Minimus: the Distinctive Wines of Chad Stock
6/12/19 -
Chad Stock, the winemaker at Minimus, uses this label as a way of exploring off-the-beaten-path ways of making strange and fantastic wines. There are few producers who so regularly make fantastic wines using methods, grapes, and ideas that are almost unheard of. Whether it's the use of new acacia barrels, dry wines made from botrytised grapes, exceedingly rare mutations of Pinot Noir, or never-before-seen blends, Chad evinces a creative fluency in the cellar that is nigh unmatched. Today we have a few exciting wines to offer you that are both delicious, and intriguingly made.
When it comes to white wines, interesting aging methods and obscure grapes are the rule. The 2017 SM1 Sauvignon Blanc is sourced from the Applegate Valley in Southwestern Oregon, and aged in beautiful amphorae made domestically by potter and winemaker Andrew Dow Beckham, giving this wine a distinctive character I've never experienced in Sauvingon Blanc. Chad's 2016 Mount Eden Clone Chardonnay is also one of the more compelling Chardonnays I've had from Oregon, aged in cigar barrels, which are longer and thinner, and thus allow much more lees contact. The Mount Eden clone is one of the first Chardonnay clones brought to the US, and is rarely utilized in Oregon. In fact, this is the first bottling of 100% Mount Eden clone Chardonnay ever bottled in Oregon. The final white is perhaps the rarest. The 2017 Origin Pinot Gouges is made from an extraordinarily rare white mutation of Pinot Noir discovered by Henri Gouges in his vineyards in the 1930s. This wine is done with skin contact, and has immense, spicy aromatic power.
We also have two rosés to offer, neither of which are your basic garden variety summer sipper. The 2016 "This Would be Illegal in Europe" rosé is deep, dense, dark, dry, and still. Named in honor of it's wildly disparate cépage, this rosé is a blend of Tempranillo, Chenin Blanc, Pinot Gris, Petite Arvine, Schiopettino, Savagnin Rose, and Abouriou. This is a powerful, beautiful, structured, ageworthy rosé. We also have a delicious pet nat, the 2018 Dolcetto Petillant Naturel, which is from one of the only sites with Dolcetto in the state. This is a perfect, juicy, brilliantly articulated sparkler that is perfect for the hazy humidity of a New York summer.
The reds we have today are the 2017 SM3 Syrah and the 2015 Origin Pinot Noir Johan Vineyard. These are both striking, intense, ageworthy reds that take their referents from the Old World, but remain classic examples of what Oregon can be capable of in the right, conscientious, detail-oriented hands. Andrew Farquhar
