Tag Archives: Ducleaux Cellars

Getting Geeky with Robert Ramsay Mourvèdre

We’re back after a vacation to take the nieces and nephew to the happiest place on Earth. Unfortunately, we didn’t get a chance to play the Somm Game in between rounds of chocolate milk, lemonade and Sprit soda. Though absence does make the heart grow founder. And boy, am I ready to get back into the world of grown-up beverages!

So let’s continue our celebration of Washington Wine Month by taking more than 60 Seconds to geek out about the 2010 Robert Ramsay Mourvèdre from McKinley Springs Vineyard in the Horse Heaven Hills.

Full disclosure: During the 2012 vintage, when this 2010 Mourvèdre was just released, I did an internship at Robert Ramsay Cellars. Here I worked under the mentorship of Kristin Scheelar who was head winemaker at the time.

The Background

Robert Ramsay Cellars was founded in 2005 as a specialist in Rhone-style wines by winemaker Bob Harris. The winery’s name is a combination of Harris’ full name “Robert” with the last name of his great-uncle Mason Ramsay who helped raised Harris’ father when his grandfather was working overseas.

Before starting his winery, Harris served as winemaker for Coeur d’Alene Cellars and was mentored by Kristina Mielke-van Löben Sels of Arbor Crest, Nicolas Quille of Pacific Rim, Chuck Reininger of Reininger Winery and Ron Coleman of Tamarack Cellars.

Inspired by the great wines of Côte Rôtie, Harris’ first vintage was 125 cases of Syrah. A tasting room in Woodinville was opened in 2009. By 2014 the winery was making over 3000 cases. Among the notable vineyards that the winery was sourcing from include Red Heaven on Red Mountain, Phinny Hill and Mckinley Springs in Horse Heaven Hills, Dineen Vineyard in Yakima Valley and Upland Vineyard on Snipes Mountain.

Kristin Scheelar

In 2010, Harris hired Kristin Scheelar, a 2009 graduate of the Wine Production program of the Northwest Wine Academy (NWA) at South Seattle College. Prior to joining Robert Ramsay, Scheelar served as a harvest intern for Patterson Cellars under the tutelage of John Patterson.

My wife Beth also did an internship working with Kristin at Robert Ramsay. Here she is doing punch downs during the 2012 harvest on some Dineen Syrah.

Scheelar would stay at Robert Ramsay for four years, leaving just before the 2014 harvest to join Goose Ridge winery as an assistant winemaker. During her time at Robert Ramsay, she was an influential mentor to many female winemakers in the Woodinville wine scene including Lisa Packer of Warr-King Wines and her successor at Robert Ramsay, Casey Cobble–another NWA graduate.

Along with Packer, Cobble and Hillary Sjolund of Sonoris Cellars, Scheelar is a founding member of the Sisters of the Vinifera Revolution which aims to promote women in the wine industry. Through the years the organization has grown to include several wineries owned and headed by women winemakers including Lisa Swei of Three of Cups Winery, Pam Adkins of Adrice Wines, Lisa Callan of Callan Cellars, Mari Womack of Damsel Cellars, Toby Turlay of Ducleaux Cellars, Jody Elsom of Elsom Cellars and Kasia Kim of Kasia Winery.

Winemaking is messy work. This is me after working the sorting table near the destemmer at Robert Ramsay.

Today Kristin Scheelar is currently an assistant winemaker with Gallo at Columbia Winery.

The Vineyard

McKinley Springs Vineyard was first planted in 1980 by Robert Andrews in the Horse Heaven Hills AVA. Located at an elevation of around 1000 feet, the sandy loam soils over broken basalt of the vineyard are noted for producing early ripening fruit that create well-structured wines with intense aromatics.

Today the vineyard covers more than 2800 acres with over 20 different varieties of grapes planted including Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Chenin blanc, Viognier, Malbec, Syrah, Petit Verdot, Cinsault, Roussanne, Counoise and Mourvèdre. Along with their Mourvèdre bottling, Robert Ramsay produces a varietal Cinsault and Syrah from McKinley Springs and uses some of the vineyard’s fruit for their Châteauneuf-du-Pape style blend Le Mien and Bandol-style Par La Mer wine.

In addition to Robert Ramsay, several wineries source fruit from McKinley Springs including Thurston Wolfe, Domaine Pouillon, Forsyth Brio, Maryhill Winery, Cor Cellars, Coeur d’Alene Cellars, Mercer Estates, Hestia, Robert Karl, Bunnell Family Cellars and Syncline.

In 2002, the Andrews and Roswell families of McKinley Springs established a winery that focuses on their estate fruit.

The Grape

In their book Wine Grapes, Jancis Robinson, Julia Harding and José Vouillamoz note that Mourvèdre origins are likely Spanish with the first written account of the grape variety being under the synonym Monastrell in a 14th century document by Catalan writer Francesc Eiximenis.

