I drank a bottle back in March (photo is from then) and another this Friday. Really great stuff and exactly what I’m after in aged Oregon PN. Fresh soil, black tea, spice box and then with more time autumn leaves. Opens as red fruit and morphs to black fruit with air and time. (Characteristic of Whistling Ridge)
This recent bottle both looked and tasted/smelled a bit younger than the bottle in March. That bottle was bricking a little more and had less fruit. Just natural bottle variation as they were both stored the exact same and came to me directly from Goodfellow’s cellar.
Had this beer last night and it was amazing. It honestly reminded me of a carbonated red wine with the strong Pinot Noir flavor and a little funk from the spontaneous fermentation.
Yup exactly. The way that it works in practice after a beer gets brewed/boiled, it gets pumped into a large, open top vat called a coolship to cool. These coolships are often located in a room with many windows and decent air flow which allow local yeasts travelling in the air to settle on the cooling beer (wort). Then after some time, a couple hours - 24 hours, the wort is pumped into another fermentation vessel like a wine barrel and those spontaneous yeasts start eating up the sugars and producing alcohol and co2
I really like that idea but can’t think of any spontaneously fermented beers that are produced the same but in different locations. I honestly wonder how much of the specific location makes a difference vs just brewers sniffing their own farts. But also, I know a few different breweries with quality wild ale programs (de Garde, Floodland, Fonta Flora, Allgash) and they each seem to have similar but unique flavors.
I also think that they sometimes start off with introduced “wild” yeast and then after a few batches the stuff is pretty much saturating the air on site. Otherwise they risk some nasty strains establishing a toehold first and then it’s very hard to get rid of. (Not saying they all do this. And certainly the really old Belgian breweries started with spontaneous fermentation.)
I don’t like it as much as I expected to. It’s like NEIPA motor oil, extremely thick and viscous. Also musty and heady, somewhat fruity, but then way too bitter on the finish. Like orange pith instead of orange juice.
I’m honestly surprised that this is what they wanted it to taste like. A pretty schwaggy iteration of Swish, which really is one of the best NEIPAs money can buy.
It’s 8.5%, so once my palate is dusted in about 4 more sips, I bet I’ll enjoy it more. Let’s find out.
Really good, kind of like a geuze on training wheels. I’m also in the mood for one tonight, but it looks like there’s a bunch of chauffering to do. Stupid kids.
Things are going a bit sideways at work right now, and it’s probably not a good idea to drink when things are going off the rails. But I’m tossing that out the window tonight.
I think Revolution has clearly overtaken Goose Island as Chicago’s superior stout maker. I’d love to spend an evening in their tap room trying out the full range of what they offer.
I don’t believe there is any set age where vines qualify for “old vine” status, but generally older than 30 or 40 years winemakers will start calling it old vine in Europe. You will see vieilles vignes on French wine labels. I guess in California 50 years is sort of accepted as the standard for labeling vines old. (I only know that from doing a quick search just now to see if there was a standard in Cali.)
I know that California Zinfandel vineyards include some of the oldest producing vines in the world. Many European vines were lost to phylloxera, while N. American vines had resistance. (Much of Europe was replanted on N. American rootstock.) So it’s probably only natural to highlight the wines made from these very old Zin vines. And generally, most people think that old vines produce better wine grapes. They produce far fewer grapes, which concentrate the sugars in the grapes that they do produce.
This was my understanding as well, but I don’t really understand why “old vine” marketing is done so much for zinfandel and not cabernet sauvignon, etc. My guess was maybe to distinguish it from the erstwhile popular white zinfandel (RIP and good riddance)?
I just did a little poking around. Interestingly, Bordeaux varieties were planted in California in the mid 19th century. However, since they were European stock, phylloxera did a number on those vines. For whatever reason, the Zinfandel had decent resistance to phyllozera, and the Zinfandel’s were also heavily re-planted after the outbreaks. Those replanted vines (the ones that survived from them anyway) are now over 100 years old. Not sure why the Bordeaux varities were not heavily replanted at that time. Perhaps simply because their resistance to phyllozera wasn’t as good as the Zins. Or maybe it was purely the wine market demand at that time and place made planting Zinfandel smarter.
