wine
BY LANCE SPARKS
Fine Wine in Strange Places
Pleasant Hill has surprises, delightful and tragic
S
omething is happening in folksy
little Pleasant Hill. And I don’t
know what it is.
Pleasant Hill is a wee rural community
just a few miles east of I-5 on Hwy. 58.
There’s no town in the town, unless you
count a small cluster of shops around
Ray’s Market. It’s rather surprising that
among the shops near Ray’s we’d fi nd ‘S
Wine, maybe the best outlet for German
wines within a hundred miles. That’s
odd not only because German wines
are notoriously hard to sell (buyers who
can’t pronounce trockenbeerenauslese are
usually reluctant to plunk down $100 for a
half-bottle). It’s odd, too, because Pleasant
Hill, despite its proximity to Eugene, is
distinctly country and we wouldn’t expect
to fi nd there much interest in the nuances
of fi ne wines: goats, yes; cows, sure; even
miniature burros; beers and Friday nights
watching the Pleasant Hill Billies play
football, defi nitely.
We probably wouldn’t expect much
enthusiasm for the complexities of pinot
noir.
But if we look closer, we get (another)
lesson in how looks can be deceiving.
Under that bucolic surface, Pleasant Hill is
a complex place.
We’ve had some harsh lessons in that
reality lately. Just two weeks ago, one of
Pleasant Hill’s best youngsters
took her own life and
ravaged the hearts and
shattered the hopes of
hundreds of people.
Rachel Nice was a
bright, lovely girl
with a nearly idyllic
past and virtually
unlimited
future.
She was not just
one of the good kids,
she was a star. I met
her when she was a
student in one of my
LCC classes: sharp mind,
good skills, strong work ethic,
beamish smile, natural leader.
As a student at PHHS, she’d been active:
raised prize-winning goats in FFA; Girl
Scout, silver and gold awards; cheerleader,
on the state championship team for three
years. Her prospects couldn’t have been
sunnier. Then — poof! — she was gone,
and tears fell like rain all over that valley.
Yet the hills rolled on, green and fertile,
and all seemed sweet and peaceful in
Pleasant Hill. And there was wine.
Pleasant Hill now has Bodner Wine
Company, which (at bodnerwinecompany.
wordpress.com)
calls
itself
a
“microwinery.” Surprisingly, Bodner
Wine Company Pinot Noir
($22) is quite tasty. The
grapes are sourced from
Briggs Hill vineyards
(neighbors to Sweet
Cheeks and Silvan
Ridge),
producers
of long-lived wines
under the Briggs
Hill label. Bodner
pinot noir offers light
body and bright fruit
fl avors of red berries
(cherry, raspberry) with
good acidity for various
food matches (keep it
light).
We haven’t found it yet, but
Bodner also makes a Riesling, the great
grape of — you guessed it — Germany.
Time for me to depart Pleasant Hill
and its surprises, both the tragic and the
delightful: Spindrift 2011 Pinot Gris
($15) is typical of this label’s fi ne wine-
making: crisp, clean, yummy fruit fl avors
(pears, green apples, some tropicals) and
zesty acidity, ready for cheesy/creamy
pastas.
Sometimes we want what we see to be
exactly what we get, no surprises.
ew
Vineyards
Violins
Lance Sparks, Ph.D., teaches writing at LCC and can be
reached at freelanceandwildkat@comcast.net
Oregon’s Largest Selection Of Wine
S NDANCE
w ne cellars
Renwood Viognier
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5HJ12:
$7.95
Eola Hills “La Creole” 2009 Reserve Chardonnay
$VPRRWKHOHJDQWZLQHZLWKDGHOLFDWHWRXFKRIEXWWHU\RDN
5HJ12:
$13.95
AlexEli Pinot Noir
Black pepper & maple flavors in a traditional style pinot.
5HJ12:
$16.50
TreBri Pinot Noir
Small family winery in Monroe which makes delicious pinot to drink now!
5HJ12:
$19.95
SOM TUM
Offers good while supplies last
T
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These wines available for sampling – drop in and have a taste!
Fridays:
Mario’s value picks!
Free Tastings
5 to 7 pm
EOS Dist., CA
Owen Roe, OR
5/19 Cameron, OR
Benton Lane, OR
California Wines
5/11 Mario’s value picks
5/18 Mario’s value picks
Mario’s value picks
2441 Hilyard Street
www.orwines.com
541.687.9463
LUNCH
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C AT E R I N G
BUBBLE TEA
TA K E O U T
Saturdays:
Wineries!
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Open daily until 7pm
Local merchants, the heart of our community
2560 WILLAMETTE ST
WWW.EUGENEWEEKLY.COM • BLOGS.EUGENEWEEKLY.COM
541-246-2363
TUE-SUN 11-9PM
EUGENE WEEKLY MAY 3, 2012 33