Download the March 2011
Wine Club Newsletter
Featuring Beaux Freres’ Mike Etzel on
Oregon’s 1992 – 2009 Vintages
Profile – Ciel du Cheval Vineyard
Tony Soter’s Planet Oregon
Avalon Wine: Oregon and Washington wine specialists since 1988.
Avalon Wine gives you access to rare, unique wines, often before anyone else. We have a twenty year-plus reputation for great customer service and professional business practices.
Highly-rated and rising-star wineries alike seek out Avalon and offer us their wines, because we do a great job of representing them. Wine Club members benefit from our access to special, limited bottlings.
March 2011 Wine Club Selections
March 2011
Oregon Reserve Pinot noir Club Selections
White Rose Vineyard Dundee Hills 08 $42
Club Price $35.66
Cellar 2011-2018
While this wine is delicious now it is still a youngster. Open it if you’re considering a larger purchase but decant before drinking.
Exotic and savory with trademark candied roses shining alongside sandalwood and cinnamon. Intense, bold and vibrant, the fruit pops with excitement from your first sip, giving way to sweet, dark cherry and raspberry. The perfect amount of tannin makes the finish echo. I recently hosted a blind tasting of a dozen 2008 Oregon Pinots. White Rose Appellation Series Dundee Hills Pinot noir 08 was the wine of the night.
Cameron Arley’s Leap 08 $40
Club Price $33.95
Cellar 2011-2018
John Cameron’s old vine fruit in a perfect vintage. Named after Bill Wayne’s magnificent and long-ago departed dog, Arley, this is truly one of the great red wines of the Dundee Hills. The vines were planted in 1990 from several of the best Clos Electrique clones and have never failed to impress. As they approach 20 years of age, the resulting wine is becoming even more complex and elegant. The very small crop in 2008 adds intensity to a wine that already has plenty of it.
March 2011
Northwest Big Reds Club Selections
In 1987, Boeing executive David Larsen joined the Boeing Wine and Beermakers Club. By 1989 he had started a winery in his garage, named for a creek near his home. Today he makes his Soos Creek wines in a building near his home in Kent, Washington.
Since his first attempts at winemaking in the late 1980’s, Dave has purchased the best grapes in Washington, establishing relationships that continue to assure him access to some of the best vineyards in the state. His wines have always been the best priced, in some cases even the lowest priced, of the dozen or so made from Champoux and Ciel du Cheval Vineyards fruit.
Soos Creek
Cabernet Sauvignon Champoux Vineyard 08 $33
Club Price $28.01
Man oh man – you have to be kidding me! Very Champoux – huge, super-inviting flavors of black cherry, cassis and blueberry are incredibly juicy, playing off a sage note on the supple, perfectly integrated finish. Here’s the win-win: this will drink fantastically from the day it arrives and has outstanding balance to age for years.
Soos Creek
Ciel du Cheval Vineyard 08 $30
Club Price $25.46
I need a new superlative. Awesome. The word that comes to mind is harmony – red and black fruits, dark and bright character, sweet fruit and mineral. The red raspberry top note and black currant bottom end makes this irresistible now; the fine tannins keep adding harmony and aging potential..
March 2011
Northwest New Discoveries
Club Selections
Planet Oregon Pinot noir 09 $20
Club Price $16.96
A delectable aroma of fresh raspberries, just picked on a hot summer day, almost takes your breath away. An upfront juiciness follows through with mouthwatering flavors of raspberries, blackberries, and cherries tinged with a suggestion of sweet baking spices and dried herbs. A pretty, easy to love wine, ready to drink. It will take you to an Oregon vineyard on a perfect summer day wherever you have it.
Lundeen Pinot noir 09 $18
Club Price $15.26
Michael Lundeen manages Walnut City Wineworks, a cooperative of winemakers in downtown McMinnville. His own winery makes two labels – his value label, Lundeen, and his estate vineyard Genius Loci label. Michael was formerly winemaker at Ilahe.
To describe the Lundeen Pinot noir 09 – in a word, balance. Just when you think the fruit might be too intense, the needle comes back up to center. The spice, the minerality, the smooth tannins, the uplifting finish – Michael manages intensity and balance to make a terrific Pinot at a killer price.
