Steve Body aka The Pour Fool
People have asked me repeatedly to do a wine version of Best Of The Northwest, my annual beer round-up. I?ve consistently declined. Reason?
I?m just plain white-trash lazy.
You?ll probably think I?m kidding or engaging in a little self-effacing humor. You?d be wrong. I am just exactly that lazy. There?s a small universe of wines out there and, honestly, the whole idea of even presuming to say which wines are the absolute best of a given year is the original chump job. I read the Spectator and Enthusiast and frankly wonder if they just put a bunch of names into a hat and drew them by category. I usually have tried about half of each list and some of the choices leave me scratching my head and other body parts in puzzlement.
And the thing is, they?re wrong. The Wine Spectator Top 100 is not, by any stretch, the 100 best wines of the current year. It?s just the 100 best they tasted, out of a total number ?that represents no more, usually, than about 5% off all the wines produced on the planet. And I have no use for $250 bottles of wine, anyway. I can afford ?em but I?m nowhere near stupid enough to buy them, when I?ll be far more delighted with a wine that costs twenty or thirty bucks and ?doesn?t require an occasion to open.
BUT?I love the whole idea of value wines; the ones that pack waaaay more into the bottle than the price tag would indicate. These are the wines that produce the most swooning for me; the most contented, enthralled sighing and happy noises in my chest.
Of the 2900+ wines I tasted in 2012, this is a list of the truly exceptional values; the ones that stick in my mind and suck cash from my wallet and delight those for whom I pour them and to whom I recommend them. Like all those other lists that I just slapped up, mine is also just One Guy?s Opinion and is also limited to my own narrow percentage of the world?s output. But they were exceptional and I take great pleasure in sharing them with you?
_____________WASHINGTON?S BEST VALUE WINES OF 2012__________
REDS
Renegade Wine Company Red Wine Columbia Valley 2010
A side project of Trey Busch?s superb Sleight of Hand Cellars, Renegade Red is a clever blend of 80% Cabernet Sauvignon, 19% Merlot, and 1% Malbec that delivers chewy fruit, chocolate, plums, and dark berries in a soft texture with great balance. This is shockingly fine table red; hearty, dense, aromatic as a south Georgia high school prom, and immensely satisfying. ?The mere fact that Trey put this bottle together and can manage to sell it for this little cash outlay would be shocking enough, if it were half this good. The fact that it?s big, rich, balanced, and even shows some pleasing terroir is downright staggering. ? About $10 ? 91 Points
Martedi Winery ?Lavello? 2008
Winemaker Joe Miglino crafted a wine that was far better than even he knew. A blend of 45% Merlot, 25% Syrah, 17% Cabernet Franc and 13% Cabernet Sauvignon, Lavello (Italian for ?kitchen sink?) was odd barrels that Joe composed into this glorious little symphony that shocked me down to the soles of my feet. A Monroe winery? That even people in Monroe never heard of? A simple table red? This wine, by whatever divine accident, turned out to be among the top five Washington blends I tasted in ?12 at any price. Of everything I tasted from my own ?hood in 2012, this was the biggest, happiest surprise. ?About $12 ? ?93 Points
Saviah Cellars ?The Jack? Red Blend 2010
In any given year since 2005, I could assemble this list and The Jack would have to be on it. This, simply put, is one of the great value brands in America. Jack is a big, juicy, generous, fruity, lively, beautifully-made miracle that winemaker Rich Funk just seems to conjure up effortlessly, with spare parts and Yankee ingenuity. From its uber-cool label and retro name to the silken, chewy juice, The Jack is as consistent and satisfying a red blend as Washington produces. ? About $15 ? ?92 Points
Donedei Cabernet Sauvignon 2008
I say this with absolute certainty and zero fear of contradiction: Donedei?s Carolyn Lakewold is one of America?s two or three best underappreciated winemakers. Every winemaker in Washington knows about her and her stature is such that, when Force Majeure Cellars went looking for their three partner vintners in their brilliant collaboration series, they chose Carolyn Lakewold. This Cab is one of the best values in American red wine that I?ve ever seen. The fact that you can buy this kind of elegant, serious, balanced, impeccable Cabernet for right around $20 makes a mockery of the sudden proliferation of $80 ? $100 Cabs we see each year. This is nearly flawless now?and getting better with each passing year! ? About $20 ? 95 Points
Charles & Charles Red 2010
