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Hi Wine Friends!
Last May I received my monthly wine club picks from my favorite retail wine shop in Woodinville (Can you believe I have my wholesale license and I can't quit paying full retail for my wine club just because I'm so attached to Village Wines? Lisa and Tim are good retailers!) I digress~ That night I pulled out both bottles of the club's Washington Wine picks but didn't remember which was the higher priced one and which was the more affordably tiered wine. I opened up the bottle of 2006 Soos Creek Sundance and poured a glass then sat down at my computer to work. I took my first sip and thought "mmm, must be the high pick", then started working. Over the next half hour I sipped that glass of wine and enjoyed what I thought was a very good $38 bottle of wine. I went downstairs, mostly to fill my glass but also to check out the receipt. When I discovered that I had paid about $25 for that bottle, I was floored but very, very happy! I knew that if I ever got into the wine business, I wanted to meet David Larsen. Last week, on what I felt was probably the last gorgeous fall day we'd have here, I drove south to Kent, WA to do just that. As I traveled south on I405 with the sun streaming through my window and not a bit of traffic in front of me I thought, "Wow--63 degrees, not a cloud in the sky, colored leaves swirling around my car, and I'm going to meet a a guy who makes amazing wine (kind of like a rock star in my book). This is going to be a good day."
I knew a little about Dave from his website, how he started learning his craft in the Boeing Wine Club and began his winery out of his garage in 1989. I knew he paid close attention to details, something that was reflected in the complex wines he made. I knew that twenty years of relationships with grape growers gave him access to seven of the top ten vineyards in Washington. I knew he'd received rave reviews from a lot of wine critics during the last several years, and I started getting a bit nervous about meeting this guy. After all, he'd been making wine about as long as I'd been drinking it. O.K. so I've been drinking it as long as he's been making it plus ten years.
I arrived at the Larsen's home/winery and Dave stepped out of his house to greet me. We exchanged business cards and started walking down the drive to the winery. Nervously I began the mini interview by asking him if the Soos Creek labels had their Native American theme because of his heritage. He looked at me quizzically and after a few seconds of silence laughed and said "No.... I'm Norwegian". "Great first question," I said to myself, noting his blue eyes and a fair complexion were not the makings of a Native American. Sensing my awkwardness, he rescued me by offering the story of his labels. "I actually had a contest when I first started the winery. Soos Creek was the first name submitted. Then we whittled it down to five and hired a professional namer who said Soos Creek was the one. The guy who submitted the name won a case of wine." "Lucky guy," I said. He smiled, unlocked the door, and flipped on the lights. "There's 2008" he said pointing to the rows of oak barrels stacked three or four high taking up about half of the building.
"So," I began again, "what makes a good winemaker?" "A winemaker has to have a great palate to make good wine. You have to know what good wine tastes like in order to make it" Dave said. When he began explaining how twenty years of winemaking has brought him to a point where he feels like he's "almost there", the teacher in me thought it a fitting time to ask my favorite question. "Who was your mentor?" Dave seemed surprised. "Hmmm, well, Brian Carter had just left Paul Thomas and was consulting when I was retiring from Boeing. He helped me gain the confidence I needed to start my winery. Every once and a while I'll still call him to ask a question. He's my mentor." That seemed fitting to me. I remembered I had read somewhere that Brian Carter, the 2007 Auction for Washington Wines Vintner of the Year and only three-time winner of the Enological Society's Grand Prize, remains humble to the point of shyness.
He proceeded to show me around the various parts of the winery and we talked about sugars and alcohol levels, drinking trends and the pendulum swinging back to lower alcohol wines. When he showed me the boxed wine room, I confessed that I hadn't tried his Cabernet Sauvignon from the Champoux Vineyard and I wanted to buy some. He boxed it up and we started back to my car. I popped open the back of the Highlander and he slid the box in. "Oh, by the way" he said casually while closing the hatch back. "Jay Miller from Robert Parker just gave the 2006 Champoux a 93." That got my attention. "What did he give the Ciel du Cheval?" I asked anxiously, knowing I'd just purchased all the rest of the Ciel for this email offer.
"A 92."
"Sundance?"
"90" he said smiling. I'll send you the review," After a firm handshake I jumped in the car and backed out of the driveway. As soon as I got out on the street, I pulled over to the side of the road, reached for my cell phone and called his distributor about the 2006 Champoux. Good news--they still had some. "Yes," I thought as I headed toward Hwy 167 with three bottles of Dave's wine in the back of my car and the sun still shining in front of me, "this is a very good day."