BY LANCE SPARKS
Fools’ Wines
Sun’s warmth brings lighter hearts, heads, reds.
T
RED BARN
N AT U R A L G R O C E RY E S T. 1 9 8 2
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Little things,
Big Ideas
he cruelest month is tough on wine
snoops. People turn loopy, wear
goofy grins, can’t be trusted to give
straight answers to simple questions.
It’s ga-ga time in the
Willamette Valley. While
chunks of America’s
Midwest and East are
still shoveling side-
walks and huddling
at
homefires,
denizens of Western
Oregon
valleys
have been sucked
out of their houses by
the strangely bright
yellow orb in the nor-
mally leaden sky. Our
pasty, pale-gray faces cannot
resist the orb’s curious warmth,
even while our soft and doughy hands reach
toward still-sodden earth, grasping for
weeds, groping through blinding bursts of
color — hyacinths, tulips, rhodies and azal-
eas, anemones and forget-me-nots, pansies
and the last daffodils.
Even the cultural wasteland of mass
media, the reeking cesspool of Bush-league
politics, the savagery of worldwide war, pol-
lution and pestilence cannot fully suppress
or deny the sappy whisperings of Oregon
spring splendor. Lucky for us, good wine
abounds, nearly as plentiful as dammit dan-
delions. Give a gander:
Our Washington cousins make some
decent wines, almost as good (in rare cases)
as our own. And folks at Hogue Cellars, on
the (go figure) north side of the Columbia,
keep sending me samples, apparently opin-
ing I’ll be impressed enough to boost them
here. Well, farkles, I guess they have a point
or two: for forward-fruit flavors and price-
point value, these are really drinkable.
Hogue 2003 Gewurztraminer
($9) is widely available and
kinda tasty, with a sweet
grapefruit palate suitable
for spicy Asian dishes
or stand-alone sipping.
The wine is ferment-
ed in stainless steel,
not soaked in oak, so
all the flavors are
clean and fresh,
backed by some small
percentage of residual
sugar that imparts a
roundness in the mouth.
Hogue 2003 Columbia
Valley Pinot Grigio ($10) may
not be as serious or complex as some of
Oregon’s best pinot gris, but it’s not intend-
ed to be; in calling this pinot gris by its
Italian moniker, the Hogue marketeers clear-
ly intend consumers to grasp a stylistic
denotation: stainless-steel fermentation,
crisply dry finish, focus on fruit flavors of
fresh pears, green apples, hints of spice. This
is quaffable vino, complementary to crab,
smoked salmon, white cheeses, a wine to
take on an early picnic and cool in a still-
frigid stream, then toss back with pleasure
and not a lot of conversation (about the
wine). Point made.
The first rush of spring warmth calls out
lush salads, greens still trembling from
fields, maybe color-contrasted with slices of
first strawberries, marking the return of lin-
gering light and long sunsets. Pretty wines
make happy matches. Try the little-known
Your Decorating Coach
THE HOME REDESIGN STUDIO
345-5470
www.homeredesignstudio.com
E XPLORE THE WINES OF
S OUTH A FRICA
Join us for this special wine tasting featuring
superb new wines acquired during a January tour
of South African vineyards by Steve Baker of
Sundance Wine Cellars and Matthew Parrott of
Paragon Imports. Thursday evening, April 22, 7:30
pm. $30. Call for reservations. Seating is limited.
TASTINGS
WINE
30 APRIL 1, 2004
Traditional Greek & Indian Food
992 Willamette • Eugene, OR 97401 • 343-9661
LO-CARB BAGELS
U PCOMING FREE S A TURD
A Y T ASTINGS :
TURDA
A PRIL 3, C HEHALEM • A PRIL 10, A BACELA
A PRIL 17, S ECRET H OUSE
FRESH BAKED
6 GRAMS NET CARBS
M A Y T ASTING SEMIN
ARS : R HONE , M AY 5 / S PAIN
SEMINARS
M AY 12 / B URGUNDY , M AY 19 / B ORDEAUX , M AY 26.
C ALL S TEVE FOR DETAILS & RESERVATIONS .
PER SERVING
OPEN DAILY UNTIL 7PM
Also, each Saturday we offer “Super
Pours”- A chance to sample ( for a
small fee) a selected high-end or older
vintage wine from our shelves.
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