Summer is the Time for Tasting

Continuing the previous post, when I went up to the winery, I was expecting it to be pretty quiet. I rent space from ADEA Wine Company in Gaston, OR, which is about 12 miles north of the vineyard. Six wineries currently make wine there (ADEA, Biggio Hamina, Bishop Creek, Cancilla Cellars, Matello, and Twelve).

I was quite surprised to see about 30 motorcycles parked outside the front door and a bunch of leather-clad people hanging out having a picnic. Turns out it was the second annual Poker Run for a local bike club and we were the lunch stop. Dean from ADEA was hosting. It's always something - on Memorial Day we had a group with four Pontiac Solstice convertibles.

While I was barrel tasting I got a call from another winery asking for directions for a couple that was tasting there. Long story short, their daughter had attended a Twelve tasting in North Carolina and insisted that they stop at the winery while they were in Oregon. So I met a very nice couple from Tennessee who were at the beginning of a two month RV trip through the northwest.

One of the things I really like about the wine business is the ability to talk to people about wine in the winery. So if you're in Oregon this summer, call and make an appointment to come visit. I guarantee you'll get a host who is deeply knowledgable about the wine and the vineyards (process of elimination - there are no other employees besides me) and likes nothing better than spending time tasting and talking about wine. The appointment hotline is 503-358-6707.

Tasting the 2008 Vintage

The day after I returned from my around the world trip, I went up to the winery and tasted through some of the 2008 wine that's still in barrel. This is going to be quite an interesting vintage. The wines smell and taste great.

We fermented some lots with completely destemmed fruit, and for the first time ever we did some with varying percentages of whole clusters. Adding in effects of the new barrels from three different barrel producers (Cadus, Damy and Francois Freres), the three clones (115, Pommard and Wadenswil), and the range of ages of the plants (8 to 25 years old), we have a lot of blending choices. We expect total Pinot Noir production to be slightly over 1200 cases.

Trip Around the World - Coolest Airport Wine Shop

Between Delhi and Cairo I changed planes in the eighth wonder of the world - Terminal 3 in Dubai. People talk about Heathrow being a huge shopping mall, and the Seoul airport has quite a collection of shops, but the Dubai airport is ridiculous. And in the middle of it is an amazing wine shop - Le Clos. It's not very big, but this series of pictures shows it's pretty special. A little weird to be standing in the middle of a bunch of first growths and grand crus in an airport.

They had one of my favorite Burgundies - Comtes Lafon Volnay Santenots Du Milieu from the incredible 2005 vintage, so I picked up a bottle of that along with a 2005 Chateau Montrose. Prices were even lower than in the US.

Trip Around the World - Kimchee

Kimchee is the national dish of South Korea. I've never had a meal there where it wasn't served. I actually found the Kimchee Museum (yes, there is a kimchee museum) which wasn't large, but was very informative. There is an amazing variety of kimchee across the country. The one fact I remember (was still recovering from the previous night's soju experience) was that hot peppers weren't native to Korea, so kimchee didn't get spicy until someone brought them in.

Like wine, kimchee is fermented and the Koreans talk a lot about the health benefits - low calorie, high fiber, rich in vitamins and lactic acid bacteria. Regardless, it tastes great. Here's picture of one of the displays in the museum. They had over 60 different kinds.

Trip Around the World - Seoul part 2

It was pretty cool seeing thousands and thousands of South Koreans out celebrating their Memorial Day. Above is a picture of a display of the flags of all the nations that helped during the Korean War. But talking about Korea with out talking about the national dish would be criminal, so that's the topic of the next post.

Trip Around the World - Seoul

I just returned from an eight-day trip around the world for my day job. I was in Seoul, Delhi, Cairo and Manchester. That's a lot less sexy than it sounds. But I did have a few wine experiences. For example on the left is a picture of the small wine rack outside of my hotel's bar in Seoul. They clearly take their wine seriously in Korea.

The sad thing was I didn't even drink any wine in Seoul. I attended a dinner with customers and drank the traditional soju, which is "wine" made from sweet potatoes. It's similar to sake - about 19% alcohol, clear, packs an enormous punch in large quantities. Following the usual custom of drinking a shot with everyone from the customer's party, let's just say the next day wasn't a whole lot of fun. It also happened to be Memorial Day in Korea and the square outside of my hotel was ground zero for the Seoul celebration. The (very) amplified speeches started at around 8AM.

Introduction

I've finally decided to take the plunge into Web 2.0. As usual, I'm several years behind the curve - I was late into CDs, late into DVDs, late into big screen TVs and still don't own a Blu-Ray. The odd thing about this is that my day job is in one of the most geeky, high-tech areas of computer software. That's right, I still have my day job.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. First things first, my name is John Lenyo and I live on my vineyard in Carlton, Oregon. We moved into the vineyard in 1998 (two weeks before harvest - not recommended) and our first vintage of Twelve was 2003. We only make Pinot Noir and Pinot Blanc and currently all the fruit is sourced from our vineyard.

I was bitten hard by the wine bug in 1992. I do remember the bottle - 1982 Dunn Howell Mountain Cabernet and the restaurant - the now closed Cypress Club in North Beach, San Francisco. (My previous wine experience had been limited to things like Liebfraumilch and the $1.99 Bulgarian or Romanian brand Trakia - not that there's anything wrong with that of course). Once I tasted that wine, I started down a very slippery slope that involved lots of classes, tastings, some collecting, a preference for Pinot Noir and too many mailing lists, culminating in the actual purchase of 23 acres with a house and a small vineyard.

So welcome to my blog and I can only hope that there'll be lots of interesting content.