Thanksgiving Weekend Tasting Hours

We'll be pouring on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday this weekend in our tasting room in downtown McMinnville (581 NE 3rd Street). We open at twelve and our tasting fee is $5. That covers the 2008 Estate White and all three 2008 Pinot Noirs (Estate, 144, Uh-Huh). We'll also be pouring at the winery (At ADEA, 26421 Hwy 47, Gaston, OR) on Friday and Saturday from 11-4. Tasting fee is $15 and also includes wines from ADEA and Matello.

We're done with Harvest 2010

Barreled (or barrelled - I'm not sure) the wine from the last three fermenters yesterday. It's been a whirlwind this year. The entire process from the start of picking the first grapes to everything in barrel or tank has taken 25 days. This is two weeks faster than a typical harvest, but we've never picked the entire vineyard in a single day before either.

Attached are some pictures of the barreling process - you can see the barrels and the fermenters, the stainless steel torpedo in the fermenter, the hose inside of the torpedo and the wine being pumped into barrel.

2010 should turn out to be quite a good year. The 'numbers' - sugar and acid levels - wound up right where you want them after the grapes spent a little time cold soaking. The flavors were there due to the late October picking dates, so all in all, we're very pleased. Had a nice mix of a couple of medium bodies wines from the 115 clone fermenters, some full-bodied Pommard and some black as ink, robust Wadenswil. We'll have some fun blending.

Robert Parker Wine Advocate Scores for the 2008s

We just got our scores from Jay Miller's Oregon report for the Wine Advocate (Parker actually doesn't do the Pinot Noirs, Jay does). I added a phrase or two from the review along with the score.

2008 Twelve Pinot Noir: "Bright and vibrant on the palate with an edgy, elegant personality" - 89 points.

2008 Twelve Pinot Noir 144: "similar aromatic and flavor profile to the Yamhill-Carlton bottling (the wine above), but with greater depth, concentration, succulence and finesse" - 91 points

2008 Twelve Pinot Noir Uh-Huh: "plush, velvety wine with layered fruit, outstanding volume, impeccable balance and several years of aging material" - 92 points

We'll be releasing the last two on November 20 at our official grand opening of our tasting room in McMinnville. If you can't make that nor the Thanksgiving weekend tastings, send us an email or give us a call if you want some. We only made 100 cases of each of the reserves.

Tasting Room Grand Opening - November 20

We've been working on finishing the tasting room since we had our soft opening in July. We now have lighting, a bar, a sink and some other accessories and are ready to have an 'official' grand opening in conjunction with the release of our 2008 Pinot Noir reserve blends - the 144 and Uh-Huh.

Come see us on November 20 from 12-8 at 581 NE 3rd Street in downtown McMinnville. the 20th is also the monthly Art and Wine walk in McMinnville, so after trying our wines you can wander down 3rd Street and check out a bunch of other places that will be featuring guest artists and wineries.

Harvest Update

2010 will go down as the fastest harvest we've ever done. We picked the entire vineyard in one day which we've never done before and hope to never repeat. And we processed all the fruit in one long shift on the sorting line which we also hope to never repeat.

On the bright side, the fruit looks really good. Sugars have soaked up (we leave the crushed berries in a cold place for a couple of days before we start fermentation) to 23+ Brix which means low to middle 13s on alcohol. Flavors were great, seeds were ripe, should be a very nice vintage. Some pictures of harvest are shown above.

2008 Pinor Noir Reserves

We opened our as yet officially unreleased 2008 144 and Uh-Huh for some lucky people during the last two Saturdays at our new Tasting Room in McMinnville. The 144 (made from old vines picked on Oct 29) is showing incredibly well especially considering these were just bottled at the end of July. The Uh-Huh (our first whole cluster fermentation) is a little tighter - just needs some more time in the bottle. Really long finish. Both are very nice wines. Official release will be November 20 in the tasting room.

And we've retired the black graffiti label for the 144 and replaced it with the ballerinas shown above. The Uh-Huh label will stay the same.

Sorry for the lack of posts - Harvest Update

I've been trying to figure out how to balance the blog and our new Facebook page (twelvewine). Can't figure out if I should just double post or try to create original content for each place. The latter is going to be extremely hard, so some variation of the former is going to have to happen.

In that spirit, Let's get up to date on harvest. Weather over the last couple of weeks has really been helping. Our canopy is still mostly green and the birds haven't made too big of a dent, so we're looking forward to letting the grapes hang out there as long as we can. You'll see lots of picking over the next week, because the weather forecast starting next weekend is ugly. We're going to try and pick as late in the week as possible. One thing we've learned is that if you wait long enough in Oregon the weather forecast tends to change. Maybe next weekend will just be a one-off storm - we'll see.

