With summer upon us, we find ourselves drinking more white wines than we usually do. We recently had another one of our double-blind private tastings. This time when we sat down for dinner, all we knew were that the two wines were white, but we did not know their region of origin or varietal. For a more complete description of how we set up these private tastings, please refer back to my Private Tasting: Rioja post from February.

During dinner, one of these wines really stood out. All four of us Wine Peeps preferred it over the other wine. When we finished eating and pulled off the sacks to reveal what we had been drinking, we found two Rieslings from Washington State. The 2006 Poet’s Leap Riesling had easily beaten the 2006 Icicle Ridge White Riesling.

Poet’s Leap is one of the wineries in the Long Shadows Vintners group. Long Shadows is a coterie of wineries located in the Columbia Valley. Long Shadows brings some of the most highly acclaimed winemakers from different regions around the world to Washington to make world-class wines comparable to the wines they make in their native wine regions. The winemaker for Poet’s Leap is Armin Diel who is one of Germany’s most acclaimed Riesling producers.

Armin Diel has done an excellent job with this Riesling. If you are looking for an excellent summer white, I encourage you to pick up a bottle of Poet’s Leap.

2006 Poet’s Leap Riesling [Long Shadows] (Columbia Valley, Washington): Elegant floral aromas give way to flavors of peaches and grapefruit on the palate. Off-dry and well-balanced with crisp acidity and a nice finish.
Quality: 4 stars (out of 5)
QPR: 4 bangs for your buck (out of 5)
Where to buy: Pete’s Wine Shop (Seattle), $18.69, Available elsewhere, $16 to $24

2006 Icicle Ridge White Riesling (Washington State): Pears and apples on the nose. Tastes a lot like white grape juice. Semi-sweet and a bit syrupy.
Quality: 2.5 stars (out of 5)
QPR: NR (not recommended)
Where to buy: Winery, $21.50

As our road trip continued, we were excited to arrive back in our home state of Washington. We took two days to tour a select group of Walla Walla wineries. It was our first trip to Walla Walla in several years. Most Walla Walla wineries seem to be going to tasting fees that are refundable with a purchase. While I would prefer no tasting fees, I can understand and live with that system. Where I have a problem is with wineries where the tasting fee is not refundable and/or they offer to let you keep the tasting glass (which I don’t need and it doesn’t match any other glass that I have). On this trip, we tasted at several wineries we had visited on our last trip here and a couple of new ones. Interestingly, I was generally more impressed with the new ones than the ones we had previously visited.

Our first stop was at Woodward Canyon Winery, one of our repeat visits. Of the five wines we tasted, our favorite was the 2005 Woodward Canyon Columbia Valley Merlot, although I did not find any of their wines really special.

Our next stop was at L’Ecole No. 41, a longstanding winery here housed in old schoolhouse No. 41, a truly unique winery setting. Of the five wines we tasted, our favorite was the 2006 L’Ecole Seven Hills Vineyard Estate Syrah, although once again none of their wines really knocked my socks off as I had hoped they would.

Our third stop was at Reininger Winery, another one we had visited previously, but one that I believe has improved during the intervening years. At Reininger, we found three excellent wines out of the six we tasted, but our favorite was the 2005 Reininger Syrah Ash Hollow Vineyard. The best value wine we tasted was the 2003 Reininger Cabernet Sauvignon Ash Hollow Vineyard. The third excellent wine was the 2005 Reininger Malbec.

Next we visited the beautiful new Cougar Crest Estate Winery facility. The tasting room is outstanding in every way, and we found their wines to be generally very good. Dave and Debbie Hansen are another set of winery owners whose agricultural background is in fruit production, in their case apples. They grow all of their own grapes on their estate vineyards, currently producing about 10,000 cases per year. Out of the six wines we tasted, our favorite was their 2005 Cougar Crest Walla Walla Valley Syrah. Close behind was their 2005 Cougar Crest Walla Walla Cabernet Franc, a varietal I’ve rarely found attractive other than in a blend.