My old friend, Charles Smith, makes critical-darling Syrahs ? at his Walla Walla shop, K Vintners ? that pull down 99 and 100 point scores from the big critics and that would normally mean that Charles would retreat into an ivory tower and produce cripplingly-expensive art pieces, as most such anointed winemakers do. But that wouldn?t be Charles, one of the most doggedly eccentric humans who ever walked upright. Instead of ?looking down his ample nose at value wines, Charles threw in with Charles Bieler, creator of the sani-packed Bandit wines that come in two-person servings and show up mostly in grocery stores, to make this stunning little C&C Red, a blend which I lobbied for almost a decade to get Washington vintners to try. The Aussies have been selling us Cab-Syrah blends for two decades but Washington wineries shied away like a horse from a bonfire. This wine absolutely, as the kids say, Rocks! Big, dark, chewy, crammed to the hilt with that alchemical, earthy, leathery character that comes from the ?mystical symbiosis of these two grapes. The first time I tasted it, I was momentarily speechless. Brilliant. ?About $10 ? 90 Points
Haystack Needle Sangiovese 2009
Bob Bullock turns out a whole roster of casually-excellent value wines from his negociant operation out there in Woodinville and I could just as easily have named his Little Italy, The Eye, The Point, or Syrah here but this Sangiovese is his flagship; an impossibly-consistent, eerily-authentic version of a great mid-tier Chianti Classico that may well be the Northwest?s best all-purpose food wine. The chewy red berries, cherries, cola, spices, sweet herbs, and shockingly Tuscan-ish minerals add up to a wine that could, in a bind tasting, fool a lot of Italians. This stuff makes those $30 bottles of California Sangiovese look like a bad joke and it?s even relatively easy to find, these days. ? About $10 ? 90 Points
Waving Tree Nebbiolo 2008
This may be the most shocking wine made in Washington or Oregon today. I?m a devout Italian wine geek and drink far more great Barolo that I have any business drinking and this wine is, to my palate, totally indistinguishable from a very good, well-aged Barolo. ?Seriously. Terrance Atkins, Waving Tree owner/winemaker, genuinely seems n
WHITES
Charles Smith Wines ?Kung Fu Girl? Riesling 2011
If you know Charles Smith, as I tragically do, you know that his first and most serious wine obsession is German varietals. While running his short-lived Bainbridge Island wine shop, Charles used to keep two or three bottles of German Riesling open to pour and talk about ? if you didn?t stop him ? every day of the week. So, I trusted that, when he finally did produce a Washington Riesling, it would be exceptional. But even I didn?t expect this. Kung Fu Girl is, without exaggeration, among the two or three best Rieslings made in America at any price. Sourced from Butch and Jerry Milbrandt?s amazing new Evergreen Vineyard, this is a near-perfect recreation of a fine German Spatlese, at a price that seriously boggles the mind. About $10(!) ? 92 Points
Milbrandt Estate Viognier 2011
A lot of Washington wineries stopped making Viognier. Milbrandt seems to just be getting started. Josh Maloney has a real knack for paying hommage to this voluptuous Northern Rhone varietal without mindlessly aping it. The hallmark over-ripe pears, apricots, peaches, and spruce rest atop a fine-grained bed of sweet minerals that recall Condrieu while preserving the more-generous character of our brilliant Columbia Valley fruit. ?The grapes, in this delicious juice, give winemakers like the intrepid Maloney superior material to make superior wines ? a fitting testament to the Milbrandts, Washington?s premier growers. ?About $17 ? ? ? ? ? ? ? 92 Points
Idilico Albari?o?2011
Javier Alfonso, owner and winemaker of Woodinville?s vastly-overlooked Pomum Cellars, started this edgy second label to work with his native Spanish varietals outside the more-conventional wines in the Pomum line-up. As a long-time fan of Albari?o, I?ve tasted every one I could get my hands on for the past fifteen years and I?m here to tell ya that this wine could be given a Spanish label and nobody here or in Spain would be the wiser. The clarity, balance, fruit, and scale of this stuff is breath-taking and its classic smoothness and full body make it a real crowd-pleaser. ?This is only the state?s second bottle of this varietal and the future of it looks amazingly bright. ? About $20 ? 93 Points
Ros?
Tre Nova Rosato 2011
Gino Cuneo is an Italian-American winemaker who lives in Carlton, Oregon but doesn?t make Pinot Noir! I know, I know: heresy. But Gino is a man on a mission and he?s exploring ?Italian varietals , as grown in the Columbia and Walla Walla Valleys, with serious intent. In recent years, Sangiovese ros? has become a rather overwrought cliche here in Wash-patch ?but, in Gino?s capable hands, this gorgeous, bone-dry rosato takes on new life and vibrancy, showing its Wahluke minerals and succulent cherry/red berry fruit with brilliant freshness and clarity. This is to run-of-the-mill ros? ?what ?a Maserati is to a Kia Sportage. ?About $15 ? 90 Points
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