After a couple of days in Dundee and Yamhill I decided I need to subscribe to a Portland wine club. The wine there is truly amazing. The first club I found was the Pacific Northwest Wine Club. It’s heavy on Portland wines, but also includes other Northwest greats from Washington to Idaho. They even include some wine from Northwest California. And oh do they have great wines. How is this so? Because of their extensive vetting process. Each year they develop a wine plan of certain varietals for each month. Then samples are requested from all of these wineries and a panel does a blind taste test of all the options. The top rated red and white wines are the ones purchased and presented to wine club members. So there’s no label bias and they’re not pushing the wines they got the best deal on… they only ship what tates the best. Many of us have sampled California wines… isn’t it time we gave the Northwest a try? After my time in Portland I must say there really are some amazing wines waiting to be discovered. Unlike other clubs having multiple types of clubs, at the Pacific Northwest WIne Club it’s simply the best the Pacific Northwest has to offer - nothing more and nothing less.

For Portland locals or those of you visiting Portland I’d recommend the club Portland Uncorked. It’s also a wine club, but not of the usual variety. It’s a 100% free club that’s all about tasting new Portland wines and meeting new people. Everyone gets a member card and will receive notices of where the club is meeting next. I think this is a fabulous idea. I need to find something like this in San Francisco.

Well it’s time for me to signoff for the night. See you next week!

-Wine Club Insider

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Wine Club Insider backatcha!

We’re in the turbulent “April showers” period, alternating between 65 and sunny, and 35 and snowy, but generally getting warmer… the golf courses are all open now, even if they’re still passing out hand warmers at the first tee.

This past weekend, we split our time between Seattle and Coeur d’ Alene, where we donated a wine dinner for 8 to the local Chamber of Commerce “Aw$um Auction,” their major fundraiser of the year.

We participate in several charity events each year, and I’ve got to say that they are some of the most enjoyable things we do.

There are so many worthy causes and charities, and this is a great way to be a part of the community and to help people. Just as important, you get to meet some great people, many with similar interests, and the networking that happens can be fantastic!

Even beyond the people who win our dinners, they always bring friends who have friends, and so the circle grows.

We also try to attend as many of the functions ourselves as we can, because, hey, they’re plain fun! The best events may have as many as 100 wineries pouring several hundred different wines, so you’ve got to plan your tastings accordingly… learning to taste and spit is essential if you don’t want to end up under a table somewhere (not that I know ANYONE who would have done that…)

I’m not sure how many different wines I have bought or ordered at these things, but it’s in the hundreds of bottles… I admit that I can get caught up in the moment, but, hey, it’s all for a good cause, and the wineries often go all out… I’ve also joined a few wine clubs based on the wines I’ve tasted.

Many of the large format bottles I have collected (most autographed) I have won at various live and silent auctions during charity events, and because of that, they have a certain special significance that you can’t buy at the store.

So, go ahead and check out your local charity and wine event scene… you’ll end up hooked on helping good causes, as well as on having a great time, and you’ll probably end up with some free wine glasses!

Cheers,

WIne Club Insider out.

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Wine Club Insider back with you.

There is spring in the air (finally?) here in the Pacific northwest, and it’s a sunny day. Even if the temp is still around 30, it just has that feel of spring. To top it off, my bi-annual shipment from Isenhower Cellars is supposed to arrive today, with a great selection, including a Horse Heaven Hills Syrah, a Petite Verdot, and one of my favorites, the Bachelor’s Button Cabernet! www.isenhowercellars.com.

I love Isenhower’s wine, and their “FOI” (Friends of Isenhower) wine club let’s me keep current with their top wines, as well as a unique wine made only for wine club members.

I’m also expecting my Pepperbridge Reserve Cab shipment soon as well… one of my favorite wines of the year… ahh… I love spring!

There are also quite a few wine and charity events over the next few weeks, and multiple tastings, as people get out from the winter doldrums, and we are involved in several, donating wine and dinner parties to worthy causes, including the Chamber of Commerce ‘Commodores,” a women and children’s center, and a cancer charity. There are very likely several of these types of events in your area as well, and I encourage you to get out and support them.