Our fifth visit of the day was supposed to be Saviah Cellars. We had tasted their 2005 Syrah at Taste Washington and didn’t really like it that much, but we wanted to give them another try because of the strong recommendation of the hostess at Watermill Winery. But despite the fact that their advertising said they would be open from 12-5pm, they were not. And the young man, who was left to inform us that they were closed as the boss ducked out a side door, was not apologetic nor did he care to tell us when they might be open if we wanted to come back. They might have decent wine, I’ll never know, but their business practices are certainly not impressive. [Editor’s note: We had an opportunity to revisit Saviah Cellars and had a very positive experience. Please see Kori’s July 28th post.]

Our final stop for Day 1 was at Basel Cellars, where we tasted what we thought was the best wine of the day, the 2005 Basel Cellars Syrah. Two other excellent wines were the 2005 Basel Cellars Estate Merlot and the 2005 Basel Cellars Inspired (Merlot/Cab Franc blend).

Here’s a breakdown of the Walla Walla wines that we tasted on Day 1. Under each Quality heading, the wine name will be listed along with price and QPR rating. Wines in bold type received a QPR rating of 5 bangs for your buck (out of 5).

Quality: 4.5 stars (out of 5)
2005 Basel Cellars Syrah, $28, QPR: 5

Quality: 4 stars (out of 5)
2005 Basel Cellars Estate Merlot, $28, QPR: 5
2003 Reininger Cabernet Sauvignon Ash Hollow Vineyard, $32, QPR: 5
2005 Cougar Crest Walla Walla Valley Syrah, $32, QPR: 4
2005 Cougar Crest Walla Walla Cabernet Franc, $36, QPR: 3
2005 Basel Cellars Inspired (Merlot/Cab Franc blend), $40, QPR: 3
2005 Reininger Syrah Ash Hollow Vineyard, $41, QPR: 3
2005 Reininger Malbec, $45, QPR: 2

Quality: 3.5 stars (out of 5)
2005 L’Ecole Columbia Valley Cabernet Sauvignon, $29, QPR: 5
NV Cougar Crest Dedication Two Red Table Wine, $20, QPR: 4
2005 Basel Cellars Estate Cabernet Sauvignon, $36, QPR: 4
2006 Cougar Crest Walla Walla Valley Viognier, $20, QPR: 3
2005 Cougar Crest Walla Walla Valley Merlot, $32, QPR: 3
2006 L’Ecole Seven Hills Vineyard Estate Syrah, $36, QPR: 3
2005 Reininger Syrah, $36, QPR: 3
2005 Woodward Canyon Columbia Valley Merlot, $39, QPR: 3
2005 Woodward Canyon Artist Series Cabernet, $44, QPR: 3
2007 Basel Cellars Sauvignon Blanc, $18, QPR: 2
2005 Basel Cellars Estate Merriment (Bordeaux blend), $48, QPR: 1
2005 L’Ecole Pepper Bridge Vineyard Apogee, $49, QPR: 1
2003 Woodward Canyon Estate Red, $59, QPR: 1

Quality: 3 stars (out of 5)
2006 L’Ecole Recess Red, $17, QPR: 4
2006 Nelms Road Merlot, $21, QPR: 3
2006 Basel Cellars Sauvignon Blanc, $18, QPR: 2
2003 Reininger Merlot, $30, QPR: 2
2005 Cougar Crest Walla Walla Anniversary Cuvee (Bordeaux blend), $32, QPR: 2
2007 Woodward Canyon Estate Sauvignon Blanc, $24, QPR: 1

Quality: 2.5 stars (out of 5)
2006 L’Ecole Seven Hills Vineyard Estate Merlot, $36, QPR: NR
2002 Reininger Cima blend, $45, QPR: NR

Come back next Friday for my recap of Day 2 in Walla Walla.

This week’s Wine Word of the Week is alcohol.

Official definition from Jancis Robinson’s The Oxford Companion to Wine:
Alcohol is the common name for ethanol. Alcoholic strength, an important measurement of any wine, is its concentration of the intoxicant ethyl alcohol, or ethanol. It can be measured in several different ways, the most common being the degree…. The degree of alcohol is equivalent to its percentage by volume and is sometimes referred to as ‘abv’, alcohol by volume. In most countries it is mandatory to specify the alcoholic strength of all wines on the label….

