Paul Gregutt
Wine adviser

I knew there was some magic to dog wines when I noticed at last month’s Auction of Washington Wines that one of the most popular lots consisted of a mixed case of dog-themed wines, a dog painting, six nights for your pooch at the Seattle Canine Club and a copy of Wine Dogs USA. The package, valued at $2,600, fetched an impressive $3,500.
The Wine Dogs series of books (created by a pair of Australians, the kings of critters) have become tasting-room best sellers overnight. Also available at www.winedogs.com are calendars, greeting cards, baseball caps, and soon to come more books featuring the “hardworking” wine dogs of New Zealand, South Africa and Italy.
Not wanting to hound you with wines that truly are, well, dogs, I’ve set out to work my way through a wide selection of existing canine cuvées to find those that I feel comfortable unleashing on the world. Here you go.
The best-loved, best-drinking dog wines by far are Dunham Cellars Three Legged Red ($16) and Dunham Cellars Four Legged White ($20). The red is a tribute to Port, Eric Dunham’s much-loved mutt, who is, indeed, missing a leg. The white (for a Border Collie named Mazie) is a Lewis vineyard Riesling, with a splash of chardonnay in the blend. Different dog, same great winemaking.
Other Northwest paeans to real pets include Hightower Cellars’ 2005 Murray Cuvée ($20), a friendly, merlot-based red blend dedicated to their yellow Lab (“bring on the wine and stinky cheese, and cheers to Murray!” say the owners); and O’Reilly’s — the budget lineup of wines from Oregon’s Owen Roe winery. Grab a bottle of O’Reilly’s 2006 Chardonnay ($13), with a handsome line drawing of an Irish wolfhound. It’s packed with lush, leesy flavors of apples and herbs, lightly touched with oak.
In California, Mutt Lynch wines lead the pack with such offerings as Unleashed Chardonnay, Merlot Over and Play Dead and the Canis Major (“Greater Dog”) series. Prices range from the mid-teens to $35 for the single vineyard stuff. Order online at www.muttlynchwinery.com.
Dog Tail Vineyards is new to this market, with five wines featuring a cartoonish label and the slogan: “It’s just a great whine.” Well, maybe not great, but pretty good for a party at $8 a bottle. Best of the litter: the non-vintage wines, Watchdog White and Fire Hydrant Red.
Other countries are jumping on the dog wagon as well. Among the wines I liked best were a sweetly tangy Spanish red called Mad Dogs & Englishmen ($10); a light Italian Monti Montepulciano d’Abruzzo ($18); and a tannic, herbal Chateau Lezon “Special Cuvée” Bordeaux ($26). The dog on that label is the owners’ black Lab, named Bollinger. Bollinger, we may assume, has a mutt wine budget but Champagne taste.
The numbers game
The Aug. 31 edition of Robert Parker’s highly influential Wine Advocate newsletter was greeted with a rousing chorus of hoorays from almost everyone who makes, sells or markets Washington wines. I’m as happy as anyone when Washington wines get the recognition they deserve, and some of the wines cited are indeed among this state’s best.
However, apart from the high scores, which the Advocate handed out like free candy on Halloween, the article lacked any semblance of meaningful analysis. This set of reviews was written by Dr. Jay Miller, a longtime drinking buddy of Parker, who named him the successor to Pierre Rovani, once responsible for covering the Pacific Northwest.
Miller has scored big points of his own, simply by putting up big numbers. “A record-breaking number of 90 plus scores for Washington State wines,” trumpeted one industry news release. “164 Washington wines 90 points or higher.”
Let’s face it, the wine trade is hooked — as in addicted — on scores, especially those that emanate from Parker. Never mind that it was Jay Miller, not Robert Parker, who tasted and rated these wines. Look around and you’ll see plenty of people quoting the reviews, and I’ll bet that they all use Parker’s name.
A close reading of the text shows it to be loaded with mis-statements, mangled facts, excessive hype and careless, repetitive criticism. Miller says much of Washington’s syrah is coming out of the Walla Walla AVA; in fact, very little is grown there. He gives exemplary scores and reviews to barrel samples — barrel samples! — from a number of brand new, unproven wineries, then dismisses the entire output of Columbia Winery (“I found only two wines that I could recommend”) with a final zinger: “This 200,000 case winery has been underachieving for at least the past 20 years.”
Many other excellent wineries are either ignored (where are Beresan, Fielding Hills, Hedges, K Vintners, Rulo, Saviah, Syncline, Waters, virtually all of the Spokane wineries and most of Red Mountain?), or given short shrift. Of Cadence, Miller says, “Of the five wines I tasted, two merited recommendations.” Two? Implying that the other three were not worth even a mundane 85-point score?
When important national critics visit this state, they routinely taste through hundreds of wines in a few days. There are a few — very few — who can successfully evaluate young wines under such rapid-fire conditions. Robert Parker can. Pierre Rovani can. Stephen Tanzer can. A few others, such as the Wine Spectator’s Harvey Steiman and Wine & Spirits’ Patrick Comiskey, do a creditable job because they come up here frequently, and have for years. They know the region. Miller readily admits that he has been here exactly once before, in 1990.
Without the Parker name attached to his stardust numerology, how important would his scattershot impressions really be? The high scores will sell some wine, and don’t get me wrong, many of these wines are excellent. The big numbers provide a jolt of sales fertilizer, but little in the way of real nourishment for an industry that is desperately in need of informed, objective criticism.
In Walla Walla County, where I spend half of each month, many vineyards are being renovated from decades of farming that relied completely on chemicals to grow crops. The soils are dead. It takes many years to restore them to biodiversity and organic balance. A wine industry that feeds so voraciously on nothing but numbers is in danger, I fear, of a similar fate.
Pick of the week
Lindemans 2006 Bin 65 Chardonnay, $7. The Bin 65 is perennial bestseller for the simplest of reasons — the quality, for the cost, is exceptional. Over the years the style has moved away from the very buttery, sweet tropical fruit flavors of the past. This 2006 Bin 65 is sleek and modern, tasting of light melon, pineapple and lime, with crisp, palate-refreshing acids.

Paul Gregutt, author of “Washington Wines and Wineries: The Essential Guide,” can be reached at wine@paulgregutt.com.