Lucas St. Clair
WINE DIRECTOR, WILD GINGER BELLEVUE
After graduating with a degree from Le Cordon Bleu in Paris, Lucas St. Clair, the man in charge of the wine program at Wild Ginger ’s new Bellevue outpost, earned his wine chops at New York City’s venerable 11 Madison Park restaurant.
WHITE
2008 McKinley Spring Chenin Blanc, $12
Horse Heaven Hills, Washington
This wine is rich and textured with lovely acid and notes of ripe stone fruits.
2008 Ransom Pinot Gris WV, $15
Willamette Valley, Oregon
Tad Seestedt started out making spirits but grew into wine production. Truly a master of whites, his pinot gris is all free-run juice.
2008 Syncline Subduction White, $18
Washington
Made with fruit from Columbia Gorge and Horse Heaven Hills, this viognier-chard blend has great richness and is kept in balance with exceptional chardonnay from Celilo Vineyard.
2008 Abacela Albariño Umpqua, $18
Umpqua Valley, Oregon
The Umpqua Valley always reminded Earl Jones of the vineyards he’d seen in Spain, so he decided the Spanish variety Albariño would work very well here. He was right. The wine has great acid, low alcohol, and matches well with all sorts of Northwest seafood.
2007 àMaurice Viognier, $25
Columbia Valley, Washington
Wonderfully dynamic with medium body, this wine has a nice perfumed nose that doesn’t overpower the white blossom aromas and a soft-textured palate with midlevel ripeness and an almond finish.
RED
2007 Cor Cellars Momentum, $18
Horse Heaven Hills, Washington
No new oak is used in Young vintner Luke Bradford’s blend of cabernet sauvignon, merlot, petit verdot, and malbec (in almost equal parts), and the profile of the grapes comes through wonderfully. It has nice spicy aromas with a bit of cocoa and coffee and a long bright finish.
2007 Evesham Wood WV Pinot Noir, $19
Willamette Valley, Oregon
On the southern slopes of the Eola-Amity AVA at Les Puits Sec vineyard, Mary and Russ Raney farm the land organically and practice natural winemaking in the cellar, including using natural yeast strains, and the result is amazing. The only problem is that there is so little of it to go around.
2008 Owen Roe Abbots Table Red Blend, $21
Columbia Valley, Washington
This kitchen sink blend of zinfandel, sangiovese, cabernet sauvignon, syrah, merlot, cab franc, blaufränkish, and malbec shows dark fruit but is not overly extracted. It has balance and grace with lovely layers of fruit.
2006 J. K. Carriere WV Pinot Noir, $42
Willamette Valley, Oregon
This blend is made up of all the barrels that don’t go into a single vineyard wine. Powerful but not overblown, focused but fruity, it can stand to be cellared a few years—but with a good decanting it drinks very well right now.
Next: Dawn Smith, wine director, the restaurants at Bellevue Towers
Published: September 2009
It would be great if there were links to the wineries and/or stores that sold these wines
Very interesting!
Agree with Thairu, a great list from Jeffrey Dorgan and others, but don’t make it so hard for us to follow up and find these wines if we want to try them…links would have been perfect….The Stevens Divio and the DeLille AIX are great!!
Really looking forward to trying out John Howie Steak in Bellevue’s Bravern – there has been a lot of talk around John Howie’s new establishment and from what I’m hearing so far, it’s really that good – a steakhouse w/ not only a dream team, but with soul – locally owned, locally sourced products, etc.
If you are looking for Watermill’s wine go to www.watermillwinery.com, they have an online store where you can buy the wine. Enjoy!