Continuing adventures...

My head's spinning from everything that's going on in my wine world these days. I have a page long to do list for Vincent Wine Company tasks that's a little intimidating in scope but kind of cool because this is exactly what I want to be spending time on. Pardon me as I process out loud, so to speak.

First and least fun, I got through all the licensing paperwork for the city of Portland, the state of Oregon and the feds. Now I'm renewing my LLC, filing quarterly payroll reports even though I have no payroll, and dealing with something that came in the mail about monthly tax of some kind or another. I'll figure that one out soon enough. Don't get into making and selling wine if you think it's all fun. In some weird way, I'm still enjoying anything that's contributing to moving forward in this project. That will fade I'm sure, but for now it's all good.

Really, my issues start with bottling the 2009 wines later this summer. We're designing labels, which are done but I'm still waiting for web ready jpegs to share with you all. Then there are the printer bids for the labels, the bottle suppliers, cork suppliers, capsule suppliers, the data for the labels themselves, and plans to do final blends for the two bottlings I'm planning. Most of the 2009 wine will be an Eola-Amity Hills AVA blend of Pinot Noir, with a single barrel of Zenith Vineyard Pinot Noir serving as the "reserve" level wine. I'll do a blending trial with friends next week to taste through all the barrels critically and really see what we have. I don't expect any surprises, but it's still a good exercise to go through. Then we'll blend, run the final alcohols and pH for the wines and see how the sulfur dioxide levels are. By the end of August everything will be in barrel.

People always say it's a lot easier to make wine than sell it. So I also have a ton of things to do to get the word out about these wines. We're working on a banner graphic for a new website for Vincent Wine Company, which I'll announce as soon as I can. That banner will also go into an email template, which we'll use to send out a futures offering on the 2009s later this month. Get on the email list to get in on the special pricing with that offer. Email me at vincentwines[at]gmail[dot]com. I'll also be setting up a Facebook page with that banner graphic, so once we have the banner (soon, right?), lots will be happening. For email, we'll use MailChimp, which seems pretty low key and downright cheap.

But enough about 2009, that's so last year. What about 2010? There's weather to worry about, winemaking supplies to get and harvest plans to make. Oh my gosh, the weather's been crazy this year. We had a very early start to the growing season with mild winter weather and budbreak at the end of March into early April. That's a couple weeks early or more. Then spring, one of the coldest and wettest on record. From two weeks early, we're now maybe three weeks behind on flowering. That usually happens in mid-June. The pinot vines locally are still finishing up flowering here on July 9. With 100 days or more from flowering until harvest, we'll need nice October weather to have everything go well. No need to clear the schedule much in September. We won't be picking too early. Of course, later harvests like 2008 and 1999 can make for excellent quality. We'll need to get lucky and have the usual October rains hold off, for the most part anyway.

Still, I'm in high gear getting ready for harvest. There are barrels to buy, barrel racks to buy, fermenting bins if I can find a good deal, and whatever else I'll need for harvest. There's also the good advice to make a fermentation plan. Even if you don't plan to do to much when making your wine, it's good to map out what you think or hope will happen, so at least you know when you're totally winging it. Things can get crazy at harvest, and minds can wander. With that in mind, I find I need to get mentally ready, whatever that really means. Basically, I try to go into harvest with a clear mind and normal heart rate. There's so much you can't control and my goal is to not control things so much. So I focus more on controlling myself and seeing if the grapes can do their thing. Call that marketing bullshit if you want. It's really how I approach all this.

That's not everything, but I'll spare you the rest. Indeed, this is all great. I'm so excited about this project. It's just a little crazy, just a little bit crazy. That's the way I like it.

PDXploration on Seven of Hearts|Luminous Hills & Honest Chocolates

Just a quick post to say how much I enjoyed PDXploration's write up of Seven of Hearts|Luminous Hills as well as Honest Chocolates. Both get detailed reviews. Both get gorgeous photo collages. I've written it before, but you really need to seek out Byron and Dana at their place in Carlton. Great wines, great chocolate. Great job PDXploration as well. While you're there, check out the Olympic Provisions piece, among others. Love this blog.

Racking the 2009s

Here is a picture of the my nine barrels of 2009 Vincent pinot noir, getting racked at the winery in Portland. For those not clear on racking, that's the process of moving the wine from barrel to barrel to separate it from its sediment. It's also a nice chance to areate the wine a bit, which can help round out the flavors and texture. Too much areation and your wine will tastes oxidized. Too little and it can be a little "reduced" or stinky. This is the only racking before bottling, pretty traditional and useful especially for unfiltered wine.

