Hollywood Hill Vineyards

Cabernet Dorsa

2011-12-29T09:17:00.000-08:00

I had some email with Thomas Henick Kling from WSU and it looks like they are going to get Cabernet Dorsa into the state at my request from FPMS in California. It will probably be put into their research block at WSU and maybe released in a couple of years. I'm not sure that this grape will do well here in Western Washington, but it may do well in Eastern WA (not that anyone will want to grow it there, but that's another topic!) This brings up the issue of new grapes, which I am torn on. On one hand I love that there are always new grapes being developed and that they can bring new wine quality to a region like ours. On the other hand, we have plenty of grapes to work with here in Western Washington and sometimes I think we need to just put our collective heads down and work with the varieties that we have available to us now and make world class wines!

Anyway, some specifics on Cabernet Dorsa. It's a cross between Cabernet Sauvignon and Dornfelder. I'm glad that they named it Cabernet Dorsa because with a name like Regent, it's a harder sell in the tasting room. It supposedly ripens before Dornfelder and Cabernet S. It makes a rich, dark, spicy wine that takes well to oak. It is catching on in Germany with over 500 acres planted. Those Germans keep looking for a dark red grape to grow in their conditions. Keep an eye out for it in several years. Like all things in the wine industry, things move very slowly!

2012 Grape Growing Class

2011-12-18T13:49:00.000-08:00

Sunday, February 26th 2012, 9am-4pm. $125
Coffee, morning snack, lunch and wine tasting provided.

Following on a tradition I learned at other local vineyards, I'm putting on my 5nd annual Cool Climate Grape Growing class. This is a full day class for people interested in growing grapes in their backyard or people that want to take the next step and run a commercial vineyard. This class is focused on growing grapes in the Puget Sound region, but these principles could be applied to a wide variety of locations from Oregon to British Columbia.

A little about me, I'm going into my 14th year of growing grapes on a commercial scale. I first started out on Maury Island Vineyards where we tended a 3 acre vineyard for six years. After six years, we decided to start a new vineyard and winery in Woodinville. I've taken UC Davis extension classes, attended a week long Cool Climate wine making class. Lectured at a variety of places including South Seattle Community College, Western Washington Horticultural Association and the WSU Focus on Farming. Finally, I have been teaching Viticulture in the South Seattle Community College wine program for the past 2 years.

As for the class, we will be focusing on how to grow grapes here in Western Washington. The class will go from 9am to 4pm. We cover a lot of ground in the class. We'll provide the food, coffee and wine and also give you a notebook of the slides from the class. During the last hour of the class, we'll prune in our vineyard and you can take some cuttings home with you to start for yourself.

Topics covered by the class will be:
- History of Puget Sound wine growing
- Puget Sound Climate
- The rain myth
- Site Selection
- Grape variety selection
- Site Prep
- Starting cuttings
- How to train vines
- Cost to establish a vineyard
- Pest control
- Harvest Parameters

Call me 425-753-0093 or email me steve@hollywoodhillvineyards.com
We have room for about 20 people and seats go fast.

2011 Year in Review

2011-12-08T12:38:00.000-08:00

Growing Degree Days

Deviation From Normals

I thought when we had such a crummy year in 2010 here in the Puget Sound AVA that it would be hard to repeat it. Well, I was mistaken. One little dirty secret in the wine industry is that we never talk about how crummy the weather is, we have to spin it so it sounds like everything went well. 2011 was not one of those years. From Napa Valley to Vancouver Island, the weather did not behave. Sure, many will make great wines, but there were many tons of grapes that rotted or were left on the vine because they didn't get ripe.

Here in the Puget Sound AVA things were no different. If you look at the charts, you'll see that the Growing Degree Days got off to a bad start and stayed that way all year long. The winter was long and cold, but relatively dry. When we needed the heat in March and April to wake the vines up, we had cold and rain. In fact it stayed that way pretty much until August 20th. You can see by my chart on the deviations from the normal, that we had below normal temperatures pretty much every day until August 20th, then we had a rally of sorts until September 22nd where the heat flatlines compared to averages, but by that time the damage had been done. Things were so late that almost no amount of heat would allow the vines to catch up and ripen before the rains started to fall in the middle of October. Sure enough, the heat came and went and unlike 2010 where we had some pretty nice weather in October, we didn't this year. Last time I checked my vines, the Pinot Noir was about 15 brix and then the starlings descended and wiped out the vineyard. It wouldn't have made a difference because we ran out of time and heat. It was a similar story up and down the west coast. Parts of California got drenched in Ocotober. Eastern Washington did OK, but things ran super late. Most people picking their late ripening red grapes late in October and even into November and finally having to pick everything when the frosts came.

The odd thing about 2011 was that we finished up with a decent amount of heat, at 1825 Degree Days, which in this part of the world is a decent year. But like I mentioned earlier that once you get off to a late start, almost a month late by most grower's records, it is super hard to make up a deficit like that. 2009 was an exception, but it got really super hot that summer and we made up a late start and actually harvested early that year.

This year also tells me that I might have been shooting high for my ripening dates, but then I had about 12 years of experience to back me up that said I could ripen Pinot Noir in the Puget Sound region. I guess the deviations graph kind of explains how bad things are.

