Seufert Winery

2009-07-28T23:27:00.000-07:00

McMinnville AVA Tasting Event

On July 18, 2009 McMinnville AVA vineyards and wineries hosted an AVA-centric event to shine the spotlight on the AVA and what makes it unique.

Over 150 people attended – starting with an informative discussion about regional geology and climate. Then all the wineries that produce wine from McMinnville AVA grapes poured samples.

Attending producers were:

Amity Vineyards
Brittan Vineyards
Coeur de Terre Vineyard
Coleman Vineyard
Maysara Vineyard
Raptor Ridge Winery
Seufert Winery
Yamhill Valley Vineyards (event host)
Youngberg Hills Vineyard

If you weren’t there, you missed a great event. Everyone had an incredible time – they may have even learned a thing or two in the process.... The modest $25 admission included an Oregon Pinot Noir glass, all tastings, and incredible food prepared by Kristen Coleman. A real bargain. Check the AVA’s website for information on the 2010 event.

2009-03-23T17:07:00.000-07:00

96 pts - Seufert Pinot Noir Vine Idyl

Ken at alawine.com recently reviewed our 2007 Vine Idyl Pinot Noir:

AlaWine Notes:
2007 Seufert Vine Idyl Pinot Noir pours as a medium maroon-ruby color in the glass. Light floral aromas and a hint of spice waft to the nose. Red berry flavors, raspberry, and cherry light up the palate in a silky smooth mouth. Modest tannins hold the red fruit through a long, light-spice, modest-mineral finish.

Bottom Line:
2007 Seufert Vine Idyl Pinot Noir is a graceful wine from its fragrantly floral opening, refined taste, and complementary finish - well balanced and elegant. Suggested retail price is $30. Overall composite score: 96 points.

2009-03-07T11:21:00.000-08:00

Wine Spectator 90 points: Seufert 2006 Momtazi Pinot Noir

"This is lithe, brightly focused and lively, with refined acidity, pointing its red cherry and raspberry flavors through the long, expressive finish. Drink now through 2014. 150 cases made. –HS"

I submitted a couple of our 2006 wines to Wine Spectator last fall. Once submitted they disappear into the machine, with no response from the publication. The only way you discover if they reviewed the wine, let alone what they had to say, is to watch for it. Most small production wines don't make it into the actual magazine. However, they do have a robust online database.

2009-03-05T20:41:00.000-08:00

2008 Oregon Pinot Noir Vintage
Growers were nervous about 2008 from early in the season. Our cool wet spring meant that the grape vines started growing 2-3 weeks later than normal. Grape ripening is on a fixed schedule – they need a certain number of days (and corresponding heat) to ripen. Given our relatively normal summer heat, the late start translated to a late finish.

After a stressfully cool and wet 2007 harvest season, everyone was incredibly nervous how 2008 would shape up. The late start set the stage for disaster. To help offset the late start, many growers reduced crop loads by cutting green grapes off the vines – more than they would normally. Fewer grapes per plants gives the remaining grapes a better chance of ripening. But it also means there are fewer grapes for making wine. Tough choice.

If you were in Oregon last October, you may recall what a pleasant month we had. We had little rain and mild temperatures – the opposite of 2007. The weather held, and with a few minor frost exceptions, vineyards harvested a less than normal amount of very high quality fruit. If you’re a cook, our growing season was like a slow simmer… mild heat for a long period of time to coax out subtle, complex, and nuanced flavors.

For the vineyards that we source Pinot Noir from, yields ranged between 1-2 tons per acre. Some were right on target, while others were considerably below their target. Regardless, flavors are great from all of our vineyards. As usual, each vineyard has its own signature. Come to our April barrel tasting event to taste them side by side.

2009-03-03T07:44:00.000-08:00

Barrel taste 2008 Pinot Noirs and purchase futures at 30% off

Our popular annual Pinot Noir Barrel Tasting open house is April 18-19 in our Dayton winery.

Taste 6 different single vineyard Pinot Noirs from top Willamette Valley growers. Taste how the much-anticipated 2008 vintage is shaping up and see what makes Pinot Noir so special. Compare how vineyard location and Pinot Noir clones contribute to unique wines. Identify specific aromas and flavors with our diverse aroma sampling station – including everything from berries to tobacco.