The process is pretty simple but time consuming. Using inert gas like nitrogen or argon, you use gentle pressure to push the wine out of one barrel through a hose to an empty barrel. Since barrels are in pairs on barrel racks, you rack two barrels in to empties, clean the emptied barrels, then rack two more barrels into those clean ones. And so on. If you don't start with two empty, clean barrels to rack into, you can fill two small tanks. Then at the end, you pump that wine back into the final two barrels once they've been cleaned. Like most winemaking tasks, it's really mostly about cleaning. Cleaning beforehand, working and cleaning things as you go, then cleaning everything again. Mom would be proud.

All this work is in preparation for bottling at the end of August. At that time, we'll rack the barrels again into two tanks. One for the main Eola-Amity Hills bottling, which will be most of the production. The other for the Zenith single vineyard bottling, just 24 cases.

How are the wines tasting? You don't have to believe me, how can I be objective, right? But the wines taste really good. I'm excited for the freshness in the wines, something you don't always get from hotter growing seasons like 2009. All the barrels smell and taste good. A friend tried the Zenith and commented on the savoriness. That's exactly what I'm going for. No candy sweet flavors here.

élevage and 32 Days of Natural Wine

My contribution on natural wine is the feature of Day 8 of Saignee's 32 Days of Natural Wine. To me, natural wine is all about your intention to make something that reflects the grape, the place and the season without any improvements.

A field trip to reWine Barrels in Salem

Anne Hubatch of Helioterra and I took a field trip recently to reWine Barrels in Salem, OR. What an interesting visit. reWine is the barrel refurbishing business of father-in-law and master woodworker Todd Dollinger and son-in-law Trent Thomas, a former New Seasons wine buyer among other wine industry experience.

I bought a rehabbed barrel from reWine for the 2009 harvest and I'm buying another one for 2010. I like the idea of recycling barrels. As Todd says emphatically, it doesn't make sense to cut down seriously old French oak trees to make barrels that you use for a few years and turn into planters. Renewing those barrels makes sense. Plus, I like the results I've seen. And the cost doesn't hurt. Rehabbed barrels aren't the same as new barrels, but they're pretty close and cost only a fraction of new wood.

The reWine truck, usually full of barrels for delivery all over the Willamette Valley, just back from another drop.

Inside the workshop are barrels in various stages of rehabilitation.

Todd animatedly shows off his self-made barrel shaving machine.

A barrel is loaded on sideways and gently and fairly quietly shaved, back and forth across the grain with the barrel rotating slightly with each pass.

Trent hams it up near the shaver. This machine saves lives and limbs, as early experiments with handshaving were a bit perilous.

Barrels before shaving.

Barrels after shaving.

As you might expect, there's hand shaving to touch up what the machine doesn't quite get.

Barrel heads are also resized to fit snug with the slightly reduced dimensions of the shaved and ultimately retoasted barrel.

Here's my 2005 Siruge barrel from my last homemade wine that's ready for toasting.

Here's a look inside. The electrical element will slowly heat things up to more than 400F over 2 or more hours for a light toast. I'm interested to see how a more subtle toast will react with local Pinot noir. Most barrels out there are medium to heavy toast. Over time, we check in on this barrel as it slowly colors and gains amazing smells of, well, toasty oak.

Here's a barrel that's nearly done with a medium toast. I forgot to get pictures of my barrel as it finished up. Looks and smells good.

Once they're toasted and reassembled, the refurbished barrels are filled with water to soak up. You can imagine the lengthy toasting process dries out the staves pretty good. Once they're water tight, they are drained, gassed with sulfur and wrapped for delivery.

Todd and Trent talked a lot about the process and how they got started in 2009 combining Todd's knowledge of wood and machinery and Trent's experience with the wine industry. We talked about other barrel refurbishers out there who crank out more barrels per day and apparently don't spend nearly the time reWine does in toasting like a new barrel cooper does. reWine's trying to do things differently.

This operation is obviously still very new but already it's impressive to see several local producers buying the product, or bringing their own barrels to get rehabbed like I did this time with my Siruge. It's a bit less expensive to do that. What impresses me most is the wholehearted commitment of Todd and Trent to their work. Todd's fanatic about the process. Trent's all about building long term relationships and making sure reWine is doing everything right to produce excellent barrels. These are people I'm glad to know and do business with. I can't recommend them highly enough. Thanks guys for the great visit.

2007 La Gramiere rouge

Sometimes wine isn't a simple "like it" or "don't like it" proposition. Sometimes wines perplex, engage, delight, all at once, leaving you satisfied but uncertain how or why. For example, the 2007 La Gramiere rouge, one of the "natural" wines we're hearing so much about (in part thanks to Cory Cartwright's 32 Days of Natural Wine over at Saignee, now in Day 3).

This Vin de Table could be Cotes du Rhone Villages, a blend of 80% grenache, 15% syrah and 5% mourvedre from Americans Amy Lillard and David Kling, who moved to France years back and farm a vineyard in the southern Rhone valley. Their blog, La Gramiere, is a nice read with archives detailing the hard work they've endured to this point.

