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.