Gnothi Wine School

OCDevel LLC
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Learn about wine from first glass to intermediate level. Gnothi Wine School is a wine podcast you can take as a wine course online or in any podcast app. You don't need any wine vocabulary or even a glass in hand: each term is explained as it comes up, and the tasting exercises are optional. The course starts with what wine is and how to taste it, so you can describe a wine's structure, write a short tasting note and recognize a faulty bottle. Then it teaches what you'll use on the next bottle you open: the major grapes, starting with Pinot noir and its history in the Willamette Valley, then labels and buying, and storing, serving and pairing wine with food. The vineyard and winery lessons that follow explain the differences you've already met in the glass. After them come sparkling and other special styles, the laws that tie a wine to its place of origin, and the world's wine regions. The course ends with the business of wine. Oregon's Willamette Valley is the course's home ground. Each lesson comes back to its hills, winds, soils or Pinot noir, and to Ricochet Wine Co., the small McMinnville winery the course is taught through. Every episode invites you to visit Ricochet in McMinnville, booked at ricochetwine.com, and try that lesson on its wines. Shorter segments follow the valley's harvests and news through the year. The scripts and voices for this show are made with AI. Ricochet belongs to a friend of the show's creator, and the show receives no payment for featuring it. For listeners 21 and over; please drink responsibly. This show's audio is narrated by AI-generated synthetic voices.

Episodes

  1. 4d ago

    Pinot Noir

    A lesson on Pinot noir covering its thin skins, growing difficulties, clones and cool-climate homes, followed by how the Willamette Valley rose to fame on the grape after the 1960s. It closes with two 2022 single-vineyard Pinot noirs from Ricochet Wine Co. in McMinnville, compared by clone and site. This episode is narrated by AI-generated synthetic voices. Episode page & show notes Visit website Pinot noir: what it is and why it is hard to grow Young wines smell of red fruit and flowers; with age they move toward forest floor, mushroom and leather. The chapter lays out four growing problems: skins that split and rot in wet weather, tight bunches, early budbreak that exposes shoots to spring frost, and a tendency to mutate. That last trait gave rise to Pinot gris and Pinot blanc and to many clones. Pommard and the numbered Dijon clones (115, 667, 777) are described as typically darker and firmer versus brighter and more aromatic, but site, vintage and winemaking can outweigh the clone. Wädenswil is an older Swiss selection. The grape does best in long, cool seasons: Burgundy, the Willamette Valley, cooler parts of California, New Zealand and Germany, where it is called Spätburgunder. Very cheap, dark, jammy Pinot noir is often made to taste like something else. An optional side-by-side tasting against Cabernet Sauvignon or Malbec shows the difference in color, tannin and acid. How the Willamette Valley built its name In the mid-1960s, Oregon was widely considered too cool and wet for wine grapes. David Lett planted Pinot noir in the Dundee Hills and founded The Eyrie Vineyards. The claim that the valley shares Burgundy's latitude is a myth; it sits near Bordeaux's latitude. What it shares with Burgundy is a cool climate. An Eyrie 1975 Pinot noir finished among the top wines at two French tastings around 1979 and 1980, the second arranged by Robert Drouhin of Maison Joseph Drouhin. Placings are reported differently in different places. The Drouhin family later founded Domaine Drouhin Oregon in the Dundee Hills, and other Burgundian investors followed. Willamette Pinot noir tends to be moderate in alcohol, fresh and red-fruited. Early plantings leaned on Pommard and Wädenswil, with Dijon clones arriving widely from the late 1980s and 1990s. Two sites, one grape at Ricochet Wine Co. Ricochet Wine Co. in McMinnville owns no vineyards and buys fruit from named growers. The 2022 Holmes Gap Pinot noir is all Pommard from the Van Duzer Corridor, with about thirty percent whole clusters, native yeast and eleven months in French oak. The 2022 Eola Springs, from the Eola-Amity Hills, uses Swan and Calera clones, whole-cluster fermentation, twenty-one days on skins and free-run wine only. Decanter scored Eola Springs ninety-five and Holmes Gap ninety-four. Ricochet's Willamette Valley Pinot noir blends four vineyards and several clones. The suggested exercise is to taste the two 2022 wines side by side and note color, acidity and fruit character. Booking is through ricochetwine.com.

