Winter Wine Club 2022

Winter Wine Club 2022

The inaugural WCP Club is hitting the ground running with some really special wines. Some of these were received in 3-case quantities for the whole state for the year. With winter in Bend comes unpredictable weather, but always lots of festivities. I’ve aimed this club at finding a balance between the loud and festive times and the quiet cozy times too. Here’s the possibly long-winded breakdown.

François Plouzeau – “Milliard d’Etoiles”
$37

We’ve already had people in the shop asking what bubbles they should drink on New Year’s Eve, so I’ve taken the liberty of choosing some for you. These Pet-Nat bubbles are a non-vintage blend of Cabernet Franc (40%) and Chenin Blanc (40%), made as a pet-nat but a complex one. The reason it is non-vintage is that 20% of the juice is still wine from the previous vintage, which the Plouzeau family says provides the wine with maturity and wisdom. I love the inclusion of aged wine to bring a more serious complexion to an otherwise playful style of wine. Just please don’t put orange juice in it.

Pepe Raventos – Xarel-lo “De La Vinya Del Noguer” 2019
$33

This was the limiting factor for the number of spots in the wine club this season: only 2.5 cases of this wine were available and I snagged them all for you. Xarel-lo is a grape used primarily to make Cava, where it often provides the acidic backbone of the wine. Pepe Raventos is a third-generation winemaker, but his family has lived in Penedes, to the northeast of Barcelona, for 21 generations. The fruit for this wine comes from a massale selection of 50-year-old vines, fermented and aged in a large-format oak barrel. Drink this one with a hearty meal centered around seafood. Cioppino or paella anyone?

Domaine Ostertag – Sylvaner Vieilles Vignes
$31

There’s always that unseasonably warm day in the winters here in Central Oregon, sometimes more than one. This is the bottle for that day. Sylvaner is a grape grown near the French Alps and is a great alternative to Sauvignon Blanc. Domaine Ostertag is a biodynamic winegrower in Alsace, and their old-vine version is one of the best out there, not to mention limited. Oregon received three cases for the year.

If you’re unfamiliar with biodynamics, it takes organics to the next step in order to farm in harmony with nature and the cycles of the moon. It involves preparations applied to the vineyards using certain waste products from other animals and plants living on the farm, treating it as one living entity that cycles back into itself to promote sustainability. I source many wines that employ these philosophies, whether certified or not, because I believe this type of careful farming produces the best wines with an energy and life that can’t be reproduced.

Wetzer – “Blumenthal” Kékfrankos
$45

Winemakers like Peter Wetzer make my job so fun. His wines come from one of the furthest corners of the winemaking world, and they’re beautiful and expressive as well as limited, produced in single-digit numbers of barrels. Due to their niche status, I can buy enough to show you all their excellence.

Kékfrankos is the local term in Hungary for Blaufränkisch, a thick-skinned red grape native to Central and Eastern Europe. Most versions available are produced in massive quantities from young vines as an everyday red table wine. This is the antithesis of that. Old vines are farmed in the Blumenthal vineyard to limit yields and concentrate expression, and the wine is made in the literal cellar of the winemaker’s house.

Without getting too nerdy over chemistry or late harvest dates, this is a special wine for many reasons. Most importantly, it’s a delicious and delicate wine to share over a candle-lit dinner of winter squash, hearty vegetables, a lightly seasoned cut of meat or mushrooms and an endive salad.

Monument – Syrah “Permanent Piece” 2020
$34

Tyler Magyar, one of my favorite people in the Oregon wine industry, makes these heartfelt wines in his time off from his day job as the wine buyer for World Foods in Portland. During harvest season he rents a Penske box truck and makes it his home, driving around Oregon picking fruit to make his wines and often sleeping in the back with his fruit bins.

This Syrah comes from the Layne Vineyard in the Applegate Valley in Southern Oregon. If you like Syrah from the Northern Rhône, this is a wine for you. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, you will soon. It’s far from the big, high-alcohol versions you may see lining grocery store shelves. Instead, it’s lifted and pretty, much more in line with his winemaking style. Sip this around a fire pit with friends who make you laugh until your face hurts, or with smoked meats.

Vittorio Bera – “Ronco Malo” Barbera d’Asti 2018
$29

Barbera was the grape that started it all for me. I had it with my mom at a pizza place in London one of the first times I could legally drink with her. The way it amplified the flavors of my pizza and vice versa was a special moment. Barbera still holds that allure and remains a grape of great value in the wine world.

This producer is important as well. She is responsible for the discovery and import of many great Italian wines, including Radikon, Ariana Occhipinti, Elisabetta Foradori and Roagna. She quite literally introduced them to Louis and Dressner, the owners of one of my favorite import books.

Ronco Malo is a vineyard of 50-plus-year-old Barbera vines. Grapes are destemmed into concrete tanks for a lengthy maceration, then pressed back into those same tanks for two years to build complexity. This wine pairs beautifully with a big, hearty meal centered around fatty protein. Personally, I want to drink this with my favorite music in my favorite chair, tasting it slowly as it breathes and changes, because it is alive.