2010 Cedar River Cellars Vintage Sensory Eval

I just finished taking 50ml samples from each of our varietal barrels, mixing, and doing some sensory evaluation on each individual sample, as well as the conglomerate. What I have in the barrels for 2010 are Merlot, Cab Sauv, and Syrah. Most everyone knows that the 2010 Viognier was already released and is long gone, however, I will give some notes/thoughts on the Vio as well.

The wino talking heads, if you read all of the wine blogs and such, will say that 2010 is a cool year and look for stronger acids and such in the 2010 vintage Washington wines. My primary impressions are...I am finding a nice balanced drinkable wines at 10 months old. I also get my grapes in two areas...Yakima and Pasco...some other regions may differ.

Here is the breakdown:

2010 Viognier
Tropical fruit aroma, starting to show a bit of honey in the flavor, pear and apple flavors, finishes dry, crisp and acidic with a perceived sweetness. I had some customers say it is the best Vio they have ever had.

2010 Syrah
Added re-toasted French barrels to the mix. A bit lighter in color than our 2009..brick red. Mocha nose, baking spices, blackberry/cherry aroma. Medium anise flavor, barrel spice, berry flavors and a medium acid-ethanol finish. Medium body and a light trailing aftertaste, and light tannin finish..ready for next sip. Definitely a bit different from the 2009 in terms of a bit more tannin and acid and not so much blueberry. Acid is not tart or over-the-top.

2010 Cab Sauv
Added re-toasted French barrels to the mix. A bit lighter in color than our 2009..plum red. Pie cherry nose, black currant, baking spice, and slight clove/eugenol. Very light smoke/tar-like aroma. Flavors of black currant, clove, vanillan, and barrel notes. A medium-full body with medium-full tannin and balanced acid finish. Acid is not tart or over-the-top. I find the 2010 Cab Sauv a bit easier to drink at this time than our 2009, with much more complex flavors.

2010 Merlot
Added a new M+ American Oak barrel to the mix. Classic Merlot brick red color. Aromas of vanilla, brandied cherry, and light smoke. Meaty game-like flavors, ripe plum and cherry flavors, light cola, with light clove notes. Aftertaste lingers of barrel toast. Full bodied, clean tannin, and crisp acid finish, but not tart. I speculate this will be a popular wine for our 2012 release.

I think that the 2010 vintage is just fine..in my cellar..and I would guess in most every other winery's cellar. However, 2010 did bang on the vines a bit and 2011 harvest will be light in some if not most vineyards. It will be interesting to see how the concentration and flavors change in 2011 vintage.

If you liked our 2009 rookie vintage, I think the 2010 will be a bit different and fun to drink.
Cheers!

Wine Reviews, Scores, and Competitions, Oh My!

It has been busy the last month doing wine events, peddling wine, drumming up sales, as well as working in the cellar. It has been a while since my last post, but now I have something on my mind to put down to digital paper.

It is hard selling wine when no one knows who you are. As as a rookie, you have to prove to the fans that you have something special and worth seeking out. Thus wineries participate in wine tasting events and promotions. At a recent event we participated in, we poured our wine, and the event patrons could purchase the wine at a local wine store. However, the wine store only committed to 2 bottles of each of our products. I felt this was due to being an unknown winery. Needless to say, we were a popular winery with tasters coming back for more, bringing friends, and asking where to buy the wine. At the end of the event, we went back to the wine store to see that all of our wine was sold. The store purchased 3 more bottles of each of our varietals, but that seems a bit late after the event is over.

I have noticed from our short history, and this is huuuge, that when doing a tasting event you HAVE to make the sale. Be it wine, like us on FaceBook, become a fan, etc., otherwise, customers tend to not actively seek you out after-the-fact. I mean we have had follow-ups, but not as many as you would think for the amount of people who come by the table and taste (yes, I am aware they might not like the wine). For this reason, we try to only do tasting events in wine stores or at venues where there is the ability for customers to purchase the wine from a sponsoring wine store. We can use the sales information as a barometer of success.

Now this gets me to a strong thought recently...wine reviews, scores, competitions. I read a lot of wine reviews, blogs, critics, people who think they are all of the previous mentioned and share ridiculous information on every digital medium available. I see a pattern of consumers (and other winemakers for that matter) who thumb their noses up at scores, reviews, and competitions. Okay, I understand that if you are an established winery and you have 50 billion medals and every vintage all your products gets reviewed by a major publication or whatever..some consumers and critics may say that your brand is getting diluted from all of the medals and scores. It can also be interpreted as this dude knows how to make wine and wants third party reviews to validate.