  2. Oct 29

    When a Bottle Goes Wrong

    The final tasting lesson covers six common wine faults, how to tell them from deliberate styles, and what to do with a bad bottle. It then turns to wildfire smoke taint and the 2020 Willamette fires, the newly finished 2026 harvest and fall events, and Ricochet's low-sulfur winemaking. This episode is narrated by AI-generated synthetic voices. Episode page & show notes Visit website Six ways a bottle goes wrong A fault masks what a wine should show. Disliking a wine does not make it faulty. Most faults give two signs: an unwanted smell, and fruit that has gone missing. Cork taint comes from TCA, which forms when molds meet chlorine-containing compounds in cork, wooden structures or equipment. It smells musty, like damp cardboard or wet dog. Panels detect it at a few parts per trillion, and individual sensitivity varies widely. At low levels it may only flatten the fruit. Estimates of how often it occurs range from about one percent to a few percent (cork taint overview). Oxidation browns the colour and brings bruised apple, stale nuts and a sherry note. Oloroso, vin jaune and many orange wines take on air by design, and they keep firm acidity. Reduction gives struck match, rubber, cabbage or rotten egg. A trace can be intended in cool-climate Chardonnay and Syrah. It can also fade with air. Volatile acidity gives vinegar or nail-polish remover. A trace can add lift. Brett, a spoilage yeast, gives barnyard, leather and bandage notes, and fruit seems drained. Heat damage tastes cooked and jammy. A raised cork or a sticky capsule are warning signs (common wine faults). Telling a fault from a style, and what to do Ask four questions: Does the smell hide the wine or belong to it? Does the style explain it? Is a second bottle clean? Is it harmless haze or tartrate crystals? Screwcaps remove cork as a source of TCA and cut oxidation, but they raise the risk of reduction. The restaurant ritual checks soundness, not whether you like the wine. Don't sniff the cork. Describe the problem plainly, and ask for another bottle if the fault belongs to that bottle alone (sending wine back). In a tasting note, record the fault in the nose and give the verdict in the conclusion. A faulty bottle is not scored for quality. A worked example shows how to identify TCA. Smoke in the vineyards Wildfire smoke carries volatile phenols such as guaiacol. Berries absorb them through their skins from veraison to harvest. Inside the berry, sugar binds them, so they have no smell. Fermentation, ageing and saliva later release them as ash on the finish. Because of this, labs test for both free and bound forms, and wineries run trial ferments (OSU Extension on smoke exposure). In September 2020, smoke sat over the valley for more than a week. Thin-skinned Pinot noir was hit hard. De Ponte Cellars cancelled its estate Pinot. Other producers made rosé or white Pinot noir, or used carbon fining or a spinning cone (the 2020 vintage). Low intervention at Ricochet Ricochet Wine Co. in McMinnville adds no sulfur at crush. It mostly leaves its wines unfined and unfiltered, though it adds limited sulfur after malolactic conversion. Because it relies on less sulfur, clean cellar work matters. The 2023 Confluence Rosé was filtered because its malolactic conversion was stopped early. The pet-nat Le Ressort is meant to be hazy. Harvest 2026 and fall events Picking in the northern valley was done by October 22. Josh Bergström of Bergström Wines called 2026 one of Oregon's finest cool-climate vintages, an early view from one producer. By his account no day reached 100°F and there was no rain damage (Bergström on 2026). Whether early-August smoke from the Grasshopper Fire marked any wine will show only after fermentation. Upcoming events: Harvest Celebration at the Portland Art Museum, November 11, with fifty-four wineries (harvest events) Ricochet's Fall Social Club Release, November 7 Ricochet's "A Very Indie Thanksgiving," November 21–22

