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Since Violin had to make wine (so they could pay their bills), he chose to blend the 2020 wine with 2019 to minimize any off flavors. Unfortunately, he wasn’t entirely successful. When I tasted the multi-vintage wine, I tasted distinct flavors of bacon, caused by smoke taint.
The most interesting thing about our Violin tasting, was that he’s still dealing with smoke taint from the forest fires in 2020 (which should be the current vintage). Many winemakers chose to not make wine in 2020, but as a small producer, Violin didn’t have that luxury.
Yesterday we stayed in McMinnville for our tastings. First stop: Violin Wine, run by Will Hamilton. Will hosted us for a tasting in his home. https://violinwine.com
So yesterday was a loop to the South of McMinnville. Today was a loop to the North. Tomorrow, all of our tastings are *in* McMinnville, which will be nice.
Final stop was Durant Vineyards. This one was a let down. It felt like a very corporate wine garden. The wine was only OK and our server wasn’t very knowledgeable. It felt like a restaurant, which isn’t what we were looking for. https://durantoregon.com (Dayton, OR)
The nice thing about Domaine Drouhin is that we were able to taste and compare their Oregon wines with a few of their French wines. As much as I like Oregon wine, we both preferred their French wine.
Domaine Drouhin was great, but it’s a huge operation. They make 10x the amount of wine of any of the other wineries we’ll visit on this trip. And that’s just their Oregon operations—it doesn’t count France. They have a lot more resources, and their tasting space showed it.
Second winery of the day was Domaine Drouhin. The Drouhin family has made wine in Burgundy for generations, so their purchase of 235 acres in Oregon 30 years ago was a real watershed moment, proving that Oregon wine was legit. https://domainedrouhin.com (Dundee, OR)