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Gersing Cellars 2019 Ciel du Cheval Nebbiolo
Playing jazz in the vineyard
It’s a classic tale. An accomplished young musician heads to the bright lights of New York City to make his fame and fortune. He’s getting gigs, but it’s not quite enough.
So, he… what? He heads to Long Island to work harvest for a winery. Not exactly classic.
Jason Gersing had hit upon the second passion of his life, after the saxophone. Before long, he realized that if he was going to be successful at wine, he’d have to leave New York. Sure, Long Island wine can be drinkable, but it takes a lot of intervention from the winemaker.
After studying enology in France, Jason moved to Oregon and joined Argyle Winery on the business side. Before long, he’d found his way to the Southeast Wine Collective, where his focus is on traditional, natural, and low-intervention winemaking.
As he likes to say, a winemaker should think like a doctor – and take a Hippocratic oath to “first, do no harm” to the grapes! Jason is now producing 800 cases a year – but you can still hear him picking up the sax and playing gigs around Portland.
Cellar 503 Tasting Notes
Gersing Cellars, Portland, Oregon
2019 Ciel du Cheval Nebbiolo
If you drink Italian wines, you’ve probably run across Barolo and Barbaresco — two wines named for their regions made from one of the oldest Italian wine grape varietals: Nebbiolo.
Personally, I love Nebbiolo; but there’s just not a lot of Nebbiolo produced in the Northwest; a shame because the grapes grow well in Oregon and it is a fabulous food wine. This is only the second single-varietal Nebbiolo we’ve been able to feature at Cellar 503.
Nebbiolo is a nice medium-bodied wine that thrives in the dry-but-temperate climates east of the Cascades. Aromatic and delicate at first, Nebbiolo often surprises with strong tannins and bold acidity.
Bright red fruit screams through Gersing’s Nebbiolo — sour cherries and raspberries. A vibrant ruby red color, this is a complex wine with firm tannins and an earthy leather finish that just won’t quit!
A Cellar 503 selection in August 2022, Italian Varietals Columbia Valley | Nebbiolo