Plus, purchase Pinot Noir futures at 30% below release prices. Don't miss out – this happens just once a year. Join us in our wine country urban warehouse winery in historic Dayton – located just off highway 18 between Dundee and McMinnville.

$10 per person, refunded with futures purchase. Free for wine club members. April 18-19, Saturday and Sunday, 11am – 6pm.

More info can be found on our website.

2008-10-16T19:17:00.000-07:00

Video: Bottling Seufert Winery Dolcetto

Lori Cain and Diane Stevenson from Salem's Statesman Journal recently visited us. The day they dropped in we were kicking off our bottling season by bottling our Dolcetto. It was a bit hectic, but they didn't hesitate to pull out their cameras and capture the action. They have a great website with all sorts of valuable info, photos, and videos। Check them out at http://www.willamettevalleywines.com/

2008-04-15T11:41:00.000-07:00

Wine Cellar Tip: Use ‘traffic lights’ to guide which bottles to open

Let’s face it; all wine drinkers are not created equal. They range from those that enjoy it, to those that love it, to those that are downright fanatical about wine.

If that fanatical someone in your house has some special bottles stashed away, here’s a simple idea to keep everyone in the house happy. Get colored stickers and mark the bottles based on the degree of special-ness.

I like the stoplight system: a green sticker means drink to your hearts’ content. Bottles with yellow stickers can be opened on special occasions, and red stickers should only be opened when the decider says so.

Peace and happiness that is simple, cheap, and effective.

2008-03-29T22:31:00.000-07:00

Pinot Noir as a sex pheromone?

Wine aromas, especially those in Pinot Noir, are very similar to human sex pheromones. An article published by Wine X Magazine details the connection.

They state: “All those smells you get in the pinot noir grape - spices, earth, musk and the slightly feral, barnyard notes - are very similar smells to those associated with the principal male smell, androstenone. Truffles and the sort of oaky smells in so much wine fermented or matured in new oak barrels are similarly androstenone-like.”

Combine these strong subconscious messages with the effect of wine’s alcohol, and all bets are off.

2008-03-24T22:01:00.000-07:00

2008 Portland Indie Wine Festival

The 2008 Portland Indie Wine Fest is just around the corner. This year, 3 of our single vineyard Pinot Noir’s were selected by a national panel of 12 judges. Our selected wines include:
- 2006 Pinot Noir – Hawks View Vineyard
- 2006 Pinot Noir – Bishop Creek Vineyard
- 2006 Pinot Noir – Coleman Vineyard

64 wineries submitted 173 wines for this year’s festival. The top 57 wines from 40 wineries made the cut. We’re excited to be selected and to participate again, and we look forward to seeing you there. Details and tickets can be found here.

The 2008 judging panel:
- Rebecca Murphy, Founder, Dallas Morning News Wine Competition
- John Paul, Winemaker, Cameron Winery
- Toby Cecchini, Journalist and Bar Owner, NY Times, GQ
- Luisa Ponzi, Winemaker, Ponzi Winery
- Randall Grahm, Winemaker, Bonny Doon Vineyard
- Tina Caputo, Journalist, Harpers UK
- Erica Landon, Sommelier, Ten 01
- Lynn Grundmeier, Wine Buyer, Whole Foods
- Dan Beekley, Retailer, Square Deal Wine
- Randy Goodman, Restaurateur, Avignon
- Kevin Ludwig, Restaurateur, Beaker and Flask
- Andrew Turner, Chef and Journalist, Northwest Bounty

2008-03-13T10:24:00.000-07:00

Wine Barrels Breathe…

It may seem obvious, but wood is porous. New barrels absorb wine, and all barrels loose wine to evaporation through pores in the barrel’s wooden staves.

This explains why we’re spending time topping barrels this time of year. Depending on the relative humidity, the wine level can drop and inch or two a week.

This in turn creates head space in the top of the barrel and exposes the wine to air. Air oxidizes wine and allows Acetobacter to start transforming wine to vinegar (in addition to other possible aerobic processes that harm wine). All of these things are undesirable, so air exposure must be minimized.

