Ross Andrew Winery 2008 Meadow

I find it sad that I have to rely on the oracle that is Google to give me answers that my brain is gradually (and very slyly) erasing. Such as, have I already reviewed this wine?

Blame it on the alcohol, a worldly Jamie Foxx would recommend, but I am far too young to be forgetting things – placements of keys, movies I’ve already seen or wines I’ve consumed. Nay, recites the Oracle after multiple searches in several different word formations, I am safe. At least this time.

It gets even a tad trickier when you’ve had a handful(s) of wines from the same producers. Such is this case with the wines of said Ross Andrew Mickel. I am guilty to have sauntered into The Ross Andrew Winery Woodinville tasting room to flirt with his beautiful Bernese Mountain dog (Galena, like the city in Idaho) and beg for the winemaker’s claim-to-fame bottle of Pinot Gris from the praised Celilo Vineyard in the Columbia Gorge. Refused many a’times for the limited wine, this purchase time I decided to dive for the Meadow White Blend, the alleged “little sister” to Mickel’s exalted white.

And why shouldn’t it be well-reviewed? The man is a direct descendant of the Bob Betz School of Fine Wine, having played in puddles of grape juice with Bob for nine years before breaking out on his own with the 1999 harvest. Before that, Mickel was gathering experience at Rosemount Estate in South Australia and later with DeLille Cellars also in Woodinville.

Kokomo 2007 Dry Creek Valley Petite Sirah

*Bottle #97: Kokomo 2007 Petite Sirah, Dry Creek Valley, Sonoma County
*Price Tag: $25
*Running Tab: $1,324
*Retailer: Kokomo Winery herself

Kokomo. Not the one in Hawaii or the island in Jamaica formerly known as such, but the Kokomo that is in Indiana. Kokomo, Indiana: the state’s 13th largest city, home of the famous “Gas Tower” and an unfortunate old-school notoriety for the Ku Klux Klan…

Kokomo, Indiana: the hometown of young Erik Miller, Purdue grad and proud-midwesterner, in which he named his Dry Creek Valley winery after. Erik moved west quickly after he turned his tassel and started building relationships with the wine industry vets around him in Sonoma County.

After putting in some grunt work in a few cellars, Erik went back to school at U.C. Davis to work on his oenology degree which lead him to a full-time job opportunity in the cellar for Amphora Winery. On the side, Erik got his start and launched his first release for Kokomo Winery in 2004 with single vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon from Dry Creek Valley.

Punkt Genau 2008 Sparkling Rosé

*Bottle #96: Punkt Genau 2008 Weinviertel Sparkling Rosé
*Price Tag: $19
*Running Tab: $1,299
*Retailer: Madison Market, Central Co-Op

You read it right. Punkt – as in the producer of the wine, not in an Ashton Kutcher sense of the word, thank God.

“Punkt Genau,” meaning “on the dot” in English, captures the quintessential Austrian’s own Blauer Zweigelt in a pink fashion. I’ll be the first to admit I do not know too much about Austria or fashion, for that matter.

With nearly 70% of Austrian wine production consisting of white wines (most familiarly Grüner Veltliner), the remainder made up mostly of the red wine varietals Blaufränkisch and Zweigelt. Austria is on the wine map for their unique grape varieties, a classification system that was put into place in Hitler’s rule and makes about as much sense as a screen door on a submarine and as the motherland of the Riedel wine glasses.