Thomas O’Neil Cellars Open In Northern Richland

I’m strange. I admit it. It comes from my childhood when my very “artistic” mother used to say “If all your friends were jumping off a cliff, it doesn’t mean you should do it”.

So, a few months ago when all my friends were going to the newest winery in the Tri-Cities I was a bit standoffish. I wanted the hubbub and craziness to wane a little before I went rushing in. After all, by the end of the first day of business most every wine writer in town already had at least a tweet up about the new place in town.

This week I finally decided it was time to make my way to the Thomas O’Neil Cellars in Richland, near the Horn Rapids golf course. The tasting room is visible on the north side of Highway 240. You really can’t miss it.

We were greeted warmly at the door by Tricia O’Neil and a couple of their fantastic staff. Their French intern Clémence, who is with them for just a few more weeks, poured wines and Tricia ran to the tank room to pull Thomas from his task of racking wines. Within moments my quiet and unannounced visit became a grand scale tasting and interview.

Thomas and Tricia have a very interesting story. Living most of their lives in Michigan, Tom worked many years in business administration, with wine being a serious hobby for the couple. It wasn’t until about 10 years ago, when Michigan State University’s Enology center opened that Tricia urged Tom to go back to school and follow his dream.

Tom interned at Ste. Michelle in Patterson, and then went on to take the assistant winemaker position at Milbrandt Vineyards. A few years ago he decided it was time to stop making mass amounts of juice for others and focus on making smaller lots of wine for himself. That was the birth of Thomas O’Neil Cellars.

Tom, having been trained in white wine country, and a lover of red wines, is well versed in all varieties. The wines all show a considerable amount of fresh acidity which compliments Tom’s desire to make wines ready for food and focus away from “cocktail wines”.

Clémence started me off with the 2009 Chardonnay. It is primarily American neutral oaked, Chardonnay grapes sourced from the Walluke slope, with a little Pinot Gris for the balance. The wine is full of fresh apples, pears, and pineapple, with a gentle acidity on the finish. Some oaky vanilla, but overall very crisp.

The 2009 Riesling offers a light residual sugar of 1.6% making it a delicious off-dry wine. I loved the florality of the wine, with a nose of white flowers and orange water. I picked some up to enjoy with ceviche this weekend.

The 2009 Cabernet Sauvignon offered up a light fruit forwardness of cherries, raspberry, and cocoa. Very enjoyable.

I loved the 2009 Merlot. A combination of jammy fruit forwardness. Black cherry, vanilla, and cocoa, with a light tanned leather finish.

Tom’s 2009 “Fusion” is his flagship wine. It is a red blend of Syrah, Petite Syrah, and Grenache. Dark blueish purple in the glass with a rich nose of prune orchard. The wine has a hint of toasted oak that mixes with the dark fruits to fill the palate. Nicely balanced on the finish. This wine was a must have for my cellar.

Enjoy!

Taking A Trip Down Avery Lane Tastes Pretty Good

Ok. So something happened this week that I thought was totally cool. I got asked to taste some wines. I know what you're thinking: "So what? You're the wine guy and you're always tasting somebody's wine. Right?"

Well, this is sort of true, and sort of not true. Usually I dive bomb into wineries without staff knowing who I am, pay my fee, and walk out just like any other customer. That is unless somebody knows who I am. This situation is a little different though.

My relationship with the owners of Grocery Outlet in Kennewick has been growing over the past few months. This week, Dane approached me and asked if I would taste some new wines that he had just brought in. These are wines from Avery Lane, one of the Precept Wine brands from Walla Walla.

Precept is well on its way to becoming one of the largest wine producers in the United States. Using talented winemakers from throughout the state, the company uses juice from many of the state's famous vineyards, bottles it, and markets it. Frankly, some of their wine brands are simply fantastic. Not only that, but the prices are out of this world!

One of the Precept brands is Avery Lane. A beautiful label, bottle, and cork. This wine is fit to be served anywhere from weddings to dinner with friends and they'll have no idea unless they read this column how much you really spent.

The wines I tried are as follows:

2008 Riesling: Peach blossoms and honeysuckle aromas fill the nose as you inhale. The initial taste is brilliant citrus, followed by a nice creaminess on the mid-palate. The finish is crisp and sweet with just the right amount of sugar balanced with acid to cleanse the palate. Enjoy with spicy home-made ceviche for a great meal pairing.

2007 Merlot: Cherry and vanilla fill the senses both on the nose, and in the mouth. When the wine is decanted or swirled in the glass the alcohol flavors make way for a delicious layering of cherries, dark berries, and vanilla. The jammy flavors make you want to have another sip! Enjoy with pork, beef, or a grilled salmon fillet from our freezer section.

