with optimism and cradling armfuls of sticks. These sticks were Pinot Noir vines that would be pushed into the ground, in 1965, on an old farm in the Dundee Hills of Oregon’s Willamette Valley. That pushing into the red clay soil of those sticks was the beginning of not just an industry but a story of one of those legendary and fabled wines It was May 7^th 2001 in front of those pictures that I decided that my life would be spent among barrels and vines.

As the legend is told me; in 1979 someone, without David Lett’s knowledge, entered his 1975 South Block Pinot Noir into a wine tasting to be held in Paris. In 1976 the french were devastated and humiliated when several California wines beat them in a blind tasting, conducted by french wine experts. The french hoped for vindication in 1979. They would not have it. The 1975 Eyrie won first place, defeating wines from places and made by people that had previously defined what Pinot Noir should be.

In 1980 there was another tasting held in hopes of reestablishing France’s superiority. This time on the burgundians home turf of Beaune, sponsored by burgundy legend Maison Joseph Drouhin. This time the Eyrie took second. The wine was so convincing that a few years later the Drouhin’s themselves would plant vines in Oregon.

A legend had been born. Now Oregon was on the map as a fine wine region, less than 20 years after the first Pinot vines were planted. David Lett now emerged as a pioneer and thus was born the legend of Papa Pinot. At the center of legend was the 1975 Eyrie South Block Pinot Noir.

As a young winemaker I spent a lot of time and a lot of money seeking out wines that I thought would teach me something about what Pinot Noir should be. You cannot hope to create something great if you do not know what great is. You gather with other young winemakers and taste wines and talk. We would often talk about the 1975 Eyrie South Block Pinot.

I would day dream of some how coning someone into buying a bottle for me to taste. I would fantasize about eating at Nick’s Italian Café or Tina’s Restaurant and David would be there humbly dispensing some of the treasure to anyone who had an empty glass. I think my time would of been better spent imagining myself becoming an NBA star or an Astronaut. I eventually relinquished my hopes of ever tasting the ‘75 Eyrie, it was just a myth, it never really existed.

The other night I went to a local restaurant to celebrate the birthday of one of my dearest friends, who happens to be the marketing manager for the Eyrie Vineyards. We were standing outside of the Red Hills Provincial restaurant in Dundee waiting for a friend to join us when my friends husband reached into his wine bag and slowly slipped a bottle out showing just the neck label. The label simply read 1975. I knew immediately that what he had in his hand was not just a bottle of wine, not just a great bottle of wine but a legend.

We sat at the table and went through a couple bottles of champagne and white wine ( including an ‘87 Eyrie Chardonnay that was beautiful ). My attention was focused on the ‘75. Finally the time came to uncork the myth.

You get nervous around a wine like that. Like the first time you doubt weather there really is a Santa Claus, you are not sure you want reality to dissolve magic. I sat anxiously as the now 33 year old cork, wet and mushy, was slowly being pulled from the wine. What if it was dead? What if it had fallen apart; a hollow core of acid, tannin and aldehydes. We might have to accept the wines mortality and with it our own. If a wine of legend cannot live up to its own myth, how am I supposed to?

The cork was expertly removed and the birthday girl placed the bottle to her nose. She grimaced. The first pour went into her glass, she swirled the glass in her hand and dipped her nose into the crystal bowl. "It’s corked. It think it is corked" she declared. I took the second pour from the glass. Like an Apostle taking Jesus off of the crucifix, I wanted my own proof of its death. I wasn’t about to let someone else declare it dead for me. I wanted to identify the body, as if I had known this wine all my life, as if I were its next of kin.

I have long learned that there are a lot of compounds in wine that have ‘fungal’ smells and have myself mistakenly declared a bottle corked because it simply smelled fungal. When I stuck my nose into that ‘75 Eyrie I certainly smelled ‘fungal’ characters. I then switched my attention to looking for the smell of chlorine. The one thing that separates cork taint, TCA ( trichloroaniasole ) from other fungal smells is that of chlorine.

What I smelled was more of a musty basement aroma, forest floor, mushroom. I swirled the wine quickly, as if doing so was some sort of CPR I could use to bring the wine back to life. I wasn’t the first to taste it, I was still afraid that I might find out that the Wizard was just a man behind a curtain. One of my winemaker friends tasted first and I knew from the movement of his eye brows alone that this was a legend not yet ready to die.

Over the next 40 minutes we were all mesmerized by the aromatic roller coaster this wine was taking us on. Fungal earthy tones followed by spices, flowers and fruit. The wines color was quite intact for its age, the fruit still there, the acid bright and focused. In the mouth the wine was pure, sexy, red velvet. It was a complex mix of pie cherry, cranberry, exotic spices, molasses. The wine showed courage and grace. It was unaware of its age and refused to use a walker or wheelchair. It was the kind of wine that wants to die alone at home, only after its knee’s, hip’s and hand’s have given out. This wine needed no help or excuses. This wine more than lived up to its own Legend.