Layman’s terms from Kori:
In a bottle of wine, less than 11% alcohol is considered low alcohol, 11% to 14%+ is moderate, and greater than or equal to 15% is high. When tasting, high alcohol will taste hot at the back of your mouth.

Here at Wine Peeps, we enjoy doing various types of blind tastings on a regular basis. In addition to our monthly eight-person tasting dinners where we do a single-blind tasting with six wines, the four of us have a double-blind tasting with two wines several times a week where we only know whether we are having a red or a white wine. We do not know the varietal nor do we know the producers.

When preparing the meal for a double-blind tasting, I try to keep the entrée very basic. We tend to like very spicy foods so it would be easy to do a pairing that would not work well with some varietals. The reasoning for the more basic entrée is that since we do not know the varietal, we do not want to have a meal that might overpower a particular wine.

For a double-blind red tasting, I will usually serve something like a flavorful pot roast, Salisbury steak, Swiss steak, or possibly a seasoned pasta dish with or without meat. For a double-blind white tasting, the entrée of choice is generally either a braised chicken breast or grilled fish.

To complement the entrée, I usually serve sautéed, steamed or roasted vegetables along with a side of rice or potatoes (excluding the pasta entrée) to add the finishing touches to a great meal. Remember, the whole point of the meal is to enjoy the wine and the food so that they blend and neither one overpowers the other. Bon appétit!

“It is one of the ironies of the wine market today that just as the price differential between the cheapest and most expensive bottles is greater than ever, the difference in quality is probably narrower than it has ever been. There is good and bad quality at every price level.” –Jancis Robinson, How to Taste

Doesn’t a $400 bottle of wine have to be better than a $30 bottle of wine? Not necessarily. A wine can disappoint (or surprise) you at any price, whether it’s $4, $40, $400 or more. While many great wines are very expensive today, in my opinion, not many of these expensive wines are really worth their price tag.

At Thanksgiving dinner a few years ago, Mom surprised us with a 1996 Chateau Lafite Rothschild (French Bordeaux) that set her back $400, just so that we could see what a so-called “perfect” bottle of wine rated 100 points by the experts tasted like. Now I’ll have to admit, it was a very good bottle of wine. But was it worth $400 or anything close to that price? Probably not.

In fact, later during dinner, we took the remaining half bottle of the Lafite and blind tasted it against a 2000 Columbia Crest Walter Clore Private Reserve (Bordeaux-type blend from Washington). Walter Clore is widely available at about $30 per bottle. In our blind tasting, two of the four of us preferred Lafite and the other two chose Walter Clore as their favorite.

Now if it’s worth the $370 difference for you to say you drank a Lafite, fine, but we’d rather have a case of Walter Clore for the same money ourselves.

While we’re on the subject of $400 wines, in May 2006, there was a thirtieth anniversary re-tasting of the wines from the famous 1976 Judgment of Paris Tasting, the event that really put American wines, and California wines in particular, on the map. The tasting in 1976 pitted some of California’s best wines against top French wines, and the American wines won. It was one of the pivotal events in the history of wine, not so much because the Americans won but because the experts who tasted the wines could not tell which wines came from which country in the blind tasting.

In the 2006 re-tasting, it was generally thought that the French wines would have aged better and would certainly win this time. But the American wines won again. In fact, the California Cabernets swept the first five places this time around.

The point is not that French wines are no longer that good; in fact, they are probably better than ever. The point is that there are outstanding wines made today almost all over the world, and you don’t have to pay $400 per bottle (or even more in the case of many 2005 Bordeaux) to find one.