2007 Cabernet Sauvignon: Dark cherries, blueberries, and currents on the nose. The flavors are dark berries, vanilla, and a hint of leather. Silky tannins on the finish. This bottle tastes like a rich, dark berry cobbler ready to be gobbled up.

Now for the kicker...this stuff hit the shelves today at $3.99 a bottle at Grocery Outlet. I don't know how much there is, but I've already picked up my case!

Grocery Outlet is located on the corner of 4th and Olympia in Kennewick. I hope you can make it down there and check out some of their great wines. When you do, let them know I sent you!

Enjoy!

Quality Not Always Easy To Guess by Price

So, I’ve been on a rampage lately. I’ve been working hard for all of you to understand this whole price verses quality thing. By working hard, I mean drinking a lot.

What prompted me to do this was a recent opening of a new grocery store near my neighborhood. Well, actually it’s in the bad part of town a little too close to my neighborhood. This grocery specializes in “cheap”. Not exactly poor quality by any means, however, nonetheless, “cheap”.

I have written other scathing articles over the past few months concerning the proprietary wines from 7 – 11, WalMart, Safeway, and Rite Aid. Don’t even get me started on “Two-Buck (actually now Three-Buck) Chuck” at Trader Joes.

On the other hand, I’m just like everyone else out there. I love a good bargain! If I can find a good wine that won’t drain my bank account I’m all for it.

So, I picked up a few bottles of wine from this store. Excitedly, I cooled them all to the respected temperatures and got out the glass and the opener. In the name of scientific research of course.

The first was a 2007 Sylvester Sauvignon Blanc, a winery out of Paso Robles, California. I pulled the cork and was greeted with the expected nose and flavors that come from a 3 year old white white. The wine was pretty good but far from outstanding. Not bad for $2.99. Served with a killer Ceviche, I didn’t mind it at all.

Next, I poured the 2007 Rose’ from Sylvester. The nose was quite nice, with lots of bright fruit. The flavors were…It tasted like last year’s Easter egg shells. Not saying that’s bad if you’re into that sort of thing. Once again $2.99.

My third bottle was a 2003 Waterbrook Primarius Syrah. I figured I was in for a real treat! I love Waterbrook. Their Melange is one of the best under $10 blends on the market. For $2.99 I was tempted to buy a case. Good thing I didn’t. That wine was really “hot” from having too much alcohol in the balance. Dang near tore my head off!

Last, I bought up and purchased a bottle of Vinos Magali 2000 Cabernet Sauvignon from Argentina. Right away, I noticed the year and knew I needed to breathe this one. At first I was a little scared. The wine was very ruby in appearance and smelled musty. But, as it opened up in my glass it turned out to be a fantastic buy! Dark and rich, with a nice balance of tannin and fruit. Some oxidation, but really not bad for a 2000 production wine. For $5.99 I felt like I hit the jackpot!

Still looking for a few good buys I drove down the highway to Gooseridge winery. They are offering a limited supply of Riesling for $60 a case. This semi dry is rockin’ good for $5 a bottle. Light hints of petrol open up to spiciness, lots of bright fruit, and a nice acidic finish. Awesome with food or by itself.

So, I guess the moral of the story is you can find many good wines for under $10. You just have to look, and know what you’re looking for. Buy a bottle, and if you don’t like it then pour it down the sink. If you love it, go back and buy the whole lot!

Enjoy!

WWJD? (What Would Jesus Drink?)

Rather than have an article this week on what to pair with your deviled eggs, I’ve decided to ponder briefly on what ancient wines tasted like, and what kind of wine Jesus would have considered good wine.

Just a few months ago while traveling to Hawaii to photograph some clients I purchased a book by one of my favorite authors, Ann Rice. Ann is an amazing “period” writer. This means that she does extensive research prior to writing any book, and is very accurate in her detailed descriptions of scenes. In one scene she details a relative of Jesus paying off Roman soldiers with what they consider to be really good wine that was sweet.

Knowing the research that Mrs. Rice does in her writings led me to do more research myself on “What Would Jesus drink?”. After all, I know that Jesus was a pretty serious amateur sommelier and enologist. He spoke on the subject many times, and his first public miracle was making a pretty big batch of the “best” stuff.

So, what would Jesus drink? History shows that there were both red and white wild varietals growing in Macedonia and Rome back around 1 A.D.. Vines were trained around trees to keep them off of the ground, and slaves would have to climb up in the trees to prune the vines and harvest.

