William Pollard Jr | aka: Wild 4 Washington Wine

There Was a Time... There was a time when I thought I would stop writing about wine. A time, between 2009 and 2010, when I thought my fascination with wine was at an end. Obviously, something happened to cause that thinking, and something happened to put me back on track. I'll address that further on. This post has become rather long. It is in my nature to want to share. Ten years on and there's a lot I want to mention and get out of my thoughts. My thoughts pester me. I hope you find something interesting in these self obsessed musings. There's a lot I left out. So the temptation to add and tweak is strong. Not sure I can resist. When I began this blog ten years ago, I was working for Barnard Griffin Winery . After Fourteen months of hand selling wine, many industry events and daily customer interactions, my head was full of new to me wine related information. I was not sleeping well with a jumble of wine experiences and knowledge swirling around my head at nigh...

Stephen Lutz, Owner, Lenné. Is there a difference between good wine and great wine? There is, there is. Compare a great wine besides a good wine and the good wine may be bitter ashes in your mouth. The  2010 Lenné  Estate Pinot Noir is a great wine my friends. Seek this wine out and savor the beauty of great Oregon wine. "It was almost 5 years before we knew we'd make great Pinots."   -  Stephen Lutz  The Wednesday, 09 April 2014  #Winechat twitter wine tasting  featured the  2010 Lenné  Estate Pinot Noir . Stephen Lutz, Owner of Lenné tweeted from Oregon as a group of us from the East and West coasts opened and savored his 2010 Estate Pinot Noir. There were smiles in the twitterverse from coast to coast. My first experience meeting Steve Lutz and sampling his Oregon wines was in 2012 at the Wine Bloggers Conference in Portland, Oregon. I was impressed then by the great depth and character of his Pinot Noir. Truly som...

photo: Les Deux Rives, Grenache 60%, Marsanne 20%, Roussanne 20%. The sample I received for tonight's #winechat: Les Deux Rives, Corbières Blanc 2010. Tonight we are tweeting with @WinesofFrance. Here's a link to the Winechat Schedule for April and May . Tasting Notes: Color: Gold, clean and clear. Nose:  Floral, mineral, melon, citrus, almost tangerine, touch toasty, cinnamon. Palate: Pleasantly crisp, almost gentle, the tangerine is more pronounced on the finish, after some air the cinnamon spice follows, pleasant mild acidity on my cheeks, gets creamier after an hour, and coconut on the finish. This would be an excellent aperitif wine, a very good wine to compliment seafood, oysters on the half shell, not heavy seafood, gently sauteed scallops and prawns, and some nice chips. It would also be a good wine for taking in a sunset with your partner. Recommended! Wine Info: The vineyard of Corbières stretches along the Mediterranean coast of France, from Na...

This morning Dave Mathews song “So Much to Say” is on my mind. Feeling the need to press on and share this weeks wine chats. Time to finish some reviews too. #winechat: Santa Rita, Medalla Real, Cabernet Sauvignon, 2008, from the Maipo Valley. Last nights #winechat featured two wines from Chile. For me, it was an eye opening experience. Chile is producing some spectacular wines. In particular, the featured Santa Rita, Medalla Real, Cabernet Sauvignon, 2008, from the Maipo Valley, blew me away. The #winechat crowd was exuberant in their response too. It is an impressive Chilean Cabernet Sauvignon, especially once you consider the retail price of US $18. Santa Rita, Medalla Real Gran Reserva, Cabernet Sauvignon 2008 D.O. Maipo Valley, Chile. Ripe and round, dark color, dark fruit, the concentrated palate grows into and expansive finish at the 2 hour mark. Gorgeous wine. You could drink this wine with food, but why bother? Decant this wine for an hour or two, then kick ba...

Tonight: March Virtual Tasting #lecole41. Tomorrow: #winechat Chile’s Cool Coastal Wines. Tonight: Washington Wine Report March Virtual Tasting 7-8 pm PST, Tuesday, March 20, 2012. March Virtual Tasting - Featuring L'Ecole 2009 Red Wine. Sean Sullivan of Washington Wine Report has arranged another virtual tasting, tonight it is a tasting of the 2009 L'Ecole No 41 Red Wine. This wine retails for $18 and is fairly widely available. What you need to do to participate is: 1. Have a *twitter account - a great excuse to use twitter. 2. Buy this month’s wine from a local retailer or from the winery. I found a bottle for $18. 3. Tweet your comments about the wine on Twitter between 7 and 8 pm Pacific using the hashtag #lecole41 and follow Washington Wine Report @wawinereport on twitter. My first time participating was last months virtual tasting, a lot of fun. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tomorrow: Twitter #...

My setup for tonight's #winechat session. Tonight was a #winechat evening on twitter. The wine was provided by @PasternakWine and it was a marvelous hour of tweeting about the Les Charmes white wine. I originally reviewed this French wine on August 1st, see post here , but tonight was an opportunity to share tasting thoughts with a group of fellow wine tweeters and bloggers. We all had the same wine and we all shared our thoughts about the wine using twitter. Can you say fun? Or type while tasting? Although I reviewed this wine in August, I must admit that it has improved since then and is even better today. It remains bright and clean, but a little more complexity has emerged and I thoroughly enjoyed this wine tonight with dinner. The chicken I cooked with fried onions, garlic, lemon juice, salt, a touch of Mesquite seasoning and then a reduction sauce from the drippings with a splash of the les Charmes. It was indeed a charming pairing. And I made many new friends tonight ...