Avalon
NW
Wine News
March 25 2003 1. Patricia
Green Pinot Noir Shea Vineyard 2001
$29.59/$26.63
On sale, great price, stellar
wine, elegant, rich, cellar for 6-8 years * 2. Owen
Roe
Pinot Gris 2002
Casablanca Vineyard
$22.99$20.69
David O'Reilly's best wines
are reserved for this label. Very small amt made. 3. Andrew
Will
Syrah 2001
$23.99/$21.59 4. Shea
Wine Cellars
Pinot Noir "Homer" 2001
$64.99/$58.50
Patty Green's richest, most over the top, extracted and
massive Pinot
noir - very very limited 5. Owen Roe Dubrul Cab 2001
$72.99/$65.69
One of the NW's most highly valued wines
6. Kiona
Cabernet Reserve 99
$30.99/$27.90
9th week on the list-
outstanding value 7. Sineann
Pinot
Gris 2002
$15.99/$14.39 8. Big
Reds Club Membership
2-3 bottles a month of the best, hard to
get NW reds *9. Andrew Will
Sangiovese
$30.00/27.00
from Ciel du cheval
grapes
10. Bergstrom
Pinot noir
Reserve 00
$29.99/26.99 *first
week
on the list
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3/25/03
By Christina Kelly
Avalon Editor/Writer For the past four
years, Peter Rosback produced small quantities of intense, often powerful,
bright and impressive wines for Sineann, his Newberg, OR winery. This fifth year, says Rosback, is his best. “The wine is surpassingly good—this is the fifth year
in a row of great crops, great weather and great wine,” Rosback
said. “In fact, this year’s Pinot Gris is the best I’ve
ever made.” A powerful boast from a winemaker who consistently produces high scoring,
handcrafted wines described as over-the-top, exuberant and complex.  Sineann is easily one of the Northwest’s most exciting wineries.
Rosback and his partner David O’Reilly scoured Washington and
Oregon for the best vineyards they could find. Their first commercial
effort, in 1994, produced an amazing old vine Zinfandel from one of
the oldest producing vineyards in the Northwest.
“Where the fruit comes from is a big deal to us,” Rosback
explained. “We select farmers who not only have pride in their
work, but take pride in the end product. Our producers have low yields,
high elevations and are able to ripen the fruit reliably.” Rosback, with his fiery red hair cropping
his face like a lion’s
mane, is surprisingly low key and unassuming. He is intense and passionate
about wine and his family (daughters Sydney, 15, Casey-Jane, 6, and
wife Nancy) but less comfortable with the daily marketing and chest
thumping associated with selling premium wine. It is where the partnership
developed with O’Reilly, whom he met in the early 1990s while
O’Reilly worked as a marketing director for Elk Cove Vineyards
and Rosback helped out with crush and harvest -------
Read complete article here
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Highly rated
very limited
2001 Cab and Merlot
now available
Order here
"Few
winemakers in the Pacific Northwest get such intensity and heady
richness into their wines as does David O'Reilly." |
----Harvey Steiman, Wine Spectator |
Owen Roe makes tiny amounts of very intense, very
fine wines that are coveted by wine collectors. Owen Roe is a partnership
between Jerry Owen, who closely monitors the vineyards, and David O'Reilly
who makes and sells the wine. Grapes are sourced from excellent vineyards
in the Willamette, Mid-Columbia, Yakima Valley, and Walla Walla Valleys
. Owen
Roe--- more here.
David O'Reilly and the Owen Roe Cab
Order Owen Roe Wines here
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Wines
now available from Sineann
Sineann
Cabernet Sauvignon McDuffee 2001 $32.00/28.80
The
winemaker, Peter Rosback, says: "Every year we're more impressed with
the fruit we get off Terry McDuffee's vineyard. Tiny black berries,
bursting with flavor, from a vineyard
that is cropped at less than two tons per acre. The wine is dark, intensely
flavorful, with leather and tar components and a long finish." Sineann Pinot Gris 2002
$15.99/$14.39
WinemakerPeter Rosback says: "This may be the
best Pinot Gris we've made. That's saying a lot considering the quality
of our
'99.
The wine is already displaying impressive depth and will only improve for quite
a time. Most of the fruit comes off the Wyeast Vineyard in the Hood River
Valley.
