Archery Summit Pinot: Worth The Price?

As regular readers know, this blog is all about comparative tastings: trying two or more bottles of wine at the same time.

Why?

Frankly, I can't open a single bottle of wine, parse out seven different flavors, make a judgement as to when it will be at its best and award it some precise number of points of out of 100, or even out of 10. And neither can any of the friends and family members who serve as fellow panelists in these blind tastings.

Most of the time, however, we can determine which of two or more bottles of wine we like the best and even give one or two reasons why.

Generally, we compare wines of the same type and vintage that are similarly priced. But sometimes we try similar wines that are sold at considerably different prices. This can be very useful in helping to determine when it makes sense to pay more.

That's what this posting is all about. In it, we consider an

Andrew Rich 2006 "Cuvee B" Pinot Noir ($25 ) an

Archery Summit 2006 "Premier Cuvee" PN ($48) and a

St. Innocent 2006 "Justice Vineyard" PN ($48).

For those who want the bottom line quickly, one of these wines, the St. Innocent, was a standout. Right from the first sip, this offering exhibited the complexity of flavors one generally hopes to find in an expensive bottle of pinot noir.

The other two offerings were both good in the sense that all three of our panel members enjoyed drinking them. After two rounds of blind tastings over two dinners, we ranked the Archery Summit second and the Andrew Rich third.

The Andrew Rich "Cuvee B"  is a nicely made, red-fruit focused pinot with good acidity and a slightly spicy finish. Let's assume that it is fairly priced at $25 a bottle. Let's also assume that the St. Innocent "Justice Vineyard" is so superior in terms of its complexity that, at $48 a bottle,  it is worth almost twice as much.

Where does that put the Archery Summit "Premier Cuvee" in terms of its price?

Compared to the considerably less expensive Andrew Rich, the Archery Summit is a softer, more mouth-filling wine and, instead of a spicy finish, it ends up slightly sweet. One of our three panelists liked the softer, sweeter finish while the other two of us felt the spicier endings of both the Andrew Rich and the St. Innocent went better with the food we were consuming.

Compared to the identically priced St. Innocent "Justice Vineyard" pinot, the Archery Summit came across as disappointingly bland both in its bouquet and in terms of flavor on the palate. Because of that, I would have to say this one is not worth $48 a bottle.

There are a lot of fairly intense, soft, mouth-filling Oregon pinots on the market at between $30 and $35 a bottle and based on the comparative results presented above, that is about what the Archery Summit 2006 "Premier Cuvee" is worth. Not because it is bad, but because it is over-priced relative to the competition, I have to rate this one Not Recommended.

According to the winery, the "Premier Cuvee" is made entirely from estate grapes, some of which come from Archery Summit's oldest vines. It is fermented in both wooden and stainless steel open-top tanks with native yeasts.

Assuming your budget permits, the St. Innocent "Justice Vineyard" pinot is Recommended.  The winery says this wine was aged for 16 months in 42% new French oak and is unfinned (not clarified) and unfiltered. It also says that the wine should be opened and allowed to breathe for one to two hours before consumption and that, while drinkable young, it will age for up to eight years.

I would agree that while the St. Innocent 2006 "Justice Vineyard" pinot can be consumed with great pleasure right now, but I also suspect it will be even better in two or three years. But it doesn't have much noticeable tannin so I wouldn't keep it too long.

As for the Andrew Rich, at $25 a bottle, it is Worth Considering.

Another Look At Two Washington Roussannes

This posting takes a second look at two Washington State wines made from the roussanne grape, a variety associated with the Rhone region of France.  The offerings in question are a:

Doyenne 2006 Roussane ($32) and a

McCrea 2006 Roussane ($22).

For those who haven't tried one, the roussanne grape makes a very interesting and highly versatile white wine. These wines are not oaky and buttery (like many chardonnay), overtly flowery (like many viognier) or decidedly citric (like many sauvignon blanc). They tend to have nice bouquets, offer a range of soft, rather seductive flavors on the palate, and display a clean, crisp finish.

The biggest problem with roussanne is that not much of it is made so you might have to search to find one.

