Confessions...

[stevebody]

Judye's daughter just married a great young man whose family lives in Oregon so, after not having any real reason to go there since I moved here in '92, I've been spending a bit of time at his parents' house, bonding and - coincidentally - drinking some wine. Since the people in Oregon are every bit as devout homers as folks here in Seattle, I've had to stifle my Pinot reflex and actually work at ordering and gamely imbibing some OR Pinots when we've gone out to dinner. Surprisingly, I've enjoyed a few. Not to the point where I'm likely to start my own Pinot Quest but, with the dinners, they've been quite nice.

I agree with Bucko: If I'm going to drink a Pinot, I want that clarity, lightness, complexity, and far less oak/extraction frou-frou than I find in a lot of Pinot. The exceptions to that are things like the Loring wines, which I did actually like just as an aperitif, and a couple of odd Hobbses and Hartfords and such that I've sampled. The corrolary that I've been able to use to rationalize this to myself (to avoid the impulse to check into a sanitarium) is that I prefer traditional Rioja in much the same way. Before the Americanization of Rioja - us old farts will recall - it, too, was a light, clean, interesting style, even if it was always oak-barreled. Tempranillo being the chameleon it is, the Young Lions of Spanish wine have turned Rioja into whopper fruit bombs, to compete with the Ribera del Dueros and Priorats. The old style is disappearing, I think to the detriment of the region.

Approaching Pinot that way, I've sorta made my peace with it. I had a cheap O'Reilley's that was very drinkable, a positively delicious Owen Rowe, a startling Sine Anne, an Archery Summit I enjoyed with duck, and the Beaux Freres spin-off they made for Robert Kacher, Les Cousines(sp). I also had a Red Hills of Dundee Pinot that my pal Charles Smith at K Wines made (bottled, really) that I thought was a tremendous value. Liked them all. Not enough, again, to make me crave more but enough that I no longer flinch when I see it on the table and even enough to get me engaged in conversations about the varietal.

I can't tell whether I'm mellowing, maturing, or slowly rotting. I suspect the latter.

Thanks to all for the kind words about Judye. She's gonna beat this in time.