Archive for 2012

In Portland – a Champagne & Pinot Celebration!

Friday, December 28th, 2012

Get ready for your New Year’s festivities and kick off the weekend with us at Scott Paul PDX on Friday night Dec. 28th from 5-8pm.

We’ll be featuring a special flight of Pinot and top Grower Champagnes, including an amazing value NV Extra Brut from Vincent Couche, a stunning rarity Brut Nature from Jérôme Coessens, and the flat-out brilliant 2004 Millésime from Camille Savès, plus more Scott Paul Pinots (and some Magnums too!)

Tasting fee is $15, refundable with any 3-bottle purchase of the featured wines. Happy New Year!

Grower Champagne & Grand Cru Burgundy – Dec. 21 & 22

Saturday, December 22nd, 2012

In Portland – Friday Dec. 21st 5-8pm

In Carlton – Saturday Dec. 22nd 12n-5p

Join us this weekend for a special holiday flight of great Grower Champagnes and Grand Cru Burgundy!

Burgundy's iconic Chateau de Vougeot

It’s a line-up of goodies perfect for gift-giving or your holiday entertaining, or both! We’ll be pouring two great bubblies from rising star Marc Chauvet – the NV Brut Sélection, and the new release 2005 Millésime Brut. From Burgundy, you’ll taste the 2009 Echezeaux from Jean-Marc Millot, and the 2010 Clos Vougeot from J-J Confuron!

$25 tasting fee, refunded with any 3-bottle purchase of the featured wines

In Carlton – Clos des Mouches Vertical, Saturday December 15th

Saturday, December 15th, 2012

Join us in Carlton on Saturday Dec. 15th from 12-5p for a very special tasting. We’ll be pouring three vintages of one of Burgundy’s legendary 1er Cru vineyards, Beaune Clos des Mouches, from rising star producer Thierry Violot-Guillemard. Come taste the 2008, 2009 & 2010 Clos des Mouches – all of which will be available for sale as well. And we’ll be pouring both of our current-release Scott Paul Pinots too.

$10 tasting fee, refundable with any 3-bottle purchase of the featured wines.

In Portland – All Scott Paul on Friday night Dec. 14th

Friday, December 14th, 2012

5-8pm, Friday night at Scott Paul PDX – it’s a special All-Scott-Paul flight, featuring our extremely limited Scott Paul 2009 Meursault (only 5 cases available), and all of our 2010 Pinots, three of the highest scoring wines in this year’s report from Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate - the La Paulée (91WA), Les Gourmandises (92WA), and Audrey (92WA) cuvées.

$10 for the flight, refundable with any 3-bottle purchase of the featured wines.

In Carlton – Top White Burgundies, Saturday Dec. 8th

Saturday, December 8th, 2012

It’s our best White Burgundy tasting flight yet! Be here in Carlton on Saturday December 8th from 12n-5p for these gorgeous white Burgs, including 1er & Grand Cru:

2009 Chablis Fourchaumes 1er CruFrédéric Gueguen

2009 Pouilly-Fuissé, les Birbettes - Chateau des Rontets

2010 Chassagne-Montrachet - Benjamin Leroux

2009 Meursault, Bouches-Chères 1er CruBuisson-Charles 

2009 Corton-CharlemagneBonneau du Martray

Some of the most dazzling examples of Chardonnay on the planet, all in your glass, and ready to go to a good home :) $20 tasting fee, refundable with any 3-bottle purchase of the featured wines.

In Portland – Friday night Dec 7th – Exquisite Wines & Designs

Friday, December 7th, 2012

Join us tonight Friday, Dec 7th 5-7 pm in our Scott Paul PDX space to meet the incredibly talented jewelry designer Siri Healy and get an eyeful of her new collection. Trained at the Le Arti Orafe Jewelry Academy in Florence, Italy, Siri works from her studio in Leavenworth, WA, where she transforms recycled silver and gold into a line of sleek, wearable, and contemporary jewelry. Siri is reinvigorated and more inspired than ever after taking over a year off to focus on healing from breast cancer. This is a wonderful opportunity to come see her latest designs while you enjoy a flight of stellar wines perfect for drinking and gifting this season.

We’ll be pouring the stellar Forget-Chemin 2006 Special Club Champagne, plus all the new-release Scott Paul Pinots. $10 flight refunded with any jewelry purchase or with any 3-bottle purchase.

First look at the 2012s in barrel…

Tuesday, December 4th, 2012

With all of the 2012 wines settled comfortably in barrel for a number of weeks now, it was time for Kelley Fox and I to taste through the cellar and get out first post-harvest look at what these babies are all about. The ideal growing conditions throughout the season gave us perfectly ripe and healthy fruit to work with, and as we’ve mentioned here previously, the potential for outstanding quality was clearly there from the beginning.

