MMMM, Mourvedre…


That was the thought rolling around my head when I woke up this morning.

That, and dang, it’s tough to land back on Planet Earth after a weekend in Wine Heaven.

I just returned from the Wine Bloggers Conference in Walla Walla, two-and-a-half days spent with 300 other wine-lovers and winemakers (plus a few winemaker lovers) in a near-constant state of sensory overload. Not that that’s a bad thing. The organizers, hosts and sponsors did a bang-up job of giving us an up-close look at the best offerings from this beautiful little valley in Eastern Washington. The weekend started off with a dazzling array of wines poured for tasting, along with a lunch provided by a selection of taco truck vendors from Yakima. Delicious. We continued on with lots of breakout sessions devoted to our craft of writing and blogging, nurtured all the way with extraordinary wines and food. Vintages from every corner of the globe dribbled into my glass (Australia’s Mollydooker Velvet Glove, Spain’s Rias Baixas Albarino, and Chile’s Ledya Pinot Noir, for example), but the food stayed gloriously closer to home. Chef Bear Ullman at Walla Walla’s Marcus Whitman Hotel, along with his staff, put on a great show, culminating with a wine-and-food pairing on the final day that left me feeling glad to be alive, and so very happy to be writing about wines and all good things about them. Take a look at some of his fabulous offerings, like Tillia Torrontes 2009 Mendoza, Argentina with phylo bouchee with monteillet chevre, pistachio and chestnut honey:

Or High Note Malbec 2009 Uco Valley, Argentina served with  cherry scented duck confit empanadas with mole and avocado:

But back to Mourvedre. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, wine is all about discovery. Some of the most memorable moments of my weekend were wrapped around sips of Mourvedre, an uncommon bottling but one well worth seeking out. The first was a 2006 Yakima Valley Mourvedre from Trio Vintners, an up-and-coming boutique winery that specializes in offbeat varietals. Winemakers and owners Denise Slattery and Steve Michener (above)  focus on food-friendly grapes like Tempranillo, Zinfandel, Sangiovese and (mmmm) Mourvedre. This wine spent 20 months in the barrel before Trio released it. With stats like that you’d expect to taste a big hit of oakiness, but the Trio crew blends their oaks with as much care as they do their wines. This vintage was exposed to a mix of new Hungarian, second- and third-year American, and neutral French oak, leaving plenty of room for the fruit to shine through. It’s deep, rich and foresty, perfect for a big, hearty, beefy meal.

My second Mourvedre moment came during an hour akin to speed dating. We got our hearts pumping during a live blogging session, where winemakers raced around the Marcus Whitman’s ballroom, pouring their wines at tables filled with bloggers, telling us all about themselves and their wines in a mere five minutes before scurrying off to the next group. And this Mourvedre was all about discovery. It was poured not by winemakers, but by a couple of tech guys who have developed an iPhone app called AOC Travel Guides, a clever little insider’s view of four different wine regions (Napa Valley/Carneros, Sonoma County/Russian River, Willamette Valley, and Yakima Valley/Red Mountain). They showed up at our live blogging table with a mystery bottle wrapped in a brown paper bag. They pitched their app and poured the wine – and we all sat up and took notice. I swirled the wine and buried my nose inside the glass and was slammed with aromas of ….s’mores. Toasty, smoky, cocoa-laden s’mores. I fell in love. And when they asked us to guess which of their four wine regions gave birth to the mystery wine, we all failed the test. The big rich flavors made me guess Red Mountain. The correct answer was the Russian River. The wine was Sunce Winery’s 2008 Mourvedre. The winery’s web site says this wine is completely sold out, which makes me sad. Still, I’ll remember it always, an intriguing stranger I once flirted with in a frenzied, exciting, blurry moment in Walla Walla.

Lost and found
Wine is all about discovery. I’m not saying it’s normal, but some of my earliest wine experiences involved a green bottle in the back seat of a ’68 Mustang. If you had a similar start, then you too probably have delicious memories of your first taste of a really great wine. Mine was a bottle of Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon (sadly, I don’t remember whose), served with our 1990 Christmas beef Wellington. I’m not suggesting that it changed my life or anything, but it certainly opened my eyes to greater possibilities. I’d long since moved beyond Annie Greensprings, of course, but tasting that Cab was like discovering a whole new planet.

So imagine how exciting it must have been for Dean Morrison when he planted a small plot of Carmenere, the “lost grape” of Bordeaux, in his Walla Walla Valley vineyard, making him one of only a handful of Washington growers supplying this grape. Carmenere virtually disappeared from France in the late 19th century, a victim of the phylloxera infestation that wiped out nearly all of France’s vineyards. Fortunately, it was part of an earlier diaspora of French grapes to South America, where it thrived in Chilean vineyards alongside the better-known Merlot. Eventually, it became so entwined there with Merlot that it lost its identity entirely, and was mistaken over the years for a Merlot clone. It wasn’t until 1994 that researcher Jean Michael Bousiquot positively identified a vine in Chile as Carmenere. Voila. The lost grape lived again.

Morrison leapt on it with glee. He’s sort of a contrarian when it comes to wine grapes. His 23-acre Walla Walla vineyard includes plantings of relatively obscure varieties like Dolcetto, Barbera and Nebbiolo, all native to Italy’s Piedmont region, along with Viognier, Cinsault, and Sangiovese. Morrison in 1999 was also the first in Washington to plant Counoise.  His son Dan transforms these varieties into some lovely wines at the family's Walla Walla winery.

All of these grapes fall into a category growers call “sport varieties,” grapes that are traditionally blended to enhance the more robust traits of Cabernet or Merlot. Syrah was once part of this group, although in the last decade it has become ubiquitous on wine lists. Similarly, Washington State Viognier has taken off running.

But Carmenere remains elusive. It’s still used primarily as a blending grape, but it occasionally shows up on shelves as a varietal. My local wine vender stocks a Chilean bottle from Peralillo Winery called Arenal, and it makes a very nice little everyday wine, especially refreshing when you’re looking for a change from Cabernet or Merlot. And just the other night we enjoyed a pleasant bottle of 2008 Casillero Del Diablo Carmenere from Concha y Toro. (“Chile’s very own grape,” according to the label.) But the 2005 Carmenere from Morrison Lane is a lot more interesting, with earthy notes wound around tastes of plums, and a bit of spice as well.

“I was attracted to it because of its rarity,” Morrison laughs. “It was made for a guy like me.” Besides his own winery, his vineyard supplies other producers in the Walla Walla area, as well, including Seven Hills, where winemaker Casey McClellan has produced a couple vintages of Carmenere.

McClellan likes to experiment with different varieties, and after he encountered a bottle of Carmenere at a tasting in Bordeaux ten years ago, he decided to give it a whirl. Carmenere can be like a spicy Merlot, he said, but with a softer body. It’s a bigger grape, and more exposure to the skins gives the wine a more accessible structure than some of its bigger cousins. Seven Hills’ Carmenere is full of red raspberry flavors, white pepper and herbs like tarragon and chervil.

McClellan has had fun with the Carmenere, and he plans to continue making it. “I like to offer something a little different. People seem to enjoy a medium-bodied wine with some exotic notes to it,” he says. But he bottles less than 100 cases, and most of that is sold through the Seven Hills wine club or at the winery. Is it worth the trip? You’ll have to try it to decide. Remember, wine is all about discovery.