Looks a lot like 2008 out there - smaller than normal crop, good flavor formation, nice brown stems, just waiting to see if we can get a little more sugar.

Grapes on 9-12

You can see much more color versus last week. This is a picture from the same block shown in the previous post.

Clusters are changing color . . . . finally

Slightly blurry picture that I took yesterday of some Pinot Noir clusters. We expect a late harvest, but it's too soon to tell if it will be later than 2008. We picked our last grapes on October 29 that year.

Multi-year blends? Good idea or bad?

Cleaning up in the tasting room last night I wound up pouring what was left of the 2005 Pinot Noir 144, the 2007 Pinot Noir 144, the 2008 Pinot Noir and the Second Floor Pinot Noir into a single bottle. It's more efficient than carrying four partially-filled bottles home.

Linda and I were looking forward to a rare home-cooked meal - the tasting room has taken up most of our free time over the last seven or wight weeks and we just don't have time to make nice dinners. I grilled a piece of Alaskan Chinook Salmon from Newman's Fish in Portland (and I am not 'fishing' for a discount with that plug :-). I just like that store. The smoked salmon is awesome too) and we had some couscous and a salad with some nicely ripe tomatoes from our friend Kelly's garden. The blended wine from the tasting room really went well with the food and it actually tasted quite good, so I spent a little more time sipping and tasting that wine.

Which led me to think - why aren't there many multi-year blends of wines outside of champagne? Do people immediately assume a label that says 'non-vintage' means less quality? Or does the market simply just expect single vintages for certain varietals like cabs or pinots? I believe Cameron has made pinot blends with multiple years, but I haven't seen many others around here.

I may try one this year. I have a little 2008 that I haven't bottled yet and I think combining it with some of the 2009 could create a really interesting wine (and, more importantly, provide another excuse to design a new label). Haven't decided yet. Anyone with an opinion please feel free to comment.

Awesome Winemaker's Dinner at Joel Palmer House

Went to a great dinner last night. Featured the combination of a five course Joel Palmer meal with many wines from ADEA Wine Company. We make our wines at ADEA, so we're not completely unbiased, but Dean and Ann make some really nice wines there.

First course was a gazpacho that was really two soups - a tomato ginger and cucumber lemon poured side by side into the same bowl along with a pickled chanterelle. Matched wonderfully with the 2009 Rose.

Then we had elk and mushroom consomme (that was definitely a first) along with some wild mushroom risotto. These were matched with two 2006 Pinots - the Dean-o's and the Momtazi. Big wines for big flavors - dark and meaty and earthy - I loved the Momtazi with those dishes.

We moved to wild salmon with chimichurri sauce that was matched with a pair of 2007 Pinots. Never would have thought of trying a spicy sauce with Pinot, but the acidity of the 07's made it work. Main course was a buttery piece of Filet Mignon from Painted Hills matched with an 04 and an 05 Dean-o's. Chris said he spent three days on the demi glace and it showed. A spoonful of the sauce and the chopped mushrooms followed by a taste of the 04 Pinot was the best match of the night.

I kinda remember the dessert course - some really fresh berries, and oatmeal scone and cheese I think. Good match for the 2008 Pinot Blanc (from our vineyard) which has a little residual sugar to match the sweets.

Really great dinner and a lot of fun. Thanks Joel Palmer and thanks ADEA. Forgot the camera so I don't have pictures. I'll remember next time.

Vineyard Update

Wow, it seems like it's taken forever for the vineyard to get going. The cool spring definitely slowed things down, but we've had some great weather over the last month and we're finally making some progress. We had a good crop set - you can see a picture of the clusters. And you can also see Charlie, the guardian of the vineyard, protecting the immaculate Pommard 1 block at the top of the hill. Looks totally vicious, doesn't he. He'd absolutely lick you to death before you could set foot in that block :-)

Vertical Tasting This Week

The IPNC is in town this week, so we decided to offer a vertical of the 2004 through 2008 vintages. Come by and try our last five years of Pinot Noirs. (And if you stop by on Sunday, it's quite possible that there will be a 2009 barrel sample available.)

581 NE 3rd Street, McMinnville, OR 503-435-1212

Tasting Room is now open!

We now have a tasting room with regular hours. We share a space in downtown McMinnville with Honest Chocolates at 581 NE 3rd Street. We'll be open Wed-Thu from 11-6, Fri-Sat from 11-7 and Sun 12-5. Come by and see us!

