Here’s your chance to score some from Full Pull Wines!
Disclaimer**Travis is a friend but a friend who makes damn good wine 
The offer:
Hello friends. When I first began writing about Washington wines more than a decade ago, the topic of “cult wines” and “cult wineries” came up all the time. To a point where it became ubiquitous enough to outlive its usefulness. I haven’t thought about the concept in some time now, but as I tasted through Travis Allen’s Kobayashi wines (named after his wife’s family), some of the old receptors started lighting up.
Micro-production? Check. Innovative techniques? You bet. Inscrutable website? Yes indeed. In-the-know critics and wine-message-board denizens getting geeked out about the wines while the general public slumbers? Happening as we speak. And most importantly, wines that live up to the hype? Emphatic check.
2019 Kobayashi Viognier WeatherEye Vineyard - $64.99 (TPU $54.99)
Owen Bargreen: “One of the most exciting spots to grow grapes, located on a high elevation, northern facing site on Red Mountain, the ‘WeatherEye Vineyard’ is carefully maintained by former Ciel du Cheval Vineyard Manager Ryan Johnson. Showing better range at a warmer temperature, right away the layers of honeysuckle and ripe banana offer intrigue, mingling with orange blossom and Japanese pear tones that all take shape in the glass. The palate is beautifully textured as this wine effortlessly glides across the mid-palate. Silky smooth throughout the drinking experience, the 2019 ‘WeatherEye Vineyard’ delivers ripe white peach, salted Macadamia nut, starfruit, vanilla cream and papaya tones, giving this an exotic edge. The weight and finesse are extraordinary here as this beautiful wine is absolutely gorgeous to savor in its youth and will provide drinking enjoyment for another eight to ten years. Drink-2020-2028. 95pts.”
A quick word on pricing and context. Certainly, if your context is “Washington Viognier,” then this may seem like a steep ask. I would argue that boxing wines in this way, with a narrow contextual framework, does more harm than good, and may deny you a transcendent wine experience. Why not expand the context? We could look at Washington reds, many of which command north of fifty dollars. The qualities that those wines have – complexity, textural intrigue, structural brilliance, ability to evolve in the cellar – are certainly able to be found in the finest white wines. That’s why the market is what it is for the top Chardonnays in the world, and the top Hermitage Blanc, and (importantly) the top Condrieus.
Condrieu, that special Viognier-only appellation in the Northern Rhone, is very much the inspiration for this wine, and those wines can command stratospheric prices. George Vernay’s 2018 vintage of Condrieu carried a release price of $240. So, if our context is “world-class Viognier,” then fifty-five bucks suddenly feels like a bargain! (Okay, I’m pushing it a little, I know.)
I should also say: it’s one thing to say that your wine is inspired by Condrieu. Plenty of Viognier producers will do that. It’s another to do what Travis did, and travel to the northern Rhone, and cajole your favorite Condrieu winemaker (Yves Gangloff; his 2019 Condrieu is on wine-searcher for $134) into becoming a consultant for your Washington Viognier project.
When I said “innovative techniques” at the beginning of this offer, securing the services of a Condrieu superstar is definitely one of them. Some others (to be clear, not all of these are involved in the Viognier): experimenting with alternate barrels, like acacaia (rare), and like Japanese mizunara oak (unheard of, and very, very expensive); bottling some wines without sulfur; super-extended macerations; skin-contact whites; creative winery-brewery collaborations. To meet and chat with Travis is to see a brain bubbling over with educated creativity.
And what’s amazing about all this is that Kobayashi is not Travis’ day job. By day, he is a nurse anesthetist at Seattle Children’s Hospital. His wines are made not at his own winery, but at shared spaces within Avennia and Force Majeure. It’s wild to think of a future where winemaking is Travis’ full-time gig. But for now, because of all those constraints, production is painfully limited, and of the handful of incredible wines we tasted (and they were indeed; characterful one and all), only one was available to us in enough quantity to offer, and even that is a borderline parcel size-wise.
There’s some real serendipity involved in this Viognier too. What makes Condrieu special (and difficult to replicate), is that Viognier achieves physiological ripeness there at robust sugar levels while still maintaining plenty of natural acidity. So you get wines that possess the dual character of intensity and energy. In most of Washington, you have to sacrifice one for the other. Harvest early for bright acidity, and you give up flavor. Harvest later for maximal flavor, and the acid completely drops out. But…
You may recall from Sunday’s Liminal offer that there’s a special new vineyard on top of Red Mountain: WeatherEye. I won’t repeat everything I said on Sunday – I know you all are capable of searching your email archives – but I will geek out and tell you that Travis ended up with finished alcohol of 14.5% on this Viognier and a pH of 3.2 (that’s a very low pH – or high acid – number for a white wine that ripe). Good luck finding those stats elsewhere in Washington.
All that to say: this is a special Viognier from a special Washington site, and from a winemaker that is bursting with potential. It begins with a nose of peach and mango fruit complicated by notes floral (honeysuckle) and lactic (crème fraiche) and mineral in turn. The texture is immediately head-turning; your brain is like: how can this be so creamy and so juicy all at once? But that’s the magic trick here: energy and intensity in a single package. The texture is just wonderful: seamless and palate-saturating. It’s a winter white to be sure, with a red-wine mouthfeel, and is best served close to red-wine temps: either straight out of a cool cellar, or given an hour out of the fridge before opening. Many rich-seafood pairings come to mind, but a crab and leek risotto is the one I can’t kick out of my brain.
To order this wine, click here
Please limit order requests to 4 bottles, and we’ll do our best to fulfill all requests. The wine should arrive in the next week or two, at which point it will be available for post-allocation curbside pickup, or for shipping during the next temperature-appropriate shipping window.
Regards,
Team Full Pull®