Cliff Mass and others have suggested that we are still going to have La Nina in 2012 again, but not so bad as this last year. I sure hope not, my poor vineyard needs a break! I need some grapes too! My best guess (and they have known to be wrong), suggests that we will start with La Nina and move to a neutral weather pattern over the summer. The main problem the past two years has been two fold, late start and wet Fall weather. Both can be overcome if we ever get off to an early start, something I have not seen since 2006. This past year also tells me that diversification is the key to a commercial success. Regent, Pinot Noir Precoce are going to be key grapes going forward. We better learn to work with them now.

Cuttings for Sale!

2011-12-06T08:14:00.000-08:00

I am now ready to start taking orders for cuttings for 2012. As always, I have a lot of some and not many of others. Order early to reserve yours. I have been growing some of these grapes for many years and some perform better or worse in our climate here in Puget Sound AVA. Some will do better in Oregon or California. Each order will get a 2 page document explaining how to start your cuttings. Most of these vines are only for serious hobby or commercial growers as they need to be sprayed every couple of weeks in the summer.

Cuttings will be made in January and shipped when ordered until the end of April. If you order now, vines will ship in January. After January, they will be shipped when ordered.

Here is what I have this year with quantities. All cuttings are $1 and you pay shipping. Contact me at steve@hollywoodhillvineyards.com to place your order.

Pinot Noir clone 667 - Unlimited
Pinot Noir clone 777 - Unlimited
Chardonnay clone 76 - Unlimited
Regent - Unlimited
Zweigelt - about 100
St. Laurent - about 100
Garanoir - about 100
Pinot Noir clone Pommard - about 100
Phoenix: about 100
Pinot Meunier: about 100
Sauv. Blanc: about 50
Pinot Blanc: about 25

Climate predictions for 2012

2011-11-17T15:27:00.000-08:00

OK, I've just about had enough of this El Nino/La Nina stuff! Just when you think it's going to end, we are going to have another year of it! On the left is a really neat animation someone put together that show all the climate models and their predictions for the next few months. The dashed black line is the most likely based on the averages of all the other computer models. Every single model has our climate in the Seattle area pulling out of La Nina (cold cycle) by next summer, unfortunately it looks like we are going to have to endure another cold winter. By some predictions even colder than last year which wasn't really all that bad, but spring just dragged on forever... Two things, first is that these are only predictions and I remember the winter of 2009 and looking at these predictions and they were telling us a warmer and drying El Nino summer, which never came in 2010. So these models can be wrong this far out. The other thing is that if they do come true, we are going to have a cold and late spring just like this year. That just means a late start. I'm trying to remember the last year we had an "early" start to the year. I'm thinking 2007 or 2006 where we were about a week early and the season seemed like a breeze even though we weren't all that hot that year. 2009 was a late starting year, but by May it was just blazing hot all summer. Either way, it's been two years since I harvested anything from my vineyard and I'm hoping 2012 will break that trend!

Blending is the Answer?

2011-10-14T14:01:00.000-07:00

When I first started growing grapes and making wine I was obsessed with finding just the right red grape to grow in the Puget Sound AVA. To that end, Jeff and I hunted down vines from all over the country to start trials to see if we could unearth some magic bullet that would shine in our climate. My big early hope was that St. Laurent would come through. References made to it said that it ripens 2 weeks earlier than Pinot Noir. Some people thought Zweigelt would be it. Then Regent and so on... Come to find out that nothing really beats Pinot Noir in the early ripening department for red wine grapes (OK, there are some grapes like Rondo and Leon Millot, but I have not tasted a wine from them that I like anywhere near as much as Pinot Noir).

In years like 2009, everything got fully ripe and rich and wonderful. These past two years have been a huge disappointment in the weather department. I lost my crop both years to the rain in September and early October. Then the birds came and wiped me out completely... Oh well. It's a lot of work and I am re-thinking my position on 100% Pinot Noir wines after my success in 2009 with our Joyeuse blend.

A couple of the older wineries in the Puget Sound make a white blend mainly from Madeleine Angevine, Siegerrebe and Muller-Thurgau and I generally love it and it sells well. Gerard Bentryn told me long ago that blend reds would also be the way to go here for the same reasons. There are some red grapes that ripen really early, like Dunkelfelder, but you really don't want to make a 100% Dunkelfelder. Regent is decent on it's own and we need to work with it more to really see what that grape can do.

In 2009, I didn't have quite enough wine for 4 barrels of Pinot Noir, maybe 70% full on the 4th barrel. I also had some Regent, more than 3 barrels and a beer keg filled with Agria. I said, let's put 20% Regent and 10% Agria and see how that works. Aged it for about 14 months and it was a huge hit! Really lifted up the Pinot to another level and the Agria and Regent, which are richer and more full bodied helped fill the Pinot Noir in. Gave it a lot of color and some tannins. The Herbfarm bought 13 cases of it! Paul Gregutt rated it 88 points. When the time comes and we have warm weather again, I plan on doing a blend!