There are several writings by Cato during this period on winemaking, including how much you could work a slave in the vineyard, and how to best store wine after fermentation. He mistakenly suggested keeping ample headroom in the jars, which would have caused oxidation, turning the wine into vinegar quickly.

Unlike Cato, Jesus suggested that winemakers use new wineskins to make new wine, rather than old ones. The wineskin would have been swollen, with no air touching the wine. This would have produced a much higher quality product.

So, what was considered “Good” wine? Well, I can say that most of my friends would be very disappointed with the wine choices of yester year. Wine that people in Jesus’ time considered good was sweet. They didn’t have the ability to age wines well in many cases, so wines were often consumed within the next year after the vintage. There was a very high bounty though in Rome and Greece on older vintages. Surrentines were famous for being stored as much as 25 years.

Along with being sweet, most of the wines produced in that age were combined with spices or herbs. Lavender, resin, and other flavorings were often used producing a mulled or Vermouth flavored wine. Jesus may have enjoyed a wine that was some type of mixture between today’s version of Riesling and a decent Madiera.

With all that said, I propose that while you’re eating your lamb chops and smashed red potatoes you propose a toast to the ancient winemakers with a glass of sweet white wine this Easter. Once that glass of “good” wine is gone, you can go back to drinking the lesser stuff, like a really nice Zinfandel or Cabernet!

Happy Easter!

Goodbye Jerry Wallace. Thanks For The Wine & The Memories

Jerry Wallace, who launched Hinzerling Winery in Prosser, Wash., in 1976, passed away January 6th at 90 years of age.

Wallace was Seattle police officer beginning in 1944. He worked as a special driver for the mayor, among other tasks until his retirement in 1972.

In 1972, he and his family moved to Prosser, Washington, where they planted one of the earliest commercial wine grape vineyards in the region. Hinzerling Vineyard was the first in the state to use drip irrigation. Wallace and his wife, Dee, also founded the Roza chapter of the Enological Society of the Pacific Northwest.

In 1976, Wallace and his son Mike launched Hinzerling Winery, making it one of the state's oldest wineries. The winery is best known for its Ports and dessert wines. The most recent wine that I reviewed from Hinzerling was Mike's Cream Sherry which is one of the best I've ever had.

In 2008, Jerry Wallace was nominated as a Legend of Washington Wine by the state wine industry. He is survived by his three children, Mike, Pam and Steve, as well as eight grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.

To end this blog entry I want to finish with a personal letter to Jerry's son Mike and the rest of the Wallace family:


To the family and friends of Jerry Wallace:

My wife and I met Jerry in 1987 at the Prosser winery while traveling through the valley on our Honeymoon. We were a couple of young kids from Idaho, just old enough to drink, and highly curious about wine. Like many other 21 year olds, we thought that Riesling was the only "good" wine, and had spent a large portion of our trip through Washington and British Columbia tasting and purchasing just that. When we walked through the door of Hinzerling and met this striking gentleman we knew we weren't in a winery like any other. First, the winery wasn't some fancy million dollar complex with art on the walls. It was an old garage with the lab counter also acting as the tasting room bar. Also, the guy who was running the tasting room was also the guy who actually had made the wine. Needless to say, we were mesmerized. We spent over an hour listening to his stories and his methods for making wine. He actually convinced us to taste a few wines we had never considered, including our first tastes of Cabernet Sauvignon.

We purchased two bottles of wine from Jerry that day. One bottle of Rouge to enjoy on our first anniversary, which was delicious by the way. The second bottle was a bottle of 1985 Cabernet Sauvignon, which we still have in our wine cellar being stored for our 25th anniversary reception. Jerry was convinced that the bottle would be still good on our twenty fifth if we took good care of it, and we have. I'm not sure if it will win any awards or even be better than vinegar for the salad dressing, but the storage of that wine, and the thirst for wine knowledge that Jerry instilled in me that day has stayed with me for 23 years.

In two years we will open that bottle and serve it in some ceremonial way to our guests in the rememberence of Jerry. Mr. Wallace, thank you for sharing your love for wine and life with two dumb kids from Idaho.

Sincerely,

Rich Breshears
Wine Columnist for Eastern Oregonian Newspaper, and wine blogger at onerichwineguy.blogspot.com

Young Professionals Wineing Their Way To Success

When people ask me what my wine pedigree is, I often say “I used to be a wine snob…now I’m a wine slob.” The truth of the matter is I’ve come a long way in my wine drinking experiences over the years. I’ve learned a lot, and had a lot of really good mentors along the way who were patient in explaining what was good, and what was rot gut.

My own experience stems back to my childhood. No, I’m not going to write about debauchery and underage drinking. However, I was raised in a simple farming community in the Boise valley. In my early teens a new winery was raised by a local fruit farming family named the Symms. This new winery was called Ste. Chapelle.

