​The winery we visited after Porter Creek was so good that it might be worthy of not just applause but a standing ovation!  Yes, the winery, Moshin Vineyards, is that good.  I would love to claim that my great knowledge of wine and wineries led me to this great discovery, but the fact is I chose it because it was the next winery down the road from Porter Creek.
Fortunately, Moshin held the barrel tasting down in the barrel room, out of the cold and rain.  For each wine we tasted a sample from the barrel and one of a previous vintage available for purchase.  After tasting from the barrels, it was lunch time (yes, we drank a lot of wine before lunch), so we asked if they had a place where we could bring in food.  Well, they were very simply incredible great people.  They moved tables around for us in their small tasting room (see picture below), and then spent time with us talking wine and their winery.

​The wines they offered were as expected:  Pinot Noir and Chardonnay.  Both are excellent, the Pinot Noir so much so that we purchased a case.  Below is a picture of their barrel tasting set-up, followed by a somewhat technical explanation on how they make such a good Pinot Noir.  I will understand if you don’t read this part, but, well, I did spend some time on it….

​Gas often gets trapped in liquids, and if you shake up the liquid the gas comes out of solution.  You know, like when you shake up a bottle of soda or beer – what am I talking about here, you drink wine not soda or beer!  Sorry about that.  If you shake up a bottle of Champagne or Cava the gas comes out of solution and the pressure builds up, so much so that the cork comes out as soon as you take off the metal and shoots across the room along with a lot of the wine (oh, the horror!).  Worse than the time you loosened the cork and had it pop off and zoom up and hit a light fixture in the ceiling.  I mean, everyone has had that happen, haven’t they?  Can’t be just me….
Getting back to the point here, normally the wine is pumped from one container to another – say from a settling tank to an aging barrel, or from aging barrels into a central container to mix the barrels before bottling, and, of course, from a tank into the bottles.  This mechanical movement of the wine does the same thing as shaking up the Champagne bottle – it releases trapped gas.  What is this gas, you ask, other than air?  Well, that depends on the fermentation process, varying with such issues as fermentation temperature, chemicals on the skin of the grapes, and the yeast used to ferment the grapes.  Some are not good to have in the wine, especially hydrogen sulfide.  In general, losing these gases is good.  But not all winemakers believe losing these gasses is a good idea, at least not for all grape varieties.  Rick Moshin is in this latter category.  And he put his money where his mouth is by building a winery designed to greatly reduce the loss of these gasses.
How?  Well, he built the Moshin winery on levels (see pictures above) so the wine can be moved from container to container entirely, and slowly, by gravity feed (or by pump, but we will get to that later).  In this way, the wine is not stirred up and the gasses remain in solution.  Of course, the resultant wines have to be decanted and/or aerated to remove the bad gasses after opening the bottles, but he feels this is a small price to pay for the improved taste of the wines.  At least for Pinot Noir.
As noted above, he can also transfer liquids by pump, releasing the trapped gas, and for good reason – trapping the gas is a very bad idea for most other grape varieties, such as Cabernet Sauvignon.  But, when you own a vineyard in the Russian River are of Sonoma, and grow really great Pinot Noir grapes, it makes great sense to put your efforts into the Pinot Noir.
Rick also pointed out a few other niceties in his wine making methodology.  For instance, he does not crush the grapes – he gets them to crush themselves!  I like to think that he forces them into some sort of cage matches, but the reality is much more mundane.  After destemming, he loads them into the fermentation tank and the weight of the grapes on top crushes the grapes on the bottom, setting off a fermentation sequence that results in all the grapes bursting and adding to the final product.
The cage match concept might better describe how he handles yeast.  Natural yeast varieties often settle on the skin of the grapes.  Many wineries kill off this natural yeast and add commercial yeast, giving them control of the flavors the yeast adds to the wine.  Rick goes entirely with the natural yeast.  He believes it adds complexity to the wine.
Based on the wines we tasted – and bought – I believe strongly that Moshin has hit upon a great way to make fine wine from Pinot Noir grapes.  A great hit for our first day of barrel tasting!

​The picture above is a topological map of the Sonoma wine growing regions.  For our first day of barrel tasting we headed into the Russian River region, somewhat in the southwestern part of the county.  To the northwest is the Dry Creek region, and to the north the Alexander Valley region.  The Pacific coastline runs somewhat northwest to southeast, putting the Russian River area closer to the very cold ocean than the other two.  The hills along the coast are also lower in the Russian River region.  These two facts lead to a cooler climate like the Burgundy region of France.  Now in Burgundy you can only grow two grapes – Pinot Noir and Chardonnay.  All red Burgundy wines are made from Pinot Noir grapes and only Pinot Noir grapes, and all white Burgundy wines are made from Chardonnay grapes and only Chardonnay grapes.  Ergo, it stands to reason that wineries in the Russian River region of Sonoma would do well growing Pinot Noir and Chardonnay grapes.  Porter Creek Vineyards, our first stop in the Russian River region, got the message in spades….
When we first arrived at Porter Creek, the weather was not so bad, and the small tent where they held the tasting mostly empty.  It turns out we were the vanguard, as within twenty minutes or so the tent was crowded, as was the small tasting room.  The weather shortly thereafter turned very nasty – cold and rainy.  Being a complete wimp when it comes to cold, damp weather, I only came out of there with two pictures.  But I did manage to taste most of their wines.

​As one might hope, they produce some very nice Pinot Noir from their estate grown grapes.  Porter Creek places a great deal of effort into the growing of the grapes without any synthetic chemicals, and extends this requirement to the growers that provide one-third of the grapes it uses.  This extra effort to protect the environment also seems to lead to better wine.

​Now, as one is in a nice region for growing two of the most popular grapes in the world, it came as a bit of a surprise that they offered wines made from other grapes – Zinfandel, Viognier, Syrah and Carignane, bringing in grapes from other Sonoma vineyards as well as vineyards in Mendocino County.
I should add that I learned two things about Carignane in preparing this blog.  First, while the grape is grown in Bordeaux to blend with Cabernet Sauvignon and/or Merlot, its origin is Spain.  Second, it can be spelled with or without the “e”….