The name Monastrell is derived from the Latin monasteriellu, meaning monastery. It is likely that the grape was first propagated by the Church.

Photo taken by self and uploaded to wikimedia commons as user:Agne27 under CC-BY-SA-3.0

Mourvèdre grapes from the Columbia Valley of Washington

By 1460, the Valèncian doctor Jaume Roig noted that Monastrell was the most widely planted grape in València–particularly in the region of Camp de Morvedre where the synonym Mourvèdre emerged from. Another common synonym, Mataro, likely comes from town of Mataró in the province of Barcelona. Located north of València, it would have been along the grape’s likely route out of Spain into Southern France.

Today, Mourvèdre/Monastrell is the 5th most widely planted grape in Spain with over 150,000 acres. It’s only behind Airén, Tempranillo, Bobal and Garnacha in acreage. Most of these plantings can be found in the València, Murcia and Castilla-La Mancha regions. It is the primary red wine grape in the DOs of Jumilla, Alicante, Almansa, Valencia and Yecla.

In France, plantings of Mourvèdre rose sharply in the late 20th century. It went from around 517 ha (1,278 acres) in the 1950s to 9,363 ha (23,136 acres) by 2009. It is most commonly found in the Languedoc-Roussillon, Provence and Southern Rhone regions. In Provence, it is the primary grape of Bandol. Here it must make up 50-95% of the blend along with Grenache, Carignan, Cinsault and Syrah.

Mourvèdre in Châteauneuf-du-Pape

Harry Karis notes in The Châteauneuf-du-Pape Wine Book that today Mourvèdre accounts for around 6.6% of all grape plantings in Châteauneuf-du-Pape. Historically, the grape was known as Estrangle-Chien (“dog strangler”) due to its harsh tannins and high acidity. This thick-skinned grape thrives on warm, south-facing slopes that receive plenty of heat. This allows the vine to fully ripen the tannins and metabolize some of the hard malic acid.

photo taken by self and uploaded to wikimedia commons as user:agne27 under CC-BY-SA-3.0

Mourvèdre sample and a saignee rosé sample taken after 24 hours of skin contact. The thick skins of Mourvèdre contain lots of anthocyanins that contribute deep color to blends.

However, Mourvèdre is also very susceptible to drought conditions.  Karis notes that water-retaining clay soils and drought-resistance rootstock like 41B and 110R are ideal for the variety.

In the traditional Châteauneuf-du-Pape blend, Mourvèdre contributes structure via its high acid and tannins. It also provides ample alcohol and color. In the winery, winemakers have to balance the reductive nature of Mourvèdre with the very oxidation-prone Grenache.  To do this you need to ensure that Mourvèdre has plenty of oxygen during fermentation and élevage. Meanwhille, Grenache needs to be kept more anaerobically protected.

Varietal Mourvèdre wines are known for having meaty and spicy (particularly tobacco spice and clove) characters. They often have ample dark fruit flavors that can age into tertiary aromas of game and leather.

Mourvèdre in Washington State

photo taken by self and uploaded to wikimedia commons as user:agne27 under CC-BY-SA-3.0

The original block of Mourvèdre/Mataro planted in 1993 in Red Willow Vineyard in the Yakima Valley of Washington.

In Washington Wines and Wineries: The Essential Guide, Paul Gregutt notes that the first plantings of Mourvèdre in Washington was by Mike Sauer in 1993 at Red Willow Vineyard in the Yakima Valley.

By 2017 there were 126 acres of the grape planted in the state where it is used as a component in both Rhone-style blends and as a varietal wine.

Vineyards with notable plantings of Mourvèdre beyond McKinley Springs and Red Willow include Ciel du Cheval on Red Mountain, Alder Ridge, Coyote Canyon and Destiny Ridge in the Horse Heaven Hills, Elephant Mountain in the Yakima Valley and Northridge Vineyard in the Wahluke Slope.

Gregutt describes the style of Washington Mourvèdre as “…medium-bodied, lightly spicy with pretty cherry-flavored fruit and occasionally a distinctive, gravelly minerality.”

The Wine

The 2010 Robert Ramsay Mourvèdre from McKinley Springs has medium-plus intensity aromatics. Very much in the spicy and earthy category. There are some slight red fruit notes in the red currant and raspberry range. But they are very much overshadowed by the black pepper spice and forest-floor earthiness.

On the palate, the pepper spice is still the dominant note. The medium-plus acidity gives juiciness to the red fruit flavors and keeps them hanging around. The medium-plus tannins are very present. However, they have a soft, velvety-ness to them now that holds up the full-bodied weight of the wine. The finish unfortunately fades fairly quickly. It does bring back, albeit for a short moment, some of those savory earthy notes from the nose.