Ste. Chapelle made wonderful wines in the day. Fantastic Cabernet Sauvignons, beautiful Chardonnays, and great Merlots. But, they became known for one thing which sprung them into international notoriety…their Johannesburg Riesling. A spicy sweet concoction that made the mouth tingle and the girls go wild.

As a young, legal drinking age male, I was very interested in making girls go wild. So, my buddies and I would drive our female friends out to the winery for free samples of the gooey stuff. We’d pick up a few bottles and head for the river. I did mention that Ste. Chapelle had wonderful red wines, but to our uneducated palates this stuff tasted terrible.

Fast forward a few years to my young professional life. I got married, got a career, and started a family. The gooey sweet wines were left behind for Cabernet and Syrah. I only drank reds for about 15 years. Over the past four to five years that I’ve re-developed an interest in white wines. Even tasting some fabulous ice wines and loving them.

Enough about me, and my Idaho, farm-boy past. I’m ready to talk about you and where you are in your palate. What kind of a wine drinker are you? If someone hands you a glass do you politely dump it in their houseplant and get a beer? Do you know the proper way to serve wines to your guests?

Today’s young professionals are savvier than we were back in 1980. They are more willing to try nice wines, and understand the nuances that make up a really good wine. As I talk with today’s young professionally minded people I’m constantly impressed with their knowledge and their palates.

Enter a new era of wine drinking. Through social media such as Facebook and Twitter, there are many new avenues for these youthful trendsetters to reach out and tell each other what is going on in the world of wine.

A group of these individuals have started a new social media driven website that offers blogs, facebook updates, and twitter to tell others about the world of wine. Palatebomb.com will go online the evening of July 20th, 2009.

If you are interested in attending the “detonation” event, network with other wine minded people, and have a great time come to Bookwalter winery in Richland Monday night. The event starts at 6 p.m. and goes until closing. There will be music, raffles, wine tastings, a no-host wine bar, food, and more. If you can’t make it to the event I suggest going to http://www.palatebomb.com/ and getting linked up.

Hope to see you there!

Why Can't I Get That Wine Here

I’ve heard it so many times lately that I swear my ears are bleeding. I’m standing in a grocery wine isle, or in a restaurant and someone behind me exclaims: “These guys just don’t carry a good selection of wine here”. I look down the massive isle, or the wine list and my thoughts are quite the opposite. I’m thinking, “Wow, if you can’t find something to drink here then you just don’t know what you’re looking for”.

Today as I was walking through the wine isle in a large store in Spokane, I was accosted by a lady wondering if I worked there. I wasn’t wearing the apron or the name tag that would indicate my employment. But, being the mild mannered young man that I am, I offered to give her a hand anyway. After all, grocery wine shelves are all the same.

Now, the store was quite large and they had a rather impressive selection. So, when this lovely older woman hit me with the above statement, I was taken aback.

She was looking for an authentic Spatlese from Germany. For those who don’t know, Spatlese is a semi-sweet white wine, much like a Riesling. My immediate response was “No problem”. However, after several runs through the shelves I finally found one label that met her specifics. It was a hefty $42 bottle.

After muffled gasps from both of us, I told her that we’d find something that would work just great, and meet her budget as well. We finally settled on Ste. Michelle Winery’s “St. M.”. This wine was produced by the famed Dr. Loosen in conjunction with Ste Michelle.

St. M is a wonderfully semi-dry Riesling, with a great level of acidity and flavors of peaches, and apricots, with a slight minerality that makes it really good with food. It isn’t a Spatlese, but close enough to taste good at just under $12 a bottle.

After she walked away I looked back down the wine isle and thought about how many people probably walk down this isle every day and say the same phrase. It got me to thinking that people have a specific thing in their mind. In this lady’s case, she had toured Germany with her late husband, and was looking to rekindle those memories.

The problem is that hand made wine is not normally sold outside of normal channels of distribution without a great cost. Sure, you can pick up a Trocken Aslace, or an Opus Cabernet Sauvignon on special order from a local wine shop, but you better know that it is going to cost a little to get it. You might get that same wine in downtown Seattle for a few dollars cheaper, but you’re going to have to cover the gas and hotel.

The truth is that there are absolutely amazing wines available throughout the Northwest, including right here in Eastern Oregon. Most are actually produced within 100 miles of Pendleton. My suggestion is that if you don’t find what you are looking for, just ask one of the distributors or store personnel at one of the local shops. They will likely be able to find something much like it at a price that you will really enjoy.

As always, enjoy!