I hate to say it but it really depends. Some of the visits I had were with owner/operators that I purchase from regularly. Like Goodfellow I’ve bought 10 mixed cases from over the past couple of years and I’ll be buying a few more in the fall. So it was just a chance to meet him and get an early peek at some of the wines I’ve bought, and I didn’t think tipping was appropriate. (He also didn’t charge me for the tasting. And I brought him back a bottle of his own wine for his library because he had oversold the release and didn’t have any remaining for his library.)
I tipped at Martin Woods. It was more of a transactional thing with an employee, if that makes sense? The other places were a mixed bag too. I tipped at some and not at others.
The best guidance is probably that if it’s a tasting room with employees, tipping is appreciated and perhaps expected. If it’s with the owner, the tasting is free, and you don’t buy any wine while you’re there, you may also want to tip because this is a business expense for them.
Interesting. Just did some reading and it seems not common in Napa to tip, yet it is common in other areas. (With those same ideas around when it’s an employee pouring and not the owner.)
The pea tips were honestly just slightly bland on arrival but then the server gave me some house made sambal and boom. Perfect. The steak was never in the slightest danger of lacking flavour but I put sambal on that shit anyway, obviously. I also had a '21 Bow & Arrow Gamay Rose which was serviceable. There was a red Gamay on the list which I was going to order because I love Gamay, but unfortunately it was '20, so I heeded your warnings.
That’s actually a Vincent, which I forgot he released. (He hasn’t released any '20 Pinot Noir.) I was wondering if perhaps the Gamay was picked early and maybe wasn’t tainted, but my friend got a glass at Oma’s which I tried, and IMO it is slightly tainted. I drank pilsner with my meal.
If you happen to stumble across 2019 Vincent Gamay Bjornson Vineyard in your travels, DO NOT pass it up.
Nah that one was very subtle. My friend got a second glass. I think it was filtered or treated or something because to me, although the taint was faint, the wine seemed a bit lifeless compared to his 2019 Gamay’s that I’ve tried. So you didn’t miss anything.
I’m in the bar across the road using their wifi now because my 5G is super flaky in this city for some reason, like straight up doesn’t work a lot of places. I’m drinking a Pike Road Pinot Noir. It is… not good. But not awful.
Went to Martin Woods, great wines there. Tasted the whole range and thought nearly all their wines were very good. Like I had 3 Chards, 3 Pinots, a Gamay and a Cabernet Franc that were all very good and then a Gruner Veltliner and Syrah that were ordinary (but I don’t really like either grape, in particularly I would be happy to never taste a Gruner again as long as I live) and a Riesling that was OK. Bought a bottle of the Jessie James Pinot. The guy recommended Mac Market for lunch but when I went there they just had sandwiches and stuff, and I hadn’t had breakfast so I wanted a nice hearty meal. Went to some brewpub called Grain Station I think, had a trash (sub-Dominos) pizza.
Then to Patricia Green, didn’t love the wines there. The Pinots had an astringent edge and they all tasted like they had been made exactly the same way without regards to the specific needs of the fruit parcels. Pretty spot though. I was having to be careful not to get drunk, I haven’t driven on the right in 4 years. Coming down the driveway out of PG, which is a narrow road with no markings, a car turned up into it off the road and I started pulling to the left before half a second later correcting myself and pulling right. I also just now almost turned the wrong way down a one way street in Portland, but that was more confusing directions from Google Maps than anything about driving on the right.
Anyway after that called into Domaine Divio, who served me up almost entirely 2020 wines. To be fair though I could only detect smoke taint in one of them and only because I was alert to it. The 2020 Chardonnay got 97 points from lol Wine Enthusiast, so it’s obviously not very tainted. Wines were pretty good, not great. Martin Woods definitely my pick of the trip by a long way.
Thanks for recommendations. Had a good day out. My phone was barely charging in the car socket for some reason and it was chewing battery in the hot weather and using location services all the time, so I had to make an emergency stop at my accommodation to recharge the phone enough that I can return the Turo rental and summon an Uber. It was down to 4% when I got here. I hope it’s recharged enough now, so I’m just about to get up and return the car, probably calling in at a dispensary for a nice pre-roll.
Yes, sorry just about all the white grapes were picked before the fires in 2020. I should have made that more clear! Most wineries are releasing their full lineup of 2020 whites.
Shit the Grain Station shares a parking lot with Goodfellow’s winery/warehouse. I would have told you to poke your head over there if the overhead doors were open out front. (I had heard not to eat at the Grain Station.)
I’m a bit surprised about Patty Green. Almost all the wines are made to age, so younger ones can be tough and closed up. But of course they should know how to best show their wines.
I could definitely see them relaxing with more time. Like they were objectively solid wines but I didn’t find them a lot of fun to drink. They had different soil type wines and stuff but like… by analogy, it was like someone said “here are three different cuts of meat off our cow, and we have cooked them all with sous vide to the same temperature”. You know? Like the difference between volcanic and sedimentary soils for example was very obvious but I didn’t feel like the winemaking had taken advantage of the difference, it seemed like they had all been made with the same process.
Of course setting is not to be underestimated here, so it’s very relevant that at Martin Woods I had a guy (who introduced himself as “associate winemaker” I think) who was very friendly and chatting to me the whole time whereas at PG it was like, here’s a tray with all the wines on it and a glass, you have fun with that, kthxbye.
Was the dude at Martin Woods from Minnesota (or something like that)? I think we had the same guy. Besides being 30 minutes late with some ridiculous ass excuse, he was a great guy. Hopefully he told you his story of how he ended up in McMinnville.
Yeah I think that was him. Bearded dude, glasses. I think he mentioned something about the weather in Minnesota when he lived there at some point. The weather being a frequent topic of conversation today for obvious reasons.
He told me he was working as a cooper and selling barrels to Evan Martin, that was it.
Yeah that’s him. He was living in Portland and like lost his girl and his job and shit and decided “fuck it” he was going to pack everything in his little car and hit the road for a new life. He made it as far as McMinnville LMFAO. Like all of 30 miles…
The wine I detected smoke taint in was a Pinot and the guy said that vineyard had indeed been the hardest hit. I quizzed him about 2020 and he said that he thought the proprietors “winemaking techniques” had averted smoke taint. The problem with that is, yeah there are ways to lessen smoke taint but they tend to also make the wine less good. But the wines were totally fine, pretty good even, so who knows. None of the other wineries served me 2020s.
I appreciate the report even if you weren’t as impressed with Divio as I was. We both loved the 2019 Chardonnay, but maybe the 2020 wasn’t as good even if it was harvested before the fires. Or, you know, that whole personal preference thing, coupled with it being difficult to disentangle the quality of the wine from the quality of your experience there.
MrsWookie and I are planning a trip out that way this fall, so we’ll be sure to look up Martin Woods and Goodfellow at the very least.
