Wine

By Leigh Pomeroy

The good, the bad and the sometimes ugly

As most readers of this wine column realize, I rarely write about the commonly available choices. Rather, I prefer to explore lesser known wine production areas, varietals and blends — especially those indigenous to a given wine region — and small, often hardly-known, mostly family-owned producers from the U.S. and Europe.

Fortunately, in Mankato there is a relatively new wine purveyor that seeks out the odd, wonderful and sometimes strange from the wine world: Cork & Key Wine and Bottle Shop. If you haven’t visited there yet, you ought to. Not only do they offer unique choices, they hold Friday afternoon tastings and often have sales featuring wines at up to 50% off — think overstock.

Yet not all bottles they offer are to everyone’s liking, including mine. Recently, I was struggling to find something nice to say about one of their “strange” wines: a dry Oregon Pinot Gris that was on the closeout shelf.

In the 1970s, when Oregon was first being recognized as a serious wine region, the four primary white wines the state’s vintners were growing were Riesling, Pinot Gris (aka Pinot Grigio), Pinot Blanc and, to a lesser extent, Gewürztraminer. Some growers tried Chardonnay, but it failed miserably.

The reason these varietals were selected is because the Willamette Valley in northwestern Oregon, where most of the best vineyards are located, is decidedly cooler than the wine-growing regions in most of California and eastern Washington. And these four whites are cool climate varietals.

Chardonnay failed at first because growers planted the so-called Wente clone of that grape, which was well adapted to the warmer Livermore Valley in California, just east of the San Francisco Bay Area. It simply did not do well in the cooler, wetter climate of Oregon’s Willamette Valley.

Since that time, Willamette Valley growers have sourced Chardonnay clones coming directly from Burgundy, France, where that grape reaches its zenith and where the climate is more like that of northwestern Oregon. And because of this, some Oregon Chardonnays compete with the best in the world.

As for Riesling, Pinot Gris, Pinot Blanc and Gewürztraminer … Well, their success has been a mixed bag. Riesling and Pinot Gris have been the most successful, while the latter two have mostly fallen by the wayside. Both Riesling and Pinot Gris range from bone dry to decidedly sweet, depending upon the winemaker’s style and the ripeness at which the grapes were harvested. Unfortunately, the sweetness of the wine isn’t always indicated on the label, especially for Pinot Gris.

So what is the difference between the two?

Riesling is more flowery, and offers hints of citrus, apple and sometimes fusel oil, a byproduct of the alcoholic fermentation. (Lest this sound unappetizing, it’s actually attractive in small quantities.) Pinot Gris offers more minerality and austerity, yet shows qualities of lemon, almond, honeysuckle and muted spices. If you taste them side by side, you’ll notice the marked differences.

Getting back to the “strange” Pinot Gris I was sampling. It was made by a small vintner — indeed, only 94 cases (1,128 bottles or 223 gallons) of it were produced. Often small lots of wine, particularly white wine, are more difficult to make because they more easily oxidize during production. When a wine oxidizes, it loses its freshness and fruit, and can become quite austere and unpleasant. When it oxidizes too much, it becomes vinegar.

I suspect this small vintner, who mostly specializes in Riesling, subscribes to a growing trend in winemaking described by adherents as “natural” — which means that they use organically grown grapes and produce the wine without adding sulfur. Organic grapes are fine. In fact, more and more growers, both large and small, in this country and elsewhere, are finding that organic farming methods are not only better for the environment but produce higher quality fruit.

However, making wine without using some sulfur additions at the right time — sulfur has been used for centuries as a wine preservative — is asking for trouble. That’s because sulfur inhibits oxidation and thus keeps the wine fresher.

That said, due to modern winemaking techniques like cold fermentation and the use of stainless steel tanks, sulfur is added to today’s wines only in minute quantities, so don’t fear that you’re drinking poison.

But some is necessary, which is why I’ve had trouble embracing so-called “natural” wines because, well, too many just don’t taste good.

Anyway, wine is always an ongoing adventure: mostly good, sometimes bad and, well, occasionally even ugly.

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