Idaho’s Earrings – Pend d’Oreille

Continuing in the vein of talking about Idaho, I received a couple of samples from Pend d’Oreille. Julie and Stephen Meyer, both longtime wine enthusiasts who have been working in vineyards and wineries for the last 24 years, established Pend d’Oreille on June 21, 1995. They cut their teeth on the 1985 harvests in Meursault and never looked back. Steve is now the winemaker of Pend d’Oreille.

Again, the winery makes a wide variety of wines, including a huckleberry wine. I have very little experience with wines produced from anything except grapes. I have a blueberry wine on my shelves that I look forward to opening up sooner or later.

I always love hearing the story behind names. For instance, what enticed a company to call their winery “Hangings of the Ear” (literally translated) or Earrings (for those that do not take themselves to be quite so literal)? So, I went right to the source and asked the winemaker, Steve Meyer a few questions.

Could you tell me a little about yourselves and about getting into wine?

Julie and I are the full owners [of Pend d’Oreille]. We started the Winery in 1995 after having worked in the wine business starting in 1985 in Meursault, France. The reason I traveled to France…skiing! I eventually got to ski the Alps, but my time in Meursault changed my life.

We were the first North Idaho Winery, but we now have two small wineries to the south of us in Coeur d’Alene and Post Falls. We get together for professional wine tasting to stay sharp, and we do some cooperative wine marketing – mainly through non-profit fundraising.

What led to the name? If my french is still working I translate Pend d'Oreille to Earrings. Is that accurate?

Very good! Actually ear ring in French is pendant d’oreille, and that was the way our lake was originally named in 1812 when David Thompson, a Canadian Fur Trapper and explorer discovered the lake and its natives who were wearing ear rings – thus the ear ring people or pendant d’oreille’s. Over time and much broken French, the “ant” was lost as well as the d’ (thanks to the Idaho Department of Transportation).

Why start a winery in Idaho?

You have to visit Sandpoint to really understand that one. The skiing, biking (our two big passions) and other recreation is phenomenal. We are only a short distance to our Washington vineyards with which are contracted. So the choice was high desert and three hours to ski fresh powder or 20 minutes. Plus, Sandpoint’s beauty is a big tourist draw, so we have access to a very large population, but we don’t have to live in a big suburban area.




In doing my research on this winery I discovered a very interesting program that they announced this past February. They call it “Think Green Drink Red”, a program where they sell their Bistro Rouge Table Wine, a simple blend of what they consider “vin de pays” wine, in a refillable 1.5 L bottle. The purpose is to not only save to consumer money on glass (buying the refill is $9 cheaper than buying the original bottle) but also to conserve glass, which might otherwise be thrown in a landfill. If you’d like to read the press release you can find it here.

I tasted two of their wines, the 2006 Pinot Noir and the 2006 Wood River Terroir Series Malbec. The Pinot was not my favorite, with a very large dose of the bitterness I did not enjoy in the Sawtooth wines. On the other hand, the Malbec was nice. Pouring out of the bottle the wine was an inky dark purple filled with blueberry, butterscotch and vanilla perfume. The taste was vibrant and juicy, a rich ripe cherry with just a little but of tartness at the end.

Everyone is crazy on Argentina

It really is incredible how the everyday drinker latches onto a grape. In the US, Merlot had a good run (with plenty still on the shelves) and gave way to Pinot Noir after Sideways knocked over a few bottles. Now the grape of the moment: Malbec!

Even though I think this is a fad that will one day be replaced by another fad (although it may stick around… when are people going to leave White Zinfandel and Chardonnay?), there is one major difference: Malbec from Argentina is damn tasty.

There is a lot of wine flooding in from Argentina these days. In fact, Argentina is now the fourth largest importer of wine into the US, behind Italy, Australia, and France. However, more than half of that wine is bulk wine.

What is bulk wine? Let’s think about how wine in brought into the U.S. for a moment. When shipping overseas, most producers put their wines on very large tankers. They have to bottle the wines, put the appropriate labels on them (do not get me started on labeling laws), put them in boxes, and then deliver them to the appropriate port where a ship will take the wines on board and drop them off in a port in the U.S. where customs the opens the boxes and looks to make sure all importing laws are being upheld.

Have you ever lifted a box of wine? It is heavy, which adds cost in the shipping. Well, what if you decide to simply put all the wine into large plastic containers and bottle the wine wherever you decide to send it. That would save money on shipping and you can bring more wine in at the same time. The problem is that the wines almost never have the interest and the life that a bottled wine has. You can find bulk wine from every country, especially right now when producers are doing everything they can to keep prices down.

But, I digress. We are talking about the good stuff here and there is not much better than the Bodegas Salentein Reserve Malbec 2006 from the Uco Valley in Mendoza, Argentina. This wine was very good, with a beautiful deep velvety purple color. There was a very nice vibrant freshness in the wine when I stuck my nose in the glass, accented by ripe red fruits. The vibrancy continued in my mouth where I found some cherry, black raspberry and cranberry flavors. Towards the end of the finish there was some nice spicy richness to it.

I looked up what the experts said, and I found that Jay Miller at the Wine Advocate gave this wine an 89. Finally, a wine I can post on the 89 project! Michael Schachner at the Wine Enthusiast gave this wine a 90. Wine Spectator gave this wine a 75. I was confused because I did not think the wine publications posted anything that was given less than an 85. When I saw the notes it looked like the Wine Spectator received a few bad bottles when they were doing their review. A real shame, because I think this is a great wine. On wine-searcher.com I found this wine between $17 and $22.

What does Cheval Blanc, Krug, and the Andes Mountains have in common?

At this point it’s a winemaker, Nicolas Audebert, who worked with each of the great Champaign houses to learn the art of blending and then landed in Argentina to create a blend at the new South American property for Cheval Blanc and an Argentinean producer, Terrazas de los Andes.

Last night, at the retail store Sherry-Lehman, I was able to taste the 2005 and 2006 vintages of the Cheval des Andes and they do not disappoint. Both had a great character to them, showing off the skills of a talented winemaker and what the financial backing of one of the great French properties can do.

The 2005 was velvety, very smooth tannins with an impressive concentration of dark fruit flavors. The 2006 was rich and fleshy, really impressive for a young wine that has not hit the market yet. The tannins were light, with just the right amount of energy and brightness. Absolutely delicious. Both are made primarily of Malbec, with Cabernet Sauvignon and some Petit Verdot mixed in.

However, a bit of a pretty penny. Try $75 a bottle. Still almost $900 cheaper than the current release of Cheval Blanc, but a bit out of my price range for things to bring home for dinner…