“I don’t think there’s anything rational, or sane, about paying $750 to $1,000 a bottle for any wine. That’s one reason I stopped buying Bordeaux a few years ago. It simply became too expensive for my taste…The same market that gives us scary Bordeaux prices offers us values as well, increasingly from around the world. You just have to pay attention, strike when the opportunity presents itself, and be prepared to walk away from loved ones that become too expensive.” –James Laube, Senior Editor, Wine Spectator

As we continued our cross-country road trip, we stopped in Milton-Freewater, Oregon, at a couple of eastern Oregon wineries. What a contrast it was between the western Oregon wineries we have visited in the past and these two eastern Oregon wineries. We didn’t have to pay any tasting fees, the attitude of the winery tasting room personnel was friendly and very hospitable, and neither winery produces any Pinot Noir. In a nutshell, it was a great day in wine country, despite the dreary, rainy weather.

Our first stop was at Watermill Winery. Our bubbly hostess, Kelli, is a member of the Earl Brown extended family, owners and operators of the winery as well as a huge apple orchard operation. They have been growing grapes for others for a number of years, but 2005 was their first vintage for their own winery. They are currently producing about 3,500 cases per year and growing. Of the seven wines we tasted at Watermill, our two favorites were the 2005 Watermill Reserve Syrah and the 2005 Watermill Syrah.

Our next stop was at Zerba Cellars. The Zerbas were in the nursery business for 20 years, so they understand basic agriculture and the importance of the grape in producing good wine. They produce about 6,000 cases per year. Marilyn Zerba was our gracious hostess as we tasted seven of their wines. Our favorite Zerba wine was their 2006 Zerba Malbec, although it was a bit pricey. Close in quality and better in value in our opinion were the 2005 Zerba Merlot and the 2005 Zerba Syrah (Port style).

The wineries in this area are located very close to the Washington state line and are in the Walla Walla Valley AVA.

Here’s a breakdown of the Eastern Oregon wines that we tasted. Under each Quality heading, the wine name will be listed along with price and QPR rating. Wines in bold type received a QPR rating of 5 bangs for your buck (out of 5).

Quality: 4 stars (out of 5)
2005 Watermill Reserve Syrah, $35, QPR: 4
2005 Watermill Syrah, $28, QPR: 4

Quality: 3.5 stars (out of 5)
2005 Watermill Cabernet Sauvignon, $24, QPR: 5
2005 Zerba Merlot, $28, QPR: 4
2005 Zerba Syrah (Port style), $28, QPR: 4
2006 Watermill Viognier, $14, QPR: 3
2006 Zerba Malbec, $38, QPR: 1

Quality: 3 stars (out of 5)
2005 Zerba Cabernet Sauvignon, $30, QPR: 4
2005 Watermill Estate Midnight Red (Bordeaux blend), $30, QPR: 2
2006 Watermill Sauvignon Blanc, $16, QPR: 2
2005 Zerba Syrah, $28, QPR: 2
2006 Zerba Estate Rose (Sangiovese), $18, QPR: 2

Quality: 2.5 stars (out of 5)
2005 Watermill Chances R (Merlot/Cab), $18, QPR: NR
2006 Zerba Viognier, $18, QPR: NR

Have you ever visited Eastern Oregon wineries? If so, what was your experience there?

This week’s Wine Word of the Week is color.

This particular term does not lend itself to a short “official definition” because there are so many factors that can affect the color of wines.

However, I just want to share with you a brief and very general “layman’s terms” definition that will hopefully help you be able to tell a little bit about a wine when you look at its color.

Layman’s terms:
The best wines shine brightly with color shading out toward a lighter rim. In general, reds go from purple to crimson to brick with age, and whites go from pale yellow to yellow gold to yellow brown with age.

“I couldn’t help but think if we’d spent more time researching the business of winemaking, we would have known that success isn’t totally dependent on the quality of the product. As with any other industry, marketing, luck, connections, politics, and—in this case—personal preference can influence any winery’s status in the marketplace.” –Linda Kaplan, My First Crush

The people who make money in the winery business are not necessarily the people who grow or contract for the best grapes and they are not necessarily the people who make those grapes into the best wine, but they are the people who have developed and executed a top notch, consistent program for marketing their product, selling out every vintage before the next one is ready to come to market.

