As of today, summer has now arrived in Oregon. The rest of the world started 4-6 weeks ago. Here, we start AFTER the 4th of July. Where are we - Sweden?  Go figure. And now we’ve got three or four straight days in the 90s on the way to kick us into high gear. Flowering is underway in all of our vineyards, but we can already see that the crop will be a small one this year - the extended cool and wet weather all spring resulted in some vine imbalances that are causing potential clusters to abort. We’re estimating a 25-50% fruit loss overall. Please join me in prayer for a warm and dry September and October - we’ll need every bit of it…

The Burghound himself at Scott Paul in 2006

Burgundy guru Allen Meadows will be debuting his eagerly-awaited book at IPNC this year - and the book will make its first official appearance anywhere at our pre-IPNC dinner in the winery on July 22nd. Dinner is sold-out, but you can catch up with Allen and his book throughout the IPNC weekend at the events…

I’m off to Seattle for a couple of days of tastings and events, but having my priorities in order I of course will be settled in at a pub to watch the Spain-Germany semifinal in the World Cup tomorrow. I’m happy for the Netherlands to have claimed their spot in the final, and I’ll be pulling for Spain tomorrow (though I expect the German juggernaut will continue to roll and likely win it all.)

More from the road - stay tuned…

There are two spots open on an amazing one-week tour of Burgundy this fall - Oct. 31st-Nov. 6th - this is a once-in-a-lifetime trip with private visits at the top domaines and amazing wines from the private cellars of a top collector.

Our friend Kim Gagné of Journeys in Wine will be your guide - and you can contact her directly at 415-310-9829 to reserve your spots now. (Kim will also be working with us when we do our first-ever Scott Paul tour of Burgundy in June 2011 - watch this space and your email for all the exciting details soon!)

Here’s a look at the draft itinerary for this spectacular trip -

… is one of the most beautiful things on the planet. I hear we might even get something resembling summer this year. Perhaps in August, they tell me. Yikes! Where is the sun? Longtime Oregon residents swear that summer starts here on the 4th of July. I hope they’re right - we need all the summer we can get. The vines are still a couple of weeks behind, with no serious problems or worries at this point - at least nothing that some sunlight and heat can’t cure…

Dundee Hills, sans-sunshine...

In the meantime, we’re going to pretend it’s summer anyway and get this party started. We’ve just added a few events to the schedule, kicking off with a special flight of our favorite “Value Summer Whites” on Saturday  July 3rd in Carlton. This’ll be a great time to taste and stock up on some of the best-value white Burgundies around, including some crisp and mineral-ly offerings from Chablis and rich full-throttle bottlings from St. Véran and Pouilly-Fuissé. Plan to join us if you’re headed to or through wine country on the 4th of July weekend (we will be closed on the 4th to celebrate the holiday with our families.)

Limestone in the vineyards of Chablis

Then the following weekend, on Saturday July 10th, for the first time ever we will feature wines from the Burgundian village of Nuits-St. Georges. We’ll have a special flight of killer juice from Frédéric Mugnier, J-J Confuron, Benjamin Leroux & Taupenot-Merme - four of Burgundy’s absolute best and brightest. (If you missed the Mugnier & Leroux tasting two weeks ago - this is a great chance to check out these two rockstars.) Watch your email and this blog for more info shortly…

Hard as it is to believe, IPNC is just weeks away, kicking off with our sold-out dinner in the winery on July 22nd. I’m so excited to welcome Allen Meadows (Burghound), Ray Isle (Food & Wine), Greg LaFollette (LaFollette Wines) and Paul & Louis Meunier of Domaine J-J Confuron for what is sure to be a great dinner - with master chef Vitaly Paley of Paley’s Place at the helm. In the tasting room, we’ll be featuring the wines of J-J Confuron Friday-Sunday that weekend - July 23-25 - including goodies from Chambolle-Musigny, Nuits-St. Georges, and their legendary Grand Cru Romanée-St. Vivant. This is a definite don’t-miss tasting - please plan to join us that weekend if you can… There remain a handful of tickets available for the IPNC festivities as of this writing - it is always the best wine event of the year in the U.S. bar none, so get yourself booked before it’s too late…

Thiébault Huber of Domaine Huber-Verdereau in Volnay is planning to come over in mid-August, and we’ll be planning some special events around his visit. Check in here for the details as this all starts to come together…