The first of these two offerings is made by DeLille Cellars, of Woodinville, Washington, a winemaking mecca just outside of Seattle.  The winery markets Bordeaux-style wines under the DeLille label and uses the Doyenne label for its Rhone-style offerings. DeLille wines are much in demand and tend to be priced accordingly.

McCrea Cellars, which specializes in Rhone-style wines, is south of Seattle, closer to the state capitol of Olympia.

In both cases, however, the grapes are gown in the highly regarded "Ciel du Cheval" vineyard, which is located in the Red Mountains section of the Columbia Valley, east of the Cascade Mountains -- a hot, dry region where irrigation is the norm.

We first sampled the Doyenne 2006 Roussanne last October and found it assertive and just a bit spritzy. After another half-year in the bottle, the wine was considerably improved. It had settled down, opened up in terms of the range of detectable flavors and boasted a long, satisfying finish. The impression was that of white peaches and honey blossom balanced by a bit of lemon.

The 2007 version of this wine is currently being released and according to the winery, it is more concentrated than the 2006. I rate the 2006 as Worth Considering and I suspect the same will be true of the 2007, in both cases with the caveat that  equally interesting roussannes are available from other producers for a lot less money. With DeLille wines, consumers tend to pay a premium for the label.

If you do decide to purchase a Doyenne roussanne, I would recommend cellaring it for several months before consumption.

We last sampled a McCrae roussanne in December of 2006 and it was the 2004 vintage. The 2004 was noteworthy in part for a bit of viscosity that helped give the wine a mouth-filling quality. The same is true with respect to the 2006 where the viscosity also seemed to contribute to a very long finish.

In terms of flavor, this wine tasted as though there was a bit of apricot mixed in with a basic white peach flavor.

Just how this wine is made is a bit of a mystery: the McCrea web site first lists its composition as "100% roussanne" but then says the following: "After a gentle, whole cluster press, the juice was fermented in stainless tank. A portion of Viognier was added to lift and brighten the blend."  Hmm. That doesn't sound like 100% roussanne.

In any event, this is a very nice wine and, on the basis of the all-important "which one do you reach for?" test, the considerably less expensive McCrae was the the winner. Our three panelists finished that bottle first.  Recommended.

For the record, these wines are both listed as being 14.1% alcohol.

Chardonnay from Lioco and Sparkman

This posting takes a look at a couple of rather expensive chardonnay from small-volume producers in California and Washington. The wines in question are a:

Lioco 2006 "Charles Heintz" Chardonnay ($45) and a

Sparkman 2006 "Lumière" Chardonnay ($35).

In theory, we blind-tasted these two very different wines, but in practice that proved to be impossible because they looked so different in the glass. The Lioco, which is fermented in stainless steel and unfiltered, is very yellow and rather cloudy when first poured while the more traditional Sparkman, is silver-gray and very clear.

If you aren't familiar with unfiltered wine, you might be tempted to conclude there is something wrong with Lioco's "Charles Heinz" when you first see it. That is not the case.

In contrast, one's first impression of the Sparkman is very favorable: while it looks clearer and whiter than the average barrel-fermented chardonnay, it does not appear to be a "thin" wine and, indeed, it is not.

The grapes from which these two wines were made were grown in very different conditions. The Sonoma Coast region of California's Sonoma County is a cool, foggy area. In contrast, Washington's Columbia Valley is very hot and dry -- so dry that irrigation is the norm.

Two of the three members of the panel that tasted these two wines first encountered the "Charles Heintz" during a wine dinner in Seattle. There, the prevailing sentiment appeared to be that this wine was much better with food -- in this case a sea scallop dish -- than without. The scallops seemed to "complete" the wine.

We tried it with a chicken dish and results weren't as good.

While the "Charles Heinz" hasn't seen any wood, it has undergone malolactic fermentation, resulting in a very buttery taste and feel -- so buttery that it seemed to us that this aspect of the wine tended to overwhelm the fruit, both in the aroma and on the palate. The bottle we tried at home also had a slightly peculiar after taste that one of our panel members found to be unpleasant.

