By Brenda Audino

I was recently on a trip to Oregon wine country in the Northern Willamette Valley and had the opportunity to visit with several well renowned wine makers. While they often disagree on whether it’s best to use a single vineyard for purity of the vineyard’s expression or which specific Pinot Noir clone makes the best wine, they all seem to agree that to make great Oregon Pinot Noir they must first start with great grapes. 

When I was asked by Freixenet to spend a week in Barcelona (and surrounding Penedès) learning about Cava, I immediately started packing.   My friends all know that I have a huge weakness for sparkling wine.  When they are all ordering martinis or gin and tonics, I am ordering Champagne, Prosecco or Cava – basically anything with bubbles.

Sure I know that Cava is a value sparkling wine, but that is just the start of the journey.  This was the “Earth to Effervescence Trip in Penedès”.

The first day was a vineyard tour where I learned the best vineyards for Cava are protected by the Montserrat Mountains.  These mountains are not extremely high, but do offer protection from the elements.  Cava primarily utilizes the native Spanish grapes of Macabeo, Xarel-lo and Parellada although they are now allowed some Chardonnay and Pinot Noir.

Will 2010 be a continuation or “more of the same” or will 2010 bring some new trends?  Time will tell, but below are some of my thoughts for the New Year.

1.  Malbec continues to be hot. 
Malbec will continue to be the hot grape variety from Argentina and with good reason.  This fleshy wine packs loads of black fruit and mild ripe tannins.  Most Malbecs are great either with or without food.  My favorite food pairings usually include grilled meats and BBQ.  If you want to try a white from Argentina give Torrentes a go.  

Climate, soil, grapes and people...

I just returned from a whirlwind trip to Walla Walla in an effort to better understand what makes Walla Walla wines unique.
 
First the climate in Eastern Washington is the complete opposite of Western Washington.  We all know that the area around Seattle is cool and rainy most of the year.  The area around Walla Walla though is hot and dry.  Rainy Seattle gets about 35 inches while Eastern Washington is considered more of a dessert with rainfall ranging from 6 to 12 inches a year.  This contrast is due to the Cascade Mountains protecting Eastern Washington from the rain coming off the Pacific Ocean.
 

It's a miracle of the marketplace. You decide to have a bottle of your favorite wine store. The wine you want is on the shelf. Winemakers around the world make tens of thousands of wines each year. Who sees to it that all the world's wines, the one you want is at your store just when you want it? Who exactly makes this miracle happen?

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It’s not often that such a large group of Twin Liquors’ managers and associates can get away to wine country together, but this week we did!  There were ten of us and two Republic National Distributing representatives, our beloved drivers, who descended upon California last Sunday.  We were able to eat, drink and still learn a thing or two about wine while in Napa and Sonoma for 2 ½ days.

After checking into our cottages and rooms at Sutter Home, we quickly left for Domain Carneros.  Sparkling wine is a fabulous way to start any trip!  As we sipped Domain Carneros La Reve, we not only learned about the process of making sparkling wine in the traditional method, but we could actually observe bottles in different phases of their sparkling wine evolution.  Although we hated to leave our bubbles, we then headed to Ravenswood Vintners for some fun as well as dinner.