Friends Don't Let Other Friends (Especially Winemakers) Take Pictures at Parties

I attended a very fun dinner at the Heathman Hotel in Portland to kick off the countdown to the Best of Oregon event in August. This event features something like 20 wineries and 30 restaurants and will be held at the Reserve Golf Club in Hillsboro. The dinner matched wines from five wineries with courses prepared by the Heathman. We poured the 06 Pinot 144.

105.1 the Buzz (local radio station) and KOIN 6 (local CBS station) are sponsors. They had run contests where tickets to the dinner were the prize. I had just returned from the annual big trade show for my day job. Male/female ratio was something like 95 to 5 and that probably overestimated the female attendence. The dinner in contrast featured 5 males and about 35 women. No one's complaining, I just don't see that much (actually ever).

Anyway, everyone had a good time, wine was consumed, and then we took some pictures at the end. The mess at the top of the post was taken by a fellow winemaker who shall remain nameless for now. It shows me with Daria (afternoon drive time host) from 105.1. I'm pretty sure you can tell that I'm on the left (as you are looking at the picture).

I did tell the audience that they could see the main inspiration for the name Twelve by going to You Tube and typing "it goes to eleven" and Daria gets much respect from me for not only immediately knowing what that meant but also immediately shouting out another classic quote from the movie - "there's a fine line between clever and stupid." I can only hope that I'm on the right side of that line.

2009 Vintage - Just liked the picture

We always stack the barrels two-high in the winery, but for the Memorial Day Weekend tasting, we put them four-high to free up floor space. So here's a shot of most of the Twelve 2009 vintage in barrel. Did a little barrel tasting with some guests last weekend. These are starting to show well. Similar to the 06 vintage if you liked that one. I do apologize for the picture quality - it's a phone shot.

2008 Estate White is an Oregon Wine Press Value

The 2008 Estate White, a blend of 80% Pinot Blanc and 20% Pinot Gris, was selected as a Value Wine for the month of June by the Oregon Wine Press. Article is here. A snippet of the column is shown above. We knew people would like this wine. Email if you want some. We will have this in our soon-to-be-opened tasting room in downtown McMinnville. More blog posts on that very soon.

Aliens in McMinnville

Every May McMinnville, Oregon hosts the second largest UFO Festival in the United States (largest of course is in Roswell, NM). Why McMinnville? Only because one of the most famous UFO pictures of all time was taken there. That's the first photo. The rest of the pictures are from the Saturday afternoon parade. All I can say is the Star Wars fans will spend serious dollars on costumes, Avatar was popular this year, and I'm still wondering how the dog actually was turned green. And the Pumpkin Cannon, I mean the Alien Defense Cannon, makes me want to take a break during crush and go watch that thing in operation. It's a lot of fun and a huge event in McMinnville. There were thousands watching the parade.

If a Tree Falls in the Vineyard When No One is Around . . .

Here are some pictures of something that happens about every five years - a tree just falls down. This one happened to fall from the neighbor's property and landed in the upper Pommard block. The tree was easily 70 feet+, but it only about 20 feet landed in the vineyard. Amazingly it fell between two posts, so there wasn't a whole lot of damage. About 20 plants, some wires and the deer fence were damaged. Charlie (the dog) had a lot of fun walking back and forth on the trunk. I didn't even know dogs did that.

And no, the logging described in the last entry didn't knock the tree over. This one was done in by some pretty strong winds - there's a huge chunk of ground standing upright at a 90 degree angle around the roots.

Budbreak and Clear Cut

Two interesting and opposite things happened recently. We had budbreak in mid-April and I included a picture looking down a row. You can see all the small shoots. The cover crop was planted last fall and was just disked (sp?) under last week. I'll have to take a new picture. Weather started out great but has been cold - we need some heat to get these plants growing.

Second picture is of what's going on next door. Our neighbor passed away and her children have decided to log the property. You can see the clear cut of the hillside. Certainly won't be as scenic in some parts of the vineyard for a while. I am generally in favor of property rights - the " if you own the land, you shouldn't have too many restrictions on what you can do with it" philosophy, so I really don't have a problem with it. We had a similar clear cut up the hill several years ago and the trees do grow back.

Real German Food

Sorry about the lack of activity on the blog recently. I've just returned from a round-the-world trip ( Japan to Israel to Germany to home) and didn't have much time to blog. We just made it out of Europe ahead of the volcanic ash. We flew out of Munich Thurs afternoon - Heathrow had already closed and right after we took off they closed Amsterdam and DeGaulle. I think I'd still be there if we were scheduled to leave a couple of hours later.

