Alright team, I am resurfacing my kitchen and as a part of that project I am adding a wine bar area that is going to incorporate a built in wine cooler. Looking for a 24" wide cooler, any recommendations will help. The more I look around the more I am convinced that all the units are the exact same with a different brand name from the same factory in China. Here are my initial options: http://www.winecoolerdirect.com/cwr...-dual-zone-wine-cooler-cwr461dz/CWR461DZ.html http://www.winecoolerdirect.com/ava...l-zone-built-in-wine-cooler+/AWC241DZ-XH.html http://www.wineenthusiast.com/n-finity-pro-s-dual-zone-wine-cellar-(stainless-steel-door).asp Thoughts?
Just opened this which we brought back from our Portland trip. Really enjoy it but we've also got a Pinot blanc from the same company that was one of my favorite wines I've tried. This Riesling is a touch sweet for me
Going to Portland for a few days next week. I'll have a car and willing to drive an hour or two outside the city...and wine regions/places we could/should hit? Not super familiar with the area and hoping to get outside the city to do some hiking...so figured we could work some tastings in as well.
Willamette Valley is less than an hour to the southwest of Portland. Great Pinot. Penner-Ash, Domaine Drouhin Oregon, etc. There is lots on it in this thread or DistantFactor can help.
When I crack my computer open tomorrow I'll send some recommendations, but should be able to accommodate both hiking and wine tithin 1-2 hours from Portland.
To the southwest is the willamette valley which has tons of smaller AVA's within the larger one. If you like Pinot Noir you are looking at one of the 2-3 best places on earth for it. Chardonnay and Riesling also do good and the places Rabid mention are good with several others that are awesome. There are several hundred within 1.5 hours of Portland. This is one of the 5-6 best AVA's in the country. (This isn't my words but the words of most winos) If you want to incorporate hiking as well head into the Columbia River Gorge. You are in an area that is as good as any in the country for strictly hiking and you are close to the Columbia River AVA that's a bit different, but also awesome for wineries. I've really gotten into wine in the last few years and probably don't have the number or experience under my belt that DistantFactor does but have been to 30-40 within an 2 hours drive. You can also find a few in the city as well, Boedecker makes some really good and varied pinots. Also I'm becoming a snob and this bump made me go count my number and I'm going on 30 bottles aging. I blame living in southwest Portland metro and being 10-15 minutes from wineries.
When we visited Portland we did a visit to the Willamette Valley on one day and another day did our hiking/driving trip out east of town. We did a tour through a company for our wine day and got some great Pinots. We drove out into the Columbia River Gorge and found several different hikes that were pretty easy and had some amazing scenery. After hiking we continued our drive east to Hood River on recommendation of OZ and that was an awesome little town. There were several wineries or breweries to visit in that area, including the Full Sail brewery, and it was just a really cool area. It's about an hour east of Portland
Safe to say a visit to Willamette Valley would be cheaper than Napa, all things considered (tours, meals, lodging), or nah? Been to Napa before, although while I was old enough to drink, I was not old enough to *fully* appreciate the experience. That said, I've never been to Oregon and would love to make a trip of it and spend some time in Portland and in wine country.
If you really want to you can find ways to spend similarly but everything from lodging, food, tours/tastings and purchased wine is cheaper in Willamette Valley vs. Napa. Touring in Walla Walla, WA is even a bit cheaper.
Anyone going to Walla Walla let me know and you can visit our wineries, Proletariat Wines and Rotie Cellars.
