Lots of Vineyard Activity

We're in the middle of bloom where flowers emerge and berries are set. The first picture shows a cluster that's almost finished and one that's just getting started. We're on about the same schedule as last year.

What's even more amazing is how fast the shoots growing. In the last 30 days, growth can be measured in multiple feet. If you look at the middle and last picture you can see the difference a month makes. Shoots have gone from 6-10 inches to 4-6+ feet. Pretty amazing. They grew at least and in many cases more than a foot last week.

Classic Cars in McMinnville

As part of the Turkey Rama celebration in McMinnville, they closed off 3rd Street and held a classic car contest. I've included some pictures. The candy apple red Camaro is a personal favorite. And what muscle car fan's heart doesn't speed up a bit when they see the SS 396 logo. The Corvette with the flip up doors was interesting. Saw them drive away with a giant trophy in the passenger seat. And the blue T-bird was gorgeous.

Facebook v. Blog v. Website: Overrun by Social Media

I have to apologize for the lack of activity on the blog. We got started with Facebook and have been neglecting adding all the same entries here. I haven't quite figured out how to keep everything in sync, but I'm going to start dividing time a little more equally. And don't get me started on Twitter :-)

Another Great McMinnville Retaurant - Thistle

Just had dinner tonight at Thistle after closing the tasting room. They are famous for using very local ingredients and also famous for their chalkboard menu of 6-8 starters and 4-5 main courses that changes every day. I had a savoy cabbage gratin starter followed by the beef cheeks with kale in a black chanterelle cream sauce. Both were excellent, the sauce with the cheeks was concentrated bundle of deep earthy flavor that made the dish for me. My wife had the cold dungeness crab salad and gnocchi with hedgehog mushrooms. We wound up basically splitting each othjer's dishes so I got to enjoy those too. Then I saw the petrale sole entree before I left and felt bad about not getting to try that. Eric and Emily know what they're doing and have created a must stop location for anyone visiting wine country. Check them out here.

Nick's Italian Cafe in McMinnville

Nick's is one of our favorite restaurants in the world. And this is a belated note. Since we opened our tasting room in McMinnville and they are about 150 feet up the street, we've been in there quite a bit this year.

If you want interesting food they have it - for example, Thursday's night's Fritto Misto included two types of fried oranges and a crispy beet chip that I would buy bags of if they made enough. And I've had lots of wonderful fritters with veggies and fish and bruschetta with octopus and other toppings. But I just love the execution on the basics - my meal last Thursday was a bowl of minestrone soup and a wood-fired sausage pizza paired with a glass of barbaresco. It simply doesn't get any better for me.

Twelve is in the 25th Anniversary IPNC

We will be a featured winery at the biggest and best pinot party in the world - the International Pinot Noir Celebration - in McMinnville in July. I've been there 3 or 4 times as a fan (before winery) and a couple of times since I got into the business. I seemed to remember we poured our 2004 Pinot at the 06 event, but my lack of specifics can be explained by anyone who has actually been to one of these.

You start at 9AM Friday morning with tasting seminars, a huge lunch with wine, afternoon activities with wine, a pre-dinner tasting of thirty of the best pinots in the world, a ridiculous multi-course grand dinner with more wine and then you wake up Saturday morning and do it all again except the grand dinner is replaced with an authentic NW salmon bake and even more wine. And finally you make your way into a sparkling wine breakfast on Sunday that has food from around the world. World-class chefs prepare all the food, the best sommeliers in the country pour all the wine and you just have to enjoy the party. This year's event will be special, because it's the 25th anniversary - I'd expect lots of well-aged, spectacular Pinot from Oregon, France and elsewhere to make an appearance. If you can't make the weekend, there's a Passport to Pinot tasting on Sunday afternoon where you can taste the 60 or so featured wines and grab some of that world-class food. More info at www.ipnc.org

More Scores

Spectator scored the 2008 Twelve Pinot Noir 144 (our reserve) 92 points. They gave the 2008 Twelve Pinot Noir Uh-Huh 89 points. Very interesting to us. The Wine Spectator and Wine Advocate agreed on the 2008 Estate (89 WA, 90 WS) and the 144 (91 WA, 92 WS) but seemed to have a difference of opinion on the Uh-Huh (92 WA, 89 WS). Stop by the tasting room and taste for yourself.

2008 Twelve Pinot Noir in the Wine Spectator

We finally submitted wines to the Spectator. The 2008 Pinot Noir scored 90 points. We don't know if they'll rate the 144 or Uh-Huh. They don't always taste wines that are made in really small quantities and both of those were only 100 case lots. They are also the best wines we've made to date so let us know if you want some.

Dinner with a LOT of wine

Our friends, John and Robin Spencer, had a gumbo night last Saturday. The gumbo was awesome and we went through a pretty serious array of wines. Keith Gover had the foresight to actually write down all their names which is the part I usually forget. The Montrose was outstanding (although still very young), I really liked the 2009 Harper-Voit from Drew Voit (whose day job is making wines at Shea Vineyards), and I thought the Riesling went best with the gumbo. I'll also put in a plug for the 2008 Twelve Uh-Huh - we just bottled that in July, but it is really starting to show at how good it will be.

Here's the list. I didn't get to try them all.

Whites & Sparkling:

1997 Soter Extended Tirage Pinot Noir Brut Rose - Yamhill-Carlton, OR

2007 Domaine Vrignaud "Fourchaume" - Chablis, France

2009 The Four Graces Pinot Gris - Dundee Hills, OR

2009 Olssens "Annieburn" Riesling - Central Otago, New Zealand

Pinot Noir:

2006 Carabella - Chehalem Mountains, OR RP86

2006 Gypsy Dancer "A & G Estate" - Dundee Hills, OR WS90

2006 Lemelson "Thea's Selection" - Willamette Valley, OR RP89 WS89

2006 Roots "Racine" - Yamhill-Carlton, OR

2006 Shea "Pommard Clone" - Willamette Valley, OR RP93 WS93

2007 Panther Creek "Shea" - Yamhill-Carlton, OR RP87 WS84

2008 Twelve "Uh-Huh" - Yamhill-Carlton, OR RP92

2009 Harper Voit "Strandline" - Willamette Valley, OR

Other Reds:

1997 Fontanabianca Barbaresco "Sori Burdin" - Piedmont, Italy RP89 WS90

1998 Clarendon Hills "Brookman" - McLaren Vale, Australia RP93 **corked**

2003 E. Guigal Chateau d'Ampuis Cote-Rotie - Northern Rhone, France RP96 WS94

2005 Chateau Montrose - Saint Estephe, France RP95 WS94

2007 Efeste "Ceidleigh" Syrah - Red Mountain, WA RP91+ WS93

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.