HOGSWINE

2004 Helix ‘Pomatia’

Pairs with:

Mark Inglis, the 47 year old double amputee who managed to scale the world’s most over hyped mountain after losing both legs from frostbite. Nice!

Why? Wine has legs, will travel.

We headed out of the house around 1 pm with high hopes and a backpack full of sustenance. Josh grabbed a few knives, because you never know; and I took a bag filled with bags for gathering the gallons of morels we knew we would find.

By the time we reached the snow line it felt right to crack open the beer from Laht Neppur. I desperately needed inner strength to climb up the hills and their Oatmeal Porter provided me with this in Popeye-esque quantities. Unfortunately, our first spot was a failure so my brother and I drove down the mountain a few miles to find some private property.

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Chateau Twin Hidden Oaks Peak River Valley Vineyard and Winery.

Why does it seem like the majority of small wineries in this country use the same nouns and natural features for the name of their business?  Be original.

Now for the description on the back of my label, I feel like “winemaking is my passion” has a nice ring to it…

“From an industry that produced ‘Model-T’ wines barely three decades ago have come incredibly interesting wines. Many of them have literally challenged the world’s best.

But for all my enthusiasm, I can’t help but retain a latent feeling of gloom. I worry about the American wine audience. It is so new, so young, so interested in just tasting and drinking and not in appreciating. There aren’t enough people around who will stand up for better wine.

If the consumer does not speak out, if the wine industry goes on unchecked, uncontrolled, and unknowing, we will all be drinking Chevrolet’s and Fords, perhaps at reasonable prices (although I doubt that), but certainly without any reasonable hope of complexity, depth of flavor, or lingering finish in our wines.”

-Nathan Chroman. The Treasury of American Wines, 1976, pg 203.

What do you think? Was he right?

I was rummaging through a stack of books that my grandmother said I could have when I found treasure. The book is called “The Treasury of American Wines” and was written by Nathan Chroman back in 1976. The book has a section each on California and New York with all other wine regions in America grouped into one chapter. I’m amused that more attention is given to Ohio wines than any other state in the book besides New York and California. Being obsessed with Washington it was naturally the first page to which I turned. Here is what Mr. Chroman has to say.

“An interesting experiment is taking place in the Yakima Valley in the state of Washington, where…Ste. Michelle Vineyards is attempting to produce varietal wines from the Semillon, Cabernet Suavignon, Pinot Noir, Grenache and Johannisberg Riesling grapes.

If Ste. Michelle is any indication, the wine picture looks food for Washington State, espeically when the wineries get the hang of making better reds and a good Chardonnay…It will be a most interesting wine era, with Washington State, as well as Oregon, challenging California.”

A great forecast for what we have now here in Washington. But far more interesting is what he sees ahead for the future of the wine industry in America. I will look at some of these observations in a couple of days.

For a place that makes so much great wine, I sure wish Washington state and Walla Walla wine in particular got more attention. Oh well, more for me.

Let’s talk about Petite Sirah.

It’s delicious.

We don’t really have a great wine store here in Walla Walla, so finding uncommon varietal wines from anywhere else can be a challenge. I went to the grocery store the other night and picked up a couple of bottles of Petite Sirah. One was a Concannon “limited edition” (aren’t all wines limited editions, I’m not fooled Ms. Marketer) and the other was Parducci, Both in the range of $10-13.   I think I finally met my true love.

Last year I came out of college with a Bachelor’s in the highly useful-to-winemaking field of …history.

I spent 3 long months looking for work before I found an ad in the local paper by Dusted Valley Vintners seeking help for 2007 crush. During my interview, which took place outside, bright sunlight shone into my eyes as I tried to avoid moving too much, lest I start sweating. Chad Johnson, wine-maker and co-owner, donned aviators while chatting about the restaurant business, his appreciation for great wine, and his desire that nothing get screwed up during crush, all while I squintily listened in his general direction. He gave me the job, which would require helping on all aspects of the wine-making process; getting the grapes in, processed, and ready for barreling. I began looking forward to two months of some pretty hard work and what I thought would be a great learning experience. Now, I don’t really consider myself a hands-on kind of guy. I have soft hands and when I work with tools I usually end up using them on myself, much to my painful dismay.

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I’m not a geologist.

Nor do I have any more than a passing interest in terroir and how important it might be.

What I do know and care about is that the story of Washington state, and more specifically, the Walla Walla Valley becoming a great place to grow grapes is fascinating. It is one that involves one of the greatest cataclysmic events in recent history, a glacier thousands of feet high, a gigantic lake that once covered a large swath of Montana and floods that swept over the eastern half of my favorite state.  In a few weeks I am going to tell the story of how Glacial Lake Missoula formed, what happened over the course of centuries when it drained, and what it all means when pulling out the cork (or unscrewing the cap off!) from your favorite bottle of Washington wine.