On the site, there's a tasting note for this wine that reads remarkably similar to my experience, mostly. Fruit driven, blackberry and boysenberry flavors, lush, with licorice and spice notes, and firm tannin that gives nice texture. This is delicious southern Rhone red, with so much energy it seems to glow an electric purple. Yet there are reductive notes, stinky vegetal aromas that come and go, never dominating but everpresent. These seem to vanish with a plate of broiled steak and steamed new potatoes, then reappear after the meal. For a while I smelled acetate (nail polish remover), then that seemed to melt into cinnamon notes, then occasionally a touch of acetate reappeared.

On balance, I really enjoyed this wine but am perplexed. This is a wine shape shifter, at once a lush crowd pleasing red, then difficult even wild, requiring patience, good food matches and intellect to seek out what the wine offers, not make snap judgements. If that sounds like a wine for you, and it most certainly does to me, have at it. Plus, I love the old world meets new wine label, especially the striking green that you see only rarely on wine bottles. Beautiful. (Note: image borrowed from La Gramiere)

1995 Ch. Beaucastel Chateauneuf du Pape

When we moved to Portland ten years ago next month, I brought with us several cases of wine. I'd been collecting bottles throughout the 1990s and just finished working for a Berkeley-based wine importer and retailer. In that position, I took advantage of the significant employee discount to stock the wine larder. "We won't get a chance like this again," I persuaded my wife. I bought a significant amount of wine, at least at the time. I wasn't making wine yet, you know.

Then came the great move north, with baby, cat and life's belongings. That meant engaging a moving company for all the big stuff and renting an air conditioned minivan to drive the family (baby) in cool comfort. And of course, the several boxes of wine. Meanwhile, Anthony the cat and I sweated it out driving our old VW in caravan with the rental. We thought we had A/C in that old heap, but it just turned out that San Francisco air was so naturally cool that we never noticed the A/C didn't really work.

Here in Portland, I still store my wine in the cellar in cardboard boxes, bottles upside down and close to the concrete floor to maximize cooling. There's no air conditioning in the house, but the cellar keeps pretty cool in all but the worst heat waves. I've worried about the wine collection, which I've continued adding to, evidence that we had, in fact, plenty of fine opportunities to buy wine. Then I try older bottles and they're great, and I don't worry so much. What do they say about cellar in Bordeaux rising slowly in the summer to the upper 60s farenheit (maybe higher)? Wine's fragile but not that fragile.

Of course, I've also had some cellar disappointments. Was that only because of my cellar conditions? Probably not. I know people with fancy, temperature controlled cellars who have off bottles. The one thing I've noticed is that I don't want to cellar half bottles all that long. Recently a half bottle of '96 Ch. d'Epire Savennieres was shot. That was nice wine in its youth and really shouldn't have had a problem making it to 14 years. Maybe it was the wine. Maybe it was my cellar. Maybe it was the half bottle format.

That d'Epire was the last "original" bottle I'd opened, before tonight. I'm down to about 2 cases of originals, those bottles hauled up here 10 years ago. What's left is a mix of 1980s and 1990s Bordeaux, Port, and Rhones, for the most part. That's what I was mostly into back then. Since then, I've gotten more into German, Italian (especially) and Oregon wine. I have old bottles of all those, but they were all procured since the move.

What did I drink tonight? A lone half of the 1995 Ch. Beaucastel Chateauneuf du Pape. I'd waited on this wine for so long because reports suggested it was highly tannic and needing time. Now at the 10 year mark in Portland, I'm thinking about those older bottles I still have and wondering if they really ought to be opened sooner than later. One, because I don't have a pristine cellar. But two, what the hell, it's been ten freaking years. What am I waiting for at this point?

The Beaucastel only reinforces this thought. The wine is mature, at least out of half bottle. Slightly oxidized upon pouring, it got more youthful in the glass, revealing a lovely mix of peppery cherry fruit and mushroomy, bottle sweet, earthy aromas. No brett here that I could find, no barnyardy or band aid notes. The wine is indeed tannic, and I'm sure this bottle would have dried out before the tannin resolved. Perhaps larger, slower aging bottles in colder cellars will live a lot longer. This bottle was delicious, with a great burst of flavor in the middle palate and a long finish. There's something difficult to describe but clearly obvious in a really good wine. This one had that quality. Enough words. Go try it for yourself, even if you have to wait a decade for it.

Armstrong Vineyard, Part 3: June

For reports earlier in the growing season, see here and here.

I got out to Armstrong Vineyard again the other day to check on things. Remember that this new vineyard will be the primary source for Vincent Wine Company grapes in 2010. Young vines can produce excellent wine.


Despite our very cool and wet spring, things continue to look really good on Ribbon Ridge.

The canopy is tall with lots of healthy shoots, no signs of disease and lots of promise for the summer ahead.

