I've been meaning to write this post for a while and I've been procrastinating because I didn't want to somehow lose the magic I felt when I was at this winery...but, I think I'm ready to give it a shot.
To start, if you don't want to know much about the Devitt winery or my time there, then let me first tell you a little about the wines. Jim Devitt and his wife Sue make Chardonnay, Viognier, Merlot, Zinfandel, Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon and a dessert wine called "When Pigs Fly" (which I'll get to later) and there's not one we tasted that I would have spit out or not recommended to a friend. We walked out with over a case of mixed wine, which is unusual for me - not the case part of the story, but that it would be mixed with so many different wines and varietals. Typically, I latch on to a specific wine at a winery and buy that and not much else.
These are just good pure wines made from the heart and priced very fairly, with most in the $10 - $25 range. If you ever make it to southern Oregon, you should really try to put Devitt Winery on your list.Okay, now, on to the more compelling part of the story. Jim Devitt has been around wine and winemaking for a long time, off and on. He was the owner and winemaker for Pope Valley Winery in Napa Valley back in the early 70's and produced several award winning wines...until he could no longer make Pope Valley work. Didn't sound like it was an easy experience for him and he was a bit allusive when I asked him why that was, so I let it go. He did tell me this much - the dessert wine they make, was given its name because when Jim said when he wanted to get back into the winemaking business many years after leaving Pope Valley, his wife's first words were "When Pigs Fly"...and so when they got back into into wine (reluctantly, his wife would say), their dessert wine was appropriately called When Pigs Fly.
His son is Steve Devitt, the winemaker for Darioush in Napa Valley (picture at left) whose wines have also won various awards and definitely reside in the upper eschelon of big California wines (if for no other reason than price, with a nice bottle of Darioush Cabernet Sauvignon starting around $80). Not sure how much he picked up from his dad, but there is definitely winemaking in the Devitt family blood. [for the record...I am a big fan of Darioush wines, but they are definitely huge new world wines if that's not to your taste]Jim Devitt started Devitt Winery in 2003 as a vineyard with the sole intent of selling grapes, but then that business got tough on its own and he transformed it all into a winery. He says "We went back into the wine business as a fluke. We had no home for our grapes and we did not want the birds to get the crop, so we decided to build the winery, make wine and sell wine from our tasting room."
I can tell you this much, Devitt Winery is not a beautiful winery. It's not a grand structure or a centuries old villa and it is what I would consider to be the exact opposite of Darioush, a garish, completely overdone Persian winery in the heart of Napa Valley that could just as easily be located on the Las Vegas strip and called the "house" winery.
Devitt, in contrast, is a house where Jim lives, a big garage where Jim makes and pours wine for guests and some land where Jim grows grapes. Not much more. Having moved from Washington to California a few years back, it captured my imagination immediately as it's what I believe all great wine countries to have been like at one point - beautiful scenery, good neighbors miles away, a strong supportive community based around one common dream, etc. Too Norman Rockwell? Maybe, but even Napa was like this at one point.
In the front section of the garage, there is a small tasting room. Non-descript, really. Just a bar, some wines on shelves and a pretty hideous old bar lamp, straight out of a Godfather's Pizza parlour. The thing that struck me most was the number of flies that were circling around the bar. Not fruit flies, but standard house flies...about 8 or 10 of them, all chasing each other in a circle around the bar. Now, I've seen flies in every context and they don't bug me much, but it is a bit odd to see this many when you're just about to taste some new, as yet untested, wines. Just helped drive home the point that Jim would have been just fine had we not shown up that day.
Behind the tasting bar, there's a large garage that holds all of Jim's machines and barrels. Felt pretty off limits when we first walked in and, indeed it was. Jim walked into the tasting room with, I believe, no intention of doing anything with us but pouring a few wines and then bidding us a hasty adieu.That is what specifically made my visit to the winery so memorable (keep in mind, we went to Devitt almost two years ago and I've been to probably 30 - 40 other wineries since that time, with only a handful of stories). I saw something in Jim's eyes that told me I needed to listen to him and drink his wines with the earnest intent to understand how he nurtured each barrel and bottle. I felt like there was nothing else in my life that needed to happen, or needed to be resolved or even needed to be thought about at that moment - I was there and I was in this with Jim.
We tasted several of his wines, probably about 7 or so, over the course of a 1/2 hour and the conversation was cordial and interesting, but I hadn't yet broken through the shell of this man. When my wife excused herself for a quick break, I saw that as my opportunity to try to connect with him on a 1-to-1 basis.
Truth be told, this is undoubtedly a bit of revisionist history and I very much doubt that Jim would remember me if I walked into his winery today, but I do feel like over the course of those few minutes, I was able to connect with him in a way neither of us expected. I was genuinely interested in his life and wines and he slowly became genuinely interested in telling me about them. It was him and me and, as far as I was concerned, whatever was happening outside that tasting room, anywhere, was a moot point. When you're in Oregon and Washington (and other, smaller wine regions), this type of experience is more prevalent, but, in California, it's very rare. The wines are celebrities, the winemakers are celebrities, the wineries themselves are celebrities and there's just not much room to connect with the people so close to the wine.My wife came back to the tasting room and Jim invited us to the garage, the guts of the winery. As I originally thought this to be hallowed ground, I was very pleasantly surprised to get the invite. I felt like I had broken through somehow, just enough to get an insider's view of the Devitt machine. And it was everything I thought it would be...
Well, the story goes on a bit further, but I'll leave it at this...Experiences like this make me hold firm to the belief that there is still something very magical about wine. Sometimes it's the wine itself, sometimes a visit to the winery or a walk through the vineyards, sometimes the memories of sharing a nice bottle with family and friends, sometimes just a simple connection between two people...in any case, those moments are always there if we can just pay attention long enough to see them for what they are. Jim Devitt and his wines gave me hope to continue looking. In his words..."It's about each wine barrel and what makes it great!" And, for each wine barrel, there's a whole history and story that makes everything around it a potential glimmer of hope...something we could all use as we head into 2009.
Gadget
I took a trip from northern California's wine country where I live up into Oregon's Willamette Valley, and then the Applegate Valley on my way back home.
I was impressed with the grapes and the flavors they contained from the Applegate Valley, and was absolutely surprised and delighted by the wines of Schmidt Family Vineyards.
applegate valley has some wonderful wines and not as well known as willamette valley. we really enjoyed our time there and, as you can tell from my post, especially enjoyed going to devitt. we did not try schmidt family vineyards, in fact didn't know about it when we were there. i'll have to check it out sometime soon.