The Last Eleven, #5: Soter, Brut Rose Late Disgorgement, Yamhill-Carton OR 2006
You can, in Portland.
That's their latest tourism slogan, according to the many ads I see on Hulu and around San Francisco. I can't help but agree.
You can spend a few days with your very best friend for the past 10 years.
You can turn off your work email and go to wineries not to study but just because they make you happy.
You can try a Madeira that's older than your grandparents.
You can go on lovely walks through forests and rose gardens just talking about where your life may end up. You can brainstorm a business idea in the alcove of a little coffee shop then totally scrap it because who's got time for that kind of thing, anyway?
You can feel like you're seventeen again by goofing off in a science museum while simultaneously appreciating the fact that you're an adult who can go to dispensaries whenever they want to get peanut butter cookies to eat at a science museum.
I had booked this trip over six months prior, when my best friend told me he'd be in Portland for some sort of entrepreneur conference thing. I wanted to see him and Oregon is a hell of a lot closer than Connecticut so I decided to hop up there to hang out for a few days.
It was a blast. We just hung out around the city and the Willamette Valley doing whatever sounded fun. We're both very different people but we learned to appreciate each other a bit more; he came to the wineries with me and listened to me prattle on about why the wines were so cool and I went to a screening with him of Eating Animals where I decided to start eating plant-based. And then we drank plenty of beer, because that is an interest that we do have in common.
This wine, the Soter Late disgorgement, is one that I picked up at the third winery we visited on our tour. It's awesome not only because Soter is a great producer of sparkling wines, but because it stayed on its lees for 10 years. Resting time while being in contact with the yeast cells like that helps preserve the wine while imparting really complex toasty flavors and a rich mouthfeel and is basically proof that good things come to those who wait...and wait, and wait.
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I opened it the other day with a few close friends at our Friendsmas dinner. It was delightfully creamy on the palate but still tasted like fresh strawberries. We drank it while playing this absurd game called Cool Cats and Asshats and making fools of ourselves because no dinner party I throw will ever be too sophisticated for drinking games and that is a fact.
Basically, I bought this wine with one of my oldest close friends and drank it with some of my newest close friends...kind of poetic for a bottle that epitomizes a combination of old and new, don't you think?