More on the Pinot Noir Precoce clone

2011-10-02T09:47:00.000-07:00

I have talked about Fruhburgunder (Pinot Noir Precoce) before in this blog. I am very excited about the potential of this grape in the Puget Sound AVA. I think it could revolutionize grape growing west of the Cascade mountain in Washington state.
For those that haven’t heard of this grape let me give you a little background…
Pinot Noir Precoce or Fruhburgunder in German. Precoce means early in French and Fruhburgunder means early Burgundy in German.
I started hearing about this clone about 6-7 years ago when Gary Moulton at the WSU Mt. Vernon Agriculture Research Center started telling local growers that he had found this new (actually pretty old, but new to us) clone of Pinot Noir. It came from Germany and it ripened a full two weeks ahead of any other Pinot Noir clone. Needless to say, I was skeptical. I had been down this road before in my search for the holy grail of grapes.Way back when I started this whole thing, one of the things that Jeff Jernegan and I started to do is try and find a red grape that would ripen before Pinot Noir in our climate. Many books said that St. Laurent and Zweigelt and Garanoir and so forth would ripen before Pinot Noir... but as the years went on we found out that nothing other than a few old French/American hybrids like Leon Millot (which makes OK wine, not great) ripened before Pinot Noir. In fact the old clone Pommard that Gerard Bentryn had planted at Bainbridge Island Vineyards was one of the best so far...

So, I turned my efforts into finding the earliest ripening clones of Pinot Noir. When I finally had to make a decision I planted Dijon clones 667 and 777 at Hollywood Hill Vineyards starting in 2004. They've done pretty good for me, but in the background Gary Moulton was starting to tell people that this clone of his was ripening a full two week before his other clones at Mt. Vernon, WA. When I could, I finally got some plants in 2008 and planted a row here (eventually 500 plants when I can get the whole area planted. Enough for a barrel). I think maybe I'll finally have some fruit next year to compare...

In the meantime, I've always been worried about the fruit quality. An acquaintance of mine on Vancouver Island said it was a poor quality clone of Pinot Noir and people on the island were ripping it out. I couldn't find any information to support that. Several commercial vineyards growing Precoce are coming online this year and barrels of wine will be made and we will finally know if we have something great or mediocre.

I was searching the web a few days ago for Precoce because I hadn't looked for a year or so and wanted to see if anything popped. I found two recent entries from England about how good the wines from Precoce vines are here and here. So I have high hopes that this might just be the red grape for the Puget Sound AVA.

I've also had contact with Stephen Skelton from England and he is adamant that Precoce is not Pinot Noir but a separate cultivar. I have not grown enough mature vines to give you a definitive answer from looking at them. I've had wine made from Precoce vines a few times and many would be hard pressed to tell the difference between them.

Muller-Thurgau in the Puget Sound

2011-09-26T10:30:00.000-07:00

In my never ending series of grapes that are grown or can be grown in the Puget Sound AVA, we come to Muller-Thurgau (The U in Muller should have an umlaut, but here in the USA we are umlaut challenged!)
What is Muller-Thurgau? (MT for short) Müller-Thurgau is a variety of white grape which was created by Hermann Müller from the Swiss Canton of Thurgau in 1882. It gained popularity throughout the 20th century, especially in Germany where it's popularity peaked around the 1970s. It can grow in a wider range of sites than Riesling and can produce large crops of grapes that make pleasant, if uninteresting wines. Originally, it was thought that Dr. Muller had combined Riesling and Sylvaner to come up with MT. Then in recent decades it was though that it was Riesling and Chasselas but DNA testing has conclusively proved that MT is the offspring of Riesling and a grape called Madeleine Royale. Madeleine Royale is a cross between Pinot Noir and Trollinger.
Sounds like a great match for the Puget Sound climate and it is for the most part. The main problem with Muller-Thurgau is that it ripens about the same time as many other white grapes, such as Pinot Gris, Pinot Blanc, Chardonnay etc. The other problem is it's name, it's not very sexy and those people that know about the grape know that it's mainly used to produce low quality wines. As Oz Clarke says in his Encyclopedia of Grapes book "but the problem is that to produce a top Muller-Thurgau you need a top Riesling site, which is a terrible waste of a top Riesling site". I couldn't agree more. There are so many other grapes to choose from that make much more interesting wines.
I grew MT at Maury Island Vineyards for six years and it is an joy to grow. It grows upright, gives a nice big crop and it seemed to be quite a bit more mildew resistant than the Pinot family. It usually ripened in the 2nd week of October, right along with Chardonnay.
Not to say that all MT is plonk. I had Gerard Bentryn once roll out a 12 year vertical for me of his MTs going back into the 1980s. Some of the older vintages were spectacular and you would have a hard time distinguishing them from Riesling. There in lies the problem, I have a hunch from some limited testing is that we could actually grow a decent Riesling here in the Puget Sound if you got the right clone and rootstock matched up to a nice warm site.
My suggestions with MT is that if you have an existing vineyard, no need to rip it out if it's working for you. The only way I would plant more Muller-Thurgau is if you want to have a block of grapes that produces a high volume, lower priced wine. It can crop at over 4 tons an acre and still get pretty ripe. (most Chardonnay and Pinot Gris will only ripen 2-3 tons an acre around here) Maybe it can be used in a blend with Madeleine Angevine and Siegerrebe. I have made excellent sparkling wine from MT.
All in all, a decent grape that makes pretty good wine, but competes in the vineyard with other higher value grapes such as Pinot Gris

