NEW Shirts Available
New brand of shirts with Pinot Noir Lover are now available in both mens and women's sizes. Cost is $25.00 and the shirts are a relaxed fit, wrinkle-resistant fabric. Send an email to order and state size - a invoice will be sent to confirm your purchase for both the size and color requested.
Colors include Stone, Dark Blue, Sky Blue, Pink and Blue. Other colors available upon request.
Shirts, vests, books, magazine subscriptions, movies and other Sale Items have Arrived!
Several items are now available to purchase for the wine enthusiast! Check out the vests, polo shirts, T-Shirts, bags and other items which are available. Use your Credit Card to purchase! Shirts start at $25 and vests at $49!
Something Different? Pick up a book, magazine or movie related to wine! Check out John Cleese DVD "Wine for the confused" in the book, magazines and movie section.
--------------------------------------------------
Palate Pleasing Pinot
WesMar is a small winery in the Russian River Valley located in an old apple processing plant. The owners, Denise Mary Selyem is the daughter of Ed Selyem and both her and her husband Kirk Wesley Hubbard worked at Williams Selyem for several years before the winery was sold in 1997. They hand craft their wines using old traditional methods with a soft touch and an elegant style. They have no employees – doing all the work themselves to craft small lot Pinot Noir.
This two person team seem to want to make great Pinot Noir and are not out to chase scores (they don’t even submit their wines to any of the multitude of wine reviewers) or even go out and push their wines at any of the many Pinot Noir events around the state. No, they are a modest couple who seem to want to stay out of the spotlight and let their wines speak for them. Recently, after doing 7 vintages, they have done one winemaker dinner and that was just recently. Kirk and Denise lover to interact with their loyal and growing fan base of consumers and are very personable and receive visitors to their modest 1,500 square foot winery on an appointment bases only.
The only way to get their wines is to sign up on their website and join their mailing list. This limited production (1500 cases a year) is sold almost exclusively to this mailing list. There are two distinctive hallmarks of WesMar (pronounced Wes-Mare as in MARy) Pinot Noir. There is a consistency from one vintage to the next and from bottle to bottle and the bottling's from each vintage are all unique. They strive to make wines that are unique but with very similar levels of richness and depth. The wine making is slow and focused on caring for the fruit the entire process. No pumps, all labor done by hand. Pressing is done with an old incarnated bladder press once used for apples, fermentations are in five ton, double-wall, rectangular open top stainless steel shipping milk shipping containers and all punch downs are done by hand. Picking is done based on taste of the fruit but usually with a much lower sugar level (Brix) than a lot of producers in the area. Aging is in Francois Freres oak barrels and there is no fining or filtering done as the wines are lovingly tendered in small lots and constantly monitored for stability.
Recently, Kirk and Denise purchased a small farmhouse on ten acres just outside the town of Sebastopol that previously grew apples. Over time, it is their plan to plant Pinot Noir and produce an estate bottling. Wines are released each year on February 14th and pick up weekend is in April.
Recently I had the pleasure of visiting with Kirk and Denise and taste through the current release. The Pinot Noirs include, 2006 WesMar Salzgeber Vineyard Russian River Valley Pinot Noir (157 cases), 2006 WesMar Balletto Vineyard Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir (291 cases), 2006 WesMar Oehlman Vineyard Russian River Valley Pinot Noir (261 cases), 2006 WesMar Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir (355 cases), and 2006 WesMar Russian River Valley Pinot Noir (322 cases). They think this is a more “feminine” vintage and should develop nicely over the next several years.
Wes Mar Winery mailing address is P.O. Box 810, Forestville, CA 95436. Tasting is available by appointment by calling 707-829-8824. The website is www.wesmarwinery.com. The wines are sold through a mailing list with very little retail availability.
WINE...I drink it when I'm happy and when I'm sad. Sometimes I drink it when I'm alone. When I have company I consider it obligatory. I trifle with it if I'm not hungry and drink it when I am. Otherwise I never touch it - unless I'm thirsty. Comments or Questions? click here! |
|
|
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
DDO Celebrates 20 years in Oregon
20 years is not a long time in terms of Burgundy, but it is a considerable time frame when talking about Pinot Noir in Oregon. Recently, Domain Drouhin Oregon (DDO) celebrated the 20th anniversary in l987 the Drouhin family of Beaune France purchased land in the Dundee Hills of the Willamette Valley. This didn’t happen purely by chance, as Robert Drouhin had visited the area in the early 1960’s and been impressed by the now legendary Eyrie Vineyards South Block Pinot Noir. Robert's daughter Véronique having finished her advanced degree in enology from the University of Dijon in 1986, wanted to explore other locations and was able to intern at several vineyards in the area (Adelsheim, Bethel Heights, Eyrie) during the 1986 vintage. Shortly after a piece of land become available and Robert and Véronique came to Oregon to explore the site and make the decision to ‘put down roots’.