Given the cost, I would have to rate this wine as Problematic. Don't assume that just because it costs $45 a bottle, your dinner party guests are going to find it to be wonderful. Try it first and see whether this particular style is what you are really looking for.

Lioco, by the way, has a very informative web site if you want to know more.  Production was 380 cases.

The less expensive, but still not exactly "affordable" Sparkman "Lumière" is a more traditional chardonnay in that along with some fruit flavors, one tastes vanilla, which is attributable to the oak.  When one is comparing it to an unoaked chardonnay, the vanilla flavor jumps out, but in other circumstances it would probably not be as noticeable.

While a bit oaky, the "Lumière" is not buttery. Rather, along with some subtle soft-fruit flavors, it is lighly citrus and just a bit minerally. It is a nicely made wine and a good choice for a special occasion in that is looks lovely in the glass and will probably please a wide range of people.

In general, I am a fan of unoaked chardonnay, but I'm not a fan of overly buttery wines.  I wanted to like the Lioco, but I found myself reaching for the  Sparkman instead and I guess the other two panelists did, too, because there was a lot more of the Lioco left in the bottle after the first night. The Sparkman is therefore Worth Considering, with the caveat that consumers are now much more likely to find the 2007, which is about to be released, than the 2006. Only 100 cases of the 2006 were produced by Sparkman Cellars, which is located in Woodinville, Washington -- just outside Seattle.

As usual, we sampled these wines again on a second occasion after the partially consumed bottles were resealed and refrigerated. Results were pretty much the same.

For the record, the "Charles Heinz" is listed as having 14.2% alcohol while the "Lumière" is said to be 14.6%.

Hangtime, Vero 2005 Pinot Noir

Hangtime Cellars, of Napa, California, releases several pinot noir, three made from grapes grown in California and others from grapes grown in France and New Zealand.

The winery is headed by Rob Mondavi Jr., a third-generation member of California's famed Mondavi winemaking family, and his concept is to find vineyards where conditions permit grapes to remain on the vine for longer periods of time on the view that an extended "hangtime" results in a more satisfying wine.

In wine making and grape growing circles, that is a hotly contested notion.

Last year, we tried a Hangtime 2005 "Edna Valley" Pinot Noir priced at about $14 and found it to be a good buy at that price, particularly for consumers who prefer a softer, less acidic style.

This posting reports on the findings of our latest three-judge panel with respect to another Hangtime pinot and, for comparative purposes, a similarly priced pinot noir made in France, but crafted for the American market. The wines in question are a:

Hangtime 2005 "Force Canyon Vineyard" Pinot Noir ($20) and a

Vero 2005 "Bourgogne" Pinot Noir ($20).

Both of these wines, by the way, use the cachet of famous wine making families to enhance their marketability. The Vero is named for Veronique Drouhin-Boss, the great granddaughter of Joseph Drouhin, of Burgundy, France, and a prominent winemaker herself.

Here's the bottom line: these are both well-made wines with similar fruit flavors, but they differ in style. Like the Hangtime "Edna Valley" pinot mentioned above, the "Force Canyon Vineyard" pinot is a soft wine. It is only very mildly acidic and has little in the way of noticeable tannin.

In contrast, the 2005 Vero, which we first sampled in April of 2007, is more acidic and more tannic than the Hangtime, but not so much as to make it at all difficult to drink.

How easy is it to tell these two apart?  After blind tasting them the first time, our panel members agreed on how they differed -- one being just a touch lighter in body, slightly more acidic and slightly more tannic than the other. When the wines were identified, it turned out we had all picked the Vero as the slightly more acidic and the Hangtime as the softer wine.

(This is not always the case. Sometimes we think we are talking about the same wine only to discover we aren't.)

When we tried the blind-tasting again on a second night over another dinner, we all correctly guessed which wine was which.

I rate the Hangtime 2005 "Force Canyon Vineyard" Pinot Noir, which comes from Arroyo Seco region of California's Central Coast as Recommended, especially if you are looking for an aperitif wine. But if you are on a budget, you might want to look for the less expensive Hangtime "Edna Valley" pinot, which is very similar, but about 25% less expensive.