As a new winery, I find that competitions, submitting wine for critic reviews, etc. is very important to building our brand and generate awareness of our winery. Criticism helps products/people get better and lets them fine tune what works and what doesn't. I am just blown away by the amount of consumers who turn a blind eye to scores, reviews, and medal thinking that they are meaningless, when the winery drops a lot of wine to get that validation.

I recently was on-the-fence about submitting wine to a major wine critic, but in the end: I learned to stop worrying and love making wine :-P.

Wine World Wow-House

We did a wine tasting event at Wine World Warehouse yesterday March 26th, 2011. I thought it was quite successful for being in a new time slot for WWW (6-8pm). Our event was only the 4th event in that time slot and we were the only winery pouring. The store itself poured a selection of Argentinian wine. As similar to our other CRC tastings thus far, all of our wines were very well received. I loved hearing from patrons whom would say, "This is really good wine." And I would say, "Your are drinking our rookie vintage." The expression on their face would change and they would say, "Your kidding me?!?" Then I would relay the information that we have been making amateur wine for 7 vintages-ish and now pro for 2 vintages.

Since WWW opened in December 2010, we have wanted to visit, but making time has been difficult with our schedule. Needless to say, now that I have been there..I am sold..and will become my go-to-place. I cannot stress enough how much we preach to "Drink Local". Support the small Washington business and wineries. Support the larger ones as well, be worldly and broaden your palate with the Euros, but think Washington wines first. And WWW is the place to go for Washington wine. I also encourge to buy direct from the wineries as much as possible as well.

I would like to also say that it was very, very, reassuring to have good feedback from Lenny of WWW and Marc of Cordon Selections Distributors. These dudes taste and eval 1000's of wines and they did not just sip, spit, give a nod, and walk-off. They gave valuable feedback, and were genuinely impressed with the wine. I say cheers to both of them!

Finally, I worry about the Eastside traffic to Wine World Warehouse when the 520 Bridge Toll goes into effect. We took 520 over yesterday, but we also could have gone I-90. I have no idea how the toll will effect Seattle business, but hopefully there is not a total alienation from the Eastside.

Oregon Wine, Food and Brew Festival 2011

I followed a link from a wine blog, to an Oregon Wine publication, to their events link that happened to have information about a wine, food, and beer gig going on at the Oregon state fairgrounds on a weekend we were going to be in the area. Nice..the world wide web in action.

Heather and I showed up Saturday at 11:45 am ish for a Noon doors opening. I thought we were going to be unfashionably early.. nope...we waited in line for a bit.

Here is the quick rundown. We paid $10 each to get in, we brought our own wine glasses (thanx for the tip mom), we broke one of them, there was not much food nor good food, and we did not sample beer. So after we got a quick glance around, we started looking for wine to sample.

We started at Noble Pig (Willamette Valley AVA). After hearing Cathy's (the winemaker/owner) story, we introduced ourselves as winemakers as well (this was our common m.o.) and we learned that we were tasting Noble Pig's first vintage release, 200 case production, two varietals...hmmm.. I know that story. We bought 2 bottles of Pinot Noir.

Later we tasted another first vintage release from a 200 case production Southern Oregon AVA (Rogue Valley) winery named, Eliana. They had one offering, a 3 varietal blend. It was tasty, but we did not get good vibe, and decided to make a tough pass.

I had to stop by Willamette Valley Vineyards and give the ol' Jim Bernau show a good rogering. Of course Jim was out of town, but I gave the steward my card and told him to make sure Jim gets it (hot tip, I used to work for him in the beer brewery days). We picked up an excellent bottle of whole cluster fermented Pinot Noir. At $20, I found it to be a great deal, however, WVV was the only dudes who did NOT give us the industry discount.

We hit juuust about 90% of the wineries at the event..http://www.oregonwinefoodbrewfest.com/documents/OWFBFVendorList1262011ab.pdf

One of the two whites we bought came from Zerba Cellars, a nice blend of Chard, Sem, and Vio.

Our favorite of the show was Umpqua Valley's Melrose Vineyards. The father + son one-two punch of Wayne and Cody was a delight to talk to and talk shop to. Everything we tasted was excellent or at least very good. They had quite a line up, I think like 6-7 reds and 3 whites...all estate. We walked away with 3 bottles of their fine (Dolcetto, Pinotage, and Bacco Noir) wine and look forward to supporting them in the future.

In closing, we had a good time and talked with a lot of nice winemakers and stewards, but the real hidden message is go out and support those small wineries. Even if you can not buy them all, think about them next time you are out tasting.

Cheers!

Cedar River Cellars Excellent Adventure

In the movie Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, the "Wyld Stallyns" bring peace and harmony to our society with the power of their rocking.

During a wonderfull glass..er bottle..of our 2009 Bella Bella Syrah, I slipped into a daydream where the shear awesomeness of our product did the same. As my eye's got blurry, and I slumped in my easy chair, I envisioned the story of our wine being slowly disseminated into the community.