The first major planting occurred in 1989 but wine had been produced with purchased fruit starting in 1988. The Drouhin family takes a very long view of a vineyard and made the decision to use a phylloxera-resistant rootstock and import the Dijon clones from Burgundy through Oregon State University. DDO became the first vineyard in Oregon to use the Dijon clones (and maybe the first on the Pacific coast for that matter). Spacing of the vines was done at a 1-meter by 1.3-meter making them the most densely planted vineyard in the State.
Over the years, Veronique Drouhin-Boss (her husband, Michel Boss, is a website designer and together they have three children) has been a long-distance winemaker and continues to live in Beaune, traveling periodically to Oregon to oversee DDO. Fed Ex sends barrel samples to her so she can monitor the progress of the wines. The wines from DDO have emphasized balance and elegance over the bold more fruit driven Pinots of California.
The occasion of the 20th anniversary brought together Veronique and her three brothers, Philippe, Laurent and Frederic, for the first time at DDO in a very long time. Frédéric is the General Manager of Mason Joseph Drouhin, Philippe is Manager of Estates and Laurent is Regional Commercial Director. To celebrate bringing the family siblings together, a special dinner was held at the Winery for invited guests. Fortunately, Janeen and I were included in the list of invitees and it was event not to be missed.
The dinner was prepared by Chef Philippe Boulout from The Heathman Restaurant and Bar and Chef Vitaly Paley from Paley’s Place both fantastic restaurants in Portland. The food and wine flowed over the course of several hours and all had a wonderful evening.
Vertical Wine Dinner
Domaine Drouhin Oregon Pinot Noir
Hosts David & Janeen Lee
Recently, my wife and I hosted a vertical wine dinner of wines from Domaine Drouhin Oregon from 1992 through 2006. This covered 15 vintages of their Willamette Valley Pinot Noir plus several vintages of the Laurene and Louise Pinot Noir. The wines were matched with food pairings from the Chef at the Parkway Grill in Pasadena. Over the course of several hours, all wines were opened and shared with 17 invited guests including the David Millman, the General Manager from DDO, Rusty Gaffney the Prince of Pinot, and Gregg Smith the Owner of the restaurant and Tom Anderson the guy I can credit directly with suggesting I start collecting these wonderful wines.
The evening started off with a few glasses of Arthur, Chardonnay from the 2004 and 2005 releases. These were served with Crab Croquettes with Saffron Aioli and Tartare and Quail Egg Yolk as guests gathered for the evening. Once everyone arrived, the festivities began!
David Millman, GM at DDO
Sitting around a ‘U’ shaped table, guests soon learned about the history of Domaine Drouhin Oregon from David Millman. While being getting this history lesson, Pinot Noir from 2006, 2005, 2004 and 2003 was poured and the first course, Pappadelle and Morel Terrine with bitter greens and friend hearts of plam was delivered. The first and only surprise happened while the 2003 were being poured – a corked bottle was discovered! Fortunately there was a second bottle. Moving to the second course, Smoked scallop “Sandwich” with pinot aigre doux, proscuitto and grapefruit and wines from 2002, 2001, 2000 and 1999 were poured.
Gary, Cindy, Hoss and David
The evening began to get a little nosy at this point – after all a good deal of wine had been consumed – but isn’t that what a good evening of food and wine is all about? So the third course, cassoulet of veal cheeks with chanterelles mushroom and beets was delivered and wines from 1998, 1997, 1996 and 1995 were poured. Now we are drinking wines that have some true bottle age – and much to everyone’s surprise – and pleasure, they were all still very fresh, fruit driven wines!
Rusty aka Prince of Pinot and David - Read Rusty's review of the evening in PinotFile
The last three wines, 1994, 1993 and 1992 were poured and served with porrcini encrusted lamb loin with mustard mousse, tomato sabayon bubbles and English peas. I was amazed to see the 1992 and 1993 taste so ‘young’! These wine still show great fruit and structure and appears that they could go a few more years (alas, these were my last bottles of this years).
Finishing out the evening were bottles of the 2001, and 2000 release of Lauren and the 1999 and 2003 Louise. These two wines are much more intense with a good deal more structure than the Willamette Valley release and are meant to be aged. While both were delicious now, they clearly will improve with time in the bottle. The early wines were all in tech 13.0% alcohol range with the more current releases getting to 14.!%. All of them very Burgundian in style.
So, after several hours of great foods and wines everyone had to leave – but with a wonderful memory of great wines and wonderful food.
See more pictures of the evening here.....
-------------------------------------------------------------