In the meantime - it’s do or die for the USA in the World Cup tomorrow. If we beat Algeria we’re in control of our destiny and move on, or if not it will depend on what happens in the England-Slovenia match. It could actually come down to a coin-toss to determine if we make the next round, so here’s hoping that we just beat Algeria and get it over with. I’ll be running at 5:30 tomorrow morning so I can be back in time for the 7am match. (Now that’s either dedication, addiction, or a bit of both…)

Finally back in the saddle after a couple of weeks of events, travel, events, travel, events, & travel. But it’s all good. Had a fabulous visit to Aspen, Vail & Denver - conducting tastings for key accounts in each market, and enjoying some spectacular summer weather in the Rockies. We seem to be stuck in winter mode here in the valley, however. After a couple of teaser days in the hi 70s with bright sun, we’re back in the 50s-and-rainy rut again. Yikes. The rainiest May & June in history so far. We’re about 2-3 weeks behind in the vineyards. Flowering would normally be happening right now, but I don’t think we’ll see anything of the sort until after the 4th of July at this rate. The same thing happened in 2008, and we ended up with our best overall vintage ever, so one never knows. Whenever I’m asked how the grapes are doing, my standard reply is always “ask me in October”…

Summer in Aspen (at least it's summer somewhere!)

It’s been a blast seeing so many of you at a number of our recent events and classes here at the winery. Our series of Burgundy classes is done for the year now, to resume again in January - but we may be taking some classes on the road later this year, so watch your email for details.

I’m happy to report that my 22 year-old son Kevin has joined us for the next 5-6 months. He’s working in the vineyards all summer, and then will be a harvest slave in the winery for crush this fall (assuming we have grapes to crush, that is!) Welcome to the glamorous life if the vigneron, young man…

The 24th annual IPNC - the International Pinot Noir Celebration - looms shortly at the end of July. We are excited and honored to once again be a featured winery for this year’s festivities, and that one of our esteemed producers from Burgundy, Domaine J-J Confuron will be joining us as well. Speaking of sons, we’ve just received word that Confuron winemaker Alain Meunier has an ankle injury that requires surgery in July, so his sons Paul & Louis will be here to represent the domaine at IPNC. This will be everyone’s first look at the next generation of one of Burgundy’s finest estates…

Writer Jordan Mackay with Thiébault Huber at IPNC 2008

And yes, I’ve been glued to the World Cup - mostly on the laptop or on the iPhone. Its very early in the tournament, but I still think the winner will come from either Spain, Brazil, or Argentina. (Although with Spain’s loss to Switzerland yesterday, we could see Spain vs. Brazil in the round of 16 - that might be the real championship match right there!) France just lost to Mexico, and they are indeed pathetic. We will certainly not see a repeat of a France-Italy final this time around, to be sure…

In two words and one picture -

Freddy. Mugnier.

Amen

…the more they remain the same. The old adage rings true time and time again. For relaxation and pleasure, I read a lot of old history books about the vineyards and wine business in 18th & 19th century Burgundy (yes, I’m a geek, I know.) I’m currently in the middle of a book recounting the history of Clos Vougeot, during the time it was a monopole of the Ouvrard family (up until the late 1800s.) It is fascinating to see business and economic cycles repeating themselves, and to see how similar things really are to what has been happening in modern history.

Monsieur Ouvrard père seems to have been a bit of a shady financier, part-time arms dealer, and private equity banker - who apparently put together his deal to buy the 125-acre Clos Vougeot (Burgundy’s most famous vineyard at the time, along with Romanée-Conti) with a byzantine assembly of loans, promissory notes, bonds, and other “creative” financial instruments. There’s no evidence that he actually put any cash into it at all. Sound familiar?

Burgundy went through about 40 years of hard times from the 1870s thru the 1930s - wars, horrible vintages, economic collapse, you name it. The equivalent of our modern day mortgage-backed securities wheelers and dealers went through their version of the wringer back then too. Vineyard owners saw their expenses outstrip their incomes in the lean times, and only the deep-pocket players were able to stay in the game. Wineries had vintages stacked up in their cellars that they couldn’t sell at any price. Then the speculators came in and bought properties at pennies on the dollar, and sold them off in smaller parcels at huge profits at the first signs of an upturn. Sound familiar?

La plus ça change, la plus c’est la même chose indeed.

On another subject entirely - I’m looking forward to seeing you here this weekend for our Memorial Day Wknd. Open House, 11-5 Saturday and Sunday - with a nice line-up of Pinots and Burgs to pour, and a killer artisan jewelry show & sale too. Stop by if you can!