Of course, no flowering yet. We got off to an early start with bud break at the beginning of April, a couple of weeks early. At mid-June we should be in flowering, but no sign of that yet. Just infloresence.

The dry weather recently gave a good opportunity to see about drainage in the vineyard. What parts have dried out? Where is there still water and mud? Here's a shot of the bottom of the 667 block, near the road and still draining water while the vineyard top was largely dried out.

Today's been cold and rainy again in Portland.

Will we ever get good weather to push the flowers to open? Will there be hail to knock off lots of those flowers before they can set as fruit? Stay tuned. For now, things look awfully good.

400th post

Yes, I changed the template again. No, it's not in honor of this being the 400th post in the 5+ years of this blog. But since you mention it, yes, 400 posts. Glad Blogger finally got some fresh(er) templates to choose from, btw.

Thinking about natural wine

I'm thinking about "natural" wine in preparation for writing a piece for Saignee's 32 Days of Natural Wine, which starts later this month. I struggle with what natural wine really is. Grape growing isn't very natural, at least with all the row planting, pruning, etc. Winemaking's even worse. Even a hands off approach requires lots of work or intervention. You still punch down or at least tread the frementing must. You separate the new wine and press the skins to get the rest. You might use sulfur dioxide. You store in vessels of one kind or another. You package it somehow. And that's the bare minimum.

Even most "natural" wine producers do more, in the name of producing something that tastes authentic to the grape, the place, the season. I guess that's really what natural wine is all about. I like Joe Dressner's quote from last year's 31 Days of Natural Wine. He wrote:

"What exactly is a natural wine? For me, it’s a wine that tastes like it fell off the vine and into a bottle, fermented, packed its bags and arrived in America."

But there it is - "and arrived in America." Why is it so much natural wine I read about on the internet is from Europe? Sure, there are lots more producers doing close to the earth stuff over there. But how natural is it to ship the thousands of miles here, presumably not on biodiesel or solar powered freighters, in reuasble packaging with a minimal carbon footprint? Not to mention their usual fragile state, with little or no sulfur dioxide that requires careful handling. Do these natural wines really travel well? Is it the point? Or does enough of the goodness in close to the earth wine production erode in transit, leaving a natural wine denatured?

Ok, no, not entirely. Natural wine can move. But what I want to write about is my passion. City wine. Natural, local city wine that I want to see happening in a much bigger way in Portland, Oregon. It's a movement for local, unpretentious wines that haven't traveled far, from producers who grow local grapes or who work with local growers to produce wines in the city (that latter more my model). To produce something here that tastes like it fell off the vine into a wine growler and didn't travel much further than my bike ride home from the city winery in my neighborhood, my winery or my neighbor's winery or any old body's winery. That's my natural wine dream. Is that crazy?

New releases from Arterberry Maresh

I had the chance to taste through a bunch of new releases from Arterberry Maresh last night. Young Jim is making some excellent wines, all pinot noir and chardonnay from the Dundee Hills. Jim's brash and talks some shit, but his wines speak for themselves. I can't help but admire his confidence that what he's doing is absolutely great. I suppose if you don't believe it, who will? You don't make this hat if you're not confident, right? Yeah, my new favorite hat.

We started with the 2008 Arterberry Maresh Chardonnay Maresh Vineyard. Old vine 108 clone, harvest late, this bottling from a single Dargaud & Jagele light toast barrel that took more than a year to finish fermenting. Maybe there's a little sugar leftover, maybe not, there's fat flavor but the acid balance and freshness is terrific. With lots of lemon, sweet cream and hazelnuts, it's white Burg on the nose but broad tasting Oregon chard on the palate. Bottled unfined and unfiltered, it's a little hazy too. Really, really good.

Then the 2007 Arterberry Maresh Pinot Noit Gherts Vineyard, actually a single barrel of purchased wine from another producer who didn't think it fit the profile they were looking for. Apparently from grapes picked before the rain, the wine has deep color uncommon in 2007. There's a little musky, hard to pin down something in the aroma, but I love this. Lots of ripe fruit, subtle wood, full flavors in the mouth but really nicely refined and long. While I think many '07s are beautiful, they can also be delicate and I wonder about how long they really need to be cellared. This one, though, could last a while and maybe should sleep for a few before it shows its best.

Then onto 2008 reds. First, the 2008 Arterberry Maresh Pinot Noir Dundee Hills, Jim's $25 cuvee that's tremendous value. Most wineries would like this at their high end level. Fragrant, silky but also wound up and needing time to reveal itself, I really liked this. Then the 2008 Arterberry Maresh Pinot Noir Julliard Vineyard, down Worden Hill Road from Maresh vineyard and indeed a world away from the higher vineyard's pure red fruit tone. This has bass notes with a darker fruit profile and really tight structure. Right now, it's a little challenging to drink. But in time this will stun.