Recent Regent Press

2011-09-23T08:43:00.000-07:00

I recently ran across an article from the renowned wine writer Jancis Robinson about pushing viticultural boundaries. You can view the article here: http://www.jancisrobinson.com/articles/a201011091.html

It’s a great article about how people around the world are planting grapes where they haven’t traditionally been grown before in places like Belgium, Poland and Norway. The one thing that caught my eye immediately was a very favorable mention of Regent wines from Holland! Jancis has always had an open mind about new and interesting grapes and I wish more wine writers around the world would be open to such innovations as Regent (hardly a new grape, being 43 years old). I’d love to get my hands on some of that Dutch Regent, the couple of examples I’ve had from Germany were disappointing, but I’m sure I’m not getting the best examples here in the USA.

I first became familiar with Regent in about 1999. Gary Moulton was running the grape studies at the WSU Mt. Vernon Research station and had just recently acquired from Canada and had heard good things about this grape. We got a few vines and were able to plant 25 experimental vines. It did really well out on Maury Island and in the picture on the left you can see we had nice big full clusters of dark red fruit that never needed to be sprayed for mildews. It wasn’t until Ron Nelson planted an acre or so of this stuff that we were able to truly see the potential. Now I am a true believer in Regent as one of the top red grape selections for the Puget Sound region. Other things mentioned in the article that I found interesting was that some in Holland are also planting Pinot Gris and Pinot Blanc both of which have great potential on the west side of the Cascades here in Washington.

One thing open for debate is whether this is due to global warming or the increased interest in wine growing around the world. I think it might be a little bit of both. I do think mainly it is that people are exploring every nook and cranny around the world with an eye on wine grape growing and opening areas unthinkable in the past, but were probably decent growing areas never explored.

Pinot Blanc and Pinot Gris

2011-09-22T13:04:00.000-07:00

In my continuing series of grapes that grow in the Puget Sound AVA, today I’m talking about Pinot Gris and Pinot Blanc. As far as we can tell, Pinot Gris was first planted in the Puget Sound AVA by Gerard Bentryn sometime in the 1980s. He has told me that he got the “Rulander” clone of Pinot Gris, but I can’t remember the source of the cuttings. As far as I know, I am the first one to plant some Pinot Blanc in the Puget Sound AVA. I got vines from a certified source in Oregon on rootstock.

A little history on Pinot Gris and Pinot Blanc. Genetically, they are clones of Pinot Noir and have the same exact DNA (as with all clones of Pinot Noir). Pinot Noir is a pretty genetically unstable grape and is prone to mutation. Long time growers of Pinot Noir report seeing clusters of fruit on the the same vine having both red and white fruit on them. I’m sure some enterprising individual growing Pinot Noir in France hundreds of years ago saw these mutations and took cuttings from that shoot and replanted it and started growing Pinot Gris and Pinot Blanc.

They grow pretty much the same as Pinot Noir in the field and are hard to tell apart until the fruit changes color at veraison. Generally, you would pick them earlier than Pinot Noir because you would want higher acid levels with them than you would with a red wine grape like Pinot Noir. Not much work had been to differentiate the clones of these two grapes as there has been for Pinot Noir, but as time goes on, there will be more research into different clones and such. Pinot Gris is enjoying huge boost in sales, mainly due to the Pinot Grigio trend. Pinot Blanc, while not quite as popular in this country, is always there being planted and sold because it simply makes delicious wines when planted in the right spot.

Let’s talk about these grapes in the context of the Puget Sound AVA. Since they are genetically identical to Pinot Noir it would bode well for them that they are able to ripen in this climate mainly because you would need to pick them earlier than Pinot Noir because you would want slightly higher acid levels. Bainbridge Island Vineyards has been growing Pinot Gris for 20+ years and has always made an exceptional tasting example. With the research into newer clones and rootstock combinations, it’s possible that we could enhance the ripening of the grape if needed. They make wines generally between 12-13% alcohol in our climate, but with tons of flavor. Alsace grows the most Pinot Gris and Pinot Blanc in the world and sometimes those wines can reach higher levels of alcohol and many years they can do late harvest wines.

For those wanting to plant more traditional French varieties that would do well in the warmer areas Puget Sound AVA, I would recommend planting both of these grapes. I’ve got several Pinot Gris and Pinot Blanc rows going (along with Auxerrois) and while I won’t be making a individual Pinot Gris/Blanc wine anytime soon, I will grow enough to take notes on it and make a blend. If I find any land around me to expand my vineyard, I will surely plant more of these grapes… I know at least 3 other new vineyards going in that have large plantings of Pinot Gris so watch for some Puget Sound Pinot Gris wines in the next couple of years…

Year in Review 2009

2009-10-14T13:12:00.000-07:00

Now that all the grapes are in, it's time to have a year in review of our weather and what we can expect from the wines of Washington state. For both sides of the state, I think it will be a blockbuster year.

