Les Blog

We have a blend for the Peugeot: 40% Cabernet Sauvignon, 30% Merlot, and 30% Cabernet Franc. And we’re going to make as much of it as we can.

We tasted this winning blend from the trials last weekend against a Cab Sauv-dominated blend of 70% CS, 15% M, and 15% CF, but we unanimously agreed that the Cab-centric blend lacked the depth, nose, complexity and pleasure of the 40/30/30 blend. That blend, by contrast, had a fantastic, berry-bramble nose (largely courtesy of the Franc), great sustain of flavor throughout the taste, and a wonderful, fresh and long finish. Good weight, but still young: a few more months in barrel - and maybe one more racking - will probably give this baby the weight it needs to take it to the stratosphere.

So we’ll put all the Cab Sauv into this blend, squirreling away 2 barrels’ worth until the spring, bottling the remainder as an early release with the balance of the Franc and Merlot. For those, James had the excellent idea of blending a little bit of the Merlot into the Franc, and after a few trials, we settled a on 7% Merlot addition - added weight and smoothness while keeping the spotlight firmly on the Franc.

The blends firmly in hand, we racked the Cab Sauv and the Merlot, but left the Franc alone - it tasted pretty drinkable as is, so we opted to keep it fresh.

[ Mike live-blogging our blending trials, Saturday. - Ziraud ]

Cab Sav Solo: Unimpressive, oakey beast

Merlot Solo: Varietally correct with a flavor slump in the middle

Cab Franc Solo: Intriguing acids and nose, impressive possibilities

[ all blend recipes Cab Sauv / Merlot / Cab Franc - Z ]

50/30/20: aboriginal, not meaty enough, war, oaky, ripe? but somehow… lifeless.

40/30/30: the mix to beat, oak subdued and the structure enhanced

30/40/30: nose like previous but too hot, candy-like, flabby

40/35/25: boring, candy dandy, not much nose, life savers

45/30/25: pretty good, big upfront, no middle, surprisingly long tail, no nose, many (but certainly not all) liked this one

40/25/35: meh

42/30/28: more sack, no more drop-off in the middle, sweet pillowy nose, nice finish, bacon

[ 2 favorites blended and then served back to tasters blind -Z ]

A: Nice but no cigar

B: Stronger acids, tannins, flavor depths

Ta-da! A = 42/30/28, B = 40/30/30, so 40/30/30 is da winner and still champion!

and it’s got lots of sac(k)!

[Pics below the fold -Z]
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What does Oregon taste like? After last night, I’d have to say “a 1999 Cristom Reserve.”

Simply incredible: Handsome brickiness to the rim, like a little gray at the temples. Lovely deep ripe cherry scent, wearing a thin but elegant veil of oak. Still lively and optimistic, but with a tinge of worldliness hard-won in the cellar. Silky. Dark cherry, raspberry, and ripe plum flavors that have the depth of a well — you drop in a penny and it seems to fall forever. And when it sounds bottom, that gently reverberating echo you hear is the oak and acid, somehow defining the structure with no physical presence at all. Most bewitching of all, the hard, cinnamon taste of (I’m guessing) ripe pinot stems, evoking the character of the plant, the site, the hillside in late harvest, sun-baked, orange and russet.

It’s the taste of a decade past, that 1999 harvest that came out of nowhere and seemed to last forever. Complete and beautiful, an archetype of Oregon pinot: a little wild and brambly, but pure, authentic fruit. Transcendent. Like and old friend; like Oregon.

James and I did an article on Steve Doerner, Cristom’s soft-spoken but incredibly talented winemaker, nearly a decade ago. One of his predilections is adding whole clusters to the fermenter, something you don’t do casually because unripe stems can highjack a wine and send it into the vegetable patch. But late in the season, if grapes are still hanging, the stems dessicate to a rich, warm brown and their flavor turns toward cinnamon.

I can’t say for sure, but it sure tastes like whole clusters must have played a role in this wine, and that’s in part what makes it so complex and evocative. The harvest in 1999 was long enough that Steve would indeed have had ripe stems at his disposal, and the resulting wine has those distinctive spice notes.

In short, stunning. 106 points, you Calipalate critic bastards. Read more

Virtually all professional winemakers finish the tops of their wine bottles with some kind of capsule — and while we are as unprofessional as they come, we’ve mostly done the same. Whether it’s composed of wax, lead, tin, or plastic, the capsule is thought to help protect the cork from microbial intrusion, but also to betray any evidence of tampering. A swig-safety cap, if you will.

But what if that seal — whose function is to keep the wine safe — is itself unsafe? That’s what I wondered when I discovered that the capsules we’d been using (and most of the industry uses) are made from PVC, a material targeted by scores of watchdog agencies for its dire environmental impact.

So I did some research, and the surprisingly terrifying results spurred me into a little R&D about how to finish our treasured bottles differently. This gripping journey of revelation and redemption awaits you below the fold… Read more

Whit, James and I (joined by James’ friend Bill) racked all the wines on Wednesday night, rigorously (of course!) tasting through all the barrels and carboys to ensure top quality. A few notes to share:

The Perils of a Stainless Steel Tank. We’ve been housing whatever merlot didn’t fit in the barrel in a new 100 liter stainless steel tank. When we opened it up, however, the perils of not filling it absolutely to the top became apparent: a white film had formed on the surface of the wine, probably candida mycoderma. We wrangled it out and sprayed the surface with ethyl alcohol. In sampling the wine, there was no obvious acetaldehyde formation (an oxidized or stale sense to the wine which can result from over-exposure to candida), so we proceeded to rack it.

In refilling the tank, we poured in wine until screwing in the top just barely squirted out wine, so there should be no more trouble with candida. That said, we may want to sulfite the merlot a little more highly at the next (and final) racking.

Specific tasting notes after the jump.
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Last Saturday, we put together a small blind tasting with the object of seeing what difference we could tease out of a handful of vineyard-designated reds. I’d been wanting to try a Ciel du Cheval and a Champoux Vineyard wine, so I picked up a recent model at my favorite wine shop. James pitched in a Table Rock, and I pulled a Klipsun Les Garagistes from downstairs.

I asked my wife to scramble them and put them in brown paper bags. So I knew what all the wines were, but not which bag they were in; James knew about the Table Rock; everyone else had no idea where the wines came from.

Here’s what we tasted:

• 2002 Soos Creek Champoux Vineyard Red Wine
• 2001 Table Rock Oregon Merlot
• 2004 Andrew Will Ciel du Cheval Red Wine
• 2003 Les Garagistes Klipsun Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon

I was pretty sure the Andrew Will would stand above the rest, with anything from the Champoux vineyard following close behind, even though I’d never tasted a Soos Creek before. I just tossed in the Garagistes to fill out the flight.

So who won? You won’t believe me, and I don’t blame you. But that don’t mean it ain’t true: Les Garagistes, unanimously. It’s the power of good grapes from a good vineyard, for sure.

But please, scoff all you want. We’ll console ourselves with Klipsun.

23 May ‘07, the 2003 Cabernet Sauvignon seems to have turned a corner and may be entering it’s maturity. Color is a little rusty at the edge, flavor is smooth and it has precipitated a fine pile of tartaric crystals. Drink a bottle today!