Jim and I hung out with some others talking wine and winemaking. Ji'm vocal about barreling wine more than a year, not for the oak profile but the curing aspect of barrel aging. Wines gain an intensity and vinosity from extended aging, perhaps even a savory quality. Some people like bottling early to preserve fruitiness. Some do it to get wine to market more quickly. Some early bottled wines are superb, so it's not like you have to wait. But Jim's wines, like those of the producers who mentored him, show what longer aging can give you. Assuming the source material is really good, of course. We weren't all born on Worden Hill Road, but Jim was and the place is in his wines.

1998 Prieuré St. Jean de Bebian Coteaux du Languedoc

I've mentioned on Twitter how I've opened a few bottles from the cellar this weekend that were over the hill. One I'd bought years ago, a half bottle of '96 Chateau d'Epire Savennieres, so long ago it came from the original Berkeley Bowl before the move from the (in fact) converted bowling alley to its now decade-plus conventional home. Others included Winebid purchases that will go unmentioned. Let's just say that I've had some amazing successes buying at online auction. These weren't those.

However, I'm confident in my passive wine cellar. Here's the 1998 Prieuré St. Jean de Bebian Coteaux du Languedoc, gorgeous after nearly a decade in my unheated, uncooled Portland basement. This wine has a story for me however.

Bebian was the wine I mentioned so innocently online about a decade ago, while I worked for the importer. We'd discounted the $30 price to $10 in the shop with the 1997 vintage. We were up front that the quality wasn't as good as usual. That's the nature of vintage wine. It's not always the same in profile or quality. Surely a $10 price suggested as much. Yet I was unwise enough to mention that price cut on the internets, bringing down the wrath of the owner who said they didn't want the price published. Ah, the days before the internet was understood. This was public information, but not that public. I was kind of pissed off then, and confused. Now I understand, but the whole thing still seems futile. It wasn't like the internet wasn't around in 2000. Word got out about things, even then. But I digress.

Prieuré St. Jean de Bebian Coteaux du Languedoc is a southern France property planted to the thirteen varieties of Chateauneuf du Pape, the grenache, syrah and mourvedre most of us know along with so many other varieites for red and white wine. The grenache cuttings apparently come from Rayas, the syrah from Chave, the mourvedre from Tempier in Bandol, recent syrah plantings from Beaucastel. This is a serious property, for sure.

I was introduced to the property by my friend Paul P. who brought an older bottling to a dinner in San Francisco many years ago. That wine, vintage forgotten, seemed red fruited and Chateauneuf-like. Since then, my experiences with the producer have been about darker fruits and a profile as if Chateauneuf were from the northern Rhone. More focused, pure and defined than that behemoth southern Rhone wine often is.

This 1998 follows that pattern. I wouldn't guess this to be either southern Rhone (typically grenache-based) or northern Rhone (typically syrah). Rather, it's southern France, the Languedoc or Midi. Just highly nuanced and unusual for this region that still produces mostly common wines along with the occasional glossy, too big for its britches beverage. No, this is deep, dark, rich but restrained, focused and intense like few Languedoc reds ever are. It's clean too. No need for rogue yeast to provide earthy qualities here. And the iodine, near to the sea quality of the Languedoc isn't overdone, where you think you're drinking olive brine with the smoke of burning rosemary branches.

This '08 Bebian is all about an aromatic balance of ripe fruit, warm stones, olives, brushy herbs like rosemary and sage, and sea air. Upon first opening, there was a distinct ash note that I find in many Oregon pinot noirs. People sometimes refer to "Oregon garrigue" when noting local wines, and that must be what they're finding. Here we're talking about the real thing, southern French herb and soil scents that provide such a nice savory quality to the sweet ripeness of the wine. In the mouth, this wine is still finely tannic though more approachable than it was younger. I like way the drying tannin balances the sweet fruit of the wine, especially with grilled lamb at dinner where the meat brought out the wine's fruitiness.

As a whole, this is beautiful wine. Aging wonderfully. Full of promise with a few more years of cellar time, as the tannins continue to soften and the sweetness of age emerges. This is why we cellar wine, no matter the occasional disappointments. And let's just say, this isn't the 1997. This is really, really good.

Vincent garage tasting, a pictorial

Four incredibly busy days later, I'm still reflecting the glow of last Sunday's Vincent garage tasting. It marked the end of home winemaking. I'm happy to announce that just today I received final approval for the Vincent Wine Company winery license. It seems fitting to finish the garage project in pictures like memories.

The 2008 Vincent Pinot Noir, Zenith Vineyard.

 Me pouring for wine conspirator and friend, Anne Hubatch.

 

Translucent Vincent Pinot noir.

Garage scene.

Home cured pork from Portland Charcuterie Project.

Lonzino from PCP. Oh my god.

PCP pickles on our Bauer plate.

 A wine garage, but still a garage.

Jennifer prettied the place up with Gerber daisies.

 Last of the homemade wine.

 

Credits:

Thanks to everyone who came.

