Current Oregon Releases

[Randy Caparoso]

Interesting, Bucko. I'll make a point of rechecking, then. Perhaps next week Mon. and Tue, when I will be making some quick rounds of the Willamette Valley.

By the way, curiosity overwhelmed me and so I opened a bottle of the '97 Beaux Freres I received in my shipment last week. I was very pleased -- sweet, dense, meaty, concentrated, with more than enough velvety fruit and roasted coffee/warm oak intensities to cushion generous tobacco-like tannin at the core. It's not just a clean richness that they now achieve, but also great textural quality -- all this in a somewhat "average" year (and very difficult for some). I'd be interested in trying the '97 Drouhins to see how they stack up. You see, the early vintages of Beaux Freres ('91 thru '93) left me left me a little cold. Fact is, I still don't think they were very good wines -- rough, unstable, overly stated. However, with every new vintage, no matter what the conditions, they seem to get better and better in their wine growing and making. That's what I'd like to see in the Drouhins -- something better than what they've done in the past. Until then, I can't say I'm thrilled.