Decanting with Delkin

Wine Guru Lauds Lachini
Oregon Pinot Noir

          By Fred Delkin

     Just received for review, 101 Wines Guaranteed to Inspire, Delight and Bring Thunder to Your World by Gary Vaynerchuk and find two Oregon Pinot Noirs on this select list...  Lachini's '05 northern Willamette Valley and Foris's '05 Rogue Valley.  We've consumed wines from several world wine regions covered in this treatise and tend to agree with Vaynerchuk's selections.  He is a 33-year-old proprietor of Wine Library, a store in New Jersey, and host of a TV show...check him out at winelibrarytv.com.  His writing and his television persona exhibit a flamboyant vinous attitude.

He describes the Lachini bottling as smelling like "barnyard manure" before taking a sip, which then reveals taste that is "gorgeous, complex and worldly."  He describes the Foris effort as exhibiting "the sense of a sandwich of strawberries and blackberries with a little ground pepper, smooched between old-fashioned rye bread."  The author covers such topics as "Top red wines that appeal to white wine drinkers," "5 ways to build your wine self esteem," "Best 7 wines under $15," and "Top 10 wines of 2008 that will shock you." 

The Lachini Pinot Noir bottlings have earned 90+ ratings from Wine Spectator and Ron and Marianne have just released their 2006 estate Pinot Noir and a 2007 Pinot Gris.  They have also financed a vineyard plot in Washington state's Red Mountain district, where they are producing a Bordeaux blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Merlot and Petit Verdot.  The Oregon vineyards are on Calkins Road in Newberg, just off highway 240 and this will be the site of a new winery now under construction.

New 'White Lightning' beverage

Our nation's newest generation of alcohol imbibers have enshrined multi-filtered, smooth vodkas and costly tequilas that bear no resemblance to the cactus juice we went over the border to buy when we were in graduate school in Arizona several decades ago.  Now a Brazilian cane sugar product "Leblon" seeks to join this merry category.  This is produced from natural cane sugar in "small batch copper pot stills" and claims to bear no resemblance to the "bulk, industrial" swill that inspired Brazil's national cocktail, the Caipirinha.  This clear 40% alcohol is "lightly aged in used cognac casks. " It earned a double gold at the 2007 San Francisco World Spirits competition and by our taste, deserved it.

Brazil may be emulating its international soccer success with this export, which is responsible for American bar sales of some 12 million Caipirinhas in 2007.  The producers claim this beverage as the "new Tequila" and the Caipirinha as "the next Margarita."  Look up the hype at www.perfectcaipirinha.com.

© 2008 Oregon Magazine