Big thanks to Todd Merkel of Portland Charcuterie Project for the delicious home cured meats and pickles. Todd's doing incredible work for the love of food.

And thanks especially to Joshua Chang of PDXploration for the gorgeous photography and permission to use his work here on élevage .

Armstrong vineyard update 2

In the aftermath of the Garage Tasting, I blew off my real job and hung out with friends from Seattle who came down for the shindig. Then I shipped some wine to various people and took advantage of the drive down to Yamhill county to visit Ribbon Ridge and the Armstrong vineyard. This new planting will be my primary source for grapes in 2010 and beyond. I'm really excited, so I took some more pictures (earlier post here).


The spring weather here in western Oregon is still rotten. We had some nice days around my birthday earlier in the month, thank heavens. My mother was visiting and I was so glad she was able to enjoy the incredible flowers all over Portland in bright but still mild sunshine. Since then we're back to constnt gray and serious (for this time of year, anyway) cold. Would you believe highs in the low 50s for a few days? Indeed, the heat made an encore performance. I'm hoping it's off again until we fight the urge come October.

Nevertheless, the vineyard looks great. Young vines are vigorous so there was much more growth here than comparable sites I saw driving around the Chehalem Mountains and Dundee Hills with older vines. Hail has been frequent this spring but there's little hail damage. My hydrangeas look terrible, but the vines seem unaffected. Check out those leaves and primordial grape clusters. This still young vineyard has waited three long years to produce fruit. We're just about there.

 Since my last visit, the cover crop in the rows has been plowed under. Even with all the rain, the soil here drains pretty well so mud wasn't an issue. You can see nice consistent growth in this block of pinot vines, all 115 clone on the southern end of the vineyard looking uphill to the north. If you look closely you can see the mostly vertical shoots growing up between the trellis wires. Those that stray get put into place. All in all, things look terrific at Armstrong. I'll be back again and again charting the parogress of the season, getting to know the vines and vineyard before seeing the fruit in the winery.

 

On the way home, I headed over Worden Hill Road through the heart of the Dundee Hills. This is where is all began for Oregon pinot back in the '60s and '70s. Here's a bad shot from the car down Worden Hill from Maresh. Le Pavillon and Prince Hill on the left, Winderlea on the right.


Down the road I stopped like a tourist to take his shot looking due south from Winderlea to the west facing slope of Weber above and the lower part of the Arcus bowl around the pond and first clump of trees. They don't call these parts the Red Hills of Dundee for nothing. And even with the lousy weather, the sky is mesmerizing.

Garage tasting aftermath, part 1

Wow. Our 3rd annual garage wine tasting yesterday was the biggest and best yet. Sixty to 70 adults, maybe more. I stopped counting after Jennifer and I washed dozens of the used wine glasses as newcomers kept arriving. I had 36 to start with but that clearly wasn't enough. Lots of kids too, which is always great. My own kids have helped punch down, press and bottle my homemade wines, so of course we like kids around. I'll post a complete review of the event, along with excellent pictures from PDXploration that you can see in collage by clicking that link.

For now, my own shot of a 4-year old Martin pressing the 2007 Vincent Pinot Noir Meredith Mitchell Vineyard on the driveway nearly three years ago. He was really into it, and while I won't let him operate the mechanical press at the winery for a long time, it might come sooner than I think. This is what it's all about.

Garage tasting - last call

The Vincent Garage Wine Tasting this Sunday is almost upon us. To recap, I'm pouring my final homemade wine, my 2008 Vincent Pinot Noir Zenith Vineyard. Then we'll try some barrel samples of 2009s that will be bottled and released later this year. And I'll pour some older homemade wines to check in on them, plus some bubbly and maybe something else. We'll see how things go.

Right now, there are about 60 people confirmed, including several élevage readers whom I'm looking forward to meeting. We'll have at least one retailer, a few winemakers, at least one vineyard owner, the graphic designer who's working on my label, homemade charcuterie from a local blogger and élevage reader, and a whole bunch of friends, aquaintences, kids and who knows who else. One thing is clear - this final garage tasting will be the biggest yet and I'm sure the most fun. We even have past attendees coming from Seattle because they don't want to miss it. That's crazy, but definitely good crazy.

If you're interested, email me at vincent . fritzsche [at] gmail . com. Of course take out the spaces and put in the @. I've give you the address. When you get here, we'll be up the driveway in and around the garage. I'll be out there from noon to 5pm. See you there.

2007 Stoller Vineyard Pinot Noir Dundee Hills JV

[note - this was a sample from Stoller's publicity group. I write about it because I honestly like it.]

Stoller vineyard is a large, well regarded site for pinot noir on a far southwest knoll of Oregon's Dundee Hills AVA. It's so large that, in addition to estate production, many producers buy from the vineyard, with some producing Stoller vineyard designated bottlings. Perhaps the most well known of those bottlings is from Chehalem, but buyers over the years have included Scott Paul, La Bete, Boedecker and Adelsheim, among many others. Stoller is clearly one of the blue chip vineyards in the northern Willamette Valley.