If we go back to the beginning of December last year and all the snow and cold weather we had in the Seattle area, you would hardly think that we would have had such a hot summer. Here in Woodinville we recorded a low of 8 degrees one freezing morning in mid December followed by 3 feet of snow at Christmas time! Eastern Washington had a pretty normal, but chilly winter. Lows didn't get cold enough to cause freeze damage to many vines.

If we speed forward to early spring, things got off to a late start on both sides of the mountains. In my vineyard, we had a two week late start to bud break and I was starting to grumble that we were going to have another crappy year like 2008. But that quickly changed as May arrived. We had started to have summer weather very early on. By the time flowering on the vines occurred, we had made up ground and flowering was either normal or slightly earlier.

Then summer came, and we had a one of the driest summers I can remember. We also clocked in a day at 106 degrees in Woodinville! This was the summer that never seemed to end and veraison and ripening came earlier than normal. I heard people picking Chardonnay in Eastern Washington in late August and I got panicked because we weren't ready for harvest yet! September came and we had a couple of days of rain, but the vines really needed it so I wasn't too worried. My growers on the eastern side of the state started posting ripening numbers and things came fast and furious by mid September. The grapes from eastern Washington are characterized by higher than normal brix levels and normal to lower acid levels, but nicely balanced. Western Washington grapes are pretty ripe. The ripest I've seen in 11 years. If you look at the growing degree days for the year, Seatac Airport was at 2195, which is about 350 degree day above the "average", although if you average out the last 11 years I've been doing this (since 1998) the degree days average 2051. I think the National Weather Service must've picked an unusually cool stretch of weather to make the average because we get far more heat than that...

Harvest happened under pretty nice conditions and we picked the Pinot Noir before October 1st and only because the birds were getting out of hand. Eastern Washington we harvested early in the day because it was still quite hot.

Anyway, look for our 2009 Pinot Noir in early 2011, we should have about 80 cases of it and look for our 2009 Chardonnay in the spring of 2010!

Climate change and the Puget Sound AVA?

2009-10-13T07:21:00.000-07:00

OK, I guess it's my turn on this article in the Seattle Time by Craig Welch today called "Puget Sound area emerging as wine region, thanks to warmer climate". I knew this article was coming. Craig called me a couple of times over the past couple of months, but we never seem to hook up. Oh well... I read the article and I generally believe what most scientist say about global warming or whatever you want to call it. I also believe there many variables that can change our climate over decades or an instant. (I lived in Germany the year after Mt. St. Helens erupted and it was the worst winter on record that year) Be that as it may, I am here to talk about growing grapes in the Puget Sound region. The first thing you need to understand that the Puget Sound basin has a high amount of variations depend on factors like: proximity to the Puget Sound, rain shadows, convergence zones, elevations, etc... Tom Miller's vineyard near Sequim (mentioned in the article) is just about the most extreme place I'd ever want to try and grow grapes. It's extremely dry due to the rain shadow, but it's also very cool. The grape he is picking in that article, Siegerebe, is one of the earliest ripening wine grape out there. If I tried growing it in Woodinville it would ripen in August! Anyways, I'm just trying to show the variations in climate we are dealing with.

First I'll tackle the Seattle Times article... The general premise of the article seems to be that global warming is the driving factor for the growth in wine grapes in the Puget Sound AVA. My take on this is that we've been able to grow grapes here all along, we just didn't have the knowledge and grape vines to grow what we needed to grow here. Lambert Evans planted grapes in the 1870s on Stretch Island and there was a successful winery on the island until Prohibition killed it off. If we track back to the modern start of wine grape growing in the PNW, it all really starts in the 1960s both in Oregon and Washington state. There were parallel efforts going on in the Willamette Valley, Eastern Washington and the Puget Sound. Gerard Bentyrn could be called the father of the Puget Sound AVA for being the first to plant well known European wine grapes in Western Washington in the late 1970s, unfortunately wine growing never really took off in the Puget Sound. I think the main reason are urban sprawl and lack of resources and Gerard's choices in grapes that were obscure even by European standards.

As some of you may know, I've been growing commercial plantings of wine grapes in the Puget Sound AVA since 1998. I was frustrated early on by the lack of new growers, but that doesn't seem to be a problem any more and I mainly attribute that to the explosive growth in vineyards nationwide (worldwide?). I don't think global warming has anything to do with it! People simply want to plant grapes wherever they can and the Puget Sound is ideally situated for high quality wine grape production...

