The 2008 Burgundies are here! There has been a lot of talk about the vintage over an extended period of time – owing to the fact that the 2008s took an extraordinarily long time to complete their élévage and be ready for bottling.

For on overview of the vintage, we’ll start with a few words from the man who is the last word on Burgundy, the Burghound himself Allen Meadows –

“At their best, the ‘08 reds are excellent wines with vibrant acidities that speak clearly and eloquently of their underlying terroirs.  They are refreshing, energetic, balanced, fresh, intense, pure and racy middle weight wines that generally carry low alcoholic levels and display ample amounts of those ineffable qualities of tension and presence.  In short, they’re classic burgundies of delicacy, finesse and grace.  Moreover, they should prove to be worthy cellar candidates for aging over the medium-term.

The 2008 whites are what I would characterize as classically styled but notably ripe wines that reflect beautifully their underlying terroirs.  You will see again and again in the tasting notes that I use such descriptors as “classic”, “textbook” and “crystalline purity”. That said, I wouldn’t necessary call them classic in the sense of promising great longevity though they should certainly repay cellaring out to about 10 to 15 years in the case of the top wines.  That said, many wines will be ready by their 5th birthdays and if you enjoy youthful fruit, then many examples of Bourgogne and villages wines are already approachable.”

Harvest in Chambolle-Musigny

Keep in mind that Allen is referring to the successful 2008s. They were not all successful. That it was a difficult vintage is not exactly a secret. For the fifth time in the last ten years a warm north-wind arrived in Burgundy two weeks before harvest to once again save the day, without which it might have been a very poor vintage indeed. 

When all is said and done, those who farmed meticulously and sorted rigorously did quite well. Those who did all of the above and took the time to listen to the wines, and allowed them to express themselves fully, did the best. This was a not a vintage to operate under “business as usual” conditions, nor one where you could succeed in trying to impose a certain style on the wines. The vintage has a strong signature, and those who had the wisdom and patience (and good fortune) to let the wines be what they wanted to be, have produced some fabulous wines.

I spent more time in the cellars tasting the 2008s than I’ve done with any previous vintage. The malolactic fermentation was the longest, slowest, and latest I’ve ever seen, making the wines at times very difficult to judge during their evolution in barrel. It wasn’t until spring of 2010 that I felt I could really get a handle on the wines – some 6 months later than is typical. 

Ultimately, 2008 is a vintage where one has to choose carefully. If you do, you will be handsomely rewarded with some excellent, classic wines. If not, there are a lot of thin, hard, and overly acidic examples that may never provide much in the way of drinking pleasure.

Hopefully I have made your selection process easier by weeding out the wines that I didn’t feel made the cut. Even among the top producers, the entire range of wines was not often consistently at the same level. I have selected for import only the bottlings that I believe in. Our reputation rides on every bottle that has our name on the back label, and I am proud to stand behind each of these newly-arrived 2008s.

I strongly recommend holding most of the reds for a minimum of 2-3 years before approaching them, as there are few if any that will drink well on the early side – speaking mostly of villages-level wines (some of the Bourgogne and other regional appellations may be ready a bit sooner.) The 1ers and Grand Crus will of course require more time in bottle – I would think 7 years from vintage for the better 1ers and 10+ for most of the GCs, as is typical. 

We’re happy to help you navigate your way through the new releases. Tasting notes and info on the wines are available here. Email me or Kelly Karr if you have any questions. Cheers, and happy imbibing!

… except it’s a grown man in a winery and tasting room – surrounded by a newly arrived container load of Burgundy & Champagne. Yes, I do love my job! I’ve tasted all of our new arrivals several times over the course of their evolution from grape to bottle, but in the name of science I must check them all out again shortly after arrival, of course!

All our fruit is happily fermenting away in the winery, and Kelley has things well in hand, so I can turn my attentions for a minute to all the new arrivals from across the pond. Watch this space and your email, as we’ll be releasing all of these exciting new wines later this week, once we get them properly accounted for and checked into inventory. As you may know, we’ve added a number of superstar producers to our portfolio, and this new shipment marks the debut of mega-stars Michel Lafarge, Bonneau du Martray, Comte Armand, and Jean-Marc & Hugues Pavelot in the Scott Paul world. And that’s just from the Burgundy side of things!

