Wine Berserkers Featured Winery - Biggio Hamina

It’s time to start the Wine Berserkers Monthly Featured Winery program, and we’ve lined up three wineries that are diverse in winemaking styles and geography to start us out.

This thread features Biggio Hamina winery of McMinnville, OR, with winemaker Todd Hamina (dudes named Todd are awesome)

Tapping into the best aspects of BerserkerDay and our Special Guest programs, the goal of the Wine Berserkers Monthly Featured Winery program is to have all notes and discussions for each featured winery in one thread, so please use this thread to talk with the winemaker, each other, and to post your notes once you receive your sample pack. Each winemaker is instructed to provide a sample pack (or more) that exhibits his or her winemaking style, and as a community, our job is to give feedback, notes, ask questions, and be as honest and participatory as can be. Not only does the community have an opportunity to discover the ins and outs of a new winery and/or winemaker, but the winemakers have a chance to dig into the reactions and feedback of a very diverse and large community. Hopefully our thousands of lurkers will also be encouraged to step out and join the discussion!

Biggio Hamina’s offers:

Three Pack Sampler:

2008 XIV $25
2009 Willamette Valley Pinot noir $25
2009 Zenith vineyard Pinot noir $36

Total $86 less 15% ($12.90) is $73.10 plus shipping


Six Pack Sampler:

2009 Amity vineyard Riesling $17
2008 XIV (Syrah/Viognier blend) $25
2007 Deux Vert vineyard Pinot noir $36
2008 Deux Vert vineyard Pinot noir $36
2009 Willamette Valley Pinot noir $25
2009 Zenith vineyard Pinot noir $36

Total $175 discounted 15% ($26.25) for $148.75 plus shipping

BONUS OFFER: All Berserkers who purchase Biggio Hamina wine after this feature (provided they also participate in the feature by buying a sampler pack or two) receive 15% off their repeat purchases for the remainder of 2012 by using the code Berserkers!!

To order, use this URL (on really cool webpages created specifically for this offer)
For the 3-pack: http://northwestwinestoyou.com/biggio-hamina-cellars/wine-berserkers-three-pack-wine-collection/
For the 6-pack: http://northwestwinestoyou.com/biggio-hamina-cellars/wine-berserkers-six-pack-wine-collection/

Todd, if you’ll be so kind as to start us out and tell us more about Biggio Hamina, your winemaking style, and any other pertinent information that you feel would be valuable to give those who order some background information. I know you are traveling now, so perhaps hit up this thread when you return.

Berserkers, purchase your sample packs, and when you receive them, drink up, and post your notes here. In the interim, feel free to pose your questions to Todd (not me, Todd Hamina) and the rest of the Wine Berserkers community!

And we begin!

This is going to put a kink in my `no more wine buying’ rule… This and the other offers are very impressive!!!

The power of WB… and Kudos to Frenchbread, as much as it pains me to stoke him… [cheers.gif]

Don’t think of it as ‘buying wine’, think of it as having a chance to meet a winemaker, taste his wines, and discuss it with him. It’s education! You should know about that!

Presuming there is no shipping over the weekend, I would urge Berserkers to get their sample pack orders in soon, so the wines can ship out early next week

I should be home by Sunday and get my thread up to speed then. In the meantime
Thanks to all of you!

Traveling during Wine Berserkers Feature month…

[smileyvault-ban.gif]

Ban me for life! Just arrived home from a fantastic road trip with
the family. Redwoods, Death Valley, Vegas, Zion, Bryce and back! Not
a bunch of time, but since the weather has been so miserable up here
we decided to point the car South and find the sun. It started
raining as soon as we hit the Oregon border coming home. However, I
am looking forward to sleeping in my own bed.

Where to start?

I grew up in a wine drinking household. My Grandfather had some
business in France and Switzerland, so my Dad went to high school
there for a few years. They passed the bug to me.

In 1995 I took a job in the Order Department at Grand Vin,a
distributor, in Denver. However, I really wanted to do production,
loved Pinot and didn’t want to move to California. We had Adelsheim,
Archery Summit, Domaine Serene and Rex Hill in our book and they all
assured me a low paying job in the vineyard so I packed up all my
stuff into the old Volvo and moved to Oregon in September 1996.

On a parallel collision course was Caroline Biggio. CIA Hyde Park
graduate and banquet Chef, butcher, line cook, etc at The Little Nell
Hotel in Aspen. She moved to Oregon in June of 1996 to open Mark
Pape’s (then Sommelier at the Little Nell) Third Street Grill in
McMinnville. I met her, got a job and found a place to live in my
first four hours of landing in McMinnville on September 5th, 1996.

Gary Andrus liked me. He threw me to the wall a lot to see if I’d
stick, but he liked me. I went from vineyard worker to assistant
winemaker in three vintages (96-98). Archery Summit sent me to Davis
several times for courses, but my true education in the wine world
came in the old fashioned form of apprenticeship. I am very thankful
for it because at my foundation is the premise that all the numbers
are malleable and that only the work in the vineyard is true. I’ve
always looked at the very unromantic version of UPS’ executive program
where the candidates learn the warehouse and drive routes because at
the end of the day that’s their business. I wanted to learn every
facet, and I wanted to get paid along the way.