Martha & I celebrated our 15th anniversary with a quick 2-night trip to Seattle, conveniently tied-in with our participation in the Ray’s Boathouse annual Oregon Pinot & Copper River Salmon Extravaganza last Thursday night. The event was excellent - the season’s first CR Salmon on the grill (along with great slow-cooked brisket and about 275 killer side dishes and desserts), 10 of Oregon’s top producers pouring a line-up of sumptuous Pinots, and four Washington craft-brewers drawing pints of really nice micro-brews, and a gorgeous view of the sunset on Elliot Bay - all for $65 a head. How bad can it be? I definitely look forward to doing it again next year…

Ray's chef Peter Birk at the grill with fresh Copper River Salmon

A plate-load at Ray's

On the way up we stopped in the small town of Centralia, on a tip from our distributor about a little Mexican restaurant that has been drawing raves from all the foodies in the blogosphere. La Tarasca is the name of the place, a non-descript roadside joint that you would pass by a million times without ever giving it a second thought. That would be a huge mistake. This was truly one of the best Mexican experiences we’ve had anywhere. The family is from Michoacan, and their cooking stays true to their regional roots. The Pork adobado taco was a true standout - maybe the best ever. I’d drive the 90 minutes just for that taco. It was truly that good. Check it out on your next slog up or down I-5…

Carnitas at La Tarasca

We had two really memorable meals in Seattle. Our lunch at Matt’s in the Market overlooking the Pike Place Market was a delight. I had the brisket sandwich - basically the world’s greatest pot roast on a great brioche roll with horseradish aioli and arugula - god that was good. Not to mention their home-made salt & pepper potato chips, hot out of the fryer and ridiculously delicious. The highly-touted Catfish sandwich was also a big hit. It was apparent that people who really LOVE food are behind this place - it shows in every bite.

Brisket sandwich at Matt's - heaven on a plate

Dinner that night was at Lark up on Capitol Hill, a place that has been drawing raves since the day they opened a few short years ago. Chef Jonathan Sundstrom is really at the top of his game. The purity of the flavors in each dish, the quality of every locally-sourced ingredient - truly about as good as it gets. The Foie Gras terrine with addictive brioche toasts was downright amazing, and I’ve never had better, sweeter tasting asparagus in my life. (The lightly-truffled butter was a nice touch!) You may recall That Jonathan cooked our pre-IPNC dinner at the winery back in 2007, along with Portland’s “flavor-beast” Tommy Habetz (then of Meriwether’s, and now of Bunk fame.)

A shout-out for Seattle’s Hotel 1000 - we loved it. Great tubs, showers, service, bedding, free wifi, free phone calls, great tech hook-ups - overall a top notch experience. “We could live here” was uttered more than once!

Great to be back in Oregon now, but not so thrilled with the weather. We’ve got the wettest and coolest May of all-time on or hands, it looks like. We’ve gone from being a few weeks ahead of schedule to a couple of weeks behind. If we don’t get some warmth and sun soon (and it does not appear to be forthcoming), the vines won’t be flowering until July. So, we shall see…

Your's truly at Matt's

… the season is about to begin! Of course here in Oregon that means we still have 3-4 more weeks of going back and forth between gorgeous spring-summer days and cold, rainy ones. Once we turn the corner in mid to late June - we’re off and rockin’ for one of the greatest summers on the planet. I truly would not trade summer in Oregon for anything.

First, I’ll be heading up to Seattle tomorrow (Thursday May 20) for the annual Ray’s Boathouse Pinot & Copper-River Salmon extravaganza. We’re pouring La Paulée and D122, along with ten other top Oregon producers and some great micro-brews as well. I look forward to seeing you there (and to that salmon on the grill!)

Memorial Day weekend is the traditional summer kick-off around the country, but here in the valley the weekend before the holiday weekend has become the big insider’s secret for wine tasting. The wineries are pouring better wines, the traffic and the crowds are much easier to navigate, and you can actually relax and enjoy yourself - what a concept! Join us for great bubbly (Crémant de Bourgogne from Huber-Verdereau and the awesome Brut Sélection from Champagne Marc Chauvet) and three of our Scott Paul Pinots, including one of the few times a year we open the Audrey for tasting. We’re here 1-5 all weekend, so stop on by…

Then on Memorial Day Weekend itself, we’ll be open 11-5 SATURDAY & SUNDAY only, taking Monday off to enjoy the holiday with our families. That weekend we’ll be pouring our favorite best-value white & red Burgs for summer sipping, and the full line-up of our Pinots too. Our good friend Siri Healy will be here both days, with a show and sale of her great jewelry handcrafted from recycled gold and silver as well. It should be a great weekend in wine country for you and a few thousand of your closest friends!