The Verdict

At nearly 8 years of age, this 2010 Mourvèdre is still delivering ample pleasure in the $30-35 range. But I suspect its peak may have been 2 to 3 years earlier.

There is definitely a good amount of complexity and balance. However, there is also the sense that the wine is on the wane with the short finish and fading flavors. Still this wine is in a good spot for those who crave more savory and tertiary-driven flavors in their wines. The wine will shine with a food pairings that compliments its spicy and earthy notes.  I can see it going particularly well with roasted lamb or a savory mushroom dish.

Subscribe to Spitbucket

New posts sent to your email!

Event Review — The New Vintage at Taste Washington

After many years of only attending the Grand Tasting of Taste Washington, I decided to participate in some of the other events going on during Taste Washington weekend–the seminars and The New Vintage party.

While the Washington vs The World seminar was awesome, the New Vintage party was….less than stellar.

Is it a party, a tasting or a cattle call?

On the Taste Washington website, they describe The New Vintage at Fisher Pavillon ($80 a ticket) as an event to “See and be seen at this stylish soirée. Sample exquisite Washington wine and even discover new favorites as you chat with celebrity chefs and chow down on gourmet bites. Grab your closest friends and dance the night away, but don’t forget to pay a visit to the popular Rosé Lounge for a tasty glass of pink before the evening ends.”

In reality, it was an event to bump and be bumped into by other people as you try to make your way through the sea of humanity to a table to get a sample of wine or food. In many ways, it felt like a more scaled down version of the Taste Washington Grand Tasting. But instead of having the spacious CenturyLink event center, you had this large crowd of folks squeezed into a smaller event space at Fisher Pavilion.

Most of the strategies I talked about for dealing with the crowds at the Grand Tasting didn’t apply to The New Vintage because of how difficult it was to move around. Even if there was an empty table somewhere (which, with about a 1/5th of the wineries and restaurants compared to the Grand Tasting, wasn’t likely) you still had to literally fight, slip, slide, sneak, ope, excuse me, pardon, sorry your way to that table.

To give you a feel of the environment, this was a 30 second video I took about an hour into the event trying to move past the music stage and get to the Rosé Lounge. Note that my short 5’3 self is juggling my phone, wine glass and event brochure while trying to film this.

Good luck trying to “chat” with celebrity chefs as they were busy working their tails off to keep a steady stream of food going for the crowds. Ditto with winemakers but that is usually par for the course with these types of tastings as people always want to monopolize winemakers’ time.

Truthfully, the only people that were easy to talk to were the lonely guys at Voya Financial who were somewhat conveniently located by the stage. Before the music started, that was the only table in the event that didn’t have a mass of people in front of it.

This picture was taken just after the video where I had a clearing to raise my arms up and capture a better crowd shot.
The Rosé Lounge I was working towards is ahead in the corner.


And dancing? Ha! Maybe we could’ve gotten some mosh-pit action going on at best–though really the music provided by the synth pop duo Man Made Time wasn’t of the “moshing” vibe. Plus, where were you going to put your wine glasses while dancing?

The Positives

Just like at the Grand Tasting, there was good wine and good food to be discovered at The New Vintage. Below I list some of my favorite wines but among the food, I was blown away by the pork rillettes made by Brooke Williamson of the Hudson House on Redondo Beach. Compared to the Grand Tasting of Taste Washington which focuses on local restaurants, I appreciated that The New Vintage gave us a chance to try something new from this LA area chef.

The music was actually great. I never heard of Man Made Time before but their singer, Hillary Grace, has a gorgeous voice.

I also loved the concept of a “Rosé Lounge” (though, in reality, it was actually more of just a Rosé Table with only sparse seating nearby). I fought my way through the crowds several times to use that table as a palate cleanser and ended up finding several of my favorite wines of the evening. With Taste Washington weekend usually happening close to the beginning of Spring, having a prominent Rosé featuring event is a great idea and one that I would love to see expanded.

My Top 5 Wines from the Event

Even with the frustration and cattle call atmosphere, I still had a chance to discover some great wines. Here were are my 5 favorites.

Fantastic bubbles! And unlike the guy who was working the Domaine Ste Michelle booth, yelling for people to try his “champagne”, the folks at Karma where very professional and knowledgeable about their product.


1.) 2013 Karma Brut sparkling wine — Everytime I taste Karma’s bubbles, I become more and more impressed. They have long passed Argyle as the Northwest’s best sparkling wine producer and are giving Schramsberg in California a run for their money as the best in the United States. A blend of 49% Chardonnay, 48% Pinot noir and 3% Pinot Meunier, this vintage sparker spent 48 months aging on its lees, creating beautiful depth of toasted spice pear with a creamy, silky mousse. Truly a gem out in Lake Chelan.

