Wine Each Week: 2018 INOX Chardonnay, Oregon

Throughout Oregon Pinot Noir is the top grape – no surprise - followed by Pinot Gris, and in the netherworld of third place is Chardonnay. But Oregon Chard is gaining momentum and the 2018 INOX is one of the reasons why. Light and clean the seeming simplicity is deceptive. Defined by peach, Asian pear, nectarine, wild flowers, light honeysuckle and mango, none of these flavors are overwhelming, they act as supporting players in the background. Thus the overall experience of drinking this Chardonnay is its versatility. For example I tried this wine with a barbecue chicken pizza (sampling the wine before the pizza of course) and was surprised at the results that the lovely light style and acidity of this of Chardonnay could work so well with BBQ.

Fermented in stainless steel to keep the freshness with just five months of “aging” in tank there are just under 5,000 cases so you should be able to secure some.

In July 2018, Chehalem became the sixth Oregon winery to achieve B Corp status - which assesses companies to ensure they meet the highest standard of verified social and environmental performance, public transparency, and legal accountability. Additionally they are registered as Salmon Safe – all good things to treat our land as equitable as possible. This is a lovely Chardonnay made better by an attractive price for a wine of this quality.

ORIGIN: Willamette Valley, Oregon

ALCOHOL: 12.9%

PRICE: $20/ 750ML

SCORE: 91 POINTS

CHEHALEM

Locations, Locations, Locations…Wine

Wine is a global affair, yet most wine production facilities/wineries, only make wine from one place – where they are located. Some have a few vineyards in say France and California, or something like that, (Paul Hobbs for example has vineyards in California and Argentina) but few wineries offer wines made by them from places across the globe in a single portfolio. Yes, it’s been done before, but with little success. But Locations Wine is finally getting it right.

Just after the 2010 harvest, Dave Phinney was at the Charles de Gaulle airport, lamenting how existing wine regulations were limiting his ability to make the kind of wine he wanted. He joked about possibilities, imagining what he could do if there were no rules. What if you could blend across French appellations? What if there were no rules. Standing at the airport a taxi pulled curbside and he noticed the very distinctive “F” sticker on the license plate. His mind exploded with thought and possibility. What if he could take this idea and do this not only in France, but also in Italy, Spain, and Portugal? Since great wine is made all over the world, what if you could produce a range of wines across all of the major wine regions of the world paying homage to each country? Enter Locations, with wines from California, France, Portugal, Texas, Italy, Spain, Argentina, Oregon, and Washington. Pretty impressive. I sampled through three of the wines – line priced at $19.99 - the Portuguese being my favorite of the three, though terrific quality with all of them.

The Italian, a blend of Negromaro and Nero d’ Avola offers black berry, brambleberry, pomegranate and cedar, bing cherry.

The Portugal blend of Touriga Nacional, Trincaderia, and Touriga Franca is full of black cherry, black berry, rhubarb, cassis, boysenberry and is earthy and vibrant.

The French Rosé, all Grenache, is strawberry, hibiscus, rose water and violets with a bold acidity, and that mineral/earthy quality that Grenache offers. Locations Wines is a capital idea that lets you travel the Big World of Wine.

Dr. Jones, I Presume - Climate Change & Chardonnay

Dr. Greg V. Jones started his professional life as a chef and the idea of climatology was inconceivable to him. Then his father started a vineyard and Jones found himself immersed in weather and grapes. Listed as one of Decanter Magazines “50 Most Influential People in the World of Wine,” and IntoWine.com’s “Top 100 MostInfluential People in the U.S. Wine Industry,” Jones is Professor of Environmental Studies at Southern Oregon University and is the most widely known climate scientist working with the wine industry. Actually, he’s the only one.

Oregon grapes in the Umpqua Valley

Jones has conducted climate-based research extensively in Oregon’s Umpqua and Rogue valleys, China, spent 10 months in the Douro in Portugal, went to Bordeaux doing field work for his PhD, and has provided his expert opinion to dozens of wine growing regions across the globe. He helps vineyard owners understand a sites’ potential and risk. I sat down with him in Oregon a while back over breakfast and was, well, fascinated (and trust me, I’m not fascinated by many people). “As you assess property to grow grapes you might only be viewing it for a year or two and you can’t feasibly understand where frost pockets are, where wind issues might show up, heat accumulation or water logging,” he tells me. “We establish a suite of information about what should be grown where, what are the range of potential outcomes of sugar ripeness, acid levels, pH, berry sizes, and yields, thereby creating a phenology calendar.” Previously, fundamental questions relating to choosing a vineyard site weren’t obvious and from a climate perspective grape growers had some knowledge about site selection, but it was minimal at best. No one was doing the climate science side of it.

