Press/Trade: Articles
Here are links to various articles about us and our award-winning wines!
Spangler – Southern Oregon’s Best Producer?
Southern Oregon is often overlooked by the pinot-centric wine drinkers who flock to Oregon wine. But there are a lot of wineries down there, in the Umpqua and Rogue Valleys (and the Applegate and the Illinois Valleys, too). And, the region is growing in terms of acres planted and producing wineries.
That’s the good news. The other news is that much of the wine is mediocre at best. I don’t mean to cast aspersions on the quality producers there, but let’s be frank – there are some really horrible wines, too. The average quality level in the Willamette Valley eclipses that of Southern Oregon for various reasons.
That said, there are quality producers making some really, really great wines. It’s warm down there, so Bordeaux and Rhone varietals are dominant, and pinot noir more scarce.
Over the last year, I attended two “road show” tastings of Southern Oregon producers, and also went to a couple of community wine festivals, where many Southern Oregon producers were pouring, and I tried a lot of products. The best wines, with consistent high quality across many varietals, were from Spangler Vineyards. For my money, they are currently Southern Oregon’s best overall producer.
The indefatigable Pat Spangler and wife Loree Spangler bought an existing winery in the Umpqua Valley back in 2004. The purchase included some estate vineyards, including old-vine cabernet sauvignon. That particular vineyard used to produce what was considered Oregon’s best cabernet (back in the ’90s) but that in retrospect was often green and overcropped.
The Spangler’s revamped the vineyard and assiduously cut yields and introduced other vineyard practices to improve grape ripening. Then, they took contracts with other vineyards and insisted on the same quality practices for their leased vines, too. The result is a lineup of big reds that are intense and that have great depth of flavor, that are ripe and balanced, and that showcase the Southern Oregon climate in a particularly delicious fashion.
The regional wine press and wine competitions have taken note, and bestowed a bevy of medals and awards upon Spangler – really, too many to list, but it is a lot.
Sincerely, Robert Wolfe
Oregon Pinot Noir Club
OregonPinotNoir.com
August 6, 2010
100 Best Wines of the Northwest
Seattle Metropolitan
September 2008
“Here in Seattle, we can’t get enough of wines from Washington and Oregon; they just taste like home. Yet these days oenophiles the world over are falling for our cabs and our merlots, our pinots and our chardonnays. To create a list of the best Pacific Northwest wines currently in release, Seattle Met enlisted wine critic Conde’ Cox, a current candidate for the prestigious master of wine certification, who braved serious palate fatigue from tasting over 1,000 different bottles. We start with the very best and make our way through 100 bottles…”
Our 2006 Spangler Estate Cabernet Sauvignon, in the 100 best wines of the Northwest!
Reputations on the move: East Coast publications pick up on Umpqua Valley wines and offer reviews of praise
By PAUL CRAIG
A story in the pages of a New York newspaper last week started this way: “The day before I drove to Abacela Winery … ”
Abacela Winery is in the Umpqua Valley, a long way from the newsroom of the New York Post. Still, there it was, Abacela, in that newspaper.
The writer had taken a tour of Southern Oregon’s wine region, including the Rogue, Umpqua and Applegate valleys.
“Adventurous wine tourists (having already ‘done’ Napa, Sonoma and Oregon’s own Willamette Valley) are discovering that southern Oregon not only looks like the rural Napa of 30 years ago, but that there’s more to do here,” she wrote.
To read more, click here
Go Ahead, Say It: Umpqua
Better You Should Taste It
by Dan Berger, March 17, 2008
The Umpqua Valley AVA is an “undiscovered” jewel but the gleam of the world class wines emerging from the region is about to change all that. Remember you heard it here first.
To read more, click on the link below:
http://wine.appellationamerica.com/wine-review/550/Umpqua-Valley.html
Best of the Best in the Great Northwest!
The 8th Annual Platinum Judging – a double platinum for Spangler Vineyards!
http://www.winepressnw.com/images/platinum07.pdf
“A Whiff of grape rot” by Cynthia Nowak
Winter 2006 University of Toledo Alumni Magazine
“Vintner Patrick Spangler (Bus ’89) doesn’t need to sample his wine cellar to become intoxicated; since he and his wife, Loree, became co-owners of Spangler Vineyards in Oregon’s Umpqua Valley, happiness with the new career has had him all but reeling…”
www.alumni.utoledo.edu/pdfs/winter06.pdf
AlaWine.com (Website Review)
Reason for reviewing: Spangler Vineyards 2005 Cabernet Franc earned both a Chairman’s Award and Gold Medal at the 2007 Riverside International Wine Competition. It also won Gold Medals at both …
http://www.alawine.com/archives/06-01-2007_06-30-2007.html#261
Uncorking the Gourmet Festival
Good things come in small packages — or in this case — bottles.
Fifteen small wineries from around the state will converge on the Bay Area this weekend for the Oregon Coast Gourmet Festival at the Pony Village Mall.
For more of this story and an interview with Pat Spangler by author Ron Jackimowicz, Cuisine Editor of The World, click here.
‘Cheers!’ to winning wines
Two Umpqua Valley wines earn platinum status from wine magazine contest;
Paul Craig
http://www.newsreview.info/article/20070109/NEWS/70109018/-1/rss02
Best of the Best in the Great Northwest: Platinum Judging
Wine Press Northwest searches for the shining examples of Northwest Winery gold medal winners!
http://www.winepressnw.com/newsletters/platinum
Go Ahead and Approach that Unattainable Cab
Katherine Cole of the Oregonian talks about our very affordable 2001 Cabernet Sauvignon! Read more . . .
Merlot Tops Spangler Winery Offerings
Cleve Twitchell of the Medford Mail Tribune really appreciates our 2000 Reserve Merlot!
http://mailtribune.com/archive/2006/0906/life/stories/cleve-0906.htm