After ASW I went to Elk Cove for harvest with the Campbell’s and they
are truly wonderful people. I then helped Etzel bottle his 98’s at
Beaux Freres. Took a job at Chateau Benoit/Anne Amie as assistant
winemaker before moving on. I’m responsible for the design of the
processing deck and all the vineyard spacing. But this was a
situation of too many chiefs and not enough braves, and when the
opportunity to work at Patton Valley presented itself I jumped.

Monte Pitt at Patton Valley is easily the best boss I ever had. The
2000-2004 vintages are mine. I was vineyard manager, national sales
and winemaker. PVV never got great scores, but we did land wines in
Craft, Gary Danko, Bouley and Cafe Boulod to name drop a little. I
left not because I didn’t like it there, but because we thought we
were moving to the Finger Lakes.

We sold the farm, I found a replacement for my job and then we didn’t
go. Interesting circumstance being jobless, homeless and with a
family… in a bittersweet turn of events Maysara was looking for a
winemaker.

Jimi Brooks had passed away in early September 2004, Chris Williams
did a tremendous job with the vintage, but wasn’t staying. I ended up
blending and bottling the 04’s, then did the 05 and 06’s. I also
culminated Jimi’s project of getting Maysara’s Momtazi vineyard
certified Biodynamic via Demeter. I’d hired Jim Fulmer, the president
of Demeter, in 2000 at our farm as a consultant. So it wasn’t a big
push to see where the Momtazi project needed to go.

In early 2007, Caroline and I decided that instead of looking for
another winemaking job to open up and building another brand for
somebody else that we’d jump into the deep end of the pool. This is
where my foolish fancy of not liking to destem or filter has come to
fruition. For the 2007-2009 vintages we leased space from the
wonderful Fisher family at the ADEA Wine Company in Gaston. Then in
2010 we opened a small co-op in McMinnville where we currently make
wine for some folks and lease space to others as well.



From a stylistic perspective I want a few things to happen:1). pretty.
Smells pretty and looks pretty, it doesn’t have to be big nor dark,
but in it’s power there should be a prettiness and through that
prettiness the vineyard should show itself. 2). The wine should make
your meal better. 3). Staying power. The wine should be able to be
left on the counter with just a simple resealing and improve in the
bottle for days. If it can do this, then it has the legs for ageing.

I love Dujac, L’Arlot and Chandon des Briailles.

Thanks for the history Todd,
I have purchased some of your wines from StoryTeller. The last being your Deux Verts Syrah. I like your philosophy of letting the wine improve on the counter. I often have several open as my wife drinks white and rose, so the bottles last several days. The Deux Verts started out a little underwhelming, but came around in the glass and everyone came around to it as well. Also I had just assumed the Biggio came from the Biggi family of Beaverton Foods fame, I guess I was wrong. We plan on enjoying your wines, I have one left.

Thanks Dennis, the 07 DV Syrah is an interesting wine. Mr. Alberty is somewhat responsible for the famed XX as well. All the Syrah/Viognier blends are 100% whole cluster efforts with the two grapes growing adjacent to one another. Kind of like a Marcel Deiss exercise in terroir. The 08 XIV in the sampler is aged in new and used Oregon oak which lends it a distinctive sandalwood note. I think it’s a lot of fun.

I actually said this in an interview… “Pinot Noir should be a lady… But not a wallflower.” ~ Todd Hamina

To all: Todd’s wines are well worth a try, but be aware that - in my limited experience- the reds don’t show well right out of the gate. Give 'em a little time and they blossom. One thing’s for sure, he’s passionate about what he does and it shows in the care he takes in the winemaking process. I believe you can buy without fear.

Hey Bob,
One of the reasons I included the 07 and 08 Deux Vert is because it proves your point. They were hard and closed young, even the 09 is not ready to show. However, I’m beginning to think it more vineyard dependent as the 09 Zenith is all gushy and ready to roll. The WV PN is an 09 too, easy to like out of the gate. A few factors…

confirmed.

Let me add my 2 cents. Todd is a talented winemaker and easily the most involved of the winemakers Zenith works with, and we work with 12 really talented, involved winemakers. He is in the vineyard, with thoughts on how stuff should be done. We prune differently for Todd; we thin differently for Todd; we even pull leaves differently for Todd. So the man seems to have a point of view or a vision or a passion for doing things just so.

I appreciate that about Todd. And I like his wines…

Thanks Tim! I think decade + of vineyard management pays off in strategy for each vintage. Your site is in my wheelhouse. The Pommard from 11 is very pretty.

Just placed my order for the six pack.

Thanks Randy!

I’m in for a 3-pack… and totally breaking my no-buying cuz I’m old rule!! But I’m really looking forward to trying these wines. Thank you, Todd I and Todd II, for making this happen.

Thanks Jim! Rules are meant to be broken…

Todd since I am local can I pick up the wines at the winery or is it better just to order them on line?

Just call me Dan, we can meet up. And thanks!