Potato Wine?

Idaho wines can be quite good. I visited a winery about 20 miles west of Boise a couple years ago and tasted the best dry Gewurtz. that I have ever had.

"Dave" wrote in news:1157135856.521377.15490 @h48g2000cwc.googlegroups.com:

St. Chapelle was a leading Caldwell Idaho winery in the 80's with some highly regarded chards and really good rieslings or was it Chenin blanc oh it has been a while. Actually one of my favorite wine storiues was about St Chapelle. I was at a tasting and the guy running it was touting a particular vintage. One of the people at the tasting was going crazy trying to buy it all up so he could sell it in the future. The organizer just looked at him, and said, this wine is good now, it is for drinking not investment.

I like that winery.

A friend of mine works for Peter Michael winery and they sell most of their wines via mail list and there is about a 2 year wait list on that also.

Part of his job is to try to idenify people that are selling the wines that make it to stores. They want the wines they sell to be consumed by the original purchaser not gifted or sold.

Their wines end up on web sites for 3-5x the purchase price and they are trying to stop for same reason you mention.

Dick

They will just have to get past the really bitter winters in that area but grape vines are resilient. I would think they would already be in the AVA of that part of Oregon.

Lawrence Leichtman wrote in news:larry- snipped-for-privacy@news.east.cox.net:

That part of Idaho, Western is actually pretty mild. We in the SE (my former home) regularly referred to it as the Banana Belt with winters that weren't nearly as harsh as ours. It is dry country however, and irrigation is the only way to get a crop of anything save for the sage brush. As deser land it is not even close to Oregon's growing district south of Portland which gets that nice wet cool stuff that is like to Burgundy.

But it is close to the climate of Bend and the desert that extends south of it. Most visitors to Oregon forget that the rainy climate of the Willamette Valley ends abruptly at the Cascades. Culturally, E Oregon bears far more resemblance to Idaho (or Utah) than it does to Portland, Eugene or Ashland ;-)

Mark Lipton (sporting fossils from Fossil, OR in the living room)

Mark Lipton wrote in news:eda6l5$cjm$1 @mailhub227.itcs.purdue.edu:

district

I will never forget the first time I drove from Portland to Idaho via the Dalles. One moment it is rich pine forest, then you turn a bend and are smack dab in the middle of the high chapparel. Culturally, E Oregon

Portland,

Absolutely -- as about 10,000 years ago, a single lava flow covered the entire region from present-day Bend all the way to Boise and beyond. If you take a glance at Google Earth or even Google Maps -- heck, open an atlas based on satellite imagery -- you can see a long, unmistakeable patch of color that runs the entire length from one end to the next.

The soils are intensely volcanic. Very rich soils, high mineral content, etc. Not unlike the soils of the Columbia Gorge and Columbia River Valley (bordering Oregon and Washington). The results are very distinct wines with mineral influence. I have to admit, some of the Gorge wines are far too sulphury -- and that's their nature -- as very little was added in the vinting process.

I will be curious to see how the wines of the upcoming Snake River AVA take shape. Not only for the soils, but also the relatively high altitude of the region.

Thanks,

David

Ah! I have some too from a recent road trip through Fossil in fall

2005. Did you, also, dig yours up on the hill in Fossil, behind the high school?

As others have pointed out, the winery you are almost certainly referring to is Ste. Chapelle, not Ste. Michelle. Don't worry, it's a common error. I've seen supermarket flyers that have mixed up the two. Ste. Chapelle is owned by Constellation Brands.

Cole

Thanks for the correction, Cole. It's surprising -- and encouraging -- to see that just 30-odd wineries can forge their own AVA. I'm definitely going to pay more attention to the Snake River as things develop.

David