OK, as I type this my RSS reader tells me Paul Gregutt chimes in. He doesn't have much to add to the argument and is mainly interested in if climate change is driving people to do things differently with their vineyards, but shared a post from a reader to the original article. In that posting, the person says "But the Puget Sound region is hardly similar to Burgundy (as Oregon's Willamette Valley is), or even the cooler Loire Valley of France. I think it will take many more years of climate change before we will see any big changes in the wine industry on the ‘wet’ side of the state, where many wineries still get their grapes from eastern Washington.” I'm not sure if Paul agrees with that statement or not, but since he posted it, I assume he agrees with it... Firstly, the Puget Sound shares a very similar climate to the Willamette valley, the Puget Sound region is just cooler. We have the same wet winters and bone dry summers. The Willamette valley climate is very different than Burgundy. They are much closer to the ocean and more influenced by it. Burgundy is more continental, less maritime, they get rain all year long. We get rain in the winter months. If anyone out there has read John Gladstones "Viticulture and Enviroment" they will note that the Puget Sound shares a climate that is very similar to the Loire river valley as it empties into the Atlantic ocean, otherwise known as Muscadet.The Loire river is long and climate along it is varied, just like the Puget Sound...

Anyway, what does this all add up to? My feeling is that the Puget Sound region has been capable of growing high quality wine grapes all along, growers didn't have access to easy and cheap land like they did in Oregon or Eastern Washington. The knowledge needed to grow in cooler climates simply was not here yet (although it has been in Europe for centuries). We are just now uncovering higher quality grapes that will grow well in our climate and still make excellent wines. Also the public's acceptance of offbeat wines is at an all time high. I think this all adds up to a rosy future for the Puget Sound AVA!

Riesling in the Puget Sound?

2009-10-10T14:25:00.000-07:00

I finally got a harvest out of my four Riesling vines this year... I'm not suggesting you go out and plant Riesling any time soon, but based on my four vines, I would say that you could make an authentic German styled Riesling (low alcohol, off dry) based on the numbers I got off these vines. I picked about five lbs of fruit. Bare in mind that this is probably an old California clone of Riesling, no rootstock, not cluster thinned and I got 19 brix and a pH of 3.1. I'd love to get my hands on some of that new clone (new to the USA) of Riesling called N90 that Dr. Frank winery brought into the USA a couple of years ago. Supposed to achieve much higher levels of sugar. In the meantime, until we can get some N90 here in the Puget Sound area, I don't suggest running out and planting acres of Riesling, but in the right location and training, I think you could be successful. If you can't wait, I suggest you get some Muller-Thurgau or Ehrenfelser for a similar flavor profile...

For all you science geeks out there, an evening with John Vidale

2009-10-04T12:44:00.000-07:00

I'm a huge fan of science and I've been interested it in ever since I was a little kid. When I was in college I skipped around majors a couple of time from Computer Science to Geology and back to Computer Science. I always was into rock collecting when I was little. Even today I still am always looking at ground trying to find some interesting rocks. Now that my boys are getting to age where they can appreciate the same stuff, my older son is really getting into the sciences and especially rock collecting. We'll see where it all leads...

Anyway, we are hosting John Vidale at our tasting room on October 16th. He has got quite a resume and we are honored to have him speak here. Here is the details:

"An Evening with John Vidale"

Friday, October 16th 6-9pm in our Tasting Room
$20 per person; space is limited to just 30 people

(Please see our website to sign up)

And now for something completely different! Join us as we welcome John Vidale, award winning seismologist and noted lecturer, and receiver of the James B Macelwane medal, for a discussion on "Earthquake History and Future Around the Puget Sound".

Kick back with a glass of wine and hear John's perspective on the past and future of earthquakes in our area. We met John at an event recently and thought it would be so interesting to hear him talk about this fascinating topic! Kids are welcome (space permitting), wine available for purchase, light snacks. Who knows? This may become a series! "Really Smart People We've Met?" "People With Really Interesting Jobs?" Hope to see you this evening!Read more about John Vidale, PhD, UW Professor, Director of the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network at: http://earthweb.ess.washington.edu/

Harvest at Hollywood Hill Vineyards

2009-10-01T06:58:00.000-07:00

On Monday, we picked our Pinot Noir before the rains came on Tuesday. Many thanks to Shona, Mike, Katherine, Lauren, Stacia, Greg, Josh, Elizabeth, my Father and my wife Becky (for putting up with this whole thing). We had a great time, the weather was really nice and we picked about 3000lbs of Pinot Noir. The Chardonnay wasn't quite there, so we are letting it hang another week, but it will really nice when we pick it next week.

We had a nice picnic lunch and had a bottle of the last harvest I had avaailable of the Pinot Noir 2006.

The grapes came in at 22 brix and it wasn't even October yet! This is the earliest and best looking grapes I've ever picked from a Puget Sound vineyard. We still have Regent hanging Nelson Vineyards, which we will pick next week...

Harvest Update #2

2009-09-17T11:25:00.000-07:00

It's been a week since my last update...

We've picked up 1.5 tons of Portteus Syrah last Wendesday, 25 brix ph=3.61. Pretty good numbers. Brix a little high for Portteus, but it is odd that we are picking a couple of days before our Red Mountain fruit. He said he had a pump go out on his irrigation system in June and that created really small berries and a small crop. Which ripened really early. The good news is that this will be an intense Syrah with very concentrated flavors. The bad news is that we are probably only going to get 75 cases of it (instead of 150 or more we made in 2008).

We unexpected picked up a ton of Cab Sauv from Portteus. I think he was feeling bad about the crop levels on Syrah and sold me some of the Cab he was crushing that day. We should have two barrels of Cab to play with. This is the first time we have made a Cab and are thinking about blending it with some Syrah to make a Provence styled blend.

