Summer Wine Club 2024

How lovely it is to have such a mild spring! I hope you all have been enjoying your spring-themed wines with such seasonally appropriate weather this year. Looking forward, I’m very excited for summer, as I usually am. This year has been a bountiful year already for those of us who forage; my mushroom spot yielded an atypically large harvest of morels and is already producing spring king porcini, one of my greatest pleasures every year. Those morels, cooked in butter, went perfectly well with a Hungarian white of Furmint by Reka Koncz, one of my favorite winemakers at the moment.

This is also the first year I’ve really gotten serious about gardening, getting a raised bed on my deck for fresh herbs and edible flowers and starting everything from seed. It really feels nice to be nurturing in a place that can be so harsh and unforgiving to non-native plants. Though what I’m doing is so far away from it, I think the nurturing of plants and the environment is one of my favorite aspects of wine. I love to support and learn about producers who handle their vineyards as their own garden, living off of their land and using what they’ve grown and made to lead a beautiful self-sufficient life.

Your wines this summer are all made by these types of people, some icons, some more recently on the scene, all of which have made names for themselves making gorgeous wine from land they’re inextricably tied to, coaxing beauty from their small, yet mighty, corners of the world.

Kelley Fox – Albariño 2023

A native Oregonian, Kelley Fox received dual masters degrees in Biochemistry and Biophysics from OSU and entered the former’s PhD program before changing path completely to pursue winemaking. She initially studied and worked under David Lett of Eyrie, the iconoclast and pioneer of the Oregon wine industry. She has been a full-time winemaker since 2000, making her own wines since 2007 and committed wholly on their production since 2015. She uses an uncompromising approach to make wines to reflect the land, the vines, the fruit, the year, and everything else unknown and unseen that comes with those things. She is more well-known for her Pinot Noir and Chardonnay bottlings, but she makes a handful of other wines, too. All we get from Kelley about her Albariño, a grape native to the Iberian Peninsula but here grown organically in the Willamette Valley, is that it was “fun to make.” This hides the fact that it was one of her smallest production wines from 2023, whole-cluster pressed and fermented in a single small stainless steel tank. Made to be a casual table white, I find a bit more going on here. The versatility of this wine is what makes it so appealing to me. Pull it from an ice-filled Igloo cooler to pair it with anything, anytime, any place.

Filipa Pato – Nossa Calcário Branco 2022

The Pato family has been making wine in the Bairrada region of Portugal since, at least, the 18th century. By utilizing modern techniques of de-stemming and aging in smaller barrels, Filipa’s father, Luis, brought Baga (a red grape native to the region) back into favor single-handedly, becoming the most iconic winemaker in the region. That is, until his daughter came along: Filipa’s wines have garnered enough acclaim that in 2020 she was elected Winemaker of the Year in Portugal by Revista de Vinhos, a prominent wine publication in the country. She was the first Portuguese woman to earn the title in 30 years. Her husband, a former sommelier and restaurateur, is also involved in the operation. Portuguese wine is a funny thing: not a lot of it makes it out of the country, both because of national pride in their wines, and they consume quite a bit of it themselves. For a wine like this to emerge is something quite special due to its unbelievable quality and incredible demand. The grape used here is Bical which, like the aforementioned Baga, is native to this region of central Portugal. These two varietals share similarities to Pinot Noir and Chardonnay in Burgundy. Lovers of mineral-driven rich whites will be in heaven with this one, paired with the catch of the day. Halibut anyone??

Little Bastions – Concertina III

In my mind, growing up in Bend wouldn’t put anyone on the fast-track to becoming a PNW winemaker. But Chase SIlcox and Casey Howland are part of a growing network of young wine professionals I’ve met who grew up here and have put down roots in the state’s most prominent wine regions. In fact, Casey was one of the first Oregon winemakers I met when I took my job at WCP. Chase and Casey live in Mosier and Hood River, respectively, and have 20 years of collective experience in the wine industry. For the past 5 years, they have been taking on the farming of a growing number of small vineyards spread across the Columbia River Gorge, their Little Bastions of vines farmed in harmony with nature. With so many parcels and varieties of grapes, making the same cast of wines every year proves to be very difficult, but it is important for them to have a wine that speaks the same voice through the years. Though the varietal blend and yields may change slightly from vintage to vintage, Concertina always contains wine from a perpetual reserve that, in this third release, contains wine from the past 3 years, topped up with fresh wine after bottling. Made primarily of aromatic white varietals fermented using varying degrees of skin-contact, some very brief, others very long, Concertina is meant to give a very broad view of the Columbia Gorge, not the nuances of a site or growing season. Personally, I think this is a beautiful way to think about wine, especially in a region so prone to climatic disturbance, be it smoke, heat, or frost. Regardless of what the vintage gives you, there will always be a wine that is consistent, gaining in complexity with each passing year. Their label was drawn in high school by a mutual best friend, depicting themselves as the drunken lower class below the upper class looking down with horror. Drink this with youthful exuberance and rebellion!

