Savage Grace

On my last trip to Washington in March, I visited many of the state's AVAs and tasted many great wines, with the further good fortune of meeting the makers of those wines. One winemaker in particular stood out, for his wines seemed both typical and atypical of Washington. The wines of Savage Grace have astonishingly high acidity - a characteristic I associate with the cool nights of Washington - but their fruit profile is much more restrained and reserved than much of the other wine I've tasted from the state. In March, I tasted his Sauvignon Blanc - which has an acidity I've rarely tasted outside the Loire Valley - Chardonnay, and Cabernet Franc - the latter two wines being among the highlights of the trip. So when last weekend I returned to Seattle to visit my good friend Matt Hemeyer of @drinkaddition, I made sure that I visited winemaker Michael Savage in his tasting room in Woodinville.

Woodinville

With hazy smoke drifting from Washington's forest fires on a warm Saturday afternoon, the atmosphere was warm and oppressive. I was also slightly hungover, the clanging in my head augmented by an outdoor pub-punk-metal band playing a block away from Woodinville's tasting rooms. These rooms are on an industrial estate, with dozens and dozens of sandwich boards pointing hopefully from the car park to a series of anonymous units. In the car park, there was a tour bus and a limousine, out of which staggered a high-heeled bachelorette party, as if they'd taken a very bad wrong turn from Napa. We wandered through the estate looking for a sandwich board to point us in the right direction, until we finally found Savage Grace, the estate's very last tasting room.

the tasting room experience

I really wasn't expecting to find Michael Savage, quiet and diffident, in the middle of an industrial estate visited by tour buses and bachelorette parties. Even though he's at the end of the estate, one of each came in while we were there, and he dealt with them nervously but efficiently. The tasting room is small, an industrial unit very tastefully converted into an intimate, stylish area.

Woodinville serves as a base for many wineries who source their grapes from distant, desolate eastern Washington. Like many other industrial tasting rooms, the wine is made on site, a tiny 'cellar' right next to the tasting experience. Michael took us into the cellar to show us the Sauvignon Blanc that had just been picked two days previously. He was ready to pour cultivated yeast into the tank - he described how he had experimented with native yeasts for Sauvignon Blanc and believed it made an inferior wine - and gave my friend Matt the opportunity to do it for himself. We all await with baited breath to see how the 2015 Sauvignon turns out: Michael thinks it will be bottled in February.

Michael Savage

Nervous, shy, and awkward, Michael Savage is not dissimilar to a quieter Woody Allen. Every question is received with a long pause as he considers the several different answers he could give. The answer he eventually decides to share is not likely to be the one expected, and it can take a while to follow his train of thought. Each answer takes a certain direction, however: his very particular take on how he thinks wine should be made and how he makes it.

Acidity is absolutely important. He picks his grapes earlier than anyone else does in the same vineyard, resulting not only in high acidity but wines with a very subtle, less fruity nature. He also chooses vineyards and growing regions that are cool, particularly Columbia Gorge, a wet AVA that straddles Washington and Oregon. The wines are generally released very young, giving the wines a raw just out of the barrel feel. This gives consumers the rare chance to taste quality, young wine near the beginning of its life. Although Michael is only into his fifth vintage with Savage Grace, the acidity and complexity of the wines offer definite ageing potential. Michael says he doesn't care when people drink his wines, though, just as long as they drink them.

the wines

just-picked Sauvignon Blanc

Having tasted eleven of his wines over the weekend, I just want to highlight some of my favourites.

Grüner Veltliner 2014 ($20)

Grüner Veltliner is a late-ripening grape with naturally high acidity (the grapes were picked in early and then late October), not always suited to the warmer climates of the US. Like many of the Savage Grace wines, the grapes come from Columbia Gorge's Underwood vineyard, the cool climate allowing a slow ripening of the grapes. This Grüner has typically floral and spicy notes of jasmine, ginger, and white pepper, with lightly tropical fruits. ✪✪✪✪✪

Chardonnay 2013 ($30)

I have written about this wine before, and I still think it's an exceptional example of a cool-climate Chardonnay not often found in the US. It's again from Columbia Gorge, though from Celilo vineyard, considered one of Washington's finest for Chardonnay. Grapes picked from the higher part of the vineyard give the wine its bracing acidity and are aged in tank, while those from the lower part are picked earlier, are aged in neutral barrel, and lend the wine its lightly spicy, cinnamon, and lime flavours. ✪✪✪✪✪✪

Cabernet Franc 2014 ($26)

Another wine I have written about before, and the one that I think is truly outstanding. To taste a red wine this young yet complex is very rare, with firm tannins, red fruits, and green, padrone pepper, rhubarb aromas. Michael told me that he accidentally aged a couple of the bottles in the warm back of his car for a couple of months. On opening the bottles, the wines tasted just as good but as if they were a year older, convincing him that this Cabernet Franc has great ageing potential. I suggested he should make a Madeira out of the grape in the future. ✪✪✪✪✪✪

Cabernet Sauvignon 2014

From Red Willow vineyard - one of Washington's greatest - this Cabernet has only just been bottled. It may seem a surprise that Michael should be making wine from a grape as bold as Cabernet, but the wine is quite different from most. Despite being so young, there are gamey, animal aromas, with intense black fruits and gripping but not dominant tannins. This is a restrained, yet intense Cabernet Sauvignon that's difficult to classify - its experimental nature is emphasised further as it's made from a new clone planted in the vineyard. ✪✪✪✪✪

Riesling 2013

The Seattle Times named this Riesling as the best Washington white of the year, and it's sadly already sold out. Michael described the wine as having a magical quality that he couldn't define. The grapes hung longer than they normally do, but still had a higher than usual acidity which is able to balance the residual sugar in the wine (29g/L). There's a wonderful complexity, with smoke, petrol, mineral aromas, together with lemon, lime, and orange blossom, given further depth by a honeyed sweetness. Once again, the grapes are from Underwood vineyard, where late ripening can cause issues: the terraces are so steep that the seventy-something vineyard owner can't access them on his tractor come wet November. He even once overturned the tractor trying to do so. Even Michael Savage's search for perfectionism falls short of asking the grower to do that again. ✪✪✪✪✪✪