  3. Oct 22

    Where Wine's Smells Come From

    How to trace a wine's aromas to the grape, the winery or age, then judge its quality and write a four-part tasting note. Ricochet's Holmes Gap Pinot noir shows how whole clusters and oak shape a wine's smell, and the chapter follows how Willamette Pinot noir changes as it ages. This episode is narrated by AI-generated synthetic voices. Episode page & show notes Visit website Grape, winery, time: where every smell comes from Every smell in a glass has a source you can name. Primary aromas come from the grape, secondary aromas from fermentation and cellar choices, and tertiary aromas from aging. The chemistry behind wine aromas starts in the grape. Terpenes give rose, orange blossom and lychee. Thiols give passion fruit, grapefruit and boxwood. Pyrazines give green pepper and cut grass, and they fade as grapes ripen. Esters, made mostly by yeast, smell of banana, green apple and pear drop, so they sit between the first two groups. Cellar choices leave their own trails. Lees add bread and biscuit. Malolactic conversion produces diacetyl, which smells of butter. Oak gives vanillin, the vanilla compound in barrels, along with coconut from lactones and toast and spice from charring. Whole-cluster fermentation can add violet, black tea and pepper if the stems are ripe, and harsh green notes if they are not. Slow oxygen over years turns fresh fruit into dried fruit and brings leather, earth, mushroom, honey and nuts. Quality rests on four measures: balance, length, intensity and complexity. A wine showing all four is outstanding. A tasting note follows the order of tasting: appearance, nose, palate, then conclusion, as in the systematic tasting approach. An optional side-by-side comparison of an unoaked white against an oaked Chardonnay, and a young red against an older one, puts all of this into practice. Reading Holmes Gap back to the cellar Ricochet's 2022 Holmes Gap Pinot noir is made from bought Pommard-clone fruit from the Van Duzer Corridor. About 30 percent went in as whole clusters, fermentation used native yeast, and the wine spent eleven months in French oak, a quarter of it new. Those choices predict the wine's smell: red fruit from the grape, floral, tea and pepper notes from the stems, and vanilla, spice and toast from the partly new rather than neutral barrels. With only a quarter new oak, the wood frames the fruit rather than covering it. Decanter scored the wine 94 points, and scored Ricochet's 2022 Eola Springs Pinot noir 95. How Willamette Pinot noir ages Young Willamette Valley Pinot noir shows cherry, cranberry, raspberry, plum, rose and hibiscus, nearly all of it primary. Oak and stems add their own layers. With age, the fruit dries and forest floor, mushroom, truffle, cedar and leather take over. The valley's cool climate helps grapes hold acidity, which keeps the wine fresh while those earthy notes grow. To finish, listeners are invited to sort a Ricochet wine's aromas on a visit to the winery and write a four-line note.

  4. Oct 15

    The Rest of the Palate

    How to judge tannin, alcohol, body and finish, and how all six parts of structure combine into one tasting note. Also why thin-skinned Willamette Pinot noir is light in grip and moderate in alcohol, and how a warmer year pushes its alcohol higher. This episode is narrated by AI-generated synthetic voices. Episode page & show notes Visit website Tannin, alcohol, body and finish Tannin comes from grape skins, seeds, stems and new oak. It is felt rather than tasted: it binds the proteins in saliva and leaves the mouth dry and gripping, like black tea brewed too long (what wine tannins are). Acid makes the mouth water and tannin dries it, so the same pause after swallowing or spitting tests both. Tannin is rated low, medium or high, along with its texture, from fine-grained and ripe to coarse and green. How a wine was made predicts it: white has almost none, rosé very little, red the most, and orange wine some. Alcohol follows ripeness, since riper grapes hold more sugar for the yeast to turn into alcohol. It shows as warmth in the throat and as weight, and a burn means it is out of balance. Still wine counts as low below eleven percent, medium from eleven to thirteen point nine, and high from fourteen. Most American labels state the alcohol, and above fourteen percent they must. The stated figure may be off by one and a half points at fourteen percent or below and by one point above, but never across fourteen, the legal line between table wine and dessert wine (alcohol content on wine labels). Body is the wine's overall weight in the mouth, like skim milk against whole milk. Alcohol drives it most, with sugar, extract, lees and oak adding weight and acid trimming it. Finish, or length, is how long the pleasant flavor lasts after swallowing or spitting, counted in seconds; lingering warmth, drying or mouthwatering does not count. A long finish is one sign of quality. Together the six parts make a structure note such as "dry, high acidity, medium tannin with a fine grain, medium alcohol, light to medium body, medium finish." An optional exercise compares a crisp white with a fuller red. Why Willamette Pinot noir is light in grip and moderate in warmth Pinot noir's thin skins give pale color and lower tannin, often silky when the grapes ripen well, while thick-skinned Cabernet Sauvignon gives dark color and firm grip. Some winemakers add grip with whole bunches or longer time on the skins. Ricochet Wine Co. reports that its 2022 Holmes Gap Pinot noir, from the Van Duzer Corridor, was made with thirty percent whole clusters and spent eleven months in French oak, a quarter of it new, so stems and new oak add tannin to the thin Pinot skins. The cool valley keeps sugar, and so alcohol, in check. Producers commonly report thirteen to fourteen percent, and Prince Hill Vineyards reports 13.1 percent for its 2022 Dundee Hills Pinot noir (technical sheet). Cooler years such as 2019 and 2022 often land near thirteen percent, while warmer years such as 2018, 2021 and 2023 climb toward fourteen, with darker fruit and a fuller body.

