Wine Review: Pacific Northwest emerging as fine wine hub

There can be little doubt that the states of Oregon and Washington are becoming a modern-day center for the production of fine wines.

There are vineyards there producing exceptional wine grapes in the area around California's San Luis Obispo Coast where the soil, the air temperature and the cool breezes coming from the Pacific Ocean all combine to produce excellent wine grapes and, as its corollary, fine wines. The area is also rapidly becoming a gathering point for many of America's top winemakers who have been driven north to Oregon and Washington by the high heat problems plaguing the vineyards of California. With all of this talent and the current, somewhat better growing conditions, one cannot deny that there are excellent wines being made in those states.

Among the wines made at these vineyards are chardonnay and pinot noir varieties that for centuries have been the pride and joy of Burgundy in France. It stands to reason that to compete with those wines, the competitor would have to be something special and, contrary to their Burgundian compatriots, affordable.

There is, however, a caveat. The wines are very American and in no way do they try to imitate the flavors and aromas of French wines. Instead, they concentrate on the qualities of the grapes from the Pacific states that are now producing excellent wines whose quality cannot be denied.

Talley Estate 2023 Estate Pinot Noir ($46)
This wine, constructed by utilizing selected grapes from several vineyards in San Luis Obispo Coast, offers the specific characteristics that the Talley Vineyards were seeking in the areas of flavor, aroma, depth and complexity. After fermentation, the wine spent 14 months aging in French oak barrels. The color of this wine is a bright cherry red, and the aroma is heavy with the scents of cherries, red raspberries and oak. These aromas carry over to the flavor where they are melded with a layer of warm spices. There is an almost perfect balance between the fruit and the acid. What is rare about this pinot noir are the soft and smooth tannins that are all too often missing in examples of this variety. This is a very fine wine that can hold its own with the best from anyplace in the world.

Talley Estate 2023 Estate Chardonnay ($38)
It is almost a rule: Where there is pinot noir there will surely be chardonnay, and so there is. Here is another wine that has been made to fit the classical definition of a chardonnay. Here is a wine that explodes with the flavors and aromas of green apples and pears and a suggestion of citrus in the background. There is also a very pleasant under-flavor of oak, which, when combined with a near-perfect acid level, results in a wine of classical dimensions. The finish exhibits the much-sought-after buttery feel in the mouth, the sign of a better chardonnay, which this wine most definitely is.

La Encantada Vineyards Pinot Blanc ($25)
The pinot blanc grape has found a new champion at La Encantada. This often-overlooked white wine has been brought out of the closet through this selection. Why it is not a more popular white wine variety is a mystery to me. The wine offers a fruit basket of aromas and flavors featuring peach, pear, lemon zest and almonds, all of which do not suddenly disappear but stay with the wine for a very long time. This wine is an easy, affordable way to learn about a wine that the reader may not be familiar with, and I am certain that the experience with this wine will be notable and, quite possibly, memorable.

Wine columnist Bennet Bodenstein can be reached at frojhe1@att.net.