The Vero has held up very well since we first tasted it over a year ago and remains Recommended. Because it has better acidity, this is a better food wine than the Hangtime.

These two wines, by the way, are good alternatives to the Fleur, Erath and Angeline pinots that were reviewed on this blog in a posting dated July 23. All of these wines are priced at $20 a bottle or less, in the Seattle area at any rate.

Storing Partially Consumed Bottles Of Wine

For some years now, I have been in the habit of using a Vacu Vin system for preserving -- for a limited time -- partially consumed bottles of wine. The system, which consists of a small hand pump and some rubber corks, typically costs in the $12 to $15 range.

A reader of this blog recently left a comment suggesting that this was not necessarily a good idea.

"I'm of the opinion (and have tested it myself) that when you remove the air and create a vacuum, you run the risk of replacing the air in the bottle with potentially vital components evaporating from the wine itself,"  he or she said.

This person went on to say the problem was especially acute if  a partially consumed bottle wasn't refrigerated until re-opening.

During the past weekend, I attended the International Pinot Noir Celebration in McMinnville, Oregon. Numerous winemakers were in attendance and I asked about a dozen of them for their recommendations on this topic.

Nearly everyone recommended refrigeration, which slows down chemical reactions. In the case of red wine, one should then remove the partially consumed bottle from the refrigerator a half hour or so before resuming consumption. (White wine should also generally be served at something less than refrigerator temperature -- but still cool as opposed to close to room temperature.)

The winemakers to whom I talked were split as to whether it was also necessary to take steps to minimize the amount of oxygen left in the bottle.  Some recommended simply replacing the original stopper (cork, screw top or whatever), assuming the remaining wine is to be consumed in the next day or two.

Others said the amount of air should be minimized. A couple of winemakers recommended pouring any remaining wine into smaller bottles -- empty half-bottles that one would keep on hand for the purpose. If the half bottle is filled to very near the top before being re-corked, the remaining wine can be kept for quite a long time, I was told.

This is ideal if you plan to drink exactly a half bottle of wine on the first night. If you plan, or end up, drinking more or less, this method is less than perfect.

If things work out right, however, another benefit of this approach is that the small bottles take up less space in one's refrigerator.

One winemaker suggested using glass beads or marbles. Just pour enough into the partially consumed bottle until the remaining wine rises to near the top, he said.

No one recommended pumping a partially consumed bottle, as I had been doing, and one winemaker said pumping was the worst choice. In his view, one tended to pump out aromatic flavor components of the wine, which may be a different way expressing the concern voiced by the reader of my blog.

The role of oxygen and wine is an interesting topic.

Most wine -- particularly red wine -- needs oxygen to bring out its flavors.  That's why people often swirl wine around in a glass before consuming it and it is one reason to decant wine.

At wine dinners in restaurants, I have also seen red wine being poured back and forth from one decanter to another and swirled around in the process before being served.

But if wine is left in contact with too much oxygen for too long it will fade and eventually go bad. This process will happen relatively rapidly in warm conditions and relatively slowly if  the environment is cold.

The key question is: how much oxygen is too much and how long is too long?

In my experience, much depends on the nature of the wine. As per various blog entries, we have discovered that many if not most well-made red wines that are relatively young -- and some that have been cellared for awhile -- taste better on the second day, after a partially consumed bottle had been reopened.

Virtually all of the winemakers with whom I spoke agreed with that assessment as a general proposition, some very strongly.

Thus, if you plan to finish your partially consumed bottle of wine in the next day or two, it probably isn't necessary, or even beneficial, to go to great pains to minimize the amount of air remaining in the bottle by, say, transferring the remaining wine into a smaller container. This is particularly true if you refrigerate.

On the other hand, if you want to keep the wine for a longer period of time, getting rid of the air becomes a lot more important.

There are various preservation systems on the market that make use of inert gas in one way or another. Several of the winemakers I talked to noted their availability, but no one expressed any real interest in them. The prevailing view seemed to be that they are expensive, too fussy and unnecessary.

