Keller Estate Winery - 2016 Pinot Gris

Today's wine comes to me from Keller Estate, located in Petaluma, Sonoma County, California, only twenty miles from the Pacific Ocean. Keller Estate was founded in 1989 by Arturo Keller, an automotive engineer from Mexico City. Since the initial purchase of 650 acres, Keller has been has been "estate" for the past-quarter century (estate meaning their wines are made from grapes on premises). Like many wineries, they are environmentally-focused and have on-site bee and bat boxes, and a herd of sheep to help keep the vineyards trimmed and clean. Today's wine is a Pinot Gris from the La Cruz Vineyards section of Keller.

You might say that "pinot gris" sounds a lot like "pinot grigio". Indeed! That's because pinot gris is the same grape as pinot grigio. It's a mutation of the pinot family, and is grown all over the world with most notable examples in France, Italy, and Australia. It's called pinot gris because of the color - a plume can develop, or "fuzz", on the grapes to give them a greyish coloring. But make no mistake, the two names are not interchangeable - they're two distinct styles of wine. According to former sommelier John French, WSET-3 and Level 2 Somme, mass-produced pinot grigio from Italy has a bright demeanor, while  high Alsatian expressions (as pinot gris) are more complex can be age worthy, up to 2 or 3 years even. 

Let's get tasting. Poured this out using my Vintorio aerator, as usual. Since it's chilled, I gave it a little longer than usual to open up. I let it sit on the counter for 10 minutes and used my hands to warm it up a bit. In the glass, it's projecting notes of bright citrus fruit - like tangerine. Deep gold, viscous.

So John was spot-on: fans of pinot grigio may be somewhat surprised to find this is significantly cleaner and more complex that what they're used to. I'm picking up some lemongrass, a touch of fresh pear, strong peach notes, and some low-key minerality with moderately low acid, actually. Some spice on the finish followed by a nice tingle on the tongue after swallowing. Most noticeably, the wine lacks the bright acidity of Italian variants and seems also to lack the touch of honey that comes with French variants. 

I got this as part of Sonoma Wine Club shipment, for $29.99, so a good price point for a nice bottle of white. John French says that serious pinot gris should be had with food, so I paired this with some chorizo and asiago pizza from Timber Pizza. 

Crooked Run Brewing Co.'s Socially-Distanced Seventh Anniversary Bash

For my first foray to an actual in-person bar since the pandemic began, I decamped to Sterling, VA to attend Crooked Run Brewing Co.'s 7th anniversary event. You may recall I reviewed Crooked Run's superlative "Machu Pisco", a beer made in collaboration with Inca Kitchen. They tend to make a lot of lighter beers, like Berliner Weisses and such, with some funky ingredients. Last time I was out here was over a year ago, so this event was a great excuse to have some fancy beer! Today I'm tasting alongside my friend Andrew.

Big shout out to my main man Cody, former Churchkey tapmaster and current Crooked Run brewer. He's one of the fine folks manning the taps today and gave me a heads-up about the event, which was held in the parking lots and on the lawn, with tables at appropriate distances. A mobile beer trailer provided the suds. Scanning the taplist, there are some really interesting beers here, and we only have three hours, so we found some chairs under a shady tree, and got to drinkin'. 

First up is the "Toastmaster" - a 9.00% ABV fruit sour made with blueberries, strawberries, maple syrup, and vanilla. 

First, this smells insane. It smells like a breakfast pastry! It's uncanny, but I guess that's what they're going for. This portends well. And look at that color!

Wow, starting off right. Big flavors of blueberries and overripe strawberries, with a heavy dose of sweetness and Graham cracker breadiness. It's almost like the inside of those microwaveable Toaster Strudels - sweet, fruity, and thick. This beer has a good dose of maple, too, which is mostly present on the finish.

OK, well, that was great and would be amazing to have on nitro or with lactose. 

Next up is "Lupa" - a dry-hopped golden sour blend with Julius hops. Cody brought me over a tiny sample, gratis.