Then on Friday last week we picked up our Red Mountain Syrah from Ranch at the end of the Road (aka Kiona). Again, 25 brix and ph 3.70. Pretty typical for Red Mountain fruit.

The winery is really starting to smell like harvest with everything fermenting in there!

Today my father is out picking up Viognier from Portteus and then tomorrow Cab Franc. Monday we are off to Elerding to get Roussanne and the Grenache and Mourvedre are way out, maybe at the end of next week or the following week.

The only other things we have going are Regent and the estate grapes.

Regent was at 17 brix a couple of days ago. I'm going to let it hang until at least 22 brix if not more. We should be getting into the low 20s by the end of next week with a record breaking heat wave on tap.

I just checked the HHV estate vineyard two days ago and we had 19 brix on the Chard and 18 on the Pinot Noir. Long range forecast is for record heat so I would expect to add about 3-4 brix by the end of next week. I'll have a look at the forecast then and see where we are, but if I can keep the birds away I'll let the fruit hang as long as I can....

Harvest Update

2009-09-06T10:08:00.001-07:00

Just a quick update on my vineyard and what is going on in Eastern Washington...

- My vineyard looks pretty good. We hadn't quite finished pulling leaves before the rain, but I should finish next week. So far we have only gotten about .33" of rain this weekend, which isn't too bad. Radar looks like more heavy showers later today. argh! I am seeing some berry splitting on the Pinot Noir 667 on 101-14 mainly in the areas that were more drought stressed and growth was stunted. The Chardonnay and the Pinot 777 on 3309 seems to be doing great.

- Experimental stuff:
1. Regent looks good, fully colored but still tart.
2. Auxerrois is looking really good, further along than Chardonnay. I really like this grape for the Puget Sound and someday I'll plant enough to make wine.
3. Garanoir is really sweet and seeds are turning brown, again another winner for the Puget Sound.
4. Zweigelt for me still isn't 100% colored. Since I left Maury Island Vineyard, I've not seen it completely ripen. Needs rootstock?
5. St. Laurent. I've been skeptical in the past, and I'm still not sold 100%, but I have a couple of vines that are very far along. Not tart, seeds brown and good flavors. Further along than most of my Pinot Noir and it's on it's own roots.
6. Phoenix is going pretty good this year, we'll see if splits again in this rain like last year.
7. Pinot Gris, still not fully colored. Not sure what is going on, but I've not grown a lot of pinot gris so maybe it just looks that way. Still tart.
8. Dornfelder had really crummy fruit set this year, not sure why but maybe some rain during flowering. Very small berries with no seeds.
9. Madeleine Angevine, again way ahead of everything else, ready to pick in 1-2 weeks!
10. Pinot Meunier hasn't fully color, tart
11. Pinot Blanc, Dunkelfelder and Ehrenfelser are too young to have results.
12. Riesling, my couple of vines didn't fare well in the drought and berries haven't turned yet.

- Eastern Washington Fruit. Everything is a month earlier or more than last year. Some vineyards that we picked later last year are earlier than others. Looks like we'll be picking Syrah at Portteus vineyards this week late or early next week, followed quickly by all our vineyards. I'm a little worried that harvest will be compressed so much this year we won't have room for everything in the winery! On one hand I'm cursing this rain right now, on the other hand it will slow down harvest a tad bit on the east side...

Rain! argh!

2009-09-04T09:27:00.000-07:00

After one of the hottest and driest summers in memory here in the Seattle area, it all comes to a screeching halt this weekend with a blast of rain. The predictions are saying upwards of 1/2" of rain and some of the rain and cold weather will reach all the way to the vineyards in Eastern Washington, probably halting the ripening of the grapes into early next week. I think this is a good thing since I had Paul Portteus tell me that I needed to be ready to pick Syrah next week, 5 weeks earlier than last year! I really need a week to finish prepping the winery for the crush... My vineyard here in Woodinville looks great. I did some casual testing yesterday and the ripest bunches on the Pinot Noir were all above 15 brix and the Chardonnay is right in the same ball park also. The fruit looks great. There is a decent sized crop. I hope to get at least 2 barrels of red Pinot Noir and one of Chardonnay. The upside is that long range predictions are calling for a rebound of nice weather for next week with temps back into the 80s...

Day in the Vineyard

2009-09-03T11:46:00.001-07:00

We had a great time last Saturday with our "Day in the Vineyard". We had 17 people participate and everyone had a great time. This was our first time trying an event like this, but we will probably do it a couple of times a year at different times so there are different activities to try. This time of year we are pulling leaves from around the fruit and thinning clusters that have not turned color yet.After a while we took a break and had some lunch and wine!

Shona Milne enjoying a glass of our Regent!

Annual King County Farm Tour

2009-09-01T10:20:00.001-07:00

Just wanted to let everyone know that we are going to participate in the King County Farm Tour on September 26th, 2009. I think we are still the only vineyard in King County that participates. (There are a couple on Vashon Island). I'll be giving short tours of the vineyard and winery and there will be grapes to sample. We'll probably be in the middle of fermentation for other vineyards. This will not be in our tasting room, but at the winery (Map) from 11am-4pm. We'll be tasting all our current releases and there might be a surprise or two!

