Sentiments on Sediment

A long time ago, I was one of those wine drinkers that felt I only needed to know if I wanted red or white when ordering. It was only after spending time in serious wine country that I began to learn the subtle differences between those reds, whites, and roses. I’m still not so good at smelling & swirling, but I have learned through trial & error purchases at every store that sells wine in the Pacific Northwest what I like.  Gosh, it’s been fun drinking all those wonderful bottles but alas, a little tough on a ski-bum budget.

That’s why I’ve become a huge fan of tastings and flights. For the price of a glass, I’m able to sample anywhere from 3 to 8 flavors and then in a happy euphoric state, whip out the old credit card and buy my favorite bottle.  Or two.

The thing I’ve learned from my wine flights around the world is how each wine likes to share its connection with its place and space. Wines from Chile tell you a different story than wines from France. South African wines might tell you about sunny coastal regions, Italian wines about mountainous regions near the Mediterranean. And wines from the Pacific Northwest tell us about massive flooding.

Ok, that might not sound quite as romantic as being by the Mediterranean but wait…

Thanks to the large ice dams that lingered around Clark Fork about 20,000 years ago, a massive glacial lake formed. When water from the lake would finally break through the dams, 400 foot waves would rush across the land at sixty miles an hour, spreading silt and rocks all the way down the Clark Fork and Columbia River valleys.

The sediment left in the wake of these tsunamis created deep pockets of nutrient rich soil which are perfect for growing grapes. Yes, all those fantastic flavors and subtle notes that make our Northwest wines so good are because of those big old floods that started just a few miles from Schweitzer. Now that’s a narrative with all the right elements of drama and romance. 

Just goes to show, you can travel around the world in a flight but sometimes the best stories grow a little closer to home.