Me and Dr., Dr, Jones

Which begs the question Jones is bombarded with constantly: can climate change actually affect vineyards? “Some people, because of their ideology, will never believe that humans have an impact on our climate. But for agriculturalists they adapt tactically to climate year in and year out, they just don’t recognize it,” he says. “If I ask what they’re doing differently than what they did 25 years ago they’ll tell me a slew of things that are related to weather.” And the earth’s climate is changing, so what can a vineyard do? “Either there is adaptive potential in the vine system, or adaptation in the human system,” Jones suggests. However everyone knows plants are easier to manage and motivate than people.  

For four years Jones performed comprehensive mapping and GPS coordinates of Oregon’s Umpqua and Rogue Valleys. That was the first baseline documentation for the region, and many other American wine regions have never even bothered to consider it. “I have to give the Europeans credit. They observe their environment better than Americans. They know their native plants, when they bloom or flower, they know bird migration habits,” he says. In Oregon by contrast, prior to vineyards being planted there are data sets from pear orchards include bloom dates, but only from 1931 on (even though commercial orchards had been planted as far back as the 1890s) because no one bothered to keep track. Don’t tell that to the Hungarians. “In Hungry they have vine data sets going back to 1533,” Jones excitedly tells me like a nerdy kid enthused by statistical data. “They used to go into the vineyards and observe the vine sprouts. From 1533 to 1740 it was a written tradition - they wrote which variety was in what vineyard, that is was so many centimeters, and had so many leaves.” After 1740 cuttings were hand drawn to scale in a “vine sprout book,” which Jones found when he was there. He used a computer program to measure the length of the drawn shoots, and then coded them based on phenology showing how many leaves there were, and how far the buds were open. “We have used that information to infer spring temperatures back to 1533!” Seriously? And that gives Jones accurate and predictable data to suggest what vines will grow best in the future.

Dr. Jones in Portugal

But for many people, the idea of climate change is ridiculous. “It’s the One-Degree problem,” Jones says. “We talk as if one-degree is no biggie. The beach is a little warmer the summers are nicer. However one-degree to an insect, plant or crop is tremendously different, so it’s not a one-degree problem, but rather what the magnitude of small changes mean to different systems.” And that applies to grapevines. “We have a narrow climate niche across the entire spectrum of how grapes are grown and each variety has an even more narrow niche,” says Jones. “Pinot Noir for example can be grown across a range of about four degrees Fahrenheit for its average climate,” Jones notes. “Let’s say you’re the Tamar Valley in Tasmania and you’re on the low end of that; you’re cool, you ripen, but you are at that margin of suitability for Pinot. Then you warm by two degrees over 30 years.” Happily the vines move to the center of Pinot Noir’s sweet spot. But then, Jones surmises, “Let’s say you’re Russian River Valley; you’re at the warmest point for Pinot Noir, and it warms two, three degrees; suddenly your valuable fruit is better suited for bulk wine.” Therefore Jones suggests growers reconsider spacing, rows, and orientation of their vineyards. “The adage of north-south rows in hot regions should be relooked at. You should be going southeast to northwest in a hot region so you can maintain leaves on the southern face and take leaves off the other side.” Small changes can bring long-term benefits. There is also considerable work being done genetically with rootstocks that can better manage pests, saline soil, and temperature fluctuations, and Jones suggests that vineyards in warming climates might consider planting varieties already grown in extremely warm regions like Xinomavro and Assyrtiko from Greece, and Vinhão from Portugal.

What might be the next growing regions in the U.S I inquire? “Parts of the Puget Sound are the cool climate frontier. Idaho has immense potential, and there’s a push to develop higher elevation plantings in Arizona.” Still, there will be no sudden apocalyptic reveal like Hollywood would have us believe whereby the climate freaks out and destroys mankind in 120 minutes. Mother Nature however does operate on a whim at times but everyone, from commercial farmers to anyone with an herb garden in their backyard, inherently understands that weather will change. That it is changing more predictably will force us to grapple with increasingly complex issues. The answer is decidedly Darwinian. “We need to have greater adaptive capacity,” Dr. Jones says. “It’s that simple.”