The magnificent Michel & Frédéric Lafarge

We’re also introducing three new superb grower-Champagne producers – Camille Savès, Bruno Gobillard, and José Dhondt, each of which I am madly in love with (at least with their wines, to be more accurate!)

And then there’s the new releases from Frédéric Mugnier (swoon), J-J Confuron (sigh), Buisson-Charles (ohh, yesss), Jean-Marc Millot (sublime), and all the rest of our stellar lineup that you’ve come to know and love. It truly is an embarrassment of riches. We will happily counsel you as to which of these wines need to go home with you – just be aware that many of them are truly limited in quantity, so if there’s something you really want, time is of the essence.

The Champagne vineyards of José Dhondt

All of these new wines will be making their debut at the same time as our newly refreshed website, and our brand new online shopping cart as well. There will no longer be the old-school order form on our site, but a new fully operational and searchable e-commerce shopping cart – the final tweaks of which are being tweaked as we speak. Please bear with us as there will certainly be a few glitches when it launches, but we’ll do our best to minimize any snags during the transition.

Next up – my overview on the 2008 vintage in Burgundy. Stay tuned…

All of our fruit for the 2010 vintage is now in the winery, with 5.3 tons from our blocks of Nysa Vyd. in the Dundee Hills coming in yesterday. “All” does not seem to be a good word to use this year, when you consider we averaged exactly .90 tons per acre overall this year – a very meager return in terms of quantity. For fellow Burgundy freaks – that yield would be expressed as 11hl/ha – “draconian” yields even lower than the infamous Mme. LeRoy is routinely lauded for in the press.

The pick at Nysa Vyd.

Low yields of course do not automatically lead to good quality, but in the case of 2010 in Oregon they very happily do. Of course the quality would have been just as good at 2 tons to the acre this year, but the spring rains and the hungry fall birds conspired to rob us of most of our fruit. In the end no complaints, as the quality is indeed quite lovely, and this will be a very “Scott Paul” vintage, in that the style of wines that nature gave us is exactly what we’d prefer to begin with.

Our three fermenters of Ribbon Ridge fruit are now nicely fermenting away, and we’re doing 1-2 gentle punch-downs per day. Everything else from Maresh & Nysa is ambient-soaking quietly, and we’re settling into our rhythm in the cellar. We should have everything pressed-off and in barrel by the 2nd week of November…

In the cellar in Carlton

And now we turn our attention to the best part – celebrating the harvest! There are still a few seats remaining for our 5th annual La Paulée de Carlton dinner, which we do on the first Saturday of November every year. This year it’s Nov. 6th – and we’re doing at in the private room at Farm to Fork in Dundee (because the winery will likely still be full of fermenters by then!) In the spirit of the legendary La Paulée de Meursault, all guests bring a few special bottles from their cellars to share with the group – and there are sure to lots of gems and rarities going around again this year. Seats are $125 each, and you can reserve yours with Kelly Karr or by calling 503-319-5827.

Then we’ll be at the Salud auction and Gala on Nov. 12th & 13th (tickets still available – don’t miss it!), directly followed by my next Burgundian adventure. I go to the Hospices de Beaune auction and the Paulée in Burgundy on the 3rd weekend in November each year – and this year I’m delighted to announce the addition of another great event to the agenda. On Thursday Nov. 18th, I’ll be doing my first-ever winemaker dinner in the heart of Beaune – at the way-cool private supper club The Cook’s Atelier. Chef-Owner Marjorie Taylor is an American friend who moved to Beaune two years ago, and she cooks up a storm in her intimate salon overlooking the cobblestone streets of Beaune. Only 10 seats are available, at 95 Euros per person . If you’ll be in Burgundy for Les Trois Glorieuses – come join us for a great night of food and wine! You can reserve directly with Marjorie.

À table at the Cook's Atelier

In many respects, our 2010 vintage here in Oregon is resembling the harvest I just went through in Burgundy a month ago. Beautiful quality fruit, coming in after a spell where we all thought we might be headed for disaster. Very low yields – in some sites almost 75% less than we would normally produce. Pretty much identical stories in Burgundy and the Willamette Valley this year.

