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About Eugene weekly. (Eugene, Oregon) 1993-current | View Entire Issue (May 21, 2009)
Andrew Deffenbacher WINE CLASS Food & Wine Pairing 101 Monday, June 8th • 6-9pm Taste 6 wines paired with gourmet selections, enjoy enlightened information, and have a great time! Michael Bailey has years of knowledge & Zeeta will pair that up with fabulous eats. Call to reserve your space now! Cost: $30 per person 270 W. 6th Ave • 988-2580 Junction City, OR BLOGS. Taking Flight EUGENE WEEKLY .COM Save your Saturdays & Tuesdays for the 2009 Season of the Lane County Farmers Market April 4 – Nov 14, 9 am-4 pm Tuesdays, May 5 - October 27, 10 am - 3 pm Downtown Eugene 8th and Oak/Park JUMPING HEADFIRST INTO THE WORLD OF WINE By Krista Harper Y ou might call my dad a wine connoisseur. He belongs to a wine- of-the-month club, goes to wine tastings at least a few times a month and likes to joke that his huge wine collection in the basement is going to be my inheritance. For years, my dad has tried valiantly to impart his wine wisdom to me. He likes to pour me small glasses and ask what I think. Honestly, it’s hard for me to tell the difference between one bottle and the next, but to keep him happy, I’ll drink a glass or two and listen patiently as he critiques or marvels at the wine’s various attributes. But I’m usually just humoring him. After all, I’m a college student — the vast majority of wines I’ve enjoyed have cost less than 12 dollars, and sometimes less than fi ve. I’ve been known to exclaim, as my father does, “Look at the legs on that Angus James This month at the market: Tuesday Markets begin May 5. Have a local breakfast or lunch at new food areas, including Field to Table, Mazzi ’s, and Canby Asparagus with more coming soon Cooking and sampling demos at Hey Bayles! Master Gardeners give advance on May 16 Local since 1979 4 Eugene Weekly's Uncorked wine!” but it’s to poke fun at my dear old dad, not to make an educated point about the bottom-shelf wine I’m drinking. I have no idea how to judge a wine, except for a general assumption that you get what you pay for. Sure, I like some wines more than others, but ask me the difference between pinot noir and cabernet mignon and I'll be at a complete loss. When it comes down to it, wine is part of the grown-up world that I’m still intimidated by, and I’m not alone. Many people, young and old, are wine-shy. It’s one of those things that can seem to have a steep, hoity-toity learning curve, like playing golf or making French pastry. For the benefi t of would-be wine drinkers everywhere, I got some help from the experts. I sat down with the managers of three of Eugene’s wine bars and boosted my wine IQ, both for my own benefi t and to impress my father when he comes down to see me in June. Angus James, who co-owns The Broadway, pointed to a sign hanging in his shop just minutes after I sat down: “The best wine is the wine you like the best!” He smiled reassuringly. “Don’t be intimidated — wine is just fermented grapes,” he said. That seemed to be the general attitude I heard at the other two wine bars I visited as well. Wine newbies might not have so much to be afraid of, after all. B2, the wine bar at Crescent Village, opened last November, and was the fi rst bar I went to. Manager Andrew Deffenbacher laid out the basics of wine for me. First, there are many basic things that can happen at a wine bar. You can order a glass or a bottle of wine, you can participate in a wine tasting or you could order a fl ight. Tastings usually involve a representative of a winery and a special selection of their wines to sample. “Flights,” which I’d never heard of before, consist of three or more smaller glasses of wine, usually with an order and a theme in mind. For example, you might order a fl ight of Oregon pinot noirs, a lighter red wine that Deffenbacher informed me is Oregon’s most famous kind of wine. The fi rst pinot in the fl ight would be the lightest, the second would be medium-toned in fl avor and color and the last would be the heaviest. The relatively temperamental grapes that make pinot, Deffenbacher told me, gained fame in French wines from the Burgundy region, but as it turns out, grow equally well in Willamette Valley soil. Much of France and Oregon have similar climates, he said. Deffenbacher, 25, also explained the idea of a food wine to me. Some wines are good to drink on their own, he said, and others are meant for drinking with food. The fl avor in the wine, he said, is enhanced by the taste of certain dishes, especially meat. A robust red might be best with a steak while a white would pair better with fi sh. He stressed that this doesn’t mean one wine is better than another, just that each is better suited to different purposes. B2 is owned by Bruce and Beverly Biehl, a brother/sister team that also owns the Eugene Wine Cellars. The color scheme and paintings inside B2 resemble what you might expect if the interior decorator of Starbucks had a signifi cantly higher budget and a bit more time. It has a young feel to it, and from Deffenbacher’s explanation, that may not be a coincidence. “Wine used to be something our parents drank,” he says. But now it’s something people are getting into at a younger age, he says, and it’s not a surprise for him to see college students in the bar. The Broadway in downtown Eugene has been open for nine years. The décor is more simplistic than that of B2, and there’s plenty of space to peruse wall after wall of the wines that are on sale. Angus James, one of the owners, is the one who so confi dently told me that the most important thing about a wine is that I like it. To impress a fervent wine drinker like my dad, James suggested I offer or at least talk about Oregon’s non-pinot wines. Since Oregon’s pinots are internationally known, it’s likely that my dad, a Washingtonian, would know about them. But it’s less likely that he’s explored more unique Oregon wines, like syrah from the northern www.eugeneweekly.com