In my experience, Stoller tends to produce a strongly black cherry flavored wine, soft and round with lower acid than the local norm. I'm usually looking for more tension and structure in a pinot noir, and it's no surprise that I love this 2007 Stoller Vineyard Pinot Noir JV (for jeunes vignes or junior (young) vines). This is their entry level wine, with a suggested retail of $25. Wonder what the fancy stuff from 2007 tastes like?

Simply put, this is nice Oregon pinot noir. There's an intriguing black cherry, herb and toast perfume that marries nicely with dinner over a few nights. The flavors are similar, with a wet earth component to balance out the sweet fruit. This isn't acidic wine (pH is 3.84), but the whole thing seems a bit nervy and lively despite the chemistry.

It's not cocktail pinot noir, and I can imagine that it's not big and rich enough for some tasters. That's what I love here. The wine trades size for interest, huge fruit for complexity, and it's delicious. What more do you want? Most importantly, you might find this at a good price on a restaurant wine list in some far flung places, where finding good and authentic tasting Oregon pinot can sometimes be a challenge. Order it without hesitation.

Business time

There hasn't been much to report lately, though I suppose there a bunch of little things working mentioning. First, sort of big news from the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau, the federal organization better known as the TTB that licenses wineries and anyone else in the sin business. Yes, I received my TTB Basic Permit, required to sell my wine and the first domino in several at the state and local level to finalize all my licensing. Now all I need is approval for my City of Portland liquor license and the OLCC, our Oregon state overseers, should relent and approve me. Once that's done, I'll start hitting everyone up to buy my wine. Until then, get on my email list. Ha.

Meanwhile, I'm working on a side project where some partners and I will bottle and sell less expensive wines. I wish I could write more about all that, but for now know that I'm working on more than just my own boutique Pinot noir label. There are plans afoot.

There's good progress on my Pinot noir label design. I have a meeting later this week with my designer Angie Reat of Imprint Design. Angie's been great. I can't recommend her highly enough. We're down to two general concepts and with the next round of refinements, I think we'll be close to having our label. By June I want that done and graphics to put onto a new web site and email template. And business cards and everything else you can imagine.

All that leads me to the future of this blog and how it will work with my emerging winery website. I'm setting up my own domain name, so my web "address" will change, that's for sure. However, do I go with a web hosting service, or do I simply do a Wordpress blog that can essentially serve as my winery website. More and more people I'm talking to suggest doing that. Upside is simplicity and I like Wordpress a lot. Downside is that there may be limitations I don't know about or appreciate at this point. Also, I want an email platform with good analytics and I think I can get that in a package with a more traditional web hosting service like Squarespace. So what's better, what's simpler, what's better value for the money I will end up spending? If any readers have ideas, I'd love to hear them.

One thing I want to keep doing is blogging about what got me into all this craziness in the first place -- my interest in wine and what it teaches me. To that end, I'm really excited about writing a piece for Cory Cartwright's saignée blog for next month's 32 Days of Natural Wine. Past participants include Alice Feiring, Joe Dressner, Peter Liem and beautiful photo posts from Detroit's Putnam Weekly. This year may include all those and people like winemaker Eric Texier and Art of Eating author Edward Behr. What a tremendous idea Cory and I'm lucky to be able to participate. Now what should I write about? At least I have a few weeks to ruminate.

Armstrong Vineyard, Ribbon Ridge AVA

For 2010, Vincent Wine Company plans to source pinot noir grapes from two vineyards. One is the Zenith vineyard, which I've worked with for the previous two years. I'll write about that site soon enough. Today's focus is the Armstrong vineyard, a new site in the smallest of the Willamette Valley's AVAs, Ribbon Ridge. Here's a map of the region new published by the Oregon Wine Board and the Map Store. Armstrong is in D11 quadrant.

Armstrong is owned by Doug and Michele Ackerman, longtime wine friends who purchased and planted nearly 15 acres of a neighboring horse farm in 2007. The vineyard is on Lewis Rogers Lane, just below Ayres and Brick House. I was working harvest in the area that fall and watched the land being prepped and planted each day as I went back and forth to Portland. I remember thinking how great it would be to somehow purchase grapes from the site for my own project, just a dream then. How perhaps this could be a site I worked with for many years.

Now in 2010, the vineyard will produce its first commercial crop of grapes. To this point, the farming goals have been to grow roots and strong vine trunks. Now, the trellis wires will be raised and the vines allowed to produce a full canopy and a modest crop. I and two other producers, Ayres and Seven of Hearts, will split the anticipated 12 tons of grapes three ways this year, with more buyers likely in future years as the vines continute to mature and larger crops can be expected. Doug worked with us to divide up the blocks this year, and I'll be getting approximately equal amounts of pinot noir clones 115, 667 and 777 from various sections of the vineyard. The idea is to have enough of each to ferment them separately to assess each, then likely blend into one wine. We'll see. Perhaps there will be more than one wine here?

