Bucking Tradition...and All That Jazz

We've been salivating recently here at the world headquarters of The Oregon Wine Blog, and no, it isn't because of the box of day-old Albertson's donuts from sitting on the counter screaming "eat me, eat me". Hey, they were $2.99 - who can turn down that kind of deal? I digress.

The source of our yearning has actually come in a distinctly different format than donuts, although still in a box. We've been doing the prep work on a series for the Blog that excites the

heck out of me and as a result, wine samples have been coming in from wineries throughout the Northwest. What is that series, you might ask? It relates to the title of this post...oh fine, I'll stop being mysterious and just tell you: We're doing a profile of non-traditional varietals from the Pacific Northwest.

Think of those wines that have traditionally been blending wines, or done in other countries but not the US, or...the wild hair that grew up the ass of a ballsy winemaker. Yep, we're talking Barbera, Cabernet Franc, Dolcetto, Grenache, Lemberger, Malbec, and Petit Verdot. Hooray! The plan is to take one varietal every 7 - 10 days, do an overview of the wine, and then review the submissions we received. We were hoping to have the first of the series posted by now, but some hot weather in Eastern Washington delayed shipping. After all, reviewing cooked wine would be no fun.

We've also got a few other features in the hopper that will be interspersed with this series, such as a profile of Col Solare and a review of the Oregon State Fair wine competition. Until then, which varietal would you like to see first?