Kelley & I tasted through all the lots of our 2009s yesterday. They’ve been gorgeous during their élévage, and have now settled in to a very nice place. Globally, I would say the 2009s are first and foremost ripe and rich, but not to the level of 2006, thankfully. They don’t have the perfect balance of the 2008s, but they”re damn close. A pretty streak of raspberry and cherry fruit runs through all the lots, and they seem to have excellent length. The fruit quality is similar to the 09s in Burgundy that I spoke about below - very much the “cream of the fruit”. As a group they should be very appealing when young, and they have enough balancing acidity to mature nicely for 5-10 years.

Our old-vines at Maresh

After sorting them all out, we arrived at the preliminary blends. There will be six barrels of Audrey from a single block of Maresh, a succulent La Paulée from several different parcels, and one four-barrel cuvée that has yet to be named. We will fine tune these by going through barrel-by-barrel in the next several weeks, and the plan is to bottle on August 25th…

View from the deck at Azana

I spent this morning up at our Azana vineyard, where we’re building a nice party deck overlooking the vines, and a barn for the tractor and vineyard implements, etc. We’ve also decided to plant a small block of ultra-high-density Chardonnay this spring - we’ll be doing the no-trellis, no-wire old-school Burgundian plantings like I described a few posts ago. At maturity we should have enough to make a barrel or two of Chard, and we’ll see how it goes. If it’s great we might sell it, and if it’s just really good, we’ll probably drink it all!

The barn in progress at Azana

Thanks to Paul Gregutt of Wine Enthusiast for including us in his excellent new article on the best of Oregon Pinot touring and tasting - and for making our ‘08 Audrey his top-scoring wine this year! Read all about it here.

I’m getting fired-up for our Côte de Beaune Reds Tasting Saturday here in Carlton. It’s a great chance to check out a bunch of killer 1er Crus from Beaune, Pommard & Volnay - and get 25% off the featured wines for the weekend. (I’m also doing a seminar on these wines that night - there may still be a seat or two open by the time you see this - email Kelly Karr to book yours if you’re interested in joining us.)

Some final thoughts on my latest Burgundian adventure… Having tasted a couple hundred 2009s and maybe four-five hundred 2008s to his point, here’s my take on the vintages. When you think of the ’09s, think raspberry cream. When you think of the 2008s, think of a pure, clear, cold running mountain stream. Both are very delicious, but in very different ways. There’s a purity and brightness to the 2008s that I adore, and the sexy fruit of the 2009s is undeniable…

The Huber-Verdereau wines in Volnay have hit new heights in both ‘08 and ‘09. They’ve always been really well made and well received, but Thiébault seems to have taken them to a new level. I told him that he had now found the elegance within his terroirs, and he agreed. Watch for the next two vintages from this young biodynamic rockstar, they will be a revelation.

Thiébault Huber - a man outstanding in his field!

One of the best meals I had on this last trip was not at a “restaurant”. The Cook’s Atelier is a private cooking class/market-tour/supper-club that is housed in the way cool 17th-century Beaune apartment of American ex-pat Marjorie Taylor (whose daughter Kendall interned for us and Domaine Huber-Verdereau a couple of years ago and now works fulltime in the wine business in Beaune.) Marjorie was a restaurateur in Arizona and trained under Anne Willan in France at La Varenne, and is now living the dream in Burgundy.

The prep table in the Cook's Atelier

At the end of the long zinc-topped dining table is a large piece of blackboard slate emblazoned with the great Julia Child quote - “If you’re afraid of butter, use cream”! Marjorie’s cuisine is beautiful in its simplicity - whatever is fresh and delicious at the market, simply prepared to show off the natural flavors inherent in the ingredients. The night I went she made a ridiculously good Boeuf Bourguignon (which she said was based on the classic Julia Child recipe, with a bit of Thomas Keller’s twist, and her own to boot.) Wherever it came from, it worked. Meltingly tender chunks of beef in a deep, rich sauce, perfect baby carrots halved-lengthwise, the onions… The Cook’s Atelier is a bit of an insider’s secret for now, but I suspect it won’t be long before the word is out. I highly recommend it for your next visit to Beaune…