Highlight of the trip was a homemade traditional meal at the home of Hanns and Susanne Windele. It's the beginning of the white asparagus season in Germany - this is a huge deal over there - it's a very popular dish. I'll admit that I'm not a huge asparagus fan. I find the green version a little too bitter for my taste and tough to pair wine with. And my only experience with white asparagus was being served some really soggy spears that were about an inch thick at a tourist trap restaurant in Munich.

When prepared by someone who clearly knows what they are doing like Susanne, however, white asparagus becomes amazing. I grabbed this picture from Wikipedia, because I had this exact meal - steamed white asparagus with hollendaise sauce and potatoes along with some prosciutto and smoked duck breast. Suzanne says she's always careful to cook it just enough so that there's some bite to it. I was astounded by taste - nice flavor, no bitterness, just crunchy enough and some sweetness that I didn't expect at all.

Hanns pulled out a bunch of Alsace wines from his favorite microproducer who I had never heard of before (and can't currently remember - blame jet lag) and they proved to be a good match. We tried Sylvaner (this guy actually makes old vine Sylvaner), a Pinot Gris with some serious body, and a bone dry, crisp Riesling that was my favorite.

Thanks again Susanne and Hanns - you transformed a simple dish with a couple of ingredients into an experience I won't forget. I'm going to invite myself back next April and I'll bring some of my own wine this time :-)

Snowboarded and Didn't Die

I, my brother and my two sons took a "mancation" to Whistler for three days of snowboarding. OK, my brother is a skier, but he's just not as evolved as us West Coasters ;-) We figured it would be in great shape after the Olympics and it was. If you've never been there, Whistler Blackcomb is the largest ski area in North America. The first picture in fact was taken from the top of Blackcomb Mountain and shows a small part of the bowls and trails on Whistler Mountain next door.

Second picture is taken from a gondola car on the Peak2Peak gondola which connects those two mountains. That gondola is an amazing piece of engineering. There are two towers at each end and then 1.9 miles of unsupported cable in between. It's supposedly the longest such gondola in the world. In the middle where the cable is lowest, you are 1400 feet high. And it only takes 11 minutes to get from one side to another. On the second day, Whistler was enveloped in a cloud, so we took the gondola over to Blackcomb in search of runs where you could see more than 15 feet in front of you.

Third day (when my brother had to fly back) we had a dream day of spring snowboarding - bright sunshine, soft snow, no lift lines, and temps in the low 40s. We just went until our legs gave out.

The second best part of Whistler is the village. You come there and never have to leave - bars, restaurants, hotels, movie theatres, shopping all on a pedestrian only area right at the bottom of the lifts. Had one great meal at Araxi. I've been to Whistler four times and this place just never disappoints. I wanted seafood and ordered salmon sashimi and tuna, but I got to try the venison and a stunning loin of lamb. The people who sat down next to us couldn't take their eyes off our food. We explained what everything was and made their ordering easier.

If only the place wasn't so expensive, we'd do it every year. The exchange rate isn't helping either. I've been there when a Canadian dollar was worth 70 cents US, but it's almost 1 to 1 now.

Vineyard is Ready

Just a couple of shots of the vineyard after pruning, tying down, and mowing the cuttings. Always looks the neatest and cleanest in the spring. It was a super clear day and you can see the town of Carlton is the upper left hand corner of the second picture.

2008 White Will Be Bottled Soon

[UPDATE: We have a name and a label. We decided to make things simple and call this Estate White. And then we tried to get the label approved by the TTB. After three tries we were finally successful. I don't even understand exactly what was wrong with the original submissions, so I can't explain them to you even if I want to.]


We've been providing updates on this wine for far too long. We have good news- we have a bottling date. We will bottle the wine during the weekend of April 3-5. It's been on the lees for 15+ months and as a result has a wonderful texture and body. This is the first vintage that we blended the Pinot Blanc with the Pinot Gris from the same block. We had historically sold the Pinot Gris to some home winemakers in Washington, but we decided in 2008 to add it to the Blanc. The wine is currently being held in the tank shown in the picture above. We expect to have about 125 cases.

Flavors of Carlton

We had a great night at the Flavors of Carlton Charity Auction. They raised over $52,000 for the town's main charitable organization - Carlton Together Cares. Thanks to Ken Wright Cellars for hosting the event like they have every year.