Recently I stopped by the vineyard to check out the early growth and I managed to take some barely decent pictures with my phone. I must do better, but for now here's what I have.

This view is from the 777 block at the northeast corner the vineyard, looking due south. This area is flat as you can see, but the vineyard slopes to the south just beyond our perspective here. In the distance, notice the back of the Dundee Hills. Just over the ridge is Domaine Drouhin and its neighbors.

From a few rows over, still in the 777 block, Here a view back to the northwest to the 667 block. In between there's a swale where the gravel road from Lewis Rogers Lane comes up to the vineyard barn. Notice in the distance a nice looking chunk of unplanted land. I've heard people breezily suggest that all the plantable land in Yamhill County is pretty much taken. Uh, no. It might not be cheap any more, but there are several empty spots where I'm sure grapes would thrive.

Because of some rain showers, I didn't make down to the 115 block on the south end of the vineyard. Instead, I headed over to the 667 hill. Here's a shot from the top looking down to Lewis Rogers Lane with the Yamhill-Carlton District in the distance. As with most pictures, you don't get quite a sense of how steep the slope is.

So what was I looking for in this vineyard? A few things. One, there are some replantings happening where original vines didn't take. Replants are anywhere you see milk cartons, which protect the tiny new vines. Two, I wanted to see how uniform the new growth is. To my slightly trained eye, things looked really good. And I wanted to see how much growth there had been since my last visit two weeks ago. One of my goals this year is to visit the vineyard a lot and gain more knowledge of how the vines progress through the season. I'm no farmer, so I have lots to learn on this end.

Here is a shot of a particularly strong vine in the 667 block, which seemed the most advanced area of the vineyard that I saw. If you look closely, you can see the primordial grape clusters already emerging. These clusters will flower sometime in June, to begin the fruiting phase of the growing season.

So, what's growing in between the vine rows? Lots of beautiful cover crop, which is plowed under to provide green manure for the vines, but perhaps more importantly serves as competition for the vine roots, forcing them down into the soil rather than faning out on the surface. Deeper roots are better, we'll just leave it at that.

Finally, these pictures were taken before a potential frost yesterday morning. I haven't heard anything, and I haven't asked, but temperatures yesterday morning were down to 30F in selected areas of Yamhill county. The 300-400 foot elevation of the Armstrong vineyard plus amateur weather station readings nearby that showed lows in the mid-30s lead me to believe there wasn't a frost issue, or any significant if there was any frost. Here's hoping the axiom that frost danger is done after Mother's Day holds true this year. (Saturday morning update: indeed, no frost damage at Armstrong vineyard. Lots of warmer weather on tap so let's hope frost danger is past.)

Garage tasting May 23, and yes, you're invited

Regular readers should know my story by now. I've been a home winemaker for several years in Portland, OR, but with the 2009 vintage I'm starting a commercial label for my Oregon pinot noir. Along the way I've worked several harvests in commercial wineries and devoted myself to making commercial quality wine at home, in part to enjoy the product and get feedback from family, friends and even blog readers, in part to prove to myself I could make good wine consistently. I'm happy to report success on all fronts.

So, as we've done for the past few years, I'm holding one more tasting of my homemade wine out in my garage where the wine has been made, aged and bottled. When? Sunday, May 23, from noon to 5pm. Why? To have fun and to share what I've been doing out in the garage with anyone who's interested and civil. (Not that civility has been a problem at past tastings, but when throwing the doors open to the world, I figure it's worth mentioning.)

Yes, you can come! You can even bring friends. All I ask is that you let me know you're coming and I'll give you my address and answer any other questions you have. We've had dozens of people at past tastings and it's fun to see old friends, newer friends, friends of friends, even complete strangers who read the blog and get up the gumption to email me and show up, all to taste wine and have some fun.

This year I'll be pouring my recently bottled 2008 Vincent Pinot Noir Zenith Vineyard. I'm very happy with the wine and think you'll like it. It's a great way to close out my home winemaking career before the 2009s and beyond hit local store shelves and restaurants. There will be a sneak preview of those '09s.

As usual, I'll open a few other fun things including some bubbly to make sure we've properly festive. I think it might make sense to revisit the 2006 Vincent Pinot Noir Wahle Vineyard from magnum to see how that's aging.

There is no charge but I will gladly sign you up for my mailing list if you're not already on it. The first offer of 2009 wines will go out this summer with bottling in September and release in time for Thanksgiving

In the meantime, come on down for the swan song garage tasting. Come into the garage through the out door, let your presence be felt. It's sure to be a celebration day, friends. Thank you.