Five months into barrel aging our 2007 vintage, we’ve used about 4% of our red wine to top the remaining barrels. This usually involves racking wine out of a barrel into our special topping tank.

Picture a tall cylinder of nitrogen with a hose feeding the gas into a retrofitted 15 gallon stainless steel beer keg. Coming out of the keg is another hose carrying the wine. A nozzle lets us carefully fill each barrel. Nitrogen is used to prevent the wine from contacting air/oxygen, and we regulate its’ pressure to push the wine out of the keg.

We top our barrels every two weeks or so.

2008-02-12T23:03:00.000-08:00

Seufert Momtazi Pinot Noir wins Gold Medal…

At the 2008 Oregon Seafood and Wine Festival.

We were honored to be the only Pinot Noir to win a gold medal at this recent Portland festival. As a result, it seemed like everyone at the festival wanted to sample (and purchase) this wine. It was busy, but fun.

If we had known the results before showing up, we would have brought enough wine to last through the festival. Unfortunately, we ran out part way through Saturday. Apologies go out to those that missed sampling this popular wine.

See all of the festival medal winners here.

This wine is made from Certified Biodynamic grapes, and partly due to that fact, it has been selected for the February 2008 shipment in Portland’s own Pure Vine Wines Biodynamic and Organic Wine of the Month Club.

Here’s their review:

“This is a big style pinot….. rich, with dark cherry fruit, a dash of spice, and soft, lush tannins. The finish is long and lingering, showing a respectable alcohol level at 14.5%, yet elegantly balanced. Great with a big carnivorous meal, but it would also stand well on its own.”

Additional information on this and other wines can be found on our website.

Photo by pure vine wines.

2008-01-14T15:55:00.000-08:00

Cool Tool: Automated wine and food matching, with recipes

I was recently visiting the Splendid Table website, trying to convince host Lynne Rossetto Kasper to bring her Willamette Valley tour to our winery. Her producer, Sally Swift, politely declined stating that their tour stops have already been finalized.

But, I followed a couple of links and found this cool tool called Wine Matcher. The first part works like an automated wine and food pairing list. You select a wine, and it returns food matches for every meal course – from appetizers right through to dessert.

It also allows you to start with a food, and it returns several wine matches. For example, I selected risotto with mushrooms and it returned Nebbiolo, Pinot Noir, and Pinto Gris. That part is useful, but it goes a step further and offers a comprehensive set of recipes that include similar ingredients. The recipes come from a variety of sources and chef’s.

Thanks go to Natalie MacLean for creating this tool.

2008-01-07T18:37:00.000-08:00

Seufert "Bella of Yamhill Vineyard" wins GOLD MEDAL

Our late harvest ice-style dessert wine took the gold medal at the January 2008 Oregon Wine and Food Festival.

In 2005 we made a very small batch of dessert wine and got hooked on it. As crush 2006 drew near we came across some excellent fruit that had the potential to make a dessert wine. The 2006 growing season was warm and dry, and we didn't get a repeat of the '05 botrytis.

However, the dry weather let us hang the fruit until Halloween, allowing it to develop rich peach, apricot, and pineapple flavors.

The Chardonnay (78%) and Gewurztraiminer (2%) were taken to a commercial freezer immediately after hand picking. They were pressed while frozen which extracts concentrated grape juice and leaves water behind. These elevated sugars were partially fermented, leaving behind residual sugar. The Chardonnay provides Bella's full body and ripe peach flavors. The Gewurz adds a subtle spice note.

Meanwhile, Riesling (10%) and Pinot Gris (10%) were processed and fermented conventionally. The Riesling was fermented dry and adds crisp acidity and a floral bouquet. The Pinot Gris was fermented to 1.5% residual sugar and contributes minerality.

All of the Bella ingredient wines were fermented in stainless steel tanks, and did not go through malo-lactic (secondary) fermentation. The final blend has 12.7% residual sugar and 11.9% alcohol.

More info can be found here.

