At home and abroad, all roads lead to wine (#Worldwinetravel)

Everyone approaches travel differently. I use time on the road to pursue my varied interests – a morning of birding, maybe several hours paddling a kayak, a wine tasting here and there. That’s just how I roll.

At wineries, I prefer to drop in and casually sidle up to a tasting bar rather than be seated and served at a table. Unfortunately, the latter seems to be increasing. Perhaps table service is a form of “wine experience” that helps to keep small businesses afloat. I get that.

For this month’s World Wine Travel theme, “On the Road Again,” our bloggers are sharing accounts of their trips somewhere – anywhere – in the world and advice for visiting wine country, too. A full list is included at the bottom of this post.

I’ve been lucky to be able to travel this year both “locally,” which is to say Washington state, and abroad. Following are highlights from these adventures.

Co Dinn: Master of Syrah

We started our Washington wine journey (the spouse is my companion and designated driver) with a brief visit to Co Dinn, a winemaking genius who owns an industrial-chic cellar and tasting room in Sunnyside, south of Yakima. I first met Co several years ago on a tour of Yakima Valley vineyards and tasting rooms. Check out my previous post about him here.

It was fun to reconnect and taste through some of his 2015, 2016 and 2017 reds. They’re drinking particularly well right now. I was particularly impressed by his 2015 Grenache, Syrah and Mourvedre (GSM) blend. Co’s style leans toward savory wines with an Old World restraint. This 2015 blend is fruitier than most of his wines (2015 was a warm year). Grapes were sourced from the Lonesome Spring Ranch Vineyard in the Yakima Valley. If you’d like to order a bottle of this red blend or any of Co’s delicious wines, you can contact him here.

Hedges: Bordeaux, biodynamically

Next up was a visit to Hedges Family Estate in Washington’s Red Mountain wine region. If you get to Hedges, you may wonder how you landed in Bordeaux. Of course, the sunny, warm and dry climate is completely different from that of Bordeaux, but the ornate and spacious, Bordeaux-style chateau looks like something out of a French picture book.

Tom Hedges of Richland, Washington, and Anne-Marie Liégeois of Champagne, France, were married in 1976. They traveled the world as wine distributors before purchasing 50 acres on Red Mountain in 1989 and planting 40 acres to Bordeaux grape varieties. Six years later, they broke ground on the chateau that bears their name. They continued adding to their total acreage (130 acres now, 109 under vine), and in 2008, decided to convert their entire estate vineyard to Biodynamic farming. In 2015, they produced the first Demeter-certified Biodynamic Cabernet Sauvignon in Washington state.

Biodynamic agriculture predates organic farming by about 20 years. It was founded in 1924 by German scientist and philosopher Dr. Rudolf Steiner, one of the first public figures to question the long-term negative impact of industrial agriculture. Steiner suggested that farms should be thought of as living organisms, not factories, as Demeter, the international certifying body, notes, “… self-contained and self-sustaining, responsible for creating and maintaining their own individual health and vitality.”

Cabernet Sauvignon is one of the most planted grapes in Washington state, so it was the estate-grown Touriga Nacional that caught my eye. This native Portuguese red must feel welcome in eastern Washington and in warm Red Mountain, in particular. The 2019 Touriga Nacional is mouth-coating, smooth and well balanced between black cherry/black currant fruit and medium+ acidity.

Rotie Cellars: Wine on the rocks

Cross the state border from Washington to Oregon and you have entered the Rocks District of Milton Freewater. A six-square-mile area of the Walla Walla wine region, the Rocks District is known for its gravelly basalt cobblestones reminiscent of those in the Châteauneuf-du-Pape region of the southern Rhône. Christophe Baron, a native of France, was the first winemaker to realize the area’s potential when, in the 1990s, he famously turned these stones into the acclaimed Cayuse Vineyards.

Rotie Cellars is Sean Boyd’s brainchild. Since 2007, Boyd’s goal has been to make traditional Rhône blends in Washington state. What does Boyd mean by “traditional Rhône blends”? He explains his winemaking philosophy in depth here.

“To start with, they mean lower alcohol, less ripe, less oak, balanced, finesse driven, mouth coating wines.”

Grapes for Boyd’s earthy Rhône blends are sourced from his 18-acre estate and other Washington vineyards.

In 2020, Boyd had a new, ultra-modern winery and tasting room built on these rocks. He climbed a wind tower in the vineyard and took in the view toward the road to find the ideal placement for this building.

I brought home a bottle of the 2022 Rotie Cellars Northern Blend, 95% Syrah and 5% Viognier, a classic northern Rhône-style wine. Savory, with roasted coffee and outdoor grilled venison meatiness. I’d pair this blend with mushroom and parmesan cheese pizza, but a lamb burger would taste mighty fine, too.

Vieira De Sousa: Family-owned in a land of corporate giants

We spent over two weeks in Portugal this past June, including 10 days kayaking the Duoro River from the Spanish border to the sea. You might conclude we had little time for wine. But c’mon, this is Portugal! We squeezed in a couple of visits in addition to tasting wine in every restaurant and guest house.