  5. Oct 15

    Sweetness and Acidity

    How to taste sweetness and acidity, why they mask each other, and how their balance forms a wine's first structure. Also why the cool Willamette Valley climate keeps grapes' acid, and where the 2026 harvest stood in mid-October. This episode is narrated by AI-generated synthetic voices. Episode page & show notes Visit website Sugar, sour, and how they hide each other Residual sugar is the grape sugar yeast leaves behind in the finished wine. It is measured in grams per liter, and most tasters miss it below about two to four (how residual sugar works). The four-step sweetness scale runs dry, off-dry, medium and sweet. European rules let a high-acid wine stay "dry" up to nine grams per liter (international sweetness standards and the WSET approach). Ripe-fruit aromas and high alcohol can make a dry wine seem sweet. To check, pinch your nose shut during a sip: fruit you smell drops away, while sugar you taste remains. "Fruity but dry" is often the right call. Acidity comes mainly from tartaric acid, which is steady, and malic acid, which has a green-apple sharpness. Malolactic conversion turns malic acid into softer lactic acid, and a winemaker can choose how far it goes: Ricochet Wine Co. put its 2023 Pinot blanc through full conversion but stopped the conversion short in its 2023 Confluence Rosé to keep the wine's acidity. To rate acidity as low, medium or high, wait after swallowing or spitting and notice how much your mouth waters, and for how long. That works even in sweet wines (understanding acidity in wine). Sugar masks sourness and acid masks sweetness, the way sugar changes lemonade (acid, sweetness and tannin on the palate). Judging how the two sit together is balance, the first piece of structure. An optional two-wine exercise compares a dry white with an off-dry Riesling. Why Willamette grapes stay fresh Most of the valley falls in the coolest heat class. Cool Pacific air comes in through the Van Duzer Corridor, and days and nights can differ by twenty-five to thirty-five degrees. Grapes burn malic acid fastest in heat above about eighty-six degrees, so cool afternoons and cold nights help them keep it (ripeness in viticulture). Picking means trading sugar against acid while watching for autumn rain. Winemakers track sugar in degrees Brix, test acid, and taste the fruit (must analysis basics). Still Pinot noir is often picked around 22 to 24.5 Brix. Fruit for sparkling wine is picked earlier, around 18.5 to 20.5. The 2026 harvest so far Picking began around the start of September, with sparkling-wine fruit first. By early to mid October, harvest was in full swing or wrapping up (harvest in full swing). Growers reported an early budbreak, and in early summer they called the season moderate so far, though late May brought one very hot week. Smoke from the Grasshopper Fire reached the valley in early August; whether it marked the wines will not be known until they are finished. Final tonnage is not counted yet. The season follows a 2025 in which Oregon grape production fell 25 percent. Industry opinion so far is hopeful, but the finished wines will show whether that holds.

