The Wine Knows

One item of note as we prep for our Riesling competition this weekend: The noble white wine grape of Germany and Alsace is produced throughout the Pacific Northwest. In fact, I'm a bit amazed at how many various appellations are represented on wine bottles.

For the second consecutive year, a wine from British Columbia has won best of show at the annual Northwest Wine Summit. This year, however, the victorious wine was more "traditional."

The winner was Mission Hill Family Estate for its 2006 Select Lot Collection Riesling Icewine.

The Wine Press Northwest crew is up on Mount Hood for the annual Northwest Wine Summit, the largest judging of Pacific Northwest wines.

This year, we have nearly 1,200 entries, a big increase over last year's 1,060. Judges the South and Pacific Northwest began judging after lunch today and will continue through Tuesday afternoon.

Look at those words up in the headline. Until now, we've never seen them on a bottle of wine. But yesterday, I saw that a Petite Sirah from Spangler Vineyards in Southern Oregon's Umpqua Valley had shown up as a new release. Before this year, putting "Petite Sirah" on a wine label in Oregon was against the law.

As I mentioned last month in one or two posts, I was rather dismayed by the high alcohols in many Oregon wines during our judging of Northwest Pinot Noirs. We had many wines above 14% alcohol - and a few above 15%.

Two weeks ago, I was chatting with Terry Casteel, co-owner/winemaker of Bethel Heights Vineyard in Oregon's Eola-Amity Hills. We got on the subject of high alcohols, and he was able to share some insights on the issues Oregon winemakers have faced since 1998.

David O'Reilly, who co-founded Sineann and now is co-owner/winemaker of the highly sought-after Owen Roe wines near Newberg, Ore., has always been interested in making wines from Washington state grapes. Now, he's making an even bigger move into the Evergreen State.

I just found a couple of great reports on the National Agricultural Statistics Service Web site (does this make me a geek, a procrastinator - or both?). One of them looks at several statistics for Oregon vineyards and wineries for the past decade.

What we see is some startling growth for the United States' fourth-largest wine-producing state.

Looking for some wonderful insight into the Oregon wine scene with a lot of international flavor tossed in? Elevage has joined the "must read" spot in my RSS feed. It's written by Vincent Fritzsche, a Portland resident who loves wine, apparently goes to a lot of wineries, makes his own noncommercial Pinot Noir and is hoping to get into the wine business.

As I'm preparing my report on Northwest Pinot Noirs for the Spring issue of Wine Press Northwest, I have been flummoxed by more than a few Oregon wineries who list their case production of Pinot Noir in six-bottle "cases."

I don't get this. Six bottles of 750 ml bottles make a half-case of wine, not a case.

Privé Vineyard is a tiny producer in Oregon's Chehalem Mountains. Mark and Tina Hammond run their vineyard and winery, with Mark handling the viticulture and Tina making the wine.

I met the couple back in 2001 while researching my book. Their winery was still being built, and they were storing the dozen barrels for their first vintage inside nearby Laurel Ridge Winery. It turns out I was the first wine writer to taste and review their wines.