:Nota Bene Cellars
Being meticulous doesn’t guarantee great results, but let’s face it, gold medal winners and sloppy winemaking don’t mix. The best winemakers are painstakingly fussy: They monitor fermentation like a hawk and religiously keep detailed records. The production facility itself is clean and well organized, comparable to what you would find in a top-notch Lexus or Cadillac service center. To such perfectionists, winemaking is much more of a craft than an art. It’s much more science than guesswork. These winemakers are “left brain” types. And, assuming the grapes are from premium vineyards, the results are predictable: great wine. Such is the case with :Nota Bene and its chief winemaker, Tim Narby.
:Nota Bene is Latin for “note well” and happens to be associated with the first letter of :Nota Bene owners’ respective surnames: “N” for Narby and “B” for Tim’s wife, Carol Bryant. Tim, a Boeing systems analyst for more than 30 years, joined the Boeing Employees’ Wine and Beermaking Club years ago to learn first-hand the ingredients necessary for creating premium wines. Along with all those 767s, Boeing has been cranking out winemakers, who have gone on to establish wineries such as Soos Creek Wine Cellars, Eagle Haven Winery, Cadence Winery, Austin Robaire Vintners, Crutcher Family Cellars, Willis Hall Winery, and Pleasant Hill Winery. Unlike many of his Boeing brethren, however, Tim isn’t an engineer by background. Rather, Tim joined Boeing fresh out of the University of Washington with a degree in zoology. That zoology training serves him well when it comes to understanding the microbiology of what Saccharomyces cerevisiae (yeast) does to sugar.
:Nota Bene is a red-wine zone, represented by Bordeaux blends and syrah. With the help of assistant winemaker Mark Rashap, Tim relies on grapes harvested from a who’s who of vineyards: Ciel du Cheval, Portteus Vineyard, Alder Creek, Champoux Vineyards, Artz Vineyard, Conner Lee Vineyard, and Stillwater Creek. The fact is, Tim prefers the option of selecting his grapes from various Washington vineyards and, like a gourmet chef, deciding which ingredients to include in a featured entrée. Tim is most intrigued by this blending or “linking” of disparate vineyard grapes. The name “Abbinare,” which is one of :Nota Bene’s Bordeaux blends, is the Italian word for “ to link.” His “Ciel du Cheval Vineyard” combines grapes from the vineyard of the same name but features four different varietals. “Miscela,” Italian for “blend,” contains a heavy dose of merlot, but also includes several other red varietals.
If you are looking for a lively discussion about topics such as volatile acidity distillation, titratable acidity, pH, malolactic paper chromatography, residual-sugar-by-pill test, and percentage of alcohol by ebulliometer, Tim is the person to see. We suggest, however, that you skip the technical process and go right to the wine—in the name of scientific research, of course.
-
Order the book!
:Nota Bene Cellars was featured in WineTrails of Washington as part of the Seattle WineTrail on page 94!