We bid on and now own some Oregon wines from the early eighties - I've had very little Oregon Pinot from those years, so I'm looking forward to opening those soon. As one of the 18 wineries that were participating, we poured our unreleased estate 2008 Pinot Noir by accident. I could have sworn that I donated some 2007 Reserve, but I must have pulled a different case out of storage. Anyway, that is going to be a very nice wine.

Too Much Travel

I've just returned from my second consecutive week on the road. One is San Jose - one in Dallas. So there were lots of breakfasts, lunches and dinners. Only two meals stood out (is it me or are all steakhouses pretty much the same?) - a grilled cheese, sliced green apple and walnut sandwich at the Modern Art Museum in Fort Worth (more below) and stone crab claws at Truluck's in Dallas. It was my first experience with stone crab - out here in Oregon it's almost 100% dungeness crab - and, wow, those claws were amazing. And they come with mustard, which really worked in a weird symbiotic way. Had a really good wine that night too, a Jermann Pinot Grigio, which was to a basic Pinot Grigio what calculus is to adding single-digit numbers. I have always had good wines from that producer.

I spent the last day with my sister in Dallas - which is how I got to the Modern Art Museum. They had a collection of paintings from the last decade of Andy Warhol, i.e. well after the soup cans. I was blown away by a couple of the self portraits but most of all by his version of Michelangelo's Last Supper. Also loved his quote on one of the posters in the gift shop which I have attached above.

Valentine's Day Weekend Tastings

We participated in a Valentine's Day Weekend tasting at ADEA with the rest of the Gaston 6 (ADEA, Biggio Hamina, Bishop Creek, Cancilla. Matello, Twelve). I was a little dubious about whether the local area was ready for another "everybody is open" weekend, but it looks like the industry is moving that way. We had a better crowd than I anticipated - about 2/3 of the typical Thanksgiving Weekend attendance.

2007 Twelve Pinot Noir 144 - Update

Opened a bottle of this last night. I'm completely biased, of course, but I am really starting to like this wine. Our reserves seem to need at least a year in the bottle before they start to integrate and show well, and this one was no exception. The fruit is emerging nicely - it's a focused, concentrated ball of red berry flavors, the tannins are there but not harsh nor bitter, and the acidity balances everything. I think this wine along with most of the 2007 vintage will improve with age for a long time. Here's a link to a review from a blogger based in Seattle .

And just to comment on the 2007 vintage in general, I attended the Willamette Valley Winegrowers Association dinner a couple of weeks ago and had the chance to taste some other 07s. There are a lot of good wines out there - I tasted an Evesham Wood that was great, and I should be punished for not remembering which blend it was. I can also highly recommend the Bishop Creek 07s. I should have taken notes on everything that I tasted - I'll do better next time. There's a Carlton event in February where I'll have the opportunity to taste a wide variety of 07s.

Sunrise - January 28, 2010

Our kitchen faces east, so if we're up early enough we can catch the sunrise. This one was particularly pretty. The mountain peak out in the distance is Mt. Jefferson.

Pinot Blanc Update

Good news on the Pinot Blanc. We've been sold out for months, but are getting close to bottling more. We should have some in the March-April timeframe.

Pruning Time

January is the month for pruning the vines. We cut off all of last year's growth except for the two shoots that will be tied down to the fruiting wire and become this year's canes. You can see the two shoots per plant in the picture and all the cuttings. We put the cuttings in every other row to minimize the number of rows we have to drive the tractor through with the mower. You can also see the cover crop in the rows which reduces erosion and adds nitrogen back to the soil.

This is the oldest block in the vineyard (25 years) which explains both the thickness of the trunks and why they are so far apart. Later this year we will be releasing an 08 reserve blend from these old vines that is simply the most elegant wine we've ever made. It's still resting comfortably in barrel while we do our normal agonizing over what to call it.

Flash Snow Storm

We were hit by a fast and intense snowstorm in late December. As is typical out here in Portland, all the TV weather people said there was zero chance of snow. We saw the fastest accumulation of 4-6 inches of snow that I've ever seen. It melted quickly over the next few days, but snow always makes the vineyard look beautiful. Here are a couple of pictures of the beginning of the storm.

Uh-Huh Sighting

There is or will be or was a case of our 2006 Uh-Huh Pinot Noir at the Allison Inn in Newberg. Sometime during the dinner I documented below, I or, more accurately, Dean Fisher from ADEA, committed one of my last three cases of this wine to Tom and the Allison. [Note: I am keeping the rest for myself.] We delivered to our distributor just before Christmas, so I believe you can try some if you get there soon. 91 points from the Wine Advocate and the best wine we've released to date.