Morning sun over Maresh Vyd.

It’s great to have the sunshine return for the 2-3 weeks prior to harvest and bring us perfect ripening weather. The good mojo that brought it to Burgundy this year must’ve crossed the Atlantic in the intervening weeks. What’s not so great is the birds. As in The Birds – swarms of robins and starlings in Hitchcock-ian proportions – descending on the vineyards and devouring grapes like nothing we’ve ever seen before. And this year they seemed oblivious to the shotguns, cannons, distress calls, and even the netting – nothing deterred them from their orgy of grape plundering. When all is said and done, in our old-vine blocks of Maresh vineyard I’m quite sure the birds harvested more fruit than we did. For the record – we brought in .46 tons to the acre on those blocks. We had estimated that there was maybe a little more than a ton to the acre there (low enough to begin with!), but it appears that the birds got a little more than half.

Kevin, Violet, Pirrie & Iris on the sorting line

The result is that we have just harvested perhaps the most expensive fruit in Oregon history. Our farming costs of course remain the same whether we have a half ton or 2.5 tons to the acre at the end of the day. Well, at the end of this day, it cost us just under $16,000 per ton for this fruit. High end Pinot Noir in the current market averages $3,000-$4,000 per ton, for a frame of reference. Welcome to the wonderful world of farming and winemaking…

Most importantly, however – the potential quality of everything we’ve brought in this year is excellent. It is a vintage that seems to be playing into our style very nicely – the alcohols will be nice and low right at 13%, with excellent acid & pH balance, and most importantly very expressive flavors. We’ll have a much better idea as to the character of the vintage after fermentations are through, but we are very happy with all we’ve seen and tasted to this point…

The very precious Maresh fruit in the open-top Oak fermenter

No fruit coming in today. The Ribbon Ridge we brought in last Thursday is showing signs that it is starting to ferment, and should be going strongly by tomorrow. We’ll harvest three acres of Nysa in the Dundee Hills tomorrow, and I’ll check back in here after that. Cheers!

… to those who wait! And wait we have, but it is rapidly coming to an end, as we will start harvest 2010 tomorrow morning, picking our blocks of Ribbon Ridge Vyd. It’s amazing, really, after all the hand-wringing and doom-saying, that it looks like we are heading for a really nice vintage when all is said and done. My emotions have swung from hopelessly pessimistic to wildly optimistic and all points in between – but at the end of the day we’ve got some lovely fruit ready to go over the next several days.

Nysa Vyd. in the Dundee Hills - ripe and ready...

We’ll commence with Ribbon Ridge, and then move on to the South and North blocks of Maresh early next week, and wrap up with a few acres of Nysa by mid-week. We should be looking at alcohol levels right around 13%, which makes me very happy indeed – along with good acid levels and some nice low pHs for a change – so these wines should need absolutely nothing in terms of intervention. We’ll see how it plays out, but the stage is set for a vintage that could play very nicely into our hands and our style. In a word, hallelujah!

Harvest in Volnay

Didn’t I just do this? Two weeks ago today I was still working crush in Burgundy. It is great to be able to bring back a little of that experience with me and apply it here. Now with a few days to reflect on it all, what I took away most strongly was the Burgundian understanding that “we are not in control”. They seem to inherently know and understand that no amount of stress, worry, or mathematical calculations will make the wines any different or better. Here in the New World we tend to labor under the illusion that we are in control, or that we can change or “fix” things. It seems that once we realize that we are indeed not in control, the entire process flows much easier, and all the parts fit together the way they’re supposed to. Winemaking is not a “creative” process, as we see it, but rather an “interpretive” one…

On top of the start to crush, we’ve got lots of activity coming up that I’m really looking forward to. First off is our Burgundy wine club pick-up party and tasting event this Saturday from 12-5 in Carlton – open to all, of course – and we’ll be pouring some killer bottles. including new releases from superstar Frédéric Mugnier, Anne & Hervé Sigaut, and the exciting Chateau des Rontets Pouilly-Fuissé. (We’ll also be offering the ’08 Mugnier’s on pre-arrival basis that day, as well as some ’01 Mugnier library wines – oh yes!

