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A Special Report by Jan Beks, the Wining Dutchman

I grew up with ads about Sandeman. The silhouette of the guy with the cape and sombrero filled my teenage years: “The secret one shares with Sandeman” was the slogan I remember from the early 70s. But in my family there simply was no wine, let alone sherry culture, at all. At that time for me Saturdays meant to buy beer for my dad and my mother’s brothers so they could enjoy drinking beer while discussing matters like politics and sports. I didn’t even drink beer at that time.

Last winter during my first-ever trip to Porto, Portugal, the silhouette of Sandeman entered my life again and I wondered why it showed up here. Luckily the answer was not far away and I soon got to taste the port of the same company. And if it were not for the tour at the Sandeman cellars and the other ports I tasted during this trip, I never would have gotten rid of the Sandeman myth. Continue reading “The Trip That Took Away A Secret”

A winery that we frequently visit, Maryhill Winery, in Goldendale, Washington, was recently honored as the Winery of the Year for 2014.  A press release for the San Francisco International Wine Competition, in making the announcement, reported …

After judging more than 4,500 wines from 1,400 wineries, 26 states and 31 countries, the Tasting Panel Magazine at the 2014 San Francisco International Wine Competition awarded Washington state’s Maryhill Winery as “Winery of the Year.”

In addition, Maryhill won 30 awards for its wines, including four gold, 11 bronze, and 10 silver, two “Best of Show” honors and three double golds:

• Best Mourvedre (97 pts): 2011 Mourvedre, Rattlesnake Hills
• Best Grenache (95 pts): 2011 Grenache, Proprietor’s Reserve, Columbia Valley
• Double Gold (95 pts): 2011 Syrah, Classic, Columbia Valley  Continue reading “Maryhill is 2014 Winery of the Year”

This wine adventure begins in the early 2000s, when Rose and I decided to travel to Argentina to explore their great wines. We had been enthusiasts of Argentine wines since the early 1990s, when we had annointed Malbecs as the next great value in wines. So, although we did not make it to Mendoza on this trip (we instead hung out at Iguazu Falls, and then at Punte del Este), we tasted a large variety of Argentine Malbecs in Buenos Aires (BA).

We tasted the price range, from lower priced wines to several of the high-priced ones; as usual, the best values were in a notch above the lowest prices. Of course, we tasted the wines with food, and the pampas beef and the puffy fries were our favorites. And on our last night, we had an excellent dinner at a restaurant near the dock area–a bit out of the way.

Finding Salentein
While we had tasted some very good wines, even by our last evening in BA we had not found our expected noteworthy and outstanding bargain. And then on the wine list, we spotted a wine we had missed in all our adventures. A 2002 Bodegas Salentein Malbec, at a very reasonable price. We very much enjoyed it with our last dinner in BA.  Continue reading “Salentein for Your Valentine?”

Another Featured Posting by Jan Beks, The Wining Dutchman!

At the end of July 2009 we headed for Walla Walla. From The Dalles, OR, it is about a half day drive to this centre of more than 100 wineries in the South East of Washington State. For the first time in 2 years we are able to travel together again. My travel partner Teresa surprised me with scheduling a five day trip into this booming wine area. Situated at the same latitude as the major French wine areas it substantially has grown over the years since it was established in 1984.

We discovered that once we arrived in the region it became even harder to select the wineries and their tasting rooms we wanted to visit. An article by the Wine Spectator given to us by Stacy was some help but as adventurous as a Middle East Correspondent and as stubborn as a Wining Dutchman can be it sounded nice to try some other places too or instead of the pre-selected ones.  Continue reading “More Into Wine In Walla Walla”

Posted by Jan Beks, from the Netherlands: The Wining Dutchman!

In great contrast to the sweet Tokaji wine experience posted recently was my experience in 2007 in the south of Oregon. We were finally able to visit the winery Stacy recommended in the area around Roseburg. That was on one of our annual trips with Poppy, visiting his 60th and somewhat year school reunion. I am glad we followed your hint and visited Henry’s Estate Winery . We did the wine tasting and as a last we decided to try the Henry the V 2004.

This red wine is a blend of 5 different wines in for it seems the perfect mixture of grapes grown by the owner at this particular place in that particular year: 53% Cabernet Sauvignon, 26% Cabernet Franc, 13% Merlot, 7% Syrah and 1% Malbec. For just over $30 a bottle I was tempted to buy more than the one bottle we did buy to take with us back to the Netherlands. But we simply had no other choice since the airlines wouldn’t allow us even one bottle more. Continue reading “Umpqua Valley’s Henry the V”

This is a Special Posting by Jan Beks, from the Netherlands!

