My life would extra-special if the interface from Cork’d would be overlaid on the incredible amount of data at Cellar Tracker. My god, Cellar Tracker is an ugly brute. I think it may have been designed by someone who is brilliant but blind. Cork’d I first saw a year or two ago and it doesn’t seem to be taking off as much as I’d like to see it do, but it sure has that cheeky Web 2.0 glow.

Other wine stuff this week:

• Visited colleagues David and Kathleen out in Lyle, Wash. to evaluate their lovely site for vineyard potential. Peaceful east-gorge slope with White oak and basalt. Photo above.
• Visited some other wineries near there (Klickitat Canyon, Cor Cellars and Syncline). Bought some lovely wine from Syncline, including the 2004 Cuvee Elena (a classy Rhone blend).

I have hacked Wordpress to use higher-quality compression for thumbnails. Let’s see how that goes.

Mr. Pencil and I are members of the Ponzi wine club, which means we get quarterly shipments of two bottles. Mr. usually drives out there and picks them up–in fact, he picked up our two fall bottles yesterday, which were, somewhat disappointingly, a reserve Chardonnay and a Nebbiolo.

Wine Spectator (subscription) just published a front-page piece that is all about 2004 and 2005 Oregon Pinot noirs. Shame. They rated two Ponzis right at the top of the list: two Pinot noirs that we, as club members, don’t get. Nope. The club gives you the mid-range stuff. Wish we’d known about the WS scores yesterday when David drove all the way out there (it was a very frustrating, rush-hour cold, long motorcycle ride for him, too). We would have known to pick up a bottle or two. Lame. Now we’ll probably never get our hands on them. Seems like it makes being in a wine club kind of silly.

The two highly-rated wines are:

• PONZI Abetina Willamette Valley 2005 (92) $100
• PONZI Pinot Noir Willamette Valley Reserve 2005 (92) $60

Driving home from a doctor’s appointment today, I saw this construction going on in the parking lot of a modern strip mall that also houses the overrated Portland powerhouse restaurant Nostrana. WINE! 2 blocks from my house! WOOOOOOP.

Cool stuff. You can watch David and I bottling our Pinot noir that we’ve been working on for a year or so.

Enjoy!

David and I had our first class last night at Chemeketa Eola Viticulture Center southwest of Salem, Ore. We’re taking Viticulture 101, a 3-credit class that will dunk us in the reality of how to grow grapes and keep them from dying or tasting real bad. That’s the goal.

The bad news is that it’s in Salem, on Wednesday evenings, 6-9pm. The wine center is a solid 75-minute drive in decent conditions, and I’m worried what will happen if we hit really awesome traffic out of Portland, as it’s rush hour. Last night was not terrible.

The good news is that the center is gorgeous, almost shockingly so. I’ve taken classes at various institutions of higher learning, and, with the exception of the century-old redbrick court of buildings at the University of Birmingham (UK), most have been in really ugly buildings. Especially those at the community college level. But the wine center is on a quiet rise in the hills. The driveway is a narrow wind through tall maples, and the grounds are extensively landscaped with interesting plants. The interior is not bad either; our classroom has a clerestory of windows along the back wall and overlooks the 8-acre onsite vineyard. Plus the wireless is good and easy.

Not to mention that I’m way into the subject matter. Damn the drive. This is awesome.

A couple of photos of the view from the terrace there. There’s even a fountain.