We have limited seating now available for our 5th annual La Paulée de Carlton dinner – this year it’s Saturday Nov. 6th, 7pm at Farm to Fork in Dundee. This is your chance to share and swap a veritable orgy of older Burgs and Pinots with all the guests, while we enjoy chef Shiloh’s 4-course study in hedonism and honor our special guest Jim Maresh -  founder of the magnificent Maresh Vineyard in the Dundee Hills. (We have the great privilege to lease several prime acres at Maresh, and have been farming it Biodynamically for three years now. It is always the source of the best wine in our cellars every year.) Also joining us is Burgundy guru Peter Wasserman, the US ambassador for Becky Wasserman Selections – the agency started by his mother in the 1970s, credited with truly introducing estate-bottled Burgundy to America in the 1970s. Tickets are $125 each – book yours now with Kelly Karr at (503) 319-5827.

While we certainly don’t make wines that are designed to get big scores from the critics (if we did we’d use a lot more new oak, pick our grapes at much higher sugar levels, and add a lot of enzymes and cultured yeasts and assorted other crap) – it sure is nice when our efforts get recognized. We’d keep doing what we do the way we do it regardless, but I’m happy to say that the way we’re doing it seems to be making a lot of folks happy these days. Leading Burgundy & Pinot critic Allen Meadows and his publication Burghound has just annointed us with his highest scores of the year for Oregon Pinot – with our ’08 Audrey and La Paulée bottlings tied for top honors with 92 points. The ’08 D122 and Dom Denise both scored 90, so that’s all four of our ’08s in the 90s from Burghound, along with all four in the 90s from Steve Tanzer, and all four in the 90s from Wine Enthusiast. The Wine Advocate reviews should be released on 10-31, and we’ll see what happens there. In all, a nice critical year for us, and huge kudos to Kelley Fox for her continued excellence!

As we get ready for what may be our latest harvest ever (maybe in a week or 10 days or so?), we wanted to be sure to remind you of the upcoming Salud wine auction and gala coming up on November 12th & 13th. Because Salud usually happens right after harvest (we may be right in the middle of it this year!), we’re so busy we don’t often get to promote it and talk about as much as we would like, or as much as this amazing event deserves.

We are so proud to be included in the 50 top Oregon wineries that are chosen to participate in what is the premiere Oregon Pinot Noir wine event and auction every year. Inspired by Burgundy’s famous Hospices de Beaune auction, Salud was created by the Oregon wine families to help fund health care for Oregon’s seasonal vineyard workers and their families. Millions of dollars have been raised over the years, and it is one of the most efficient and well-run charity organizations one could imagine.

Anne, Paul, Vicki & Keyvan - happy bidders at Salud!

The best part of course is the wines. Each of the selected producers makes a special one-barrel cuvée exclusively for Salud every vintage, with the intention that each winery puts only their very best wine each year into their Salud bottling. The wines are then auctioned off in case lots over the course of a two day event – starting with a tasting of all the wines and a big-board auction in wine country on Friday, followed by a gala dinner and live auction in Portland on Saturday night. Tickets are still available for this year’s events – Order Yours Now! Martha & I look forward to seeing you at the events, and we can’t wait to unveil our 2009 Salud Cuvée – which is a single barrel from our oldest vines at Maresh Vyd. in the Dundee Hills, planted in 1970.

My first harvest in Burgundy was a tremendous experience. If the weather gods ever conspire again to give us the window of opportunity to do harvest there and back here in Oregon in the same year, I will do it in a heartbeat.

My last two days on the ground were jam-packed, so I’ll catch you up now on all the rest of the activity. Tuesday morning was back out into the vineyards in Volnay with Frédéric Lafarge and Thiébault Huber, with photojournalist Andrea Johnson in tow shooting stuff for my upcoming book and for her various Wine Spectator assignments, etc. The fruit was coming in very clean, even at the Bourgogne level. Both of these producers are among the leading practitioners of Biodynamic winegrowing, and their efforts appeared to be paying off bigtime in what was not an easy year in the vineyards.