Hitting up quality wine spots from Portland is pretty easy, everything is really within an 1.5 hours from the middle of downtown. Once you get on 99 west bound it takes you right through the heart of the wine country, so it's pretty easy to navigate there. Most of the time I head out to wine country I head out to the Chehalem Hills, which is about 10 minutes from Dundee which I consider to be as close to the center as you can get. Bang for you buck as far as proximity to a lot of different tasting rooms, I'd head to Dundee and swing by Purple Hands winery and Dobbes family estate. Then after tasting you can head over to grab a bite at Red Hills Market which has awesome food. Domaine Serene, Domaine Droughin, DePonte Cellars and a host of other great spots are a short drive away. If you want to venture over to some more scenic tasting rooms, I always recommend Penner Ash, both for the view as well as the wines. IMO they have the best tasting room in the entire Willamette Valley but are on the pricier side for OR Pinots. From there you have a lot of options within a reasonable driving distance, Lemelson, Beuax Freres (Appointment Only), Bergstrom, Adelshiem, and Colene Clemens are some of the more highly rated names. For brevity, I have often done the Penner Ash to Adelshiem to Bergstrom trip as they are all within about 5 minutes of one another and the Pinots are first class. Yamhill-Carlton isn' that much farther out with some awesome wine options, but it's getting far enough out that you'll be spending more time driving then necessary to find good wines. For hiking, I highly recommend going out the opposite direction east, along I-84 to Hood River. The town is situated on the Gorge overlooking the Columbia river with amazing hiking, good food and great beer (Full Sail and PFreim). For wine I would head across the river about 20ish minutes to the WA wineries as I wasn't a big fan of the Oregon offerings on that side of the river. Although to be fair the weather looks terrible next week, so may want to find a couple nice tasting rooms to stay dry and warm. For downtown, Boedecker is a good spot, and I also get to help out my co-worker Stewart Boedecker who actually owns it and is the winemaker. I'm trying to help him hit his sales goal so he can dedicate himself full time to the winery.
That is how it begins. I started with just trying to keep a wine rack that held 24 bottles full and letting a few age. Then it progressed to needing room in a closet, then buying a wine refrigerator and now I have a cellar in my basement. Cheers Sorry about the money you're about to spend. I recommend getting started on CellarTracker to keep an inventory.
Colene Clemens was the first stop on the tour I did back in May. I thought the wines we tried were decent but not worth the price per bottle as they started around $40-50 and only went up. My favorite that we visited was Roots Wine Company and I bought several very good 2012 Pinots in the $40 range (obviously very small sample size as we only visited four wineries that day)
DistantFactor no shit? I worked (until literally Monday) 1 block away from his winery. I loved his Pinot (more of the traditional) but we got his wife's (which on first taste was more exotic, but not quite as good) that I'm planning on making a good meal for it since the worker recommended it really shines with food. They recently just got done with crush and I'd walk by over lunch every day on my daily walk and take in the view of fresh grapes and the process. It also happens to be close to several distilleries, bars, restaurants. I recommend everything he said above. Haven't hit all those wineries but he knows the area even better and that's spot on. Red Hills will be some of the best food you will ever have that cost you both under $30 bucks. The Washington side does have better wines once you get out east of the gorge, better views of the gorge from the tasting room (although the Oregon side is steeper/has all the best waterfalls/more scenic). Also, some of the 3 best breweries in the entire PNW are located within 5 minutes of each other in Hood River you have Double Mountain (also with wood fired pizza that's really good) and Pfriem brewing. On the often overlooked side is Everybody's Brewing which is awesome and also has great bar food. The towns are about 10 minutes north of the fruit loop and world class ciders, apples, jams, etc and on a nice cloudless day the best views of mt. Hood in the state. As for Walla Walla, from a price point, you won't find a better combination of price/wine....probably in the world. Took my now fiancé there around our 1 year anniversary (when we really didn't know much about wine other than we liked to drink it) and spent around $200 on wine and got 6-7 amazing bottles (dark reds like a Syrah are really good out here, completely different AVA area than Western Oregon, much hotter with less rain) spent another $20-30 on tasting fees (most were $5-15 and waved with a purchase. Oregon is usually $10-20 also waves with 1-2 bottle purchase which is still cheap compared to most places), and $150 on food and lodging. You could spend a 3-4 days there and keep it under $700 real easy.
I was just trying to post a gif and nothing showed up in my message box. All of a sudden after I hit Post it was like a long cat of up jumbled text. It took me 5 minutes to just delete it all.