It is a great opportunity to try new wines from (often) dozens of wineries, try some neat foot or hors d’ oeuvres, get back in touch with other like-minded folks in your area, and to support some great causes… the coolest thing is that most of these events are very reasonably priced, with tickets in the $15 - 25 range, which, for what you get, is a steal! Seriously! This is less than a movie and popcorn, offers a great evening out, and hey, you might even get a souvenir wine glass out of the deal!

Back atcha soon!

Cheers,

WIne Club Insider out

As I was puttering around my wine cellar

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Hey, everyone! Wine Club Insider back with you.

Yesterday, we started talking about one of my favorite wines; Port. Now, some folks haven’t had the pleasure, or perhaps have been a bit afraid to give it a try, thinking that it is going to be too sweet/cloying/wierd.

I would like to tell you that despite what preconceptions you might have, port is a real wine. As a matter of fact, when Wine Spectator released their Top Ten Wines of the Decade for the Nineties, no less than three were ports, including numero uno (Smith Woodhouse). www.smithwoodhouse.com

Port, to further our discussion, can be one of the most well constructed, deep, and character filled wines made, and at 18 - 20% alcohol, lasts for years with a little care, even if opened! (check out www.winepreserve.com for their private preserve product). True vintage wines may actually have to be aged a decade or three before they reach their peak.

I have a couple of favorite port sites amongst the hundreds of choices. The first is www.portwine.com, which is a unique kind of club, as it really is a club! You sign up, and it’s basically a fraternity of port enthusiasts, who arrange tastings, trips, tours and education, without actually selling any wine directly. It is very informative, and offers lots of chances to interact with other port lovers.

www.thevintageportsite.com is another great educational site with information about everything port since 1900 basically, including tasting notes, winemakers notes and auction prices for every year since the turn of the LAST century!

www.intowine.com/portvin.html is another cool tool that actually features a chart that tells you about the character of the wines, as well as what to do with them… hold, drink, pour down the sink… almost a must have to enjoy the great ports that you’re going to add to your wine cellar!

Having a great port decanter and port glasses also makes the whole port drinking experience more enjoyable. You should also try a glass with a nice piece of Stilton, and even try some chocolate with a good tawny… try THAT with a Cab!

Until next time,

Wine Club Insider out.

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Wine Club Insider here, wishing you a happy Day after Christmas!

I hope everyone had a great and rewarding holiday… we certainly did, as we hosted all four generations of the family for dinner. The economy is, I think, causing everyone to cut back a bit this year, and so, on this “Christmas of Necessity,” as a family, we decided to give gifts with a more personal touch, whether homemade, or of personal value, and, I’ve got to tell you, it was a delightful day, and the leadup to Christmas, was much more relaxed.

For dinner, I created a “meat pie” with ground turkey, mashed potatoes and veggies wrapped and cooked in a pie shell, accompanied by Yukon Gold potatoes, sauteed butter lettuce and asparagus, all served over a nice red wine reduction.

And the wines… ah, some special treats, both from wineries whose wine clubs we have featured here at Wine Club Journal!

For the main course, we had two very nice wines, that accompanied the meal perfectly. The first was a 2003 David Caffaro Terre Melange, which displayed tons of fruit, but was nicely matured.

The main event of the evening was a 1997 St. Supery Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon, and it was extraordinary! Dry, but not austere, tannins well defined… a marvelous wine!

For dessert, we had a Gold Digger Late Harvest Riesling to accompany a creme brulee-stuffed poached pear in a caramel and creme Anglais sauce… decadent! The wine was crisp, tasting of apples.

After dinner, a few of us shared a glass of Twenty year old Cockburn’s tawny port in my new Riedel “O” port glasses. Ah, what a wine! In all, a most excellent repast.

Today is one of more important days in the annual calender… my birthday. Yes, your Wine Club Insider is celebrating the 26th anniversary of his 21st birthday, and enjoying every second of it!

We’ve got about four feet of snow here, and I’m trying to keep on top of the shoveling, so after digging us out, I’ll get in a bit of a run or perhaps a “snow bike,” and enjoy the day with my beautiful wife.

Tomorrow, we’re going to chat a bit about port, and over the next couple of days, let you in on a few other wine clubs that I think you’ll enjoy.

Until then,

Cheers,

Wine Club Insider.

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Wine Club Insider with you again.

