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
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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
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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
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