It was a lazy afternoon; the perfect day for wine tasting.

I got into my orange truck and found myself heading up the empty freeway to a posh steakhouse with overpriced beef and a million wines sleeping on polished wine racks. It was a Pacific Northwest tasting. Years ago when the wines were just so-so, you would find yourself almost alone, with a bunch of smiling but enthusiastic long-haired and bearded winemakers pouring average-flavored but expensive pinot noir and pinot gris from Oregon, and cab and merlot from Washington state.

How times have changed! Instead of poor hippies humming Grateful Dead songs and pouring wine, there are now yuppified winemakers in neon polo shirts pouring most excellent vino. The reason for the change is quite simple: The vines are finally mature – some vines 15 to 25 years old.

The Northwest has always been an excellent viticulture area, the Columbia Valley in Washington and the Willamette Valley in Oregon both having good soil and climate for wine growing. Maturing vines takes time, but adds so much to the quality of the vino.

At the tasting, I moved through the crowd of laughing, overly-friendly wine buyers. Not much spitting was going on here. I went to my favorite Oregon winery, Bethel Heights, a winery I have always felt was the benchmark in quality with the pinot family wines. I tasted the pinot gris, which was pure silk on the tongue and had a body that is impossible to find outside of Friuli in Italy. The pinot noir had nuances of burnt black cherry, reminiscent of flaming cherries jubilee, and the delicate watermelon flavor which is what Oregon pinots are all about. I thanked the overly-friendly lady there and moved over to the next table.

There stood a man who looked like MGM central casting for a winemaker – Andrew Rich, 40-something, with kosher salt and coarse black pepper hair and a strong chin. His wines were from both Oregon and Washington. I looked into Andrew’s eyes and knew he was different; that he had talent, that he wasn’t afraid to take risks and break out of a mold.

With the first taste of Roussanne, a white Rhone varietal almost ignored in California, the wine had nuances of flowers, honey and ripe peaches with a hint of minerality. Wow!

He could see I was impressed. I asked him where he had worked before he started his own winery. He told me he worked for Randall Graham of Bonny Doon Vineyards.

Then I understood. Randall Graham is the mad scientist of the wine biz, experimenting with strange blends, a lover of Rhone wines like Cotes du Rhone and syrah. Randall Graham has always been the marshal of the Rhone Rangers movement in California, and has created wines like Le Cigare Volant – a Chateauneuf-du-Pape style using grenache, syrah and mourvedre – and the Big House wines in white, red and pink.

Andrew worked with Randall for six years and then headed north to Oregon to make his own vino. He was interested in making Rhone varietals in the Northwest and was interested how the terrior would change grenache and syrah. He found that the region yielded lush and rustic wines, with rich fruit and a sensual mid-palate. His pinot family wines were excellent expressions of Oregon wine, but Andrew’s Rhone wines were out of this world.

Finding grenache and syrah in the Columbia Valley was a daunting task for Andrew and his big red dog, Romeo. It was hard to break the cab and merlot mentality in Washington. But Andrew, who studied wine in France, had a passion for Rhone wines and was not going to be denied.

I feel that his Coup d’Etat, a Rhone blend with spicy mourvedre in the forefront, is one of the finest examples of a Rhone-style blend in the new world.

His syrahs were beautiful, too. Andrew also made a couple of fun wines, a gulper malbec and an aromatic cabernet franc.

Andrew Rich is very talented, and his wines – like most artisan wines – are made in very limited production. Get them while you can.

Frank Marquez has worked as a wine buyer, seller, writer and lecturer. He can be reached at dirtdog7@cox.net.