For the last couple of days, we’ve been talking about building a wine cellar to keep your wine club collection safe, cool, and happy. Today, we’re going to chat about some of the other “necessities” you need to make your wine cellar complete!

Number one is a good opener. I mean, what kind of fun can you have with your wine club collection if you can’t open your bottles?

I mainly use three different openers, depending on my mood, and the condition of the corks.

Lately, my favorite has been an “automatic” opener from Oster (www.oster.com). Basically, you put it over the bottle, press the button, and it grabs the cork and pulls it out. The best part is that it works on a rechargeable battery.

My second favorite is a CO2 “popper:” You poke the needle through the cork, hit the button, which releases CO2 into the bottle, and out pops the cork. It has a few limits on certain types of cork, but is the most fun, for sure.

The other important opener in my collection is the “Ah So,” which is basically a set of prongs that you wiggle down beside the cork and ah, so, out it comes. You can get almost any cork out with this.

Of course, having a very good Sommelier’s corkscrew is probably recommended, just in case…

The next key is to have a couple of nice glasses to pour your wine club collection into.

Of course, the “gold standard” is Riedel (www.riedel.com), which is often misspelled Reidel, even on so-called “real” websites. I have to say, from my experience, that while there may be some wine glasses almost as good, there aren’t any better. I also enjoy Dansk (which we use for our dinner parties), but my true favorites for everyday sipping are the Riedel “O” glasses; they are perfect for casual-and not so casual- company, and they work great for the hottub!

I’ve already mentioned before about the airator by Air au Vin (www.winebreather.com), and of course having a good crystal decanter or two to decant your vintage wines into is a must, but I think you’ve got the idea.

I’m always willing to help out, so when you’re ready, give me a call, and I’ll come by and help you test it all out with you! Until then,

Cheers!

Wine Club Insider out!

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WCI back with you, looking at building that perfect wine cellar to help you store those vintage wines you’ve collected from your wine clubs!

So, we’ve got our temp, humidity and light sorted out, and we’ve picked out the perfect spot in your house; maybe the northwest, tree-shaded corner, or maybe in the addition you built off the kitchen. Now, you’ve got to look at cooling and humidity systems, which are essential, if you don’t have the perfect natural conditions.

Vinotheque (www.vinotheque.com) makes some of the premier units in the world, and there are several good choices on www.wineenthusiasts.com as well.

The key is to get one that is correct for the room size and conditions you have; obviously, if you live in Phoenix, you’ll need a little more juice than if you live in the mountains in northern Idaho.

Next, choose your floors. We chose slate, which we laid ourselves, and we’re very happy with it, though it’s not too forgiving, if a bottle does drop… Other choices include hard wood, tile, or even cork.

With your shelves, choose some that make it easy to get at your wine collection, and that make it safe to take a bottle out. Plain shelves can hold a lot of fine wine, but can cause complications if you want to take out a bottle of vintage wine on the third or fourth layer down, especially with the odd shaped Syrah bottles. Trust me on this.

I would highly recommend having a “wine system” or main, free-standing rack that holds a lot of wine, has room on top for large wine bottles, and end pieces for glasses, and your other wine accessories. My brother-in-law crafted mine by hand as my birthday gift a few years ago, using plans he got from Norm Abrams’ New Yankee workshop (www.newyankee,com).

For the remaining wall space, I used wine racks from www.winerack.com, and the good folks at International Wine Accessories (www.iwa.com) can actually outfit your entire cellar for you, designed as you like it, and I mean anything; they will custom build you ANYTHING you want (and even things you didn’t know you wanted!), built to fit your space.

Now you’ve got your space, and tomorrow, we’ll talk a bit about how to keep track of your burgeoning fine wine collection!

Cheers,

WCI

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WCI back to finish up our Townshend dinner with winemaker Don Townshend. (www.townshendcellar.com).

Now, to jump back a sec, Townshend is a family owned business started in 1979, but Don says he didn’t make his first ‘real” wine until the 1995 vintage, which ended up being an extraordinary year. Since then, they’ve grown into a 10,000 case/year winery, and they make the nationally famous “T3,” a non-vintage Bordeaux blend, and the new “Vortex,” another blend rapidly gaining critical acclaim.

