My friend Craig Williams, who for over 30 years was the winemaker at Joseph Phelps in Napa Valley, popped into town yesterday with some great wines in his trunk and insisted on taking me out to dinner and forcing me to drink the wines with him. Who was I to say no?

Craig, despite being the genius force behind some of the New World’s best and most-coveted Cabernet-based wines, is actually a great guy. His deep love and fascination is for Pinot and Burgundy, making him more than OK in my book. We’ve had the good fortune of spending some time together in Burgundy, and rumor has it he may want to make a little Oregon Pinot one of these days.

We rolled into Tina’s in Dundee, longtime bastion of excellent dining and a legendary winemaker hang-out, with a few nice bottles of Grand Cru burgundy in tow. Craig had brought a 2004 Corton Charlemagne from Bouchard - and knowing it was infanticide, we decided to check it out anyway (in the name of science, of course.) It started off with intense aromas of green apples and a note of petrol, and was tight but staggeringly long on the palate. It opened up in the glass after about 45 minutes, showing some riper citrus notes, and became more expressive in the mouth and was still ridiculously long. This wine will totally rock in another 10 years - way too young to really express itself fully right now.

We bought a 2006 Evesham Wood Cuvée J from the list - man, what a gorgeous wine. Russ Raney continues to be my favorite Oregon producer - he really captures the subtlety, the nuance, the true beauty of understated elegance and the purity of finesse - everything I think Pinot is really all about. Bravo - a simply marvelous wine!

Then we popped Craig’s bottle of 2002 Griotte Chambertin from Domaine Ponsot. That wonderfully funky fecal note was the first thing to jump out of the glass, and was followed by a swirling perfume of floral notes and black cherries. Pure silk in the mouth, oh so lovely and oh so long - absolutely delicious now, but I’d like to see another 5-10 years on it for the next layers of complexity to emerge. In all, a great wine indeed.

I often steer people toward Griotte Chambertin if they’re looking for Grand Cru Burgundy and don’t really know a lot about the producers or vintages. The entirety of Griotte is only 6.75 acres, and there are only five significant owners, each of whom farms their parcel meticulously and and is focused on acieving the highest quality possible (this is, unfortunately, rather rare in Burgundy - many holders of Grand Cru parcels can be less than focused on quality at times.) So, if you see a bottle of Griotte on a wine list or on the shelf, you pretty much can’t go wrong - all of the producers are doing an excellent job. (For the record - the producers are Ponsot, René Leclerc, Joseph Drouhin, Fourrier, and Claude Dugat.) Also, Griotte is a relative bargain, usually selling for a fraction of the price commanded by Chambertin or Clos de Bèze.

At any rate, a great night of food and wine (the salmon spring-rolls and the short ribs at Tina’s were spot-on - although I don’t feel the need to eat again for about a week!

Looking forward to seeing you here at the winery tomorrow - cheers!

Wow. Another tremendous meal at Portland’s Le Pigeon tonight. Martha & Pirrie are out of town, so i soloed at the bar and feasted on chef Gabe Rucker’s insanely good and hedonistic delights. He started me off with a dish simply called “Sweetbreads” - which were done up  à la Buffalo Wings - hot sauce, blue cheese, slaw - I just looked at him after the first bite and said “genius”.

Then he followed with “Pork” - this time a slow-roasted fist-size hunk of Pork shoulder, spoon tender and ridiculously delicious, with roasted brocoli and a tomato reduction over a polenta cake. So insanely good and rich - I couldn’t finish it, but left a very happy diner!

Gabe and his GM/Wine Director Andy Fortgang are joining us for a winemaker dinner down at the Steamboat Inn on the Umpqua river in southern-central Oregon - the date is March 21st - contact Steamboat directly to see if there are still any seats available - this one will rock your world (not to mention it’s one of the most beautiful settings on the planet.)

I suppose I can let the cat out of the bag - Chef Rucker will be cooking our pre-IPNC dinner at the winery this year in July - we are mega-excited, to say the least. Watch this space and your email for details later in the spring…

And here’s Chelsea’s didier Drogba, scorer of the winner against Juventus today…

I am still flush with excitement from the Champions League action - the knockout stage began today - with all four of my teams playing at the same time (two of them against each other.) For those of you who don’t know, my huge passion outside of Burgs/Pinot is soccer - the game called football by the rest of the world. I somehow managed to keep my eye on three games at once today - Inter-Milan v Man U on ESPN2, Lyon v Barcelona on my laptop, and Arsenal v Roma on another computer. Arsenal won, while the other two were ties - (draws, in the vernacular of the game) - 0-0 and 1-1 respectively. Now they all go play each other again in two weeks, to decide who moves on to the quarterfinals. There are four more games tomorrow, but I’m only interested in the Chelsea v Juventus and Real Madrid v Liverpool matches - I’ll try to confine my viewing to only one game, probably Madrid/Liverpool, as it should have the most action… (For the record, “my” teams are Arsenal in England, Lyon in France, Inter in Itialy and Barcelona in Spain. When they win, I am happy. When they don’t - best not to approach me for a while….)