2007-11-28T09:29:00.000-08:00

Seufert Momtazi Pinot Noir rated 90 points

Our second vintage is barely in the bottle, and the critics like it! Our single vineyard Pinot Noir from Momtazi Vineyard was rated 90 points/Excellent by enobytes.com.

“a powerhouse wine with an intense garnet color and ripe aromas of cherry and rose petal; flavors consist of raspberry and cherry with undertones of subtle spice. Medium-bodied with good balance; 175 cases produced. 90 points.”

Momtazi is the estate vineyard for Maysara wines. The Momtazi family farms a 200 acre certified Biodynamic vineyard just west of McMinnville, Oregon.

Our 2006 Momtazi Pinot Noir has been a customer favorite since we started barrel sampling and selling futures early this year. Learn more on our website.

2007-06-04T20:01:00.000-07:00

“Jim Seufert is a future star winemaker”

...is what Oregon vineyard owner Tim Ramey posted on Robert Parker’s website after barrel tasting our 2006 Pinot Noir’s. Steve O’Neill of Kason Vineyard recommended Seufert Pinot Noir - describing it as some of the best in Oregon. Many others shared similar reactions, and they demonstrated their enthusiasm by purchasing our wine. Thank you all!

Needless to say, our Memorial Day Weekend open house was a huge success. 300 people visited us in downtown Dayton – among them were family and long time friends – plus new friends. Many of our Dayton neighbors stopped in to welcome us and express their excitement at having a winery in the “old worm farm.”

Joel Palmer House owners Jack and Heidi Czarnecki, along with the rest of their family and staff, warmly welcomed us – bringing a beautiful floral arrangement and precious fresh truffles. Yum!

I would like to send out a big thanks to everyone – from our volunteer staff to our loyal customers/friends. Thanks so much.

2007-05-22T16:14:00.001-07:00

photo by Tom Ballard/News-Register

Seufert Winery to open in downtwon Dayton for Memorial Day Weekend

It’s happening… we’re hosting our first open house in our new Dayton winery this weekend!

Lot’s of hard work from friends and family combined with a fair dose of good fortune – and everything is in place for a great weekend.

First – the new building. Actually, it’s only new to us. It’s an old warehouse known locally as the worm farm due to the prior use. Since we took possession early this year we have completely gutted the interior – taking out a complex web of partition walls. Think long pry bars, big hammers, and an active sawzall. My brother Jerry, his wife Malea, my sister Jan, Delaney, my neighbor Tom and others all helped with demolition. The neighbors must love us.

I recycled a good portion of these building materials to construct a large concert stage. Thanks to Craigslist, all of the insulation bats were recycled as well. I pressure washed and Delaney sanitized the entire interior. We rehabbed the bathroom. While far from ideal, at least it’s usable now. Some areas around the building needed painting while others got a good detailed scrub. Then we began moving in and setting up for the open house.

Thelma (my mom) led the charge building large acoustic panels to dampen the lively sound. The panels make a huge difference. Between her and my sister Jan, they did an incredible job finding/making necessary items like stage carpeting, tablecloths, and upholstery fabric.

We stacked wine barrels to make it look official. Area rugs make it more comfortable. Carmie and Peter brought some of her paintings to show – and then helped us get ready.

While all of this was going on, I was working behind the scenes to make it all legal. Like getting city approval to make wine in Dayton, this took a bit of trailblazing. The bottom line is that the city staff is very supportive and helpful, and we got it all worked out. Even the OLCC approves.

When Peter and Carmie visited Pacific City a couple months ago, we conducted our version of “Dayton Idol” where we narrowed down the band choices. Portland has some great musicians and it was a tough choice. But we decided on Miriam’s Well for their deep talent and broad appeal.

A stroke of good luck came our way last Saturday when the local McMinnville and Yamhill County Newspaper – The News-Register ran a nice article about the new Dayton winery and our upcoming open house.

Many details are escaping me right now, but the bottom line is that we’re ready to have a great time this weekend. Come join us!

2007-04-12T12:50:00.000-07:00

Seufert Winery selected as one of Oregon’s top indie winemakers

“Think Sundance meets wine tasting.”

