Vintage 2009 - Looking good (so far)

The vines are looking great. We had a solid fruit set and we're back to what looks like a more normal target date for harvest - early October. We set a personal record last year when we didn't even begin picking grapes until October 22. We had never picked any other vintage after October 18.

So here are a couple of pictures. The second shows some rows and you can see how we manage the vineyard. We till every other row and leave a cover crop in the rest. This is one method to manage vigor in the vines - you want your vines to focus on ripening fruit, not growing long shoots.

We do a lot of work on the canopy. We position the shoots vertically in the trellis trying to eliminate overlapping leaves. We want a very thin canopy with the max sun per leaf we can get. We pull leaves on one side of the canopy to let more air circulate around the clusters. This is targeted at reducing the possibility of powdery mildew. And finally we hedge the tops of the shoots - again to slow shoot growth and improve fruit ripening.

The first picture shows some clusters. Since the set was good, we actually have to go through and do a 'green harvest'. The plants in a typical year will set more fruit than our target yield. In Oregon, most premium Pinots are harvested at yields around 2 tons per acre. It's all about ripening and developing flavors. Too high of a yield runs the risk of not ripening enough at harvest. So we're in the process right now of cutting off clusters to get to our 2 tons per acre.

So far so good, but Oregon harvests always come down to the weather in the last week of September and the month of October.

Tons of Great Food

Had a week of vacation and spent it enjoying lots of good food near home.

We had a wonderful meal at a brand new restaurant in McMinnville - Thistle. I think we were there on their third night. The owners are Emily and Eric, who also happen to be the only employees. Food was really impressive - I had the beet salad and flatiron steak. There's four or five appetizers and main courses plus a couple of desserts. The menu choices change every day.

We did a whole day in Portland during vacation. We had lunch at my favorite lunch place in Portland - Wildwood - a super consistent, high quality eatery with a great bar area and great lunch menu. Didn't even drink any wine, I went for an updated version of something my late father-in-law introduced me to about 27 years ago - the rye (usually Seagrams) and ginger ale. They made a version with raw ginger that was really refreshing.

Then we wandered around the Mississippi Street fair for a couple of hours (first time and would definitely go again), crossed back over the river to see the movie Away We Go and would up having dinner at one of my favorite dinner restaurants in Portland - the Veritable Quandry. They cooked some Alaskan wild salmon to perfection, but I was blown away by the handmade truffle that we had for dessert. It was simply unbelievable. It clearly highlighted the difference between something fresh and something you get out of box that was filled months ago. Just decadent with a stunning creamy texture.

We closed our vacation week with a experience that I would hesitate to make public if anyone was actually reading this blog. Nick's Italian Cafe in McMinnville - an institution in Wine Country - has started a family dinner on Sunday. It's one seating served family style. You can even bring your own wine. I won't even put the price in this blog - lets just say if it was twice as much no one at my dinner would even have blinked. There was wood-fired flat bread pizza with porcini mushrooms as one of the appetizers, and then huge plates of fettucine with mushrooms and peppers, followed by salad, then a sublime lamb stew, and finally Fred Flinstone sized piles of ribs. Ridiculously awesome, insane price and there was dessert too.

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.