We are in the planning stages of putting together a viewing/tasting/eating event in Portland for the Champions League final coming up in May - if you’re interested, watch this space for details as they develop…

I’m really looking forward to teaching our sold-out Vosne-Romanée seminar at the winery on Saturday night, and then our first ever “Touring & Tasting in Burgundy” class on AMrch 14th. If you’ve ever wanted to visit the land of the Grand Crus - this will be a fun-packed and informative class - sort of a combination travelogue and  practical guide to visiting the region, with tons of pictures, and of course great wines, cheese and charcuterie. This is the only seminar this year that still has a few seats available - so please join us if you can (just like being there, only a hell of a lot cheaper!)

And here’s the hero of the day, Arsenal’s Robin Van Persie - slotting home the winner against Roma…

We’re enjoying gorgeous blus skies and temps in the hi 50s here for a couple of days. Unusual, unseasonal, but we’ll take it! A lot of good stuff is on the horizon for us, with a lot of great opportunities to get together and taste a veritable plethora of of excellent wines - how bad can it be?

Make a note now that on Saturday March 14th you’re invited to a “Big Names, Deep Discounts” Burgundy tasting here at the winery. This wil be your opportunity to taste some goodies that are generally not open for tasting - from Burgundy superstars Lucien Le Moine, J-J Confuron, and François Lamarche. We’ll be offering big savings on all remaining inventory from these three heavy hitters - details to come, but don’t miss this one!

Plans are also underway for a special joint event with the crew at my alma mater, Domaine Drouhin Oregon. We’ll be doing a joint tasting in Portland at Oregon Wines on Broadway from 5-8 on April 9th, and then a joint winemaker dinner to follow at Higgins, an all-time favorite in downtown PDX. Again, watch your emails and this space for details to come…

Most immediately - please plan to join us at the annual Flavors of Carlton event on Saturday March 7th in the cellars at Ken Wright’s - it’s only $50 for a night of great food and wine - we’ll be there pouring along with Penner-Ash, Elk Cove, Raptor Ridge, Soter - 18 wineries in all, and food from a bunch of the area’s top chefs and restos - including Nick’s and La Rambla. Over 50 top artists have donated items for the auction, and there are food, wine & vacation packages on the block as well. It’s a great event, and it funds Carlton Together Cares - which runs vitally needed education and enrichment programs for youth and teens in the Carlton area. I look forward to seeing you there!

And while we’re enjoying a false spring, here’s a great shot of our Azana vineyard in the snow back in late December…

Just back from a quick couple of days in Colorado, for a 2-day action-packed romp through Vail and Aspen. I had forgotten how dramatically beautiful it is there. Martha & I honeymooned in Beaver Creek back in ‘95, and I hadn’t been back since. I was the lucky benificiary of a bright sunny day in Aspen yesterday, with stunningly blue skies and a hi near 40 - absolutely gorgeous. The white-knuckle drive over the icy pass in darkness last night was something else entirely (but I survived to tell the tale!)

I had the opportunity to meet and taste with many of the top sommeliers in both towns, and we had a free tasting open to the public at a great spot in Edwards (just outside of Vail) called EatDrink. We had a great crowd, and it was wonderful meeting so many passionate and interested pinot fans. Big thanks to all of you who joined us.

A couple of the highlights were restaurant Ella in Carbondale (just down-valley from Aspen) - owned and run by former Oregonians,  Cache-Cache in Aspen, and Sweet Basil in Vail - great places to check out (and to find our wines when you’re in the area.)

Tomorrow should be great fun - I’m looking forward to seeing you here at the tasting room for our Valentine’s Day event - with a rare opportunity to taste some older vintages (we’re doing the ‘03 CMP and ‘03 La Paulée tomorrow) alongside the current releases, and of course some lovely bubbles from Champagne Marc Chauvet. We’ll be open from 1-5 - see you then!