The reader of my blog suggested testing both delicate and robust varieties of wine four different ways:

1) gas one sample and refrigerate, and gas another sample and don't refrigerate;

2) do the same thing using a hand-pump system;

3) do the same thing using half bottles or marbles, and

4) do the same thing just replacing the original cork or stopper.

"You may find yourself to be testing your palate as well as your preservation regime," he or she said.

I would add to that the following test, particularly with respect to red wine:

Open a bottle and pour half of it into a half bottle, filling it up. Consume half of what remains and pour the last quarter of the original bottle into another half bottle, filling that one about half full.

Seal up both half bottles, refrigerate and reopen them a day or so later, allowing the wine to rise to close to room temperature before consumption. Check to see which is best: the one with little or no exposure to oxygen or the one that has had a chance to slowly react to some oxygen.

Many thanks to my anonymous reader for bringing this topic up. I only wish more readers would take issue with some of the things they find here.

Pinot Noir For The Rest Of Us?

I recently asked a prominent Oregon winemaker visiting Seattle the price of his least expensive pinot noir. The answer was $36 a bottle.

"When people say, 'I really like pinot noir, but I can't justify spending more than $20 a bottle,' what do you tell them?" I asked.

He scratched his head and looked puzzled. Then he told me about a $20 pinot made by another Oregon winemaker that he had liked a couple of years earlier. "But it's now $30 a bottle and I don't like it as much -- different vintage," he said.

He had no recommendations.

I got a similar answer a week or so later from a producer in California who offers his least expensive pinot for around $35 a bottle.

He looked slightly embarrassed at the question and started talking about how the film "Sideways" had created a boom in pinot consumption, driving up the price of grapes to levels that left what he considered good pinot out of the reach of ordinary consumers (many of whom would consider $20 a bottle a serious reach). He, too, had no recommendations.

Readers of this blog know that we probably try more pinot noir costing $30 a bottle and up than most consumers do -- in the interest of science, of course (!) -- but we also try hard to identify good pinot costing a lot less than that.  This posting looks at three "affordable" candidates:

Angeline 2006 Pinot Noir ($16), California

Erath 2006 "Oregon" Pinot Noir ($19), Oregon

Fleur 2006 Pinot Noir ($15), California

Lets get straight to the point: these three wines are very similar -- our latest panel of three tasters had to split hairs trying to rank them in order -- and all are Recommended.

They are better consumed with food than without. Both the Fleur, which has a slightly bigger body than the other two, and the Angeline tasted just a tad "grapey" on their own, but not so with a meal. The Erath is a bit lighter in body than the other two and is devoid of any grapey aspect, but, on the other hand, consumed alone it might taste a little bit thin.

All three of these wines will improve if they are cellared for awhile -- say one to three years. To drive this point home, I also pulled out a bottle of Belle Pente's 2003 "Willamette Valley" Pinot Noir ($17 -- when purchased a couple of years ago) and without telling the others the vintage, asked them what they thought about it compared to the other three we were blind-tasting.

"It's smoother," one panel member said, and it was. I also thought the flavors had come together more coherently. For an inexpensive Oregon pinot, it had become very satisfying.

But let's state the obvious: consumers are not going to find the finest expressions of the pinot noir grape in any of these offerings, cellared or not. These are not complex, terrior-driven wines, speaking of particular soils or clones, or of the intensity of very limited bottlings of only the choicest grapes.

On the other hand, these wines successfully express the fundamental aspects of pinot noir that set this grape unmistakably apart from other red wine varietals, such as cabernet sauvignon, merlot, syrah and  zinfandel. Pinots are lighter in body, fresher tasting and generally more oriented toward red fruits such as cherries and raspberries.

When well made -- and all three of these wines are well made -- pinots are easy to drink, especially with salmon, duck, veal, simply cooked chicken and a wide range of summer main-course salads.

Our three-judge panel enjoyed consuming all three of these wines with one meal and two of us found they all held up well with other dinners on subsequent days after the partially consumed bottles had been pumped and rubber-corked in the interim.

Angeline is a second-label of Martin Ray Winery in California's Sonoma County and the 2006 version of this wine is made entirely from pinot noir  grapes grown in two vineyards in the Russian River Valley.  That's a change from 2005, when small quantities of syrah and merlot were blended in.