For smaller wineries, most of them cannot sell their wines for enough per bottle to make a profit unless virtually all of their wine is sold direct from the winery through their tasting room, wine club, and website. They probably cannot attract a good distributor nor can they really afford to give up half of the retail price right off the top for distribution.

If you want to see a small family winery operation that understands hospitality and marketing, visit Icicle Ridge Winery in Peshastin, Washington, just east of Leavenworth. Louie Wagoner, the Wagoner family patriarch, is a well-known and respected pear farmer who ventured into the winery business about seven years ago. Son-in-law Don Wood is the winemaker and the entire family is involved in the operation.

They have a very unique tasting room setup in the dining room of Louie and Judy Wagoner’s log home at the winery. You’ll never feel more at home anywhere else than at Icicle Ridge. They have established a very successful wine club that is built around a myriad of special events held at the winery throughout the year. Our favorite Icicle Ridge events are their summer Jazzamatazz Concerts, featuring popular regional artists such as Darren Motamedy.

A couple years ago, they opened a second tasting room on Front Street in downtown Leavenworth, a popular tourist destination that gets hundreds of thousands of visitors each year. While no winery can make the absolute best wine every year, Icicle Ridge is a good example of a winery that understands that you can be number one in hospitality and marketing every year.

Thank you for joining us for the third “virtual meeting” of the Wine Book Club. Many thanks to Dr. Debs of Good Wine Under $20 who originally proposed the idea for the WBC where bloggers and wine lovers all over the world come together for book reviews and discussions every other month after reading a selected text. Our host for this edition is Lenn Thompson of LENNDEVOURS and the text he selected was To Cork or Not To Cork: Tradition, Romance, Science, and the Battle for the Wine Bottle by George M. Taber.

George M. Taber is a dedicated wine enthusiast and author of the critically acclaimed book, Judgment of Paris. In his most recent work, To Cork or Not To Cork, Mr. Taber takes us through the history of wine closures going back to ancient times. He addresses issues with wine’s most used closure to date, the cork, as well as discusses some new alternative closures that have come into the market. For a “wine-head” like myself, I found the book quite interesting but was disappointed to find that after reading all 270 pages, Taber never definitively answers the question posed in the title of whether to cork or not to cork. A more appropriate title for this book would be The History of Wine Closures.

My own conclusion is that the wine industry must continue to work diligently to find the perfect alternative closure to cork. The wine industry cannot stay viable as an industry when five percent or more of all bottles opened are flawed by a tainted cork and when a person has no clue whether an expensive bottle they bought years ago for a special occasion and stored properly will be good when they open it. While the cork industry has been forced to improve, cork is still not the perfect closure.

After reading this book, it appears to me that some type of glass stopper ultimately has the best shot at becoming the perfect closure. In the interim, the screwcap is the best option available (especially for white wines and young red wines); however, winemakers have to prepare the wine differently for a screwcap than for a cork due to the reduction versus oxidation issue.

If someone can figure out how to make the glass stopper go “pop” when opened, they’ll probably have the market locked up all to themselves.

If you’ve already read the book, please leave a comment and let us know what you thought of it.

Earlier this month, Dr. Debs of Good Wine Under $20 hosted the 46th edition of Wine Blogging Wednesday. Our theme was Rhone Whites and we were to choose, drink, and write about wines made from one or more of the classic white grape varieties of the Rhone Valley in France (see our post). Over 40 bloggers participated. Dr. Debs has done an excellent job with the roundup providing links to all of the participants as well as a couple of very interesting visuals.

The theme for the next edition of WBW has just been announced. Erin and Michelle of the Canadian wine blog Grape Juice will be our hosts and have selected a very original theme. Taking us back to our childhood and days of watching Sesame Street, Today’s Wine Brought To You By The Letter “S” should be a lot of fun. They have intentionally left this theme vague and up to your interpretation. The only requirement is that the word beginning with “S” must be directly related to the bottle of wine you select (i.e. region, varietal, producer, winemaker, etc). I can’t wait to see where some of the participants take this one.

If you would like to participate, pick up a bottle or two of wine that has something to do with “S” and then blog about it on Wednesday, July 9. And don’t forget to come back here to read about our “S” experience.