Elevage

I'm doing the typical dad thing this Father's day - watching lots of US Open golf on the television while largely sitting on my duff. Or maybe that's sitting on my large duff. Nevertheless, in the spirit of my own golf "game," I'm going for it by opening a few older, likely questionable wines. And like my normal experience on the golf course, I'm having fun even if most of the shots aren't going...

With most people, when they find out I like to make wine, they usually say something like, "you must really have to be a scientist." That's telling. Mention you're a chef and people seem to launch into what you cook and what they like to cook. Mention you make wine and people distance themselves and assume it's all science. It's not true. Just as chefs don't need to be ranchers raising their own...

I'm going to take some advice from a friend. Despite the serious increase in email I get from readers any time I "go negative" with a wine review, I think I'm better off focusing on more positive things. Like me. This is a blog after all. It's all about vanity, right? So a few weeks back I recruited another friend to help me bottle my lone barrel of 2006 Pinot Noir from the Wahle vineyard in...

I usually try to resist grandiose metaphors or comparisons. Yet after trying a bottle of 2006 Evesham Wood Pinot Noir La Grieve Bleue, I can't help but think of winemaker Russ Raney as Oregon's Akira Kurosawa. I'm no film geek, but I remember seeing Kurosawa's epic Ran when I was a teenager in the 1980s. I was mesmerized, though I really didn't know what was going on at the time. The movie was...

Some nights wine is simply frustrating. Tonight started off well. I stopped by a great local wine shop to pick up a gift bottle of rosé that a kind local person had purchased for me after I provided simple directions across town. Oh, the kindness of acquaintances. Thanks Melissa, that was really cool. I also got the chance to try some wines, a white, a different rosé, and a red. Things...

Elevage readers will likely know the names Carolyn and Marshall Manning. They host the annual Manning's March Magnum Madness soiree, and otherwise regularly open their home and their cellar to friends and strangers alike who enjoy good wine. For Carolyn's recent....significant birthday, they topped themselves by hosting a dinner at one of their favorite restaurants here in Portland, Alba Osteria....

It's a rookie mistake, one I've made in that past. But I'm not a wine rookie anymore, right? I guess not. Maybe that would explain how I bought one producer's wine thinking I was buying another producer's. Did you know there are two Bouchards in Burgundy? Even just writing that makes a voice in my heard scream, well, duh. If nothing else, France is legendary for having multiple wine...