I am delighted to report that post-fermentation, the wines are more than living up to their potential. Superb balance is the keyword of the vintage for me at this point – delicious fruit richness, with acidity and tannins working together in harmony to pull together a seamless package. The tannins are very silky and already nicely integrated. The alcohol levels average around 13.4%, and there is a juiciness to the wines that reminds me of the young 2005s in Burgundy, or the Oregon 2002s at this same stage.

Malolactic fermentation has yet to start, so we still have changes ahead over the next few months. Normally by sometime in February or March malo will be through, and then we can take our next serious assessment. I’m not expecting a severe change in the wines post-malo this year, as the malic acid levels are relatively low this time around, so changes will not be as dramatic as in 2010 or 2011.

Looking at the individual lots, I especially liked Block 10 from Maresh – already rich and creamy textured, but with enough balancing acidity to give it a nice edge. Maresh Block 12, higher up the hill, showed a little more structure and concentration, with some nice blackberry notes as well. The old-vine Wadesnwill clone in Block 1 was just packed with deep, dense fruit and gorgeous aromatics, while Block 2, which sits directly behind it, is at this stage much more precise, pretty, and elegant. There is but one barrel of Block 7, which is an outlier to the rest, with a more pronounced grip on the finish.

Our acreage at Nysa vineyard produced the spiciest lot to this point, with nice crisp acid matched up against the trademark red berry fruit of the Dundee Hills. It is clearly going to be a beauty, and probably one worth bottling separately again this year.

Azana, our new estate vineyard on Chehalem Mountain was in its 5th-leaf in 2012, and is is often the case with young vines, produced a delicious wine from its first full crop (which was a scant 1-ton to the acre this year.) It shows distinct minerality, and a nice balance of red and black fruit flavors at this point. This could be another candidate for a single-vineyard bottling – we’ll see where it goes.

Over at Ribbon Ridge Vineyard, we’ve got what may be the best wine from this site we’ve produced yet. It seems very deep and long, and just plain yummy. Our 2008 D122 bottling came from here, and once again we may have the potential for something that could stand on its own…

On another subject entirely – we have a ridiculously excellent line-up of tasting events scheduled through the end of the year, so please check out the listings and plan to join us. I don’t know what I’m more psyched up for – Grower Champagne & Grand Cru Burgundy on December 21st, the top-of-the-line White Burgundy tasting on Dec. 8th, or maybe the all-Scott Paul flight on Dec. 14th, including a rare tasting of my 2009 Meursault (only 300 bottles produced.) We look forward to seeing you, every Friday night in Portland, and every Saturday in Carlton…

2011 Audrey Futures!

Friday, November 30th, 2012

As is our tradition, we’ll be pouring the new vintage of our top-of-the-line Audrey Pinot Noir every weekend in November, and offering it as FUTURES at a special price.

The 2011 Audrey is all from our old-vine blocks at Maresh Vineyard in the Dundee Hills, and always a selection of our favorite few barrels of the vintage – the best-of-the-best. Only 8 barrels were selected for the 2011 Audrey, less than 200 cases produced.

You can taste the wine every Friday night in November at Scott Paul PDX, and every Saturday in November at the winery in Carlton. The 2011 Audrey will be offered at $50 per bottle as futures, with a minimum 6-bottle purchase, and offered only in 6-bottle increments. Upon release in April 2013, any remaining bottles will be offered at the full price of $75 per bottle.

In Portland – White Burgundies, Friday night Nov. 30th

Friday, November 30th, 2012

Friday night at Scott Paul PDX from 5-8pm – Don’t miss this great line-up of delicious White Burgundies from every major sector of the region:

2009 Chablis VVFrédéric Gueguen

2008 St. Véran, Champ RondDomaine Thibert

2009 Pouilly-Fuissé, Clos VarambonChateau des Rontets

The stunning Chateau des Rontets estate in Fuissé

2009 Meursault VVBuisson-Charles

2010 Puligny-MontrachetBenjamin Leroux

Also, this will be your last chance to taste and order FUTURES of the gorgeous 2011 Audrey Pinot Noir at $50 per bottle(sold in 6-packs only) – it will be $75 per bottle upon release in April 2013.

$15 for this special flight, refundable with any 3-bottle purchase of the featured wines.

Thanksgiving Weekend – PDX and Carlton Events, Nov 23 & 24

Saturday, November 24th, 2012

Thanksgiving Weekend and wine tasting go together like turkey and Pinot Noir…it’s a natural.  We’ve got a few options for you and we hope you’ll bring your friends and relatives along. At both locations, we’ll pour our current Oregon Pinot release, plus a selection of wines from our Burgundy and Champagne import portfolio. We’ll also offer a taste our 2011 Audrey Pinot, our reserve-level wine, available this month as futures. Only 200 cases made.

In Carlton: Friday, Nov 23rd and Saturday, Nov 24, noon – 5 pm.

In Portland: At our new Scott Paul PDX space, Friday night Nov. 23rd 5-8 pm.