Wine is all about aromas. Scents, fragrance, and bouquet are of primary importance. If nothing else, this week has been a week of varied smells.
We arrived in Newport early last week and learned a little something on the journey. Our youngest son is indeed susceptible to car sickness: last year’s vomiting incident was no fluke. But while last time he threw up after we got out of the car, this year it happened right there in the backseat. All over his Spiderman suit, his booster seat, the floor. Mmmmmm mmmmm good. Then we get to the house to find that a short in the electrical box caused the electricity to have gone out days earlier. And all the crab bait in the freezer was no longer frozen. Or fresh. So while Scott was cleaning out the minivan (and really, were they not designed with kiddo’s eliminations in mind?) I was suppressing my gag reflex to clean out the rotting fish. And despite three pounds of baking soda there is still a whisper, the merest hint of brininess in the air when we open the freezer. Ah. The sea.
Many, many winery people warned us that the Newport Seafood and Wine Festival is a crazy booze-fest of drunk twenty-somethings (and I know what you are thinking – what in the world is wrong with that???). But I’d have to say that out of the three days of the festival that only held true for Saturday, which was a spectacle indeed. Folks dress up in costumes, everyone screams when someone breaks a glass (and inevitably people start breaking glasses on purpose, and are quickly shown the door). I think its boozy rep is a bit overblown. While lots of places were complaining their sales were down 50% from last year, we felt the weekend was a great success – we’d never been here before so anything over breaking even was a bonus. Our 2006 Merlot won Gold here at Newport and we sold out of it and the 2005 Bordeaux Blend quickly. This was the perfect place for our Magmita Sangria.
The Newport Chamber of Commerce, who hosts the event, and the OLCC are of course well aware of the "festiveness" of this festival and they have set very strict guidelines for what we can and cannot do. Taste and glass pours we being closely monitored, no open bottles were to leave tasting areas, and the place was crawling with police. If a winery were to violate the OLCC regulations, hefty fines – and I am talking thousands of dollars – were levied. So of course there is the a-hole who comes up to us as things were winding down on Saturday and says that he "would have bought a case” except he felt “gyped” on his glass pour, so he wasn’t going to buy anything. Did he say anything at the time he got his glass? Of course not. Was he actually planning on buying a case? I seriously doubt it. What a bunch of BS. Like we are supposed to risk a hefty fine so he can get a quicker buzz? I don’t think so. But these few festival buttheads make for great stories later.
As we usually find at these events, most folks are so friendly, they love wine and are interested mostly having fun while trying great wines and yummy food. And a remarkable number of people were over for the weekend from Bend and had never heard of us. These events are a great excuse to get spend a long weekend away doing the wino and foodie thing on a budget. We’ll be at Sip in McMinnville the weekend of March 13, but we won’t be at Astoria, as it is right after Pebble Beach Food & Wine – that one, not so much for the budget conscious, but if you have the means, I highly suggest checking it out. If you go, be sure to look for me – I’ll be the one chatting up Eric Ripert. Or trying to, anyway.
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