When last we talked…

So far, we’d enjoyed a champagne cocktail, “Relentless DRG,” the new Down River Grill Blend to be released this week (good), a Ste. Chappelle Reisling (very nice), the Townshend ‘00 Cabernet Sauvignon (awesome), a St. Supery 2000 Dollarhide Ranch Cab (smooth and tasty), a Townshend 2000 Cab Franc (huge!), a 1997 L’ Ecosse Cab Franc (not bad) and the 1999 Townshend Merlot (amazing).

Dinner wasn’t too bad, if I do say myself. We had lamb chops served over a curry and turmeric rice with golden raisins, accompanied by grilled asparagus and a slice of fried eggplant over sauteed spinach. It held up well to the wines, and was appreciated by all, though it was really a night for the wines to shine. We even brought out the Reidel glasses (www.riedel.com), putting their Cab glass, their Merlot glass and their Port glasses to the test. Somehow, great wines do taste better in great glasses!

Now, dessert…

I love cooking desserts, and one of Don’s passions is making ports and dessert wines.

Dessert was my version of a baked apple, which consists of using a melon baller to partially core a Macintosh apple, and then stuffing it with raisins, brown sugar and cinnamon. The real secret is to then bake them in a bottle of Sauternne for an hour or so. I served them warm with homemade whipped cream, and an 2005 “Neiges,” an apple Ice wine from Quebec that can compete with the grand dessert wines of the world, and which was a perfect accompaniment.

Don had brought a bottle of his Huckleberry Port, which is truly an awesome wine. Made from 100% huckleberry juice, it is an exquisite spirit. and he had found a lone bottle of 1977 Vintage Rebello Balente port, which we poured and took to the hot tub. It was a perfect way to end the evening! Rich, fruity, beautiful color, great legs, and rare. Shared with good friends, it doesn’t get much better!

Townshend also has a great little wine club; The “Diamond T Club,” which sends out four shipments of two bottles per year, and also gives the members a nice 20% discount on every Townshend wine. Check them out!

All in all, it was a great evening… one of those where you have maybe a drop too much, but no one was driving, the hot tub was warm, and all was right with the world.

Cheers,

WCI

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WCI back to share the memories of Napa…

We turned left off Silverado Trail onto the Oakville Crossroad, and just a few hundred yards down on the left was one of the iconic wineries in my mind, and many others, apparently.

Silver Oak Cellars, where “Life is a Cabernet,” and every wine would be red if it could… www.silveroak.com

My first glass of great wine was a glass of Silver Oak, care of Bob Kolberg, who managed the vineyards for Justin Meyer, the inimitable founder and icon of Silver Oak. It was then that I realized that wine really could be something pretty special. It had depth, fruit, character… all those words I’d read about (and I read a LOT!) but had never really tasted before.

We turned down the tree shaded lane, with the famous tower right there, just like on the label.

We parked, walked in, and I got my first “keeper” Silver Oak crystal Cabernet glass. (Yes, for a very reasonable tasting fee, you get to taste the wine, and you get to keep to the glass, too!)

We dwelled for what seemed like hours, and even got to chat to Justin himself. We tasted the current release (the famous 1994 Alexander Valley) and even got to taste the Meyer Family Port, a 100% Cabernet-based port style wine. I walked out of there with a 1/2 case of the ‘84, and another 1/2 case of the port, and I was even more committed to “America’s Favorite Cab.”

I also joined the wine club, which is a bit different than many others; Silver Oak only makes two wines a year, the Alexander Valley Cab (Silver label), and the Napa Valley Cab (black label), which are released at different times each year. Every year, I get my announcement and get to order my allotment, and it is one of the highlights of my wine year. I have even given extra bottles away as Christmas gifts, and I must say, they are some of the best-received gifts I have ever given.

I still have 1 bottle of the ‘94, kept for the past 14 years (well, 11 by me, as Silver Oak always spends three years in the barrel before release) for the perfect special occasion; likely my 10th anniversary, which is coming up in the next year or two.

After Silver Oak, we headed basically across the street to another fine, fine winery, Groth Cellars (www.grothwines.com) where we sampled some of their wonderful products, including their Reserve Cab, and a great Merlot, purchasing both, of course.

What a day, and we were barely at 1:30 p.m.!

What’s next? Hmmm… how about Opus One? Okay! See you tomorrow along the dusty wine roads!

Cheers,

WCI

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