Attention Hoke: Teutonic Wines--your impressions?

[Jenise]

Tasted through the lineup today. Totally a winery for the AFWE. Found the pinots too lean and unexpressive for my tastes even though I tend not to like over-the-top models, enjoyed the Pinot Menuiere or however you spell it, and loved loved LOVED the white--bought half a dozen. All were 2013's. Curious what you think.

I'd say my take is pretty similar to yours, Jenise.

The absolute devotion (and follow through on same) towards a severely Germanic style applied to OR white wines is laudable, and I think they are making impressive white wines.

That same attitude---high altitude, cold as hell---applied to red wines is a whole different think. Tight, lean, austere PN is worth trying, but it's hard to do, and it's not going to suit everybody. I'd say the style of Teutonic PN---at least thus far---might lean too far towards the lean and acidic; and I think Willamette Valley Pinot Noir needs a bit more flesh---not to the jammy level, but more than what I've seen so far with Teutonic PN.

(And I ask myself, why is it that when I think of Pinot Noir I never think of all the really great exceptional super-cold, windswept high-mountain vineyard Pinot Noirs?)

The closest corollary I can come up with in the old word is the Alto Adige---quite germanic, and good reds in that lean, high acid but still fruity mold (more red fruit than black, I'd say). How many of them are Pinot Noir?

So, does that answer your question?

[Jenise]

Yes, that answers my question. I'm glad I'm not the only one. It's a very narrow niche he's trying to fill and I'm not sure there's a lot of demand for it in Oregon. A dear friend reps the wines and is NUTS about the style, everything about it, as is the shopkeeper whose store I tasted at yesterday. But I just couldn't get into the pinots--Chehalem Mountain, 1200 feet, lalala--and the other from an Alma Vineyard wherever that is. Very hard to get them, especially AFTER the brilliant white which was the one simply called White Wine, not the gewurz and maybe one other I noted on Cellartracker last night. So with dinner last night, for a little self-calibration, I opened an Evesham Wood pinot which had been one of my personal heroes for restrained style when it came to Oregon. Had my tastes changed, I wondered, would even that not taste good? No fear. EW is safe with me.

I celebrate what these guys are attempting to do, and I'm curious to see what will eventually come out of it. Maybe they'll expand the acceptable palette of Pinot Noir. And maybe not.

I believe PN is finicky and tough to grow, even tougher to 'manipulate' as a wine. And when I've had PN grown in the wrong sites---as in, say the warm and overcropped Languedoc, or in some high elevation-cold and windy sites---they all end up being like KoolAid without sugar: lean/tart to a distressing point and lacking in the grace and elegance I like in PN. They tend to lack dimension, that's what I'm trying to say; they are one-dimensional.

A lot of the standard CA Pinots have to be pumped with sometimes astonishing amount of water when they go into the fermentation vats---you really can't imagine. There, it's an attempt to back off from being too fat. I think many of the opposite style just go too far in emphasizing the lean acidity and get a monochromatic wine that doesn't resonate.

[Jenise]

Doesn't resonate. EXACTLY. The rep I mentioned who loves these wines is a very close friend and he and his family were here yesterday so we got into another discussion about them. My bottom line was: while I appreciate and increasingly seek out lighter style wines, I value complexity above all and tend not to find a wine that's been stripped of all fruit 'complex'. It's different, but that's not enough. It has to be pleasurable, too.

Saturday morning he tasted me on another pinot, this one from Savage Grace, a new WA winery based in Woodinville. I didn't care for it. He brought the rest of the bottle, which had been opened originally on Friday, yesterday. WOW, totally different. Lighter and leaner but delicious and pretty--it's Gorge fruit, very high toned "If THAT would happen to the Teutonics," I said, "you'd have me."