Long after my first wine experience I went on my first trip into a cellar all covered with mildew in the far Eastern part of Hungary. It was my first ever wine tasting, sometime in 1997. Close to the Romanian border and not far from the Transylvanian area where vampires used to haunt humans like you and me. There it was where I would be taken for several wine tastings over a period of two years. I thought I had found my love but instead the only love I found was love for the region’s famous wines.

By the way it was around the same era Teresa (Stacy’s sister) was at arm’s length without me noticing it. Such a small world.

Each time a cellar visit started with some “ordinary” wines from the region or nearby.  Continue reading “From King to King”

Perhaps that title is a bit too vague; so much for catchy titles! The purpose of this post is to highlight the wines of the Dao Valley, in Portugal. This post is the first of two parts, a story about a special wine in Brasil, in 1982. We will produce the second part after a coming visit to the Dao Valley, in Portugal.

Twenty five years ago I was in Brasil. I was teaching a Project Management class, the first of a series over the next 8 years. I had a great time; I love Brasil and its people. But I had nearly forgotten about one of my most interesting early wine experiences–until it was time to plan a trip to the source of the story. Here ’tis.

The date was 1982. I was at dinner at the Brasilton hotel in downtown Sao Paulo. I looked over the wine list, looking for anything I could appreciate. I saw a lot of very average wines on the list, and nothing that inspired me. I asked the Sommelier, who was hovering over me expectantly, “don’t you have anything that is a little more special?” He puzzled a bit, then smiled, and scurried off.  Continue reading “Beat the Dao Jones Average”

This post is a rant about restaurant winelist prices. I have long been a critic of some USA restaurants that burden us with overpriced and underqualified wines. Indeed, part of the reason wines have not become a part of ordinary life in the USA is because of the fuss and nonsense restaurants place on wine–unlike much of Southern Europe, where one can have an excellent vin de pays with lunch or dinner for a reasonable price.

To this end, I have long used a guideline (and taught it to many others) that with some exceptions the cost of wine should not exceed 1/3 the cost of the total restaurant check. Do the math: if you and your dinner mate have a nice steak, salad and dessert, perhaps each meal comes to $20-$35 (or more), depending on the restaurant. Thus the wine for two people should be within that price range to be 1/3 of the total bill.  Continue reading “Mutant Teenage Ninja Winelist”

We were in Italy, traveling from Florence to Rome; the year was 1983. Before we left Florence, I had spotted a mention of a winery near Montalcino that had a nice mid-day meal. Montalcino is between Florence and Rome, and along the route, so we decided to stop in.

In the center of this great medieval city we saw a little fingerboard sign pointing to Fattoria dei Barbi; we followed the sign. Soon we saw another. We traced our way to the winery via the signs, sometimes doubling back because we had missed one.

Arriving at the winery, we went to the most obvious place for a restaurant, a low, smaller building. Although the door posted hours of Noon to 8PM, and it was 12:30, it was locked. We knocked.

A wizened gentleman opened the door, welcomed us, and escorted us to a 12-person bench. He poured wine into the jug on the table, and disappeared. Continue reading “Visiting Barbi dei Montalcino”

Here’s another Washington Wine Wonder! Maryhill Winery, just NorthEast of The Dalles, Oregon, on the Washington side of the Columbia River. We had visited them in our last two trips to Oregon, and the very nice young man (and knowledgeable, too!) behind the counter remembered us. That’s probably 5,000 visitors later.

It might have helped that after our first visit, we worked to get Maryhill’s wines into Colorado. It probably also helped that we got signed up in their Industry program on our last visit (their Gold Program is the best one for repeat offenders/customers).

In our first visit, we had purchased an assortment of wines to taste on our visit to the Oregon coast. As I recall, all were great, but the 2001 Zin was outstanding (note that we did not keep the label; the photo at left is from 2005). Between our visit and a week later when we returned to get more, it had won some California judging and had totally disappeared. That was the best Zin I’d tasted in 2 years! And it was gone! Continue reading “Absolutely ZinFul”

This month we had a meeting of our 1960’s fraternity brothers in the San Juan Islands off Seattle. Several of the guys, Fred and Tom, provided their boats as part of the extra-curricular activities, and to show our gratitude, we gave them each a mixed case of wine, and wine glasses engraved with the boats’ names (Classea and About Time).  Continue reading “Washington Wine Source”