Keg deliveries cut cost of local wine

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Good local wines for less money? It's happening at a number of Rogue Valley restaurants, thanks to the keg program.

Diners can enjoy wines from Wooldridge Creek, Rosella's and Troon of the Applegate Valley and Foris of Cave Junction for as much as one-third less per glass than the usual cost.

The reason? The wines are delivered in kegs rather than bottles. Wineries don't have to go to the expense of bottling the wine, and there's less spoilage at the restaurant.

"The program has many benefits — no packaging waste or cost," says Kara Olmo of Wooldridge Creek. "We are putting our highest-quality wines in kegs, fuel-efficient as we are now, delivering in much larger volumes than before, and the cost savings are being passed on to our customers. In addition, the wine is stored in a stainless-steel keg and pushed with nitrogen, so no spoilage."

The keg system allows smaller wineries like his to compete with larger ones, says Rex Garoutte of Rosella's, because it eliminates the cost of bottling. It also eliminates any restaurant's temptation to pour wine from bottles that have been open too long.

"We started back in May with Standing Stone Brewery and have since expanded to Kaleidoscope, 4 Daughters, Roscoe's, Pomodori and the OK Corral," says Olmo. Others may come on line soon.

Pomodori of Medford currently serves Wooldridge Creek zinfandel, Rosella Manu Aloha (a red blend) and Troon Trifecta pinot noir and may add one or two more. Rosario's of Medford plans to list the Troon pinot as its house red. Standing Stone of Ashland serves Wooldridge Creek chardonnay, tempranillo and a cabernet. And Kaleidoscope of Medford offers chardonnay, as well as a mostly zinfandel red blend from Wooldridge Creek.

Wild River Brewing Co. of Medford has poured chardonnay and a red blend from Foris for nearly a year.

The Troon wine carries the name Trifecta, or what the winery's Chris Martin calls "Pinot for the People." The product is a blend of pinot noir from up north and "some small Southern Oregon additions." You may soon see it at other restaurants. Martin plans to add pinot gris by the keg early next year.

By-the-glass prices for these keg wines range from $3.75 to $6.25. If they were poured from bottles, they'd likely run from $5 to $8.

WHEN YOU WALK INTO Pomodori Ristorante in Medford and look straight ahead, you'll probably notice a large number of wine bottles displayed on shelves. The restaurant has added an enoteche (wine library). It houses more than 60 different wines, all of them from Southern Oregon.

Patrons can order any of the wines to have with dinner (extra bottles of the whites are kept chilled elsewhere) or buy one to take home at 25 percent off. For example, if you wanted a bottle of Velocity's 2006 Velo with dinner, it would run you $24. Then if you wanted to buy a second bottle to take home, the price would be $18.

Most of the wines are at least $20 a bottle in-house, but not all. Two Bridgeview wines are priced at $14. The enoteche wines are listed on an insert in the regular wine list, so choices abound.

RED AND WHITE BLENDS typically are composed of three to five kinds of wine. Now, how about 16? That's the case with a Central California red called 2007 Big House Red. The winemaker appropriately comments that his wine has "more varieties than Sybil has personalities." The wine was made from familiar grapes like syrah, sangiovese, barbera, petite sirah, mouvedre, malbec, grenache, tempranillo and petite verdot, as well as some less familiar: montepulciano, tannat, charbono, touriga, aglianico, nero d'avola and sagrantino.

At any rate it was the best of three Big House wines I sampled recently — rich flavor with a hint of sweetness. The 2008 Big House White has only four ingredients: malvasia bianca, muscat canelli, viognier and roussanne. It's fruity, a bit like liquid candy.

The 2008 Big House Pink is a tangy, distinctive dry rose made from 11 varieties, including syrah, charbono, grenache, tannat, zinfandel, barbera, tempranillo, sangiovese, cinsault, sagrantino and petite verdot.

Each retails for just $9.99.

Cleve Twitchell is a retired Mail Tribune editor and columnist. E-mail him at clevelinda@msn.com.

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