EXCUSE ME!

I spend a lot of time trying to educate people in the ediquate of the tasting room. Geez, I poured wine for 6 years and I've seen it all. One of my favorite was the guy who obviously could care less what I was pouring as long as it had booze in it. He went down the entire tasting list in two minutes. Gulp, Gulp, Gulp.

While I admit that this is the extreme "poor" taste, there are a vast majority of folks who don't get it. My biggest pet peeve is the "I own this wine bar" taster. Just the other day at a local tasting room a group of women out for a good time by hiring a limo, were "parked" at the tasting bar, monopolizing the whole thing. Diane and I had brought our tour clients in the winery only to have them stand at the side while the girls enjoyed the food set out on the bar. They never once moved aside.

To me this is the height of the ugly American. Rude and inconsiderate. So if no one ever told you, get your taste and step aside to let those in back of you get their taste. Why is this such a hard concept? Diane and I once allowed another couple to step to the bar only to have them set up shop. We had to reach around them to get our next taste!!!

Any more, people are loathed to reprimand anyone in public. The little kid drops his candy wrapper and we look the other way! (Not me!) No wonder the rude behavior is getting worse. Do your part and ask those bar-huggers to share the place!

The Good Life!

Why drink wine? My answer is simple. It takes me away from the mundane everyday life and transports me to the sunny slopes of some far-off vineyard, where tranquility rules and all are friends. Wine is a mystery.

The prevalent mood seems to be fear these days. Terrorists, taxes, drugs, Republicans! But the fruit of the vine cares little for the human condition. It occupies a world of open fields, sunshine, sweetness, and love of the land. All it asks of you is to enjoy a moment of peace and remembrance of a simple life.

Wine is not complicated. It's rotten fruit in a bottle! What it is though is a record of a time and place. Diane and I were amazed when on a wine tour in Burgundy we learned how wine made from vines just rows apart could be entirely different. One side of the road could be a Grand Cru and the other side just so-so. Amazing. That is why drinking wine is not about the "buzz" (drink Bud if you want to get stupid) but about place. Transporting your mind and soul to a magical mystical world. Inside that world you can let go of the "crush" of everyday life and slip away to another realm.

Can't see the Grapes for the Vineyards

At the recent Oregon Wine Awards in Portland a local winery, Ruestle Prayer Rock Vineyards won the Double Gold for the best Pinot Noir in the state. Yet there are many here in Roseburg that still don't realize that there is a rapidly growing wine
industry right here in their own back yards.


Case in Point: The Downtown Roseburg Wine and Art Walk. With 21 Umpqua Valley wineries currently to choose from, many of the businesses taking part in the Walk where pouring wine other than our local labels. Not only "outsider" wine, but cheap grocery store brands from as far away as Australia! It was an insult to our local wine makers!

These businesses completely missed the point. They do not understand that wine making is an art form in itself. It would be like going to Wal-Mart to purchase cheap framed artwork and displaying it as their contribution to Art in Roseburg.

I couldn't help thinking of someone, say from Portland, attending the event and wondering why the wine was from anywhere but the Umpqua Valley.
Maybe they thought we just don't produce fine wine here.


How are we ever going to present ourselves as a world-class wine region if the locals are "promoting" cheap wine from Australia.

In Your Face, Willamette!

As a promoter of the Umpqua Valley AVA, it is my never ending job to keep the pressure on the Willamette Valley and the glut of press their wines receive. Most publications focus solely on the WV when referring to Oregon Wine. Take for instance the supposed Oregon Wine Press, which I have renamed the Willamette Pinot Press!

The answer to all this attention is nothing more than MONEY. It is the very same phenomenon as the Napa Valley; they are closest to the largest wine market in the state. More people, more money, more press. And so everyone else gets the table scraps from the banquet of Pinot Noir.

Now if you believed all this press, why bother with any other AVA when it comes to Pinot Noir? The reason is very simple: Good wine is good wine. You can't argue with what's in the bottle even if it has a label other than Willamette Valley. Therefore, when a prominent panel of respected wine professionals, buyers, writers and sommeliers tasted and evaluated 257 Oregon wines it may come as less of a surprise when the 2007 Reustle Prayer Rock Vineyards “Reserve Pinot Noir,” from the Umpqua Valley won Double Gold and landed on the top of the list among all those WV Pinots!!!

The moral of the story is: If you are interested in excellent wine from Oregon then you must expand your horizon beyond the Willamette Valley. If you haven't spent time in the Umpqua Valley then you are denying yourself the wide variety of premium wines available here.

"Water? Never touch the stuff..."

Sage advice from W.C. Fields! And when it comes to wine tasting, water, must be approached carefully. The only time I suggest that water is used while wine tasting is between tastes as a thirst quencher. Always in a separate glass.

Being a wine evangelist is a lonely burden. Just yesterday, while helping out at a local winery during the Annual Barrel Tour, I soon gave up "preaching" not to rinse with water before I poured a taste of wine for the participants. This illustrates the power of suggestion among the inexperienced wine tasters. They have seen someone rinse and think that is what they are supposed to do. Now I don't think they are stupid, rather they have not been gently guided away from the practice. They wrongly think that they are purifying their glass for the next taste. What they are doing is introducing several negative elements into the tasting experience. First, water has it's own taste. Some more noticeable than others. The whole goal of wine tasting is really wine sniffing. And if you're sniffing anything but the wine then you are going to confuse your olfactory. Second, even a drip or two of water will dilute the wine. Unlike beer, water, is not an ingredient of wine.

So if you insist on rinsing, use a splash of the next wine. Often, a professional will "prime" the glass with the wine they are about to taste. Even the glass itself may have off-odors from cleaning, etc. The only time you really need to do this is if you are returning to whites after tasting reds. Best chase is to use two distinct, made for that wine, glasses.

The savvy taster will carry their own bottled water, as it is important to keep hydrated during the "grueling" effort of wine tasting!