The annual Portland Indie Wine Festival recently announced the 2007 wineries and wines which have been invited to the festival. Seufert Winery’s first release, the 2005 Pinot Noir Coleman Vineyard (McMinnville AVA), was chosen as one of the best in the state.

A national panel of 12 wine experts tasted and selected the best wines. The judge panel included Lisa Shara Hall of Wine Business Monthly magazine, Harry Peterson-Nedry winemaker at Chehalem, and Alice Feiring wine writer at The New York Times, Forbes, and Fortune Magazines.

Seufert pours their 2005 Pinot Noir on Sunday, May 6th at the event in Portland’s Pearl District. Tickets are available online on the festival’s website.

We'll see you there.

2007-04-10T00:30:00.000-07:00

Wine Futures Prove Popular

We recently participated in the McMinnville Wine and Food Classic, and Portland’s Spring Beer and Wine Festival.

We only have one wine in the bottle right now, and that makes for a shallow product offering at festivals. So I took barrel samples of our 2006 Pinot Noir’s to these festivals. We have 5 different single vineyard designated Pinot’s in 2006. Each one of these is distinctly different. The source vineyards are located in different appellations (AVA’s), and each one has a unique story.

I put the wine in unlabeled bottles, and placed them on our festival booth table in front of descriptive placards. We offered a tasting sized flight of all five wines accompanied by our descriptions. The guests loved this. Some would work through the wines relatively quickly, while others lingered and learned. Every now and then someone would spend an hour with us –getting into detailed discussions about each wine.

We had a corner booth at the Portland event which was great because during the busiest times Delaney and I had up to 8 groups tasting barrel samples at the same time. Our voices were shot, but it was fun. Plus, we sold a fair number of wine futures. One aspect of this that works really well for festivals is that people don’t have to carry their purchase around the event.

2007-04-09T15:05:00.000-07:00

Seufert Winery Approved for Winemaking in Dayton Oregon

Earlier this year we purchased a modest older warehouse in Dayton Oregon. We planned to use it for wine storage and as a space for wine tasting and special events. And, in the best case scenario, we would like to make our wine there.

Dayton Oregon is a charming historic town located between the wine centers of Dundee and McMinnville. However, they have no wineries inside the city because their land use codes don’t permit wine production. We went out on a limb and purchased the building anyway. After the deal was done, we petitioned the city to grant us winemaking permission. That permission was granted during a recent planning commission meeting.

We’re in the process of retrofitting the building to meet our needs. The renovations won’t be complete until crush season approaches. However, we’re going to open for the Memorial Day Weekend open house. Join us for free wine tasting all weekend, and a free “Miriam’s Well” concert Saturday evening.

We’ll be open May 26-28th from 11am to 6pm, and the concert is Saturday evening, May 26th, from 6-8pm. See our website for complete details and for our new address. Also visit Miriam’s Well to preview their music.

We'll see you there.

2007-02-06T13:04:00.000-08:00

Unified Wine and Grape Symposium

Strange name – great event. This is THE wine industry trade show of the year in the USA. Every major wine related vendor shows up in Sacramento in January to pitch their wares. We went to meet the people that will help us fill our shopping list.

Our list included packaging supplies like cork, capsules, labels, bottles and boxes. These things cost anywhere from a few pennies to a few dollars each – but we go through thousands of them.

I can’t begin to tell you how many closure vendors were there (cork and cork substitutes). Every time we turned around there was another. Their competing pitches revolve around threats like TCA and Oxygen permeability, and molded versus extruded. Then the natural cork guy pulls out his sample board and starts explaining that all of his corks will seal a bottle of wine, but they grade the cork based on visual attributes. The most attractive sell for roughly ten times more than the less attractive. Now it’s about marketing and product positioning.

There were just as many capsule vendors. Capsules are the plastic or tin covers on the neck of wine bottles. Here, there are 3 different materials to consider – PVC, Polylam, and tin. To learn more than you ever wanted to know about capsules, check out this article and survey from Wine Business Monthly.

And our list included big ticket items like pumps, presses, sorting lines, destemmers, and bottling lines. Picture large, imported, stainless steel devices – and you’ll understand why these items cost many thousands of dollars each. Even for a small winery like ours, we need several pieces of equipment that top $10,000 each.

