No liquidity problem here
A while back, we bragged that we had received two complimentary bottles of a particular wine from a Grants Pass winery that was doubtlessly hoping that we would try it and say a few words about it on this blog. It's the Troon Winery, and the wine is the 2007 release that they call Druid's Fluid. We popped the cork on one of the bottles the other night, and hereby report that it's fine stuff, the name notwithstanding.
Wine reviews never cease to amuse us. Hints of leather! Tobacco! Pepper! Pears! Barnyard! It's an 89! It's a 91! Where do these people come up with this stuff? Unable to understand it all, we'll have to describe Druid's in much more prosaic terms.
It's a beautiful blend of wines from red grapes of undisclosed varieties. Unlike a lot of northwest red blends, the wines in this combination don't compete or conflict with each other at all. The end product is smooth as all get-out, but the flavors are complex and satisfying. It's an inviting wine. Folks who shy away from fruit bombs and huge reds will like it, but hardcore fans of the region's reds will also find it attractive. You wouldn't cellar it for a dozen years and use it to try to impress your wine snob friends, but you wouldn't serve it to your grandmother who likes spritzers, either. We almost want to call it "charming," but that would be selling it short.
O.k., that was terrible. We'll never be a wine reviewer. Suffice it to say that we're looking forward to enjoying that other bottle sometime soon, with holiday guests.
Would we buy it in the store? Yes. On the winery website, they're selling it for 18 bucks a bottle, which is about the top of our range (except on rare occasions). But we'd say, without blinking, that it's worth it. We're not familiar with Troon -- maybe they're always this good, or maybe they just got lucky, but this release is a hit.
| Posted at 12:22 PM | Permalink |
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Comments (9)
A woman ahead of me in line at the grocery checkout was buying a bottle of this yesterday, and I was intrigued by the name. And here it is again! This must not be nothing.
Posted by Allan L. | December 11, 2009 1:44 PM
This could be as good a time as any to promote my theory that Stonehenge was an ancient Druid casino.
As far as being a wine reviewer, you have to go farther out there:
This wine is pretentious but with a hint of conspiracy.
Posted by Bill McDonald | December 11, 2009 2:11 PM
Full bodied, indeed, BBWesque, with thick meaty legs, this bold seductive entry features a musky, sensual nose that demands adoration, commands respect, compels worship. Bouquet is reminiscent of Juno Reactor's "High Energy Protons", a radicalized form of energy condensed to a slower vibration, all-in-one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively, no such thing as death, life is only a dream, an imagination of itself, sleeping in a far-away meadow after making hay somewhere under the slopes of the Andes, rust amid greenness; as last year's scythes flung down, and left in the half-cut swaths. Oh bliss, bliss and heaven, gorgeousness and gorgeosity made flesh, like a bird of rarest spun heaven metal, flowing in a spaceship, gravity all nonsense now. Hints of Xerxes and vast herds of wild horses, whose pastures in those days were only fenced by the Rocky Mountains and the Alleghanies. Subtle yet unmistakable impressions of the Perseid meteor shower strike the palette, clearly bottled just days after the Harvest Moon. Its youthful charm flows westward, a divine revelation, like that singularly fixed, chosen star which every evening leads on the hosts of light, a most imperial and archangelical apparition of that unfallen, western world, which to the eyes of the old trappers and hunters revived the glories of those primeval times when Adam walked majestic as a god, bluff-browed and fearless as this mighty steed.
Complements a loaf of freshly baked bread.
Posted by jamie | December 11, 2009 6:04 PM
The Troon Winery makes many fine wine, including one of Oregon's best ports. Their River Guide White is another good blend. It's worth visiting the winery if you're ever in Southern Oregon.
Posted by sweetbriar | December 11, 2009 6:40 PM
Don't see why the devil should have all the good Troons!
Paraphrasing Martin Luther.
Posted by Lawrence | December 11, 2009 6:49 PM
I fell in love with Troon last year. They put out great wine!
Posted by Jeff | December 11, 2009 9:43 PM
Fark rates one as: Full bodied, with hints of blackberries and oak and a subtle overtone of blackmail
Posted by George Anonymuncule Seldes | December 11, 2009 10:02 PM
Dick Troon, and his wife started some of the first grape vineyards in So.Or.. His mixes and varietals are top notch, he was a purist and found great wine makers. He felt marketing was a waste of energy - his passion was the grape. He still lives in the area and I see him on occasion. His prize is a Zinfandel which came out the year he sold the property. His successors have maintained the quality and complexities of his wine as well as marketing them by adding a tasting room to his vineyard property. Bravo
(combines nicely with a trip to Brit music fest in the summer. The vineyard is about 15 miles West of Jacksonville - home of the Brit music fest) What am I? A Chamber of Commerce.
Posted by genop | December 12, 2009 1:38 PM
Yeah
What Jamie said....
You forgot leather
"I AM NOT DRINKKING MERLOT!!!!"
Posted by Mike H. | December 12, 2009 7:30 PM