Harvest Dinner at the winery

2009-08-17T15:09:00.000-07:00

Harvest Dinner!
September 25th
6-9pm

Join us once again as our friend and talented chef Cristiana Owen (formerly of Lampreia and L'Ecole 41) creates a wonderful 4-course Harvest menu paired with our wines. The "'91 Points Dinner" was a huge hit and oversold in 24 hours! SPACE IS LIMITED TO 40 PEOPLE. Pre-registration is required. Reserve now!

Veraison is here!

2009-08-17T06:48:00.001-07:00

It happens every year in the vineyard and it means we are getting close to harvest time! Veraison is the changing of the color of the grapes from green to red or yellow (white wine). In the picture here, I've got some Pinot Noir clusters. I have to say it's been a long strange trip this past nine months or so.

Christmas day, 2008 we had close to three feet of snow and the power went out for most of the day! Four months later we had a two week late bud break! Then the heat kicked in and we had some of the hottest and driest weather on record. This has helped push the grapes along to ripening earlier than normal. Last week was a cool, rainy respite from the heat and allowed the grapes to regain their composure on the long march to harvest time. This week is going to be hot and sunny, but not anywhere near as hot before. I can tell we are getting closer to Fall, the night time temperatures are starting to fall into the 50s over night. The heat actually came on the in the house a couple of days ago! Crazy weather... If we can keep the weather semi-normal through September, we'll have harvest in the first week of October!

Fruhburgunder Ripening

2009-08-02T10:37:00.000-07:00

I ran across an interesting set of images on Flickr the other day while searching Google on information about Fruhburgunder (aka Pinot Noir Precoce) and earlier ripening clone of Pinot Noir grown in Germany. I'm not sure where he's from, but I think somewhere in the area of Baden Germany, but really the most interesting thing is that these grapes are changing color on July 20th! I'm looking forward to seeing how this clone performs in our vineyard over the next we years...

Record Heat!

2009-08-01T07:35:00.000-07:00

It's has been just about the hottest summer on record here in the Seattle area. We had the hottest day ever since they've been keeping records in Seattle it got to 103 at Seatac airport and I know it easily beat 105 here in Woodinville. It would be one thing if this was just an isolated event. Usually, after these heat waves, we get some rain or a break in the weather. Not this year. After a full week of extraordinary heat, we continued through the weekend and into the next week! Today is Tuesday August 4th and we finally got a break in the heat with a nice maritime layer and temperatures in the 60s... What is all this doing to my vines, well at first I was overjoyed at all the hot weather, but combined with that we haven't had a serious rainfall in over two months! I'm starting to see some stree on some of the smaller vines. Berry development isn't progressing like it should on some vines. Some vines are showing yellowing leaves. We still have plenty of time to get some rain to help out the vines ripen, but we are so far ahead this year, that we have the luxury of being able to wait.

Wow! what a difference a year makes!

Puget Sound Wine Growing FAQ

2009-06-28T13:59:00.001-07:00

Puget Sound Wine Growing FAQ

Here is a list of Frequently Asked Questions about growing grapes in the Puget Sound AVA:

1. You can’t grow grapes in Western Washington!

I get this all the time. Of course we can grow wine grapes here in western Washington. Grapes have been grown commercially since the 1870’s and modern viticulture and wine making have been taking place since Gerard Bentryn founded Bainbridge Island Vineyards in the 1970s. High quality wine grapes can be grown in most of western Washington. It’s not too cool or wet to grow grapes. Period.

2. It’s too rainy!

True it seems to rain a lot in the Puget Sound area, but compared to other growing areas in Europe, we get significantly less rain during the growing season and more sunshine than Burgundy. The key is “during the growing season” (April-October). SeaTac airport gets an average of 38” of rain a year, which mostly falls in the winter time.

3. It’s too Cool!

Not really. When many people think of Washington state wines, they think of eastern Washington with it’s hot, arid conditions. While it may be cooler than eastern Washington state, it is just as hot as place such as Chablis and parts of the Loire valley in France.

4. You guys grow grapes with funny names!

True that some of the grapes grown in the Puget Sound area have names most people wouldn’t recognize such as Siegerrebe, Madeleine Angevine, Regent and Muller Thurgau. But there are many grapes names you would recognize such as Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Pinot Gris. I suggest that you don’t look at the grape name and just taste the wine and see if you like it!

5. Why don’t more people grow grapes in the Puget Sound region?

Mainly because many of the prime locations have houses and roads on them. It has not been economically viable for large vineyard operations to locate near Seattle due to high land prices. Most new vineyards are going in the more rural areas to the north and south of the Seattle metro area.

6. The wines from the Puget Sound are whimpy!

Yes and no. They are not high in alcohol, but they do make it up in the flavor department. Puget Sound wines are typically less alcoholic than eastern Washington wines. They are higher in acids generally, but this makes them great food wines. Wines that you can drink with getting a buzz after one glass and wines that pair well with our local foods such as seafood, fish and cheese.