2.) 2017 WIT Cellars Rosé — A blend of Tempranillo and Sangiovese that I believe was made in a saignée style. Lots of red wine character with strawberry and raspberry but bone dry with a long minerally finish. Impeccably made and well worth hunting for.

3.) 2017 Amelia Wynn Albarino — Beautiful high intensity aromatics of citrus and tropical fruit that I could smell as soon as it was poured into the glass. Very full-bodied for a white but with ample acidity and crispness. They also featured a Tempranillo rosé at the Rosé Lounge that was going toe to toe with WIT Cellars for the rosé of the night.

I also dug the schwag stickers from AniChe.


4.) 2017 AniChe Cellars Bombadil — a white Rhone blend of Grenache blanc, Picpoul and Viognier sourced from the Boushey vineyard in the Yakima Valley. Anyone who read my review of Gramercy’s Picpoul could probably guess how excited I was to hear about this blend–and sure enough it delivered. A lot more weighty than a varietal Picpoul with the dominant Grenache blanc and Viognier, this wine had a silky mouthfeel of apples and lemon custard. Great summertime white to pair with heartier cuisine.

5.) 2014 Gard Vaucluse — A very savory Rhone blend of 68% Syrah, 29% Grenache and 3% Viognier that had a mix of juicy blue fruit, floral and spice notes. This table was on the opposite corner of the Rosé Lounge and after tasting this huge wine I wanted to give my palate a break with some rosé. It took me over 10 minutes to navigate through the crowds to get to the other side of the room and I was still tasting this wine.

A white Cab Franc!


Honorable mention for the most geeky wine I tried at the event–2015 Ellensburg Canyon Winery White Cabernet Franc — Yes! A white Cab Franc! Sourced from Cox Canyon Vineyards, the grapes were whole cluster pressed right after harvest to produce this white wine. While it didn’t have all the evocative aromatics of red Washington Cabernet Francs that I adore so much, it was still a tasty white wine that I applaud Ellensburg Canyon Winery for trying their hand with. It reminded me of a more weighty and textured Italian Pinot grigio.

Another honorable mention to Ducleaux Cellars who featured several wines that impressed me–their One Night Stand rosé, Jordyn white Rhone blend and Anarchy red. The only reason they didn’t make my top 5 is because I honestly couldn’t figure out which of the three that I liked the best. Ducleaux, AniChe, WIT Cellars and Amelia Wynn were first time tastes for me and all four are wineries that I’m eagerly looking forward to discovering more about.

One of the empty winery tables that had already packed up and left by 9:17pm — with more than 40 minutes left in the event. But also look at all that space in the center. A better layout would have minimized the “moshing” and cattle call feel of the event.

Ways to Improve The New Vintage for Next Year

The first thing the event organizers need to do is nail down exactly what they want this event to be and then tailor the event space to serve that purpose. If they want it to be a party vibe with dancing and socializing then they need to move the tasting tables to the perimeter and leave a large clearing in the center for people to dance, mingle and socialize.

The organizers also need to make the hard decision of either A.) selling less tickets or B.) renting a bigger space.

Personally, I vote for selling less tickets as one of the other frustrating narratives of the night was how many food and winery tables closed up early because they ran out of stuff. It was a sad irony that by the time the crowds started to wane (around 9:20pm), and you could actually maneuver around more and hit the tables you missed, was when most of those tables were done for the night. One table I regret missing was the St. Germain/Trevari sparkling cocktail table. Located right near the entrance it was always swamped by people and I was hoping to have that cocktail be my nightcap before switching to water.

Pretty emblematic of the whole event. This photo of one of the restaurant tables was taken at 9:09 pm with almost an hour left to go.

As I mentioned above, it would also be nice if the organizers developed and expand the Rosé Lounge concept. It would be awesome to see it made into a true lounge setting that was roped off or somehow separate from the rest of the tasting with more seating and its own food pairing tables. This would offer a fantastic opportunity to truly explore the diversity of Washington State rosé–especially if they had separate tables within the lounge dedicated to different styles of rosés like the ones that Master of Wine Jennifer Simonetti-Bryan highlights in her book Rosé Wine–Blush, Crisp, Fruity and Rich.

I’ll keep an open mind for next year’s Taste Washington weekend and see if I hear about any changes to the format or venue for The New Vintage. But at this point I would say the event is certainly not worth the $80 to attend. Instead I would rather spend the extra $15 to get a general admission pass to one of the Taste Washington Grand Tasting days where you’ll have 5x as many food and wine options and a heck of a lot more room to enjoy the event.

Yes, there will always be crowds at the Grand Tasting but at least that event never felt like a cattle call.

Subscribe to Spitbucket

New posts sent to your email!