It's quite refreshing - this 5.50% has a good tang of hops, quite crisp with some orange rind notes, and a brassy character at the end. A slight wheaty chewiness develops at the end, but not substantial. Great for fans of dry-hopped Berliner Weisses, and dry-hopped beers in general. 

Next up is the "Melt", a 10.00% ABV milk stout which smells like ice cream sundae with Hershey squirt-from-the-bottle chocolate syrup. 

This milk stout, made with peanut butter, cacao nibs, and marshmallows, also frankly tastes like a melted ice cream sundae (Andrew notes - "with alcohol"). Full, silky peanut butter, milk chocolate, and sugar flavors carry throughout, with a surprisingly lighter in body than I expected. Quite delicious, but dangerous - at 10.00%, it's easy to down a couple of these and not feel it. Very nice.

Well, since we're riding the Dark Beer Express right now, here's another: "Day-o", another 10.00% ABV imperial milk stout, this time made with bananas, hazelnuts, vanilla, and cacao nibs. I can definitely get the hazelnut on the nose.

Another great choice! "Day-O" has waves of banana, with minor hazelnut notes, and a very sticky consistency. I can taste the banana but not the smell, and smell the hazelnut but not taste it. Interesting. The beer has a long, lingering sweetness and oiliness, definitely sweeter and thicker than the "Melt." Also, doesn't taste like 10.00%.

Well, as luck would have it, they have a barleywine here! It's called "Brave," and is an astonishing 16.00% ABV with coconuts, vanilla, and hazelnuts added, all of which spent 15 months aging in ASW Distillery whiskey barrels. Not a common set of ingredients in barleywine, nor is this Crooked Run's M.O, so very eager to try it.

Nose is pretty much spot-on. Yep, barleywine. 

Initially, flavors are of dried hops, crushed Saltines, chewy granola, and caramel. In terms of texture and weight, it's more like a dark red ale. I do sense the coconut here - like dried, shredded coconut - mostly on the finish. According to Cody, they used 30 lbs of coconut flakes, so that makes sense! This is probably the most complex barleywine I've had, and is WAY light for its weight - I guessed it was 12.00% ABV before finding out if was 16.00%. Jeez.

As the session wrapped up, and things got a bit slower, I was able to catch up with McKinnen Leonard, CRBC's head brewer. Whenever I attend these events, I always try to speak with the brewmasters to learn about what's next for the brewery, any upcoming beers, or neat stories behind the brews. McKinnen and I spoke for about 25 minutes, and I tried samples of all the other beers while we discussed technical elements of some of the beers. I begged them to make "Machu Pisco" again (no change) and I inquired about growth of the brewery. So what's next? McKinnen would like to see Crooked Run grow in several ways"

• Maintaining their sour programs, as this is what customers are looking for now (shock sours being somewhat of a fad, just like brut IPAs and goses were over the last few years.) Nonetheless, good sours sell well, so CRBC is looking to expand in this way. Plus, they have a koelschip (a large vessel for cooling beer) and they're in the process of making gueze-style beers. They've got a few in the back and will release them in the future. 
• Craft lagers. In the next few years, McKinnen wants to continue to make beers that they want to see and are proud of. And with the emerging market for craft lagers (ex Colimita), he'd like to start making more craft lagers. 
• Mixed fermentation. McKinnen and his colleagues are working on building up their native yeast culture game and work on experimental strains. He's been working on some of this already - for example, about a year ago, McKinnen, Cody, and a few others went to Churchkey and drank 8 bottles of Belgian beers from Brasserie Fantome, then chose which bottle they liked the most. Then, McKinnen took the yeast dregs from the bottle, harvested it, grew it up, and then made a gin-inspired saison aged in Caledonia Spirits "Barr Hill". It's unnamed, unreleased, and hidden away at Crooked Run. I must get my hands on this. 

Very cool event - it was nice to see their awesome beers, as Crooked Run has the uncanny ability to make "emulation" beers - beers that combine ingredients to emulate another drink or a food. Today's was no exception. And big thanks to Cody and McKinnen for taking the time to chat with me! I look forward to swinging by Crooked Run once this whole thing is over.