Three Tasty, Quirky Wines from Oregon's Teutonic Wine Company

Teutonic Wine Company produces serious wines with a playful, adventurous branding aesthetic, exemplified in the three wines in today’s report. Barnaby Tuttle and his wife Olga put their first vines in the ground in 2005, after a friend offered them her fallow farm land in Alsea, Oregon. Barnaby, a restaurant wine buyer with a serious love of German wines, left his career and started making his own wine at a shared facility in Carlton. 

Teutonic’s first vintage was 2008, a small amount of Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier. Production has increased since then, as the couple found new fruit from other vineyards in the Willamette Valley, focusing on high-elevation, old-vine sites. Today they produce about 6,000 cases of wine, including Riesling, Pinot Gris, Pinot Blanc, Gewürztraminer, Pinot Noir, Pinot Meunier, and others. With the exception of the red blend in this report, Teutonic’s wines are all single-vineyard wines 

I found the two whites really interesting and different: a Riesling blend bursting with tropical flavors and a floral, spicy, dry Muscat. The red wine is produced in cooperation with Red Fang, a groovy doom metal band from Portland, Oregon. The band worked together with Teutonic to release “Red Fang Red,” which is a pretty cool and slightly oddball (in a good way) red wine that I was excited to taste. 

These wines were received as trade samples and tasted sighted. 

2016 Teutonic Wine Company Jazz Odyssey Wasson Vineyard - Oregon, Willamette Valley
SRP: $17
Light gold color. A tropical aromatic explosion of peaches, guava, lychee, honeysuckle, dandelion and circus peanut candies. Fresh but juicy texture, almost waxy, slight sweetness, packed with tropical goodness: guava, peach, lychee. Notes of honey and white flowers. Ripe, tropical, could use a bit more acidity for my palate, but it’s nice. A blend of Riesling, Gewurztraminer and Chardonnay. (88 points)  

2016 Teutonic Wine Company Muscat Recorded In Doubly Wasson Vineyard - Oregon, Willamette Valley

SRP: $17

Light gold color. Lots of tropical aromas (peaches, lychee, cantaloupe, guava nectar) with some honeysuckle. Medium acidity offers a nice frame to this plump, tropical wine (packed with kiwi, lychee, guava and tangerine fruit). I get notes of honeysuckle and baby’s breath. Juicy, floral, fun. 100% Muscat. (87 points)

2016 Teutonic Wine Company Red Fang Red - Oregon
SRP: $25
Light ruby color. Nose shows strawberries, wild raspberries, rose petals, white pepper, cola and tobacco. Light tannins on the palate, bright acidity, the wine boasts tangy cherries and raspberries, red apple peel. I get notes of cola, tobacco, white pepper and rhubarb, along with some coffee and cigar box. Light and brisk, but delicious, no jammy, fake fruit or oaky overtones, here, this is a simple-drinking, bright wine. An interesting blend of 80% Pinot noir, 15% skin-fermented Gewürztraminer and 5% Tannat, sourced from vineyards in the Willamette and Rogue Valleys. (88 points)

This post first appeared on the daily wine blog Terroirist.