Thiébault Huber in Volnay, with Andrea Johnson snapping away

I then joined the crew at Violot-Gullermard in Pommard for their Paulée lunch. All of their fruit was in the barn and the team was ready to celebrate. After a huge lunch of salad, lentils with chunks of ham and andouille sausage, cheeses, cheesecake, and a multitude of wines – all I wanted to do was nap. The crew was ready to rock, however. I needed to hop into the car and roll on up to Chablis, but I believe the V-G team may still be partying as we speak!

I had a little time to spare before I needed to leave for Chablis, so I went back to Volnay to check on the fruit coming in at Lafarge. There I had the amazing privilege to work on the sorting line with Michel Lafarge, whose experienced hands were masterfully handling his 61st harvest. He’s been making great wine longer than I’ve been alive, I realized. Talk about lack of stress – this man has no worries. He’s seen it all, done it all, and is a piece of the living history of Burgundy. I want to spend as much time with this man as I can – there is so much to be learned…

Thierry & Estelle Violot with the harvest crew in Pommard

The Champions League soccer match between tiny Auxerre and the world’s biggest club – Real Madrid – was the non-wine highlight of this trip, to be sure. Frédéric Gueguen and the crew at Jean-Marc Brocard had rounded up some impossible-to-get seats for the match, and I was in soccer-geek heaven. The crowd was electrifying, the sound was deafening, the match a good one, and Auxerre was in it with a chance to win it right up until the 81st minute, when Madrid scored a disputed goal and escaped with a win they probably didn’t deserve. A draw would have been the equitable result, but it was an exciting night nonetheless. And if you ever get the chance to visit Auxerre, it is a gorgeous little town of 45,000 on the Yonne river just outside of Chablis, with spectacular ancient cathedrals and a riverside that reminds me of a little slice of Paris…

In the stadium at Auxerre

Back to the Côte d’Or on Wednesday morning, with a stop by J-J Confuron. The Chambolle-Musigny 1er was coming in, and Alain Meunier was very happy with the overall quality of the harvest across the board. Then I cruised up to Gevrey-Chambertin for a great lunch at one of my faves, Chez Guy. The escargot with tomatoes and garlic is so good I could eat that dish every day. And the 12-hour beef cheeks cooked in Pinot Noir – meltingly tender, as food-writing genius Jonathan Gold often says – “More a memory of meat than meat itself”. I would weigh 300 pounds more, but I would eat it every day, it’s that good!

Beef Cheeks at Chez Guy

Then it was back down to Pommard to visit with rockstar winemaker Benjamin Leroux at Comte Armand – who was dashing around between harvesting the Auxey-Duresses 1er Cru for Comte Armand and some Nuits-St. Georges 1er Cru for his Benjamin Leroux label – but still looking relaxed and pretty mellow about it all. Ben has been making great wine since 1999, when he was the ripe old age of 22. Now at the advanced age of 35, is best days are still ahead of him. This is one very talented dude, indeed.

In the cellar with Benjamin Leroux

Favorite memories of this trip: A night full of increasingly bawdier Burgundian drinking songs with the harvest team at Huber-Verdereau. Working the sorting line with the venerable Michel Lafarge. Sorting the Romanée-St. Vivant at Confuron. A morning run through 9 Grand Crus. The twinkle in Thierry Violot’s eye. Harvest in Meursault with everyone at Buisson-Charles. Harvest lunches with the crews at Jean-Marc Millot, J-J Confuron, Chateau des Rontets, Violot-Guillemard, Huber-Verdereau, Frédéric Gueguen and Buisson-Charles. Dinner at Caves Madeleine, Champagne at Maison Colombier, and the insane roar of the crowd at Stade l’Abbé Dechamps in Auxerre…

And what did I learn? In a word – patience. And that stress and worry doesn’t make anything better. And not to be afraid of a little rain (especially after watching DRC pick Romanée-Conti a couple hours after a massive downpour.) And I got to see in action the embodiment of the Taoist and Zen concept of reacting to anything that might initially appear to be a negative with the thought – “How do we know this might not be a good thing?” May a little bit of that rub off on us for our Oregon harvest – which is now maybe two weeks away? Stay tuned…

Harvest in Romanée-Conti