Up north, in the stunning Duoro Valley, Big Commercial Wine has a strong presence. Yet, thanks to our tour guide, we were able to visit a family-owned producer of distinctive artisan wines.

The Vieira De Sousa family has been producing Port (fortified wine) in the Duoro for at least five generations. They own four estates covering 150 vineyard acres on the steep, terraced slopes of the Duoro River valley.

For over a century, they sold the majority of their juice to large estates and made only a small amount of Port for the family. Then, in 2008, everything changed. Luisa Vieira de Sousa Borges, who represents the current generation, completed her enology degree and decided to take her family’s business to the next level, a courageous step for a woman in a male-dominated industry.

In 2009, Luisa bottled the family’s first vintage Port from their top Quinta do Roncão Pequeno site. Using old stone lagares, they foot-crush their fruit and allow only natural yeasts to begin the fermentation. They use natural settling for clarification and high-quality brandy for fortification. They also produce non-Port table wines. (source)

On a warm early summer day, we sat in their cool gravity-fed cellar and tasted three of the family’s Port wines: a Porto Fine White, aged eight years in bottle, as well as a 10-year Tawny Port and Ruby Reserve. This was my introduction to white Port and now I’m hooked. What a luscious dessert wine – fruity and honeyed with citrus, caramel and chocolate notes. Yum!

P.S. Both Bev Mo! and Total Wine carry Vieira De Sousa wines.

Vinhos Desviso: A duo’s ‘diversion’

Snails in the vine rows, wild boars roaming the area, and the threat of downy mildew aren’t stopping Scott McLean and Marta Timóteo from pursuing their dream of organic winemaking in Carvalhal-Bombarral, Portugal, about an hour’s drive north of Lisbon.

Vinhos Desviso, their “diversion” in English, is clearly a labor of love for this American-Portuguese couple. Scott, a Seattle native, and Marta, who grew up in the house where they now live, met when the two were studying for business degrees in Manchester, England. They eventually landed in Walla Walla. I met Marta during the pandemic, when she was leading an ambassador program as marketing manager at L’Ecole No. 41. Scott, meanwhile, had picked up his enology degree and was working as a winemaker in the area.

Since relocating to Portugal, the couple has been busy. They converted the family’s unused pear and apple warehouse into a cellar and tasting room and began planting the 25-acre property with grapes, all native Portuguese varieties.

We tasted four 2022 whites and three reds made from grapes grown elsewhere, for now. Everything they produce is unfined and unfiltered. We were partial to the earthy red, native Castelão and the stone fruit notes and round mouthfeel of the Gouveio, a native white.

Scott and Marta are looking for a distributor in the US, so stay tuned!

Marinho Vinhos: TLC for old vines

We traveled barely passable, narrow unpaved roads near Óbidos to reach the vines that winemaker/surfer Luis Gil wanted to show us.

In 2017, Luis (pronounced “Lu-ish” in Portuguese) started looking for abandoned vineyards to rehabilitate. He found them on an ancient plateau about an hour’s drive north of Lisbon and three miles from the Atlantic Ocean.

We’re talking super-old vines – 70 to 130 years old. Luis lovingly tends about 15 acres of half red, half white native grapes in these vineyards. He farms organically and biodynamically, without chemicals or added sulfur, and without training the vines onto cordons or pergolas. When the moon is aligned just so, it’s time to bottle his barrel-aged wine – 9 to 10,000 liters, 90% of it for export to countries around the world.

We tasted two 2021 Marinho Vinhos wines – a rosé named “Dude,” made from Castelão, and a field blend called “Wipeout.” This blend consists of eight whites and two reds and is fermented whole cluster (no destemming). Both of these wines went through malolactic fermentation and spent 22 months in barrel. Dry and so fresh! If you’re looking for these natural Portuguese wines in the US, try Louis/Dressner Selections in New York or The Soil Expedition Co. in LA.

Check out all the road trips here:

• Regenerative Organic: Farmed Like the World Depends on It + the Feral Wines of Tablas Creek by Camilla at Culinary Cam
• Exquisite Sips and Sailings: Carnival Cruiseline Wine Package by Terri at Our Good Life
• On the Road from Paris to Champagne by Jeff at Food Wine Click!
• A Dreamy Day Trip to Rioja from Balboa by Deanna at Wineivore
• Soaking In Wine Country – How to Do it Right! By Robin at Crushed Grape Chronicles
• Travel in Tuscany: From Rome to Altura at Isola del Giglio and La Maliosa at Saturnia and back by Gwendolyn at Wine Predator
• Planning A Relaxing Wine Trip – Thank Gosh Our Strategy Changed! by Lynn at Savor the Harvest
• Our Visit to Youngblood Vineyards by Wendy at A Day in the Life on the Farm
• On the Road – Tips for Planning Wine Travel by Alison at Vino Tripping
• At home and abroad, all roads lead to wine by Linda at My Full Wine Glass