Citation is Oregon's best pinot noir

Rossbach with 2002 Citation

Holding the bottle--an Oregon pinot noir from the 2002 vintage--is Howard Rossbach, who launched a brand called Firesteed some 20 years ago to take advantage of a world-class growing region hobbled by a fragmented, dysfunctional marketplace. Oregon's pinot noir producers were a fractious lot; there were famous names like David Lett, David Adelsheim, and Dick Erath, but no one had enough volume to become a category leader, and the small wineries wereforced to charge high prices just to stay in business.

Firesteed was born as a "virtual winery" in 1992, and for ten years used a facility in Rickreall (in Oregon's Eola Hills) to produce its wine, a careful but unassuming pinot noir blended from grapes grown under contract at vineyards throughout Oregon. Eventually Rossbach bought the winery outright, and began farming its 90 acre himself. He went on to purchase another 200 acres nearby, and continues to buy both grapes as well as outside wine (but only if it's better than what he's already got).

Firesteed has gone on to produce other varieties (notably chardonnay and barbera d'Asti), but Rossbach has a personal fondness for the pinot. The best stuff goes into barrel for 16 to 18 months, then sees up to seven years of bottle-aging. The result is stunning: unlike the pubescent, fruit-forward Oregon pinots we've become accustomed to, the 2002 Citation is a wine that's almost fully mature, the sort of wine you cannot imagine if you've never visited Burgundy and had the opportunity to taste from a private collection of Grand Cru wines. There's tobacco and bramble in the nose, an earthiness on the palate, a voluptuous mouthfeel. The winery started with 6,000 bottles, 80 percent of which has already been sold.

Older wines like this, unfortunately, don't do particularly well in competitions because they're so far from the mainstream, years behind the showy bottles that win shiny medals and fuel the media frenzy over Oregon pinot. But a wine like this might make you want to exclaim, like Scarpia, "Tosca, you make me forget God!"

Yet all you have to do is go to Metropolitan Market and pay $70, or travel to the tasting room along  Highway 99 15 minutes west ot Salem, where you only need to plunk down $60. Either way, it's a lot less expensive than flying to France.

Be still: how to make Big Gin

Let's begin by reassuring the State Liquor Board and the federal revenuers that the "still" in the photo is for show-and-tell only, acquired from PelletLab.com so that Ben Capdevielle could demonstrate how distillation works. The botanicals in the boiling retort are real, though. It's a dog-and-pony show that Capdevielle took on the road this week for a class in gin-making. The real still, inside a grey clapboard house in Ballard, is a 100-gallon copper job from Vendome in Louisville, KY, a part of the country where distillation (licit and illicit) is an industry with a cultural history as important as, say, aerospace is out here.

The product of the legal effort (legal since the state gummint eased up on craft distilleries in 2008) is called Big Gin, produced by Capdevielle and his gang under a corporate umbrella named Captive Spirits. Big Gin is an aromatic spirit that falls into a category of gin generally referred to as "London Dry." That is, it's not overly sweet even with lots of juniper and orange peel in the nose. Compared to, say, Bombay Sapphire, it has nowhere near the perfume; it has none of the rose-water and cucumber aromatics of Hendricks. Captive spends more than other local craft distillers on its clothes: its gin is hand-bottled and sports an elegant label (by Chris Jordan of Shipwreck Design). All those botanicals, not cheap, either.

Captive will shortly release a second gin, aged in used bourbon barrels. The aging--a typical technique of a gin category known as "Old Tom"--mellows the flavors a bit and adds a hint of golden color. But the feds won't approve labels for gin that even suggest "aging," so the label will read, simply, Old Tom.

Capdevielle teamed up with the folks at Seatown (Tom Douglas's tourist-oriented snack bar at the Market) for the cocktail class. And using the show-and-tell still, with its juniper berries and botanicals bouncing happily in the retort, he explained that craft distillers use neutral, industrial-strength corn-based ethanol and infuse it with flavors. The orange esters, for example, dominate the first part of the distillation; how prominent should those flavors be? Each distiller's "recipe" (how much of this, how much of that) remains a closely guarded secret, even as their trade association, the Washington Distillers Guild, works with the Liquor Board to expand access to out-of-state markets.

Tequilas at Cactus

Half a dozen tequila-based cocktails last night at Cactus in SLU. The occasion: the "unveiling" of Olmeca Altos 100% Agave Tequila, a handcrafted tequila produced in the heart of Los Altos, 6,500 feet above sea level in the state of Jalisco, Mexico, using artisanal ingredients and production methods.

The brand is distributed through PernodRicard, one of the world's largest drinks companies (Absolut, Jameson, Beefeater).

My favorite: the Teqroni, made with Campari, Punt y Mes and Olmeca Altos Plata.

On the right, Altos tequila's master distiller Jesus Hernandez; on the left, brand ambassador Steffin Oghene. Afro aside, he's a Scotsman.

