Wine Notes: Scott Paul Selections

[Craig Camp]

Crémant de Bourgogne, Domaine Huber-Vedereau - 100% pinot noir and you can taste it. At $22 this is an amazing value, unfortunately only 100 cases were produced so grab a case while you can. The flavors and aromas are more fruit driven than yeasty lees driven, but there's more than enough toasty character to keep it interesting. Very long and bright with a creamy texture. Lovely bubbly.

Champagne Brut Réserve, Domaine Marc Chauvet - Here' a Champagne very high on the "wow" meter. Grower Champagnes like this are so much better than the big commercial brands that it's embarrassing. This is a wonderful wine with a lifting brightness powered by bubbles and brilliant citrus flavors laced over a complex base of fruit and toasty lees. A finish designed to exercise your saliva glands. 65% pinot noir, 35% chardonnay 100% delicious ($45)

St. Veran, Champ Rond, Domaine Thibert Père & Fils, 2006 - Firm, crisp and mineraly with a bright green apple and honeysuckle fruitiness, this charming chardonnay is a great bargain at $24 as it clearly displays some of the best characteristics of the more expensive Burgundian chardonnays to the north. Match with some fresh dungeness crab and you will find inner peace.

Gevrey Chambertin, Clos Prieur, Domane René Leclerc, 2006 - There is a wonderful grace and purity in this very fine pinot. Starting shyly at first, as befits its youth, the flavors grow and expand until you are totally seduced. The refinement in each aspect of this wine is very impressive with silky, but firm tannins tying everything together in a perfect package. It needs three or four more years to really open. For a Burgundy under $50 there is a lot going on in this wine. ($44)

Pommard 1er Cru, Clos de Derriére St. Jean, Domaine Violot Guillemard. 2006 - The expected tannic punch never arrives in this surprisingly silky, velvety young Pommard, which is an AOC that usually packs structure to spare. However, this wine is still very closed and demands aging so it is not a wine to buy for dinner this weekend. I believe this will age into an outstanding wine. As it comes from Burgundy's smallest Premier Cru vineyard at a ¼ acre and produced only 23 cases, I think it's worthy or getting the aging it deserves. As you are unlikely to find this in a floor stacking at SafeWay, I suggest you contact Scott Paul ASAP. ($75)

Echezeaux, Domaine Jean-Marc-Millot, 2006 - Here's pinot in all its glory. Richly textured, velvety, silky and endlessly aromatic with flavors that never seem to end and this wine is just getting started. Perfect color, beautiful fruit and richly complex tannins show everything that makes pinot great. (Price: if you have to ask...)

Romanée St. Vivant, Grand Cru, J.J. Confuron, 2004 - I tasted this wine last March, and it's just as beautiful and just as nowhere ready to drink as it was then. Given five or so years, this will be an outstanding wine. ($225)

Pinot Noir, La Paulèe, Willamette Valley, Scott Paul Wines, 2006 - Not every American winemaker would like to show his pinot after such a line-up, but Scott Wright obviously knows his own wine. While he is not trying to make Burgundy in Oregon, you can tell what his palate has been honed on. While more fruit-forward and flowery than the preceding Burgundy selections this very fine pinot noir displays the balance and grace that brought winemakers from California to Oregon in the first place. While certainly drinkable now, I would wait a few years, which will bring out even greater complexity.

The easiest place to obtain these wines is probably directly from Scott Paul, which you can contact by phone at 503-852-7305. If you're lucky enough to stop by their tasting room in Carlton, you'll find some of his French selections available on the tasting bar right next to his own wines from Oregon.