And here’s my littlest Valentine, on the wall at Musigny last July…

I’m referring to Crush, the restaurant in Seattle, not the several weeks of insanity we go through here each September and October (well, that rocks too, but in a different way!) My trip to Seattle was a blast last week, capped off by a simply wonderful dinner at Chef Jason Wilson’s Crush - a world-class dining destination in a beautifully restored home just a few minutes outside of downtown Seattle.  Jason and consulting sommelier Jake Kosseff matched 8 great courses to 10 of our wines from Oregon and Burgundy - and it was a total hit across the board. I was particularly blown away by his pheasant dish and the sous-vide short rib - but everything was truly spot on (including the roquefort ice cream that accompanied the apple tartlette - I admit to being a little wary of that one, but the flavor was just understated enough that it worked perfectly.)

We had an amazing turnout at our in-store tasting at Cellar 46 on Mercer island - thanks to everyone that joined us - it was a pleasure meeting you, and seeing some old freinds as well. Everyone at the dinner and tasting were passionate and knowledgeable, and fun to be with, and I hope to see each of you here at the winery one day soon.

I returned from Seattle just in time to open up the tasting room on Saturday morning with Martha - I gave a private tour and tasting for a group of 12 home-winemakers who had arranged it all in advance. We had a ball, opened up a bunch of great burgs, and the consensus was that it “didn’t suck”! We had quite a crowd in the tasting room all day as well - thanks so much for joining us. We know there’s a million places you can go, and that you choose to come to our place is greatly appreciated and never taken for granted.

Today is Martha’s birthday - after a breakfast in bed of cupcakes and coffee (why not!), she’s off getting a massage (gift from Pirrie and me), while I’m juggling orders from distributors and private customers, and loading up her new iPod Nano. I’m making one of her all-time favorite New Orleans shrimp dishes tonight - I hope it lives up to expectations.

And here’s my b-day girl, hanging out in Musigny…

I am in a sports bar, drinking a beer (NOT watching NBA highlights), while Scott is at home putting Love Casserole in the oven.  (That sounds kind of racy).  But it’s like this.  For weeks, I have driven our daughter to a particular voice class, and sat in the chaotic condo-lobby of a waiting room, while groups of kids and moms troop in and out.  One week I forgot reading material and read the class schedule 10 times and memorized another class’s hip-hop routine which I could watch on the closed-circuit TV.  Scott did the voice-class carpool honors just once and realized immediately that the bar upstairs has WiFi.  I’m sorry.  I believe that we women are multi-tasking goddesses, but sometimes (sometimes!) we make things too hard. 

And the casserole?  Well I made it of course.  It is so named because I once served it on Valentine’s Day, and it is something my mother made frequently when I was young.  You put steamed broccoli in a buttered dish, cover it with slices of ham or turkey and then spoon over that a cheese sauce (gruyere? cheddar?  whatever you like).  Sprinkle with plenty of crushed seasoned croutons or bread crumbs and bake at 350. 

So, yes, I’m driving the carpool and making the dinner and working a full day too.  But I’m in a bar with a pint and a laptop, and dinner will be hot and bubbly when I get home.  That’s love!

My experience being on the road with rock bands in my previous life serves me well when I turn into a road warrior for Scott Paul (it’s not quite the same as being on the bus with Bret Michaels and Poison, but the food and wine is definitely a lot better in this incarnation!)

I’m taking off on Thursday for a couple days in Seattle (great winemaker dinner at Crush, killer tasting at Cellar 46) - and that begins a five-month schedule of trips around the country and across the ocean that will keep me rockin’ until mid-June. Next week it’s Colorado (Vail & Aspen, tough duty, I know), then Arizona,  San Franciso, New York, Atlanta, Chicago and Burgundy - with trips still to schedule to LA and New Mexico and maybe Las Vegas. Other than that, I’ll be around a lot!

Between the marketing trips and our series of Burgundy classes and events here at the winery, I’m pretty much booked out until IPNC at the end of July. And truthfully, I wouldn’t have it any other way. I love what I do, I passionately believe in our wines and our Burgundian producers - and it’s a pleasure to go around the country helping to spread the gospel of great Pinot Noir. It also makes me realize how blessed I am to have such a great family, and a great team here at Scott Paul. Without all of their support - this could all implode tomorrow, and I know it, and I’m very thankful.

Of course I’ve still got time to obsess about my beloved soccer teams. My Arsenal boys are looking pretty woeful, and even with the signing yesterday of Andrei Arhavin from Russia I still think it’ll be a battle to grab 4th place and secure a Champions League slot. It appears that United should wine the league again - but in the CL this year I’ve got a feeling it’s all about Barcelona - they just look unstoppably good. Lionel Messi is clearly the best player in the world right now - and I’d take him over Cristiano Ronaldo any day.

(BTW - if you don’t get the european games on your cable or dish package - check out FootyTube - where you can get all of the highlights of all the games.)

And here’s Phoebus - one of the winery cats at Domaine Sigaut in Chambolle-Musigny, enjoying a romp in the cellar…