Located on a south-facing slope at high elevation in a famous fruit growing
area, the fruit ripens fully while retaining good acidity." A rich, complex wine with fresh white
stone fruit and hints of spice in the nose, clean and refreshing, many
different fruit, spice, roasted nut,
and herbal flavors waft rapidly across the palate, finishing crisp and
glycerin-y. Just had this wine with the winemaker, Peter Rossback, and
have to say, it was spectacular. We had it with sushi, of all things,
and it was
a wonderful complement to the cuisine. This is an unusually rich,
oily, glycerin-y wine with intense fruit flavors and a clean clean
finish
that keeps the wine from the slightest hint of cloy. Sineann Riesling Medici Vineyard 2002
$16.00/14.40
The winemaker says: "The grower,
Hal Medici, and I have been convinced that we could make a great Mosel-style
Riesling off his thirty year-old
vines. We have been making Icewines for many years under the Medici
Vineyards label. This year (2002) Hal agreed to sell me the fruit. This
wine is
the result. A near perfect harvest brought in Riesling, ripe with a
fair amount of botrytris and great acidity. The wine is amazing, evolving
on the palate in myriad ways."
Sineann Gewurztraminer Celilo 2002
$19.99/17.99
I have a weakness for Alsacian styled white wines- their complexity
and pure fruit flavors are endlessly fascinating. I am addicted to Mark
Vlossak's wonderful Pinot gris's, and now I have a new favorite gewurztraminer-
Peter Rosback's Sineann Geuwrztraminer, made from fruit from Washington's
Celilo Valley. The wine has Peter's usual over-the-top styling, carefully controlled
to bring out the best in these grapes. I think of Domaine Weinbach or
Trimbach wines when I drink this wonderful quaffer. It's wonderful with
Camembert cheese.
The winemaker says: "I had been hearing for years from one of my
best growers how great the Gewurztraminer was from White Salmon River
area vineyards. I told him to put up or shut up. He put up. Last year
our Celilo Gewurztraminer was named one of the top 100 wines of the year
by The Wine Enthusiast. This year's is much the same. Spicy, rich, great
supporting acidity, what is there not to like?" Sineann
Gewurztraminer Reed & Reynolds 2002 $19.99/17.99
The winemaker says: "Our secret to this wine is to follow a formula
given to us by an Alsatian winemaker. "Wait until the grapes get
ripe, then wait a month to pick." We did it. It worked again. Huge
mouthfeel coupled with ripe fruit defines this wine."
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New
and Sale Wines Owen
Roe Pinot Gris
Cassablanca Vineyard 2002 $22.99/20.69
David O'Reilly's super premium label,
very very limited amount made, very intense, very rich, deeply flavored,
clean finish, David's usual masterly style. Patricia Green
2002
Pinot Noir Futures $25.00 a bottle
I think this is the best deal for some of the
best wine being made in the US today. These 2002's are drinking so well in
barrel, and Patty's past vintages have each gotten better. The gal just has
a knack, not the least part of which is her ability to motivate and pull together
a cohesive team who have now worked together since 1993. I tasted the wines
again this week, and they are stunners. There will be some higher priced Pinots
from her that are not being offered as futures, but the wines being offered
now, particularly the Shea and Anden are as good as anything she has made.
PGC is only 3 vintages old. I truely believe that an investment now in her
wines for your cellar will be generously rewarded over the next decade.
read more here.... Patricia Green Cellars Pinot Noir
"Shea Vineyard" 2001 $29.59/26.63
If you want some PGC wine to drink while you wait for the futures to
arrive, this is the one to try. Patty gets the most out of this famouse
vineyard and the price is one of the best for a Pinot from this site.
The nose has violets and rich clean fruit, the flavors rane from blueberries
to black cherries to blackberry, and there are definite hints of rose
petals, wet stone and subtle spice. Patty's style has crafted this wine
into something very special. Andrew
Rich Syrah 2001
$23.99/21.59 highly
recommended
IIt's out, and as usual it is a wonderful
value. Sells out every year within a few weeks, let us know if you'd
like some of this vintage. Andrew Rich, what can you say-
one of Oregon's wine treasures. His dog Romeo (a Vizsla,
and we know what they are like) says he's the reason the wines are
so good, but we think Andrew might have something to do with the winemaking
also. This Syrah is just about the best foir the price that ou can
find from the NW.
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Bergstrom
Winery reaps
High Ratings
in Wine Spectator The March 13th inssue of Wine
Spectator's Wine Weekly Newsletter rated
several Bergstrom wines and gave quite a boost to spirits at the winery.
The 2001 Pinot noir received 90 points,as did
the 2000 Pinot noir Reserve last year) the 2001 Arcus received 94 points
and was named a "Hot Wine", and the 2001
Cumberland
received 92 points.
Read the Wine Spec reviews and order the wines
here.
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Sineann winemaker Peter Rosback