2012's were a much different year than 2013, which is probably what they were pouring this time last year. I have cellared all of my 2013's since they will need a couple more years to really come into their own, which is probably why you left feeling underwhelmed and really liked the 2012's. 2014's are a lot like 2012 hot year resulting in big fruit and bigger wines. 2014's are being heralded as the next 2009 vintage which was regarded as one of the best years ever for Oregon wine making. 2015 will be a lot like 2014 since it was so hot, while the 2016 vintage will be more up Rabid's alley with a colder summer and therefore less sugar and alcohol going resulting in more delicate/nuanced wines.
While we are on the Oregon and walla walla topics - if you could be a member of only one club from each region, what would it be? The wine shop I frequent is great on imports and Napa, not so great on OR and WA. They have good stuff, but limited selection from those regions. Other stores in the area are similar. Looking at lower level membership options to round things out.
The wineries are always looking for volunteers to help with harvest/crush. If that's something you'd like to partake in one year, even for a few days, they are usually really happy to compensate you with lunch and plenty of wine.
As a person now converting the closet under his stairs to a 400 bottle cellar, with about 180 bottles laying down currently in it I can attest to the conversion.
Washington - 1. Gramercy Cellars 2. Rotie Cellars 3. Abeja Oregon - 1. Patricia Green Cellars 2. DePonte Cellars 3. Le Cadeau
I enjoy buying too much. I get as excited about exploring and finding new things to try as I do the actual drinking of it later. I've moderated my purchases this year to line up closer to my consumption. I'm net +7 YTD but that is because we hit shipping season and the Sept/Oct wine club purchases have hit fast. I'll easily catch up on consumption in Nov & Dec.
Thank you for making that quick and easy. Edit - joined Rotie. Still working on the Oregon clubs - Patricia Green and La Cadeau both blocked me due to MI wine shipping laws. I think those changed to allow direct shipments from wineries but limit retail shipments. Going to call and try to get it done.
Admittedly my new house/baby has scaled back my purchases more than anything. The wife used to do a better job of picking me up a bottle when she was at the store for nightly consumption because it was on the walk home from the train in the city.
The nice thing with Rotie is that it is only a 6 bottle commitment in the spring. Gramercy is a similar style. They are very food friendly wines. Le Cadeau is really small. It is a couple that used to live in MN until he got a bug to go plant a vineyard and then hire winemakers to make wines with his grapes under his label. The style tends to be similar to Penner-Ash, Domaine Serene, Bergstrom (at least it was, I think they've dialed it back a little), Beaux Freres, etc. By Oregon standards, it tends to be a bit riper and fuller bodied. It isn't California big but it is definitely bigger than most Oregon. The wines benefit from a long decant or a couple years in the cellar. Patricia Green is a leaner, lower alcohol style more similar to what you find in Burgundy but with an Oregon flavor profile. DePonte Cellars and Domaine Drouhin Oregon are others in that style. I would call Evening Land like that as well--and I really like Evening Land--but it is expensive and I have no idea if they have a club.
Awesome, thank you. I definitely prefer the latter style for Pinot - my favorite I've had so far from OR was a 2010 vintage from Cristom, Jessie vineyard. I'll stick to Patricia Green, DePonte, or drouhin.
I have a rule. If I pick it up from the winery itself I will give it time to sit and/or open on special occasion. I separate them into 3 areas. 1) Age for 1-2+ years 2) Age up to a year 3) Drink whenever you forgot to pick up something from the store and/or too lazy to go grab one. These are usually a white and among the cheaper of the ones purchased from the wineries/wine clubs. Otherwise I try things from the $6 bottle of a blend that I will add to the spaghetti sauce I'm making that night or the the weekend more expensive impulse purchase. By no means is it a science, but its my newest hobby, and the one I enjoy the most (although some mornings this new hobby has lead to a few hours of headaches).
Cristom down by Salem OR is a great buy, and can usually find some really good deals depending on the year. You also might like Adelasheim who I think makes a less fruit forward Pinot. I talked to Ken Wright, who I consider the god father of Oregon Pinot, and he said Archery Summit might be hands down his favorite wine in years. 2014 Cuvée can be had for 35-45 depending on location.