As impatient, over-worked, don't-know-how-to-drive-in-the-pacific-northwest citizens worked their way into an old dusty alleyway wine merchant, they stumble upon a bottle of wine that stands out, they are drawn to it, it vibrates with harmony. Upon purchase and opened, the effervescent nose calms their nerves, the flavor changes their perception of time and space, and brings them to inner-peace. While enjoying the wine, nothing else in the world matters and they become vino-zombies...[record scratch]..no..they become vino-tranquils.

These vino-tranquils tell a friend, and they tell a friend, and so on...resulting in...

Cedar River Cellars 2010 Vintage Is On!

Well it has been quite a while since my last post, but geez, there is nothing going on during the summer and I did not have much to talk about. I have done some bottling of the 2009, but that is about it.

Today we kicked off the 2010 vintage. Myself and a friend crushed about 3000 lbs of Cabernet Sauvignon from Portteus Vineyards. Good shit baby! The tech specs came is similar to last year. Here are my notes thus far...

My numbers at the tank are
22 degrees Brix (I thought it would be closer to 23) so that is about 12.3 alc (last year I was at 23-23.5). I may recheck this a couple of times..although..I have already..I will recheck with a hydrometer as well and get a S.G. It is no big deal, the flavor and acid is nice...so the grapes are ripe.

Ph 3.65 (last year 3.56)
TA 0.66 g/L (last year 0.75 g/L)

The flavors are good, the seeds are really spicy compared to last year and not as tannic in the mouth as a whole berry. However, with all of this must in one 48S bin, I will extract the shit out of it and get lots of skin contact. There are NO pyrazines (bell-pepper or green flavors) that I taste and the stems look ripe and mature. These grapes looked better and taste better than last year all around. A little less black currant this year, more spice and fruit. However, I can taste Portteus house flavor and once I start to press, I get a better picture of the flavor profile. Last years grapes seemed a bit smaller and much more tannic and concentrated in cherry and currant flavors.

I will process Syrah and Merlot next Thursday. The vineyard numbers on those grapes are looking similar to last year from my Pasco grower, Burgess Vineyards.

Things are a bit crowded in the cellar, but looking good.

Wine is a Buzz Pt. 2

In an earlier post, http://blog.cedarrivercellars.com/2009/11/wine-is-buzz.html, I wrote about the hype about Charles Smith's 2006 Royal City Syrah and how I acquired a couple of bottles. Well, I have not opened them yet, but I was able to enjoy a bottle with some new friends. I suppose anyone who shares a nice bottle of wine would be your new friend.

Anyway, after some banter over at Sean Sullivan's blog about the 2006 R.C.S, an invite for wine and dinner was broached and the plans started to take shape. Originally, I pitched dinner at our house and will supply the 2006 R.C.S, but Sean re-raised and said that he would supply the bottle of wine. Wow!

I prepared Pacific caught sockeye salmon on a cedar plank, artichokes, pasta tossed in olive oil, garlic, and sun dried tomatoes. I made a sauteed mushroom appetizer and creme brulee for dessert. We bought a Charles Smith Riesling (2007 I think), as well as barrel sampled Cedar River Cellars Bella Bella Syrah 2009, Cedar River Cellars Ava's Crush Cabernet Sauvignon 2009, and Cedar River Cellars Kennydale Viognier 2009.

Sean and his friend Lindy arrived and after introductions, he poured the 2006 R.C.S into a decanter. Sean had opened the bottle up earlier in the day, so the wine had already been exposed to some air.

I did not take notes, so here we go from memory...
We all thought the nose was a bit closed, however, the strong ethanol presence helped volatilize what was there. My first whiff was of French oak barrel spice. I said it smell like a barrel room, and then further referenced the smell of the Taransaud barrels in our cellar. There was another aroma that everyone was having trouble identifying. After a couple of more sniffs, I said is smelled like milk which is most likely coming from lactic acid. Heather said it smelled like Guinness Stout, which is a very lactic beer.

The flavor had the typical Syrah notes, blue fruit and dark fruit, however, I got this awesome orange peel note when breathing back through my palate. It was just beautiful...like one of those chocolate orange candies. Speaking of which, I thought there was a bit of bitter-sweet chocolate notes as well as the barrel flavors. I felt that the body was a bit thin..not light..but thin. I would call the body a solid medium, but I was expecting a bit more glycerol and fuller.

Overall, a great wine, but maybe all of the hype of the scores and reviews may have biased my perception of the product to be more than it was. I have been drinking a lot of Syrahs lately and the 2006 Royal City Syrah beats them hands-down. However, I like ours better :-)