No Yquem for you!

Pouring Chateau d'Yquem for a tasting. 2006 photo.

There will be no 2012 Chateau d'Yquem, says the property's general manager, Pierre Lurton. According to Bordeaux Wine News, the hand was dealt by Mother Nature but it fell to Lurton to make the call. Foregone revenue: 25 million euros.

The last time Yquem failed to release a wine was 20 vintages ago. 

Tatoosh Bourbon Debuts at F.X. McRory's

Tatoosh founders at F.X. McRory's

F.X. McRory is a saloon well-known to anyone who's ever hoisted a pint or sipped a wee dram in Pioneer Square. The expansive bar features a mural by the late Leroy Neiman (commissioned for $100,000 three decades ago), and over a thousand bottles of booze.

And on 12/12/12, four Seattle guys came in with the first bottles of their new bourbon, named Tatoosh. No, not Paul Allen's mega-yacht. The Tatoosh mountains, the Tatoosh wilderness.

The bourbons and whiskeys are distilled under contract in Bend, Oregon (where there's plenty of golden grain and prisine waters from the Cascades), but it's a departure from the recent explosion of micro-distilleries that have set up shop in and around Seattle. On the other hand, after stocking well over a hundred bourbons, this marks the first time that a bourbon has actually launched at McRory's.

So it was a pleasure for owner Mick McHugh to be on hand as the first bottle of Tatoosh was slotted into its center spot between Tangle Ridge (a rye from Alberta) and Templeton (Prohibition-era rye from Iowa).

The Tatoosh is sweeter than most bourbons, which makes it a natural for the Manhattan (or "Tathattan," as they called it on opening night). 

Tomorrow, the Tatoosh team roll out their brand at a dozen more eating and drinking establishments (Seastar, Sport, Roanoke Inn, 5 Point Cafe) and retailers (Wine World, Emerald City Spirits).

FX McRory's, 419 Occidental Ave. S, Seattle 206-623-4800

Concocting Cocktail Infusions

 

 

Mi-Suk Ahn, bar manager at BOKA.Photo courtesy of Hotel 1000.

Gracious and charming, BOKA's bar manager Mi-Suk Ahn reminds the three dozen women (and three gents) attending a class on "Holiday Infusions" at Hotel 1000 that this should be as easy as flipping an egg.

The ingredients are at hand: herbs and flowers (hibiscus, thyme, rosemary, basil); fresh fruit (kumquat, pomegranate), frozen fruit (blueberries), dried fruit (figs); spices (vanilla, cinnamon, cloves). An array of not-quite premium liquor (because it would be a waste to use the very best stuff): vodka, bourbon, gin, rye.

It's not rocket science. Put ingredients in a jar, add booze, stir, cover and wait. How long depends on what's in the jar. Herbs only take a few days. Spices and fruit take longer.

You might need a bit of simple syrup to sweeten things up, a bit of citrus for acidity; that's your personal choice, if you've got the palate. For my palate, the danger was the overpowering flavor of cinnamon.

Can you infuse something that tastes like a Negroni (normally gin + sweet vermouth + Campari)? Mi-Suk says sure: hibiscus, kumquat, figs, and plain Gordon's gin. Wait two weeks. We'll report back.

Drinking Lesson: Absinthe can get you hammered

 
Marteau is French for "hammer." It's also Gwydion Stone's brand of Absinthe, Stone being the founding member of an association called the Wormwood Society whose purpose is to educate bartenders and drinkers about the magic green distillate. Not an easy task, since competitors (virtually the entire alcoholic beverage industry, not to mention zealous government bureaucrats) are more than eager to demonize absinthe, ascribing to it every evil and unfortunate medical condition known to the planet.

Never mind that real absinthe, properly made, is a thing of beauty, "like drinking an Alpine meadow," as Stone put it last week to a dozen curious imbibers on the penthouse terrace of the Sorrento Hotel. It was the final session of 2012 for the hotel's popular series of monthly "Drinking Lessons," which resume next year on the second Wednesday of every month with two sessions a night in the hotel's elegant Hunt Club bar. Champagne, rare wines, tequila, rye, gin...an even dozen classes for $35 each, which includes an opening lecture, drinks, and Hunt Club bites.

Back to the drinking lesson for a sec. To sweeten the absinthe, drip some icewater through a sugar cube suspended on a slotted spoon above the glass. Don't set fire to the sugar! That's a bar trick from eastern Europe designed to camouflage counterfeit absinthe; the real stuff turns milky when water is added. Absinthe used to be cheaper than wine; that's why it was so popular during the Belle Époque, at the end of the 19th century. In its early years, until craft distilleries were legalized in Washington, Stone's Marteau was distilled under contract in Switzerland. Remember, it's a distillate, not an infusion. Now close your eyes and taste the meadow.

Program details and reservations for 2013 are here.

Sorrento Hotel, 900 Madison St., Seattle, 206-622-6400