I tend to prefer that style as well. In cool years they definitely need food if you're drinking them young. The more fruit forward, fuller bodied style goes good by itself without food. Rotie and Gramercy are a similar leaner style but with Syrah and Rhone varietals (Gramercy also makes a killer Cabernet though). I like Archery Summit. It just tends to be so expensive that I don't buy it often and rarely recommend it. Domaine Serene is in that camp too. I'd rather by Domaine Drouhin which is comparable but cheaper (though still expensive) and DePonte is an even cheaper comparable. Dundee Hills is still my favorite area within Willamette Valley. That is a great hill with all of those wineries. I might be biased though because we stayed at a B&B on the top of the hill between Drouhin & Domaine Serene.
Currently living in Buenos Aires so trying as much Mendoza Malbec as possible. Mostly been sampling the different table wines but had a Benjamin Nieto senetiner that was really good and the equivalent of $10 per bottle. Not sure if it makes it to the states or not
Just left Yountville Hit up Girard, Mumm, Far Niente, Cosentino, and Gundlach Bundschu Shipped about $1500 in wine home- should be stocked up for awhile
Phone call did the trick so I'm now I'm set up with both Patricia Green Cellars and Rotie. I plan on aging most, but it's nice that there are double bottles in the shipment so I can try one young. Still considering Grammercy and DePonte, may look into Adelsheim as well. Rotie is just once a year in the spring, right?
Yes, Rotie is a 6-pack in early April. They offer other wines at a discount in the fall but it is optional add-on. Then in early December they offer a $240 ($20/bottle) case shipment (including shipping) of a wine that is only available to club members. 2011 & 2012 were really a great value but I wasn't as happy with 2013 as it seemed a little bit higher in alcohol and didn't fit with their normal house style. Definitely try a few of those bottles to make sure you like the house style. Fwiw I like what I've tried from Adelsheim too but I think it is only 1-2 bottles.
Rabid what is your favorite from Sean @ Rotie. I handle his Proletariat line only, but get a mixed case of Rotie every every Spring. Homage and Sword Fight from 2012 were my favorite.
Welcome down the slippery slope. One of the nice things about DePonte is that their shipment always includes a bottle with some age on it. For instance, in the 6-pack I received last week there was a bottle of their 2009 Dundee Hills.
That's awesome. I'll receive two shipments Friday and DePonte a week from Friday. Pretty pumped. I do think this will be a good thing as the markup on these in MI seems pretty crazy and some don't even distribute here.
Weekday Wine: I'm hard into spicy, bigger bodied and dry reds...usually leading me towards the Riojas...recently tried the Freakshow Cabernet from Michael David in Lodi. Huge fan. Price is 15ish could be cheaper on sale, but a Weekday warrior for me for sure.
Saturday will be a good day, going to the Bergstrom release party, Colene Clemens release party, and swinging by Purple hands to pickup my shipment there after. Here is the take before additions(All Pinot): Bergstrom: 4- 2014 Bergstrom Le Pre De Cole's 2 2014 Croft's Colene Clemens: 3- 2014 Victoria Purple Hands Purple Hands: 2013 - Freedom HIll 2011 - Stoller 2014 - Latchkey Once I get done adding in others, it will be a 2 case weekend.
When I visited in 2012 and tasted through the lineup of 2010 vintage, Homage was my favorite. I think they were sold out of Swordfight but they recommended visiting El Corazon because they were still selling it. We did visit El Corazon but the wine I recall purchasing from them was called "With Love." It was a Syrah that I can't even find on their website now so they may not make it any longer. All that I recall was it was delicious (it had a white pepper note which I love in Syrah but usually only find in France which is why it stuck out to me) and it was about half the price of Swordfight. For the 2012 vintage I got 3 bottles each of Northern Red, Southern Red, Dre & Swordfight as well as a case of VDP (2012 Walla Walla is the most I have bought of any vintage in any region). I've drank through half of the VDP but I've only opened one bottle of the Southern Red and none of the others. I'll probably get around to opening at least one of the others this fall and take it from there. I recall at the time thinking the vintage should age really well so I've been very patient and drank my 2011s in the meantime.