  6. Oct 15

    The First Glass

    A first lesson in wine that shows how fermentation and winemaking choices produce the seven main families, then gives a step-by-step method for looking at and smelling a glass. It closes on Oregon's Willamette Valley, its Pinot noir, and the truth about its latitude compared with Burgundy. This episode is narrated by AI-generated synthetic voices. Episode page & show notes Visit website The lesson answers two questions: what wine is, and how to look at a glass and smell it. Its examples come from Oregon's Willamette Valley and from the show's home winery, Ricochet Wine Co., founded in McMinnville in 2018 by Erich Berg, a former high-school English teacher who makes its wine. It has no vineyards of its own and buys its grapes from growers it names. What wine is, and the seven families Wine is grape juice fermented by yeast, which turns sugar into alcohol and carbon dioxide. If the yeast eats all the sugar the wine is dry, and if some is left the wine tastes sweet. Grape juice is nearly colorless even from dark grapes, because color and tannin live in the skins. That makes skin contact the dividing line between styles. White wine is pressed off the skins before fermentation. Red ferments with skins and seeds. Rosé gets a short soak of a few hours up to about a day. Orange wine is white grapes made by the red method. Three more families come from other choices: Sparkling wine keeps its gas. Ricochet's Le Ressort finishes its single fermentation in the bottle, and its Off-Line has its gas added at bottling. Sweet wine keeps sugar, either because the yeast is stopped early or because the grapes are dried, frozen or shriveled by noble rot. Fortified wine has spirit added. Added during fermentation it gives a sweet style like Port. Added after fermentation it gives a dry style like Fino Sherry. Looking at the glass What you need is a clear tulip-shaped glass, a white background, plain light, a pour of about fifty milliliters and no perfume. Spitting is normal. This lesson needs no tasting at all. Tilt the glass to about forty-five degrees and judge three things: Clarity. Haze raises a question rather than giving a verdict, since some wines are unfiltered on purpose. Color. Whites run from lemon-green to brown. Reds run from purple through ruby and garnet to tawny, and the rim shows age first. Depth. For reds, the stem test helps: look straight down through the wine at the stem. Color says nothing about quality, price or exact age. Legs mainly reflect alcohol, with sugar making them slower and thicker; they are not a sign of quality. Smelling it Take one sniff before swirling to check the wine is clean. Faults to notice include damp cardboard (corked), bruised apple (oxidized, from too much air), rotten egg (reduction; a faint struck-match or flint note can be deliberate, and reduction is a fault when it dominates) and vinegar or nail polish remover (volatile acidity: acetic acid with ethyl acetate). Then swirl and take short sniffs. Judge intensity as light, medium or pronounced. Sort what you smell into broad groups: fruit, flower, spice and herb, or earth. The chapter closes this part with a five-step routine to run with a white and a red side by side. Home ground in Oregon The course is anchored in the Willamette Valley, which lies between the Coast Range and the Cascades. It has wet winters and dry summers, with Pacific air entering through the Van Duzer Corridor. Thin-skinned Pinot noir leads there, so it often lets you see the stem. The 45th parallel runs through the valley, which stretches from about 43¾ to 45¾ degrees north, so its latitude matches regions such as Bordeaux, not Burgundy. Burgundy lies one to three degrees north of the 45th parallel, and even the valley's north end falls about half a degree short of where Burgundy begins. What it shares with Burgundy is a cool climate, and the two are cool in different ways, as this Willamette Valley vs. Burgundy comparison and the Willamette Valley AVA overview lay out.

  • 6 Episodes

About

Learn about wine from first glass to intermediate level. Gnothi Wine School is a wine podcast you can take as a wine course online or in any podcast app. You don't need any wine vocabulary or even a glass in hand: each term is explained as it comes up, and the tasting exercises are optional. The course starts with what wine is and how to taste it, so you can describe a wine's structure, write a short tasting note and recognize a faulty bottle. Then it teaches what you'll use on the next bottle you open: the major grapes, starting with Pinot noir and its history in the Willamette Valley, then labels and buying, and storing, serving and pairing wine with food. The vineyard and winery lessons that follow explain the differences you've already met in the glass. After them come sparkling and other special styles, the laws that tie a wine to its place of origin, and the world's wine regions. The course ends with the business of wine. Oregon's Willamette Valley is the course's home ground. Each lesson comes back to its hills, winds, soils or Pinot noir, and to Ricochet Wine Co., the small McMinnville winery the course is taught through. Every episode invites you to visit Ricochet in McMinnville, booked at ricochetwine.com, and try that lesson on its wines. Shorter segments follow the valley's harvests and news through the year. The scripts and voices for this show are made with AI. Ricochet belongs to a friend of the show's creator, and the show receives no payment for featuring it. For listeners 21 and over; please drink responsibly. This show's audio is narrated by AI-generated synthetic voices.

Information

  • Creator
    OCDevel LLC
  • Years Active
    2026
  • Episodes
    6
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © All rights reserved 2026, OCDevel LLC
  • Show Website
    Gnothi Wine School