The stove of my dreams at the Cook's Atelier

Back into the cellars (for that’s where I do my best work!) - one of my favorite tastings every visit is with François Millet, the esteemed winemaker at Domaine Comte Georges de Vogüé in Chambolle-Musigny. (We do not import the de Vogüé wines, but I’ve been fortunate to have befriended François and GM Jean-Luc Pepin over the years.) Widely considered to be one of the elite estates in Burgundy, the reputation is clearly deserved. Along with the Mugnier wines, these are some of the most pure, precise, and thrilling wines on the planet year after year. I find the de Vogüé wines texturally denser and sometimes more concentrated than their counterparts at Mugnier, yet they are both stunningly elegant and graceful. I believe I could drink nothing but Mugnier and de Vogüé for the rest of my days and be quite happy, if I had to!

In the cellar with François Millet at de Vogüé

We tasted the 2009s in barrel, as none of them had started malo yet, and the 2008s had just been bottled and were not ready for their close-ups. I have never tasted such a richness of fruit in young pinot pre-malo. François called it the “cream of the fruit”, a perfect descriptor for the lush yet refined richness of of the fruit. Only a hint of the green-apple acid showed up on the back end of some of the wines, and that of course will be gone after malo. Could these wines be even lusher and richer then? It will be very interesting to check in on them again in the fall.

Even through the creamy fruit, the minerality of Chambolle was showing - to a lesser extent in the Chambolle villages, and more prominently in the Chambolle 1er Cru (the declassified young-vine Musigny.) The Amoureuses was very precise and expressive, all minerals and cream, while the Musigny was, as always, a class apart, with a lovely magenta-ruby color and the texture and taste of honeyed raspberries. The Bonnes Mares (which comes from “different blood” as Millet pointed out) is also showing the ‘09 cream of fruit - but in this case it is cream of black and blue fruits - mostly blackberries and very rich blueberries on the day. In all, a superb range at the very top of what Burgundy can produce. I cannot wait to drink these in their prime.

There is never enough time nor enough words to fully express what one goes through during a tasting at Lucien Le Moine in Beaune. They make about 50 different wines, for starters. And they are all from Burgundy’s best Grand Cru and Premier Cru vineyards (no lowly villages wine in this house!) Mounir Saouma and his wife Rotem are the husband and wife team who do everything at this micro-negoce, and they are each among Burgundy’s top true characters. Outspoken, never shy with their opinions, and with a very clear vision of what they’re trying to do, they have quickly risen to the ranks of the elite.

I found their ’08s fascinating - and so did they. They found that the 08s went through four very distinct phases of evolution - starting with what they thought were fresh and fruity wines to drink young, which then added toughness and acidity, only to get deeper and more serious, to finally arrive at what they think are true “Vins de Garde” - wines to age for a good long time. There is a bright acidity and structure to the wines, but a lot of fruit sweetness as well. The best wines will clearly need 10 years or more, but they are indeed wonderful.

Lucien Le Moine himself - Mounir Saouma

Among the whites, it’s always fascinating to taste the three top Meursault 1er Crus - Charmes, Genevrières, and Perrières - side by side. If one had any doubts about “terroir”, they’d be gone after these examples. Flowers and richness in Charmes, succulent minerality in the Genevrières. and an intense minerality to the 10th power in the Perrières. Fascinating stuff. It’s also very educational to taste their Corton Blanc (from the east facing slope) and the Corton-Charlemagne (from the west-facing slope) one after the other. A crème-brulèe richness and open-knit texture to the former and a loud mineral intensity to the latter - another great illustration of the concept of terroir.

On the red side, I tasted two different cuvées of Bonnes Mares - one from the northern end of the vineyard near the Morey side and the other from the southern section in Chambolle. It wasn’t hard to pick them out blind - the southern version had a very elegant entry, flowing into powerful but very refined tannins. The northern version was all black fruits and heavier, denser tannins. I thought all of the Chambolle and Vosne-based wines were showing excellently on the day, with the Richebourg in a class of its own in richness, roundness, length and complexity -a truly astounding wine. In the recent issue of Burghound, Allen Meadows’s listed the top 33 highest-scoring wines of the vintage, and fully 10 of those 33 are from Lucien Le Moine. I would say they had a successful 2008!

More soon with my final thoughts on another great visit up and down the Côte…