   Ok, I admit it.  I like my work.  When I am not at the winery cleaning something or walking the vines with Chuey ( learning something ) I seem to gravitate towards yet more work.  Oh, please.  Don't feel sorry for me.  I consider tasting wine, wine I didn't make, as an important part of 'staying sharp' professionally.   I drink wine at home, usually with meals and when hanging out with friends.  I taste  wines with other wine makers, sales people, sommeliers, retailers, chefs and 'serious' wine lovers.  Most wine makers belong to some sort of a 'tasting group' that meets periodically, some meet regularly and others are a bit more sporadic.  I taste with a couple of different groups, each provides a different view point and perspective.  It helps prevent 'cellar pallet' which develops from narrowing ones wine experience to too few regions, varietals or producers.

    One such group I taste with is all wine makers.  We tend to be analytical with the wine, commenting on what we like and don't, as well as the condition of the wine.    We also work backwards with the wine; speculating on how the wine was handled, what the vintage was like, how the climate shapes the character of a wine, and of course trying to figure out how they accomplished the things we like and how they could have avoided the things we don't.  We are wine makers, it is just the way we are.

      The most recent tasting had a Piemonte nebbiolo theme.  We had 7 wines that we pulled corks from, poured them immediately and got to swirling, sniffing and slurping.  We are all Oregon Pinot Noir producers, we all make wines in a New World style; soft and lush, sweet with fruit.  We were completely unprepared for the tannins that over the next 40 minutes would precipitate on and parch our tongues.  Each wine was described, to some extent, as; tannic, hard, bitter, chalky, drying, etc.  The format of the tasting is to taste through all of the wines, making notes, then discuss each wine separately before 'disrobing' ( the wine of course ).  This format of tasting and later discussing forces us to go back to wines repeatedly over time.

      By the end of the tasting many of these wines had totally redeemed themselves.  With air they had softened and opened up, showing the powerful elegance the region is known for.  Then came the meal.  Once these wines were put into the context of food, any issues we had had with the tannins had completely disappeared.

      Sometimes you don't learn your lesson and the lesson gets repeated.  What I learned was that every wine behaves on its own timeline that will not submit to your desires.  That every wine will reach its particular zenith, like a star in the night sky, in its own due time.  I also learned that each wine has a place that it is most right.  Sometimes it is on the back patio in the late afternoon sun, other times it is with friends or next to fireplaces, most of the time it is on the table with food.

   I want to congratulate the team over at Willamette Valley Vineyards.  The Feb. 28th issue of Wine Business Monthly ( WBM ) listed them as the No. 1 " Hottest Small Brand of 2007".  To fully disclose, I will say that I have personal relationships with many members of the WVV team.  Again congratulations on a job well done.

   It got me to thinking about what "small brand" means.  In the article it states that Willamette Valley Vineyards produces " ...more than 100 ,000 cases per year-huge by Oregon standards...".   Willamette Valley is one of the largest producers in the state yet qualifies as a " Small Brand " by WBM.  I am constantly trying to put the size of Oregon's wine industry into perspective for those that live and work outside of it.  I did some digging around to try to use this honor bestowed upon Willamette Valley Vineyard as a point of reference.

     According to The Oregon Wine Board; in 2006 Oregon's wine industry sold 1,628,608 cases of wine.  That means at 100,000 cases Willamette Valley Vineyards produced 6% of the wines sold in 2006.  This might seem large but consider Montana Wines in New Zealand, where last I heard ( around 2005 ) ,  produced 50% of the wines produced in New Zealand. 

     WBM lists the " 2007 Top 30 U.S. Wine Companies " and not one Oregon winery is listed.  In fact if we were to insert the 1,628,608 cases produced by the entire state of Oregon in to the list we would be #14, just below Don Sebastiani & Sons ( #13 ) and above C. Mondavi & Sons.  Towering high at the top of the list was of course E&J Gallo at 66 million cases sold world wide.

      Last year I had the opportunity to visit Gallo's Sonoma Winery.  The winery was equipped to handle 50,000 tons, a scant 5 or 10% of Gallo's total production ( I can't remember exactly ).  In 2006 Oregon, again as a state, harvested 34,400 tons.  I find it mind boggling that just one of Gallo's wineries could hold ALL of Oregons production and still have plenty of room for more.

      To take this a step further the winery I work for, Patton Valley Vineyard ( http://www.pattonvalley.com ), crushed about 50 tons, or a mere .1%  of Oregon's production in 2006.  We are not by any means the smallest winery in Oregon.  We would represent about .0038% of Gallo's production alone.

     Why do I bother to bring this up?  Hopefully I can illustrate how hard it is for Oregon to compete on the world stage of wine.  It is hard for Willamette Valley to wade in the same water as; the Gallo's, Constellation Brands, Bronco Wine Company ( creators of two-buck-chuck ) and the like.  It is even harder for the literally hundreds of smaller producers like Patton Valley Vineyard. 

    Don't get me wrong, I am not complaining.  I think the industry being small here is what makes it special.  We have to be driven by things other than the bottom dollar.  Nearly 36% of our vineyards are certified sustainable, organic or biodynamic ( Oregon Wine Board ).  Our industries commitment to things in addition to profit reflects the larger attitude of Oregonians in general.  We love what we do and where we do it so much that we find some things more important than the almighty dollar.  This more than anything makes me proud to say I make wine in Oregon.