Arnaldo Rossi – Sella dell’Acuto 2019

One might not expect to find one of Italy’s top natural wine bars in Cortona, located in the heart of Tuscany, but that’s exactly what Arnaldo has created. His iconic Taverna Pane E Vino (the tavern of bread and wine) is just a hole in the wall trattoria, but has become something of a Mecca for wine enthusiasts passing through the region due to his legendary wine list. Situated just northeast of Montalcino and Montepluciano, Cortona is a fairly well-known town throughout Europe, often flooded with sun-scorched tourists during the summer months. Yet Arnaldo’s spot remained relatively unknown since its inception in 1997 until his wines were imported to the US for the first time some 7-8 years ago. Well, the secret’s out now, and this is one of my favorite Sangioveses out there. This is from a tiny vineyard in the saddle (sella) of a ridge connecting the hill towns of Cortona and Castiglione Fiorentino. It ages half in cement and half in old barrels and is held back for years before release. His passion for natural wine is deep, so the small amount of wines he makes are pure as can be, including this, his primary wine. Another extremely versatile food wine, this excels best with dinner, especially if you’re eating a ragu or recently foraged mushrooms and red sauce.

Hervé Souhaut – La Souteronne 2022

Domaine Romaneaux-Destezet was created in 1993 by Hervé in the town of Arlebosc, located within a region called the Ardeche which lies just west of the most storied villages of the Rhone river valley. This is a haven for younger producers and co-ops due to the low cost of land and favorable growing conditions, but Hervé has always been a bit of a standout producer of the region. He farms over 12 acres of old to ancient vines between 50-100 years old primarily in the Ardeche but with some precious holdings in Saint Joseph and Hermitage.

Winegrowers can also grow anything they want in the Ardeche: they’re not bound by the rules of the AOC telling them what grapes must be in their wine to be labeled as such. I love this region because of this, it’s sort of a center of experimentation and discovery in French wine, and this wine is a result of that spirit, even present when the vines were planted some 50-80 years ago. This is 100% Gamay from the Rhone Valley, something I don’t think even the most skilled of wine professionals could decipher if tasting this blind. But it makes so much sense when tasting with that knowledge in hand. It contains the fresh blue-fruited elements of both typical Gamay from Beaujolais, as well as the meaty and smoky Syrah notes of the Northern Rhone Valley. La Souteronne (the underground) is a wine that continues to blow my mind every time it’s in front of me and the finest wine I tasted at the Wild Bunch tasting in Portland back in February. The importer even calls these “some of the most spectacular natural wines in existence.” Take this camping, grill a chicken over your campfire or grill (fire safety!!!) and go skinny dipping in the moonlight.

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Il Censo – ‘Njuro’ Perricone 2016

Like the wines made by the nuns of Monastero Suore Cistercensi, we may never have had the fortune of experiencing this wine were it not for the guidance of Paolo and Giampiero Bea, icons of Italian wine based in the Umbrian town of Montefalco. Unlike the monastery wines, the il Censo wines are grown in Sicily and are evocative of a much warmer climate. The estate dates back to feudal times in the region, only the last 200 years have been under the ownership of the family of the patriarch currently at the helm: Gaetano Gargano. 25 years ago, Gaetano met Giampiero and he and his wife, Nicoletta, became determined to reinvigorate agricultural activity at the estate after watching it decline for many years prior. Under Bea’s guidance, they replanted just over 12 acres to Cataratto and Perricone, native varietals to the region, and brought a grove of 100+ year old olive trees back into healthy productivity. This is very much an under-the-radar producer, so when I tasted this wine, I could barely believe what I was experiencing. Perricone, the sole grape variety of this wine, is known in local dialect as “njuro cane” (black dog) and is a thick-skinned and powerful red grape that yields wines of intense flavor and structure. Il Censo’s version, with many years of evolution in bottle, is a revelation of a red: it’s a gutsy, yet elegant wine that is perfectly poised in its drinking window. Enjoy this one on its own with a sunset; it could easily overpower food and I find each sip more beguiling than the last.

Terada Honke – Sake Brewery Profile

Founded in 1670 and currently in its 24th generation, Terada Honke is one of the first breweries that comes to mind when talking about "sake for natural wine lovers". Each bottling they produce is extremely unique, mostly because of their natural/low-intervention brewing methods. To start, they're mostly making sake that is unpasteurized, undiluted and unfiltered, which is a niche in the modern sake world. They're also using a lot of brown rice in production (low polish rice) and tapping into traditional brewing methods.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, due to circumstances outside of my control, I have two different bottlings for y’all to try. First is the sake offered via the Google Form: Katori 90. It is made via the Kimoto method: the rice is pole-rammed by hand using a method developed in the 1700's, the most traditional way of sake-making. Like most sake from Terada Honke, this sake tastes unlike any sake I've tried before. It's juicy and full of flavorful grain notes, and savory like soy sauce or miso. A crazy cool sake made by one of the country's most natural and traditional brewers.

Once the Katori 90 ran out via the distributor and the importer, I panic-ordered 3 more cases of their largest production sake: Gonin Musume. Also made via the Kimoto method, their primary product was born when the 23rd generation (!!) owner became ill, blaming it on rice they were sourcing that was farmed using synthetic pesticides and herbicides, leading to an extensive search for organically grown rice, now used exclusively. It was named “Five Daughters” as “sake made in a lively brewery with many daughters in the household must make for joyous cheer.”

A quick note - all rice is polished before brewing, ground via machine to remove outer layers of each grain of rice.If a sake is listed as a 40% polish, that means that 60% of the material was removed prior to brewing. This has a direct impact on the flavor of the finished product, as the outer layers contain the compounds that give a more “grainy” or “savory” flavor and the inner layers contain the “fruitier” tasting compounds, like melon. These two sakes are at 90% and 70% polish, yielding more savory flavors. Drink lightly chilled to lightly warmed.