One often sees Angeline offered by-the-glass in restaurants and, indeed, that is how I first encountered it. Relatively inexpensive pinot noir by the glass is often not a particularly good bet, but I was sufficiently impressed by the 2005 Angeline to write it up. The 2006 is equally good for what it purports to deliver and very good value at the price.

Erath is a long-established winery in the Dundee Hills region of Oregon's Willamette Valley, and it produces pinot noir at several different price points. Here's what the winery has to say about the one we tasted:

"The largest volume, most affordable and first to be released each year is the 'Oregon.' It tends to be light in color and body, straight forwardly fruity, and is low in tannins for early drinking and enjoyment."

I agree.  If you find heavier-bodied pinots just a little syrupy, the Erath is a very good alternative in the less-than-$20-a-bottle price range.

Have you ever bought a bottle of wine because you really liked the label? Admit it, who hasn't?

Well, Fleur, which comes from the Carneros region of California's Napa Valley, has a beautiful label (featuring, of course, flowers) and as a result, I was really hoping it would turn out to be good.

Of the three wines that we blind-sampled in this comparative tasting, the Fleur had the most prominent bouquet and, as mentioned above, slightly the biggest body. As a result, it was a little more mouth-filling than the other two -- noticeably more so than the Erath and very slightly more so than the Angeline.

Two of our three panelists liked that ;and placed the Fleur first. I thought it was a little too much with the food and placed it third. I have to admit, however, that of the three bottles, this was the first one to be totally consumed.

For the record, the Erath and Fleur pinots are listed as 13,5% alcohol by volume while the Angeline checks in at 13.6% Those are all acceptable numbers.

I suppose winemakers who start their pinots at around $35 a bottle won't be drinking much of these three wines and neither will the "Sideways" crowd, but I think the rest of us can not only drink them with pleasure, but serve them to our friends with confidence.

Pinot Gris From Owen Roe, Sineann

This posting takes a look at two relatively expensive pinot gris wines from Oregon. They are an:

Owen Roe "Crawford-Beck Vineyard" 2007 Pinot Gris ($21) and a

Sineann 2007 "Oregon" Pinot Gris ($19).

Oregon pinot gris often display two aspects -- a citric component and a rather floral, soft-fruit component of varying flavors. If the citrus is in short supply, these wines can end up too sweet. On the other hand, if the citrus is too dominant, they can be rather acidic and even a bit sharp. In most cases, the trick seems to be getting the balance right.

The two wines are a little different, however.

The Owen Roe offering is a vineyard-designate wine, meaning that all the grapes used to make it came from a single vineyard, in this case a 1.2 acre block of pinot gris grapes planted on a hillside in the Eola-Amity Hills region of Oregon's Willamette Valley.

Vineyard-designate wines are often considered more interesting than blends and generally command a higher price. But in my experience, they aren't necessarily better from a consumer point of view and I would say that is definitely true of this particular wine.

Our latest panel of tasters did not care for the Owen Roe pinot gris, which did not at all fit the profile described above.

As advertised on the back label, this is an aromatic wine with a bouquet that rises up into your nose as you drink it. But the bouquet is all too reminiscent of Welsh's white grape juice and, sure enough, that's what this rather soft, not particularly citric  pinot gris tasted like.

In my view, these grapes should have been used for blending purposes. Not Recommended.

For the record, the alcohol content is listed as 13%, which is attractively low.

The Sineann (pronounced "Shin-ayne") pinot gris is also a bit different from what I would consider mainstream Oregon pinot gris, but in a favorable manner.

The salient "extra" feature of this clean, nicely flavored, refreshing wine is a rather unusual minerality that keeps it very dry. As a result, we found it to be an excellent food wine and discovered that it held up well with a second meal after the partially consumed bottle had been pumped and rubber-corked in the interim.  Alcohol content is listed as 13%.

One can find very good Oregon pinot gris for less money than $19 a bottle, but for those interested in expanding their flavor horizons, this one is worth trying at least once. It's one of those wines where you keep wanting to have just one more sip. Recommended.