If there is a silver lining to this, it is the fact that most of this equipment holds its value. Used versions readily sell for 85% - 100% of the original purchase price. That’s some consolation.

2006-11-27T22:34:00.000-08:00

Lawrence Gallery and The Private Reserve Tasting Room

The Private Reserve tasting room inside the Lawrence Gallery hosted us for a tasting this last Saturday. We poured our 2005 Pinot Noir to guests out tasting Oregon wines on the Thanksgiving weekend.

There weren't that many tasters, but it didn't matter. It was completely worthwhile to make the connections.

We met the gallery owners and had a nice conversation with them. We talked about art and wine (go figure), and the combination of the two... specifically we discussed the possibility of using art from their gallery on my wine labels. There are a couple of specific paintings which could work nicely. The trick would be determining which wine and how it fits into the overall brand image. But it's something to contemplate.

Also, The Private Reserve purchased some of my 2005 Pinot Noir to add to their selective shelf of Oregon Pinot. This is our first retail placement.

In the grand scheme of things, I think this was a very valuable way to spend the Thanksgiving weekend.

2006-11-14T18:06:00.000-08:00

Chocolate - infused with Oregon Pinot Noir ...

Our truffle-making open house is this Sunday. We'll demonstrate how to make rich truffles containing Seufert Pinot Noir, and there will be ample samples. They're easy to make and incredibly delicious (I've been testing recipes lately...). Wine and chocolate tastings are $5 per person and include truffle samples, truffle recipe, tasting our 2005 wines and barrel tastes from our 2006 Pinot Noirs.

We have a special offer for our guests this weekend. Each purchase of a 2005 Pinot Noir 6-pack includes a truffle gift tin containing a variety of light and dark truffles each made with Seufert Pinot Noir, Pinot Blanc, or our Late Harvest dessert style wine.

If that wasn't enough, Simply Irrisistable Sweets joins us with their line up of hand made caramels, peanut brittle, and divinity. Sample your favorite, and stock up for the holidays. These are packaged in various sizes perfect for gift giving.

Details can be found here.

Please join us.

2006-11-03T17:05:00.000-08:00

Shades of the Grape

My neighbor and friend, Karen Gelbard is joining us at Seufert Winery for a special open house on November 11 and 12th called “Shades of the Grape”. Karen weaves incredibly beautiful fabric and transforms it into wearable art. This trunk show celebrates the seasons and colors in the vineyard.

From her website:

Karen Gelbard, "The Oregon Weaver," specializes in designing and producing
handwoven coats, jackets and scarves. In her studio on the Oregon Coast, Karen creates unique and elegant fabrics that are shaped into classically styled garments. Her scarves, with themes such as "Driftwood" or "Grasses of Summer," are well known as color landscapes of the Pacific Northwest.

Karen is one of the artists who help with the on-going restoration of historic Timberline Lodge on Mount Hood in Oregon (www.timberlinelodge.com). Since 1979, she has woven over 260 yards of upholstery fabric for the lodge in the style of the original artisans.

In 1984, Karen was commissioned by Larry Kirkland to assist in the design and fabrication of 44 rugs hanging in the main lodge at the Sunriver Lodge in Bend, Oregon.

Karen's fabrics were used in the original costumes designed by Susan Lily for a production of Arthur Miller's "The Crucible," performed in Portland, Oregon in
2001.

Each year, Karen's work can be seen at juried art fairs in Oregon, Washington, Illinois, Ohio, Utah, Missouri and California.

Join us at Seufert Winery – and welcome Karen at the special event.

2006-10-23T13:26:00.000-07:00

Pinot Noir Pressing

Winery crunch mode is slowing down. Most of the Pinot has completed fermentation with just 3 out of 14 bins finishing up. That means that I’ve been busy pressing wine.

The steps grapes go through to become wine are pretty straightforward:

Pick the grapes
Using a conveyor belt, sort all grapes, inspecting each cluster and removing things other
than grapes (leaves, etc.) and sub-standard clusters.
De-stem the grapes. At this point, there are whole berries in fermentation tanks.
Cold soak the berries for 3-7 