I’ll echo @K_John_Joseph sentiments. Thanks for sharing all this insight and wisdom, it’s what makes BerserkerDay so incredible special (the relationships with the producer PLUS the wine).
I really enjoyed the wine last night and saved some to check in on later today to follow the progression. My wife told me she didn’t want any wine last night, but ended up enjoying two glasses of it too 
Thanks…these are new vineyards in this countryside and exploring them is our collective journey - and our collective responsibility if we intend to create a wine culture. So, I take your tasting notes very seriously…they are important lenses for me as I define this site and really help me as I make process course corrections. These are lessons that will get passed on to my grape buyers and the farmers of the site that will come after me.
I did not have an official label artist for 2020. My other wines went into the more experimental Spaghetti Western wines - and those absolutely ridiculous labels I designed on Powerpoint.
When do free trips to Antarctica happen? Never. When a free trip to Antarctica with a British explorer landed in my lap, what did I do? Of course I went on that stinkin’ trip, talked to some penguins, wondered what they thought about all day. It changed my perspective - and so I came home I quit my perfectly good and permanent job as a nuclear waste lawyer in a windowless office in Washington, DC. Now I make wine.
And, amidst this, I’m trying to figure out what sparkling wine can mean in the context of Oregon, in the context of my site, without applying Champenoise methodology to it blindly and dogmatically. Personally, I think we can ultimately do better than that by finding our own way while giving homage to the benchmarks.
The best elevator pitch I’ve ever read. Welcome to the reformed lawyers club!
Also a PM based wine that I enjoy. It’s my favorite PM but I am focusing on the other wines as prices escalate.
One I hope to eventually join! And goodness, if I could do it making Oregon sparkling wine…
18 years in, no regrets!
If you can find the Giraud Ratafia Solera 90-13 I’m encouraging you to try it. Pretty amazing!
Another Roederer 244.
How is it compared to 242?
This bottle is drinking pretty differently than the bottle I opened a couple months ago when these first landed. I said then that the wine needed time and that’s more true now.
Tonight, it showed a lot of creamy, sweet red apple and lacked the tension of the first bottle.
I only bought mags of 242 and haven’t opened one.
Corked. Badly.
Didn’t tell my wife to see what her reaction would be… she caught one whiff of it and pushed the glass away saying, “something’s wrong with this wine.” Proud husband right here 
We have really enjoyed the 2017 base & 2021 disgorgement version from a smaller bottle (375ml). It has been our go-to champagne glass while my better half is preparing for a dinner date and I’m waiting.
Late 2022/early 2023 disgorgements that we have recently tried, have not been equally tasty, but I’m hopeful that they will get there in a year or two.
So, our experiment is still ongoing, but my best guess at this point would be to drink this wine not earlier than 2 years after disgorgement if you have a half-bottle and maybe wait 3 years for regular bottles. We also do like the more higher end Leclerc Briant bottlings, but of course if you pay 80€ or 150€ for a bottle there is already a lot of competition at that price point,
Love it. I’m in the same camp. Once I opened a bottle in the kitchen and my wife, who was 10 feet away, said that’s corked. Although I think my ppm perception is pretty keen, I always defer to her if I have a doubt for TCA, brett or VA.
Do you know who made the cork?
I don’t. It’s clearly not Mytik/DIAM, only markings on it are “Champagne Ruinart Reims” on the top side and bottom, plus a batch code on the side showing “H012 A241”
Hmmmmm. o.k… Conglomerate, yes?
I’m less familiar with the process for sparkling corks, but comparing it to a DIAM 10 and a CWine cork I have here, I want to say, no, it’s not agglomerated the way those corks are.
That’s a conglomerate cork with cork discs attached to the bottom(inserted into the bottle). It’s a fairly common closure for sparkling wines these days. But it’s not ground down nearly as fine as the technical closures(Mytik, etc.). Nor is it a single piece of cork like the classic cork closure.
Doesn’t bode well for that batch! I’ve got two more bottles in the cellar that would have come from the same disgorgement… fingers crossed! The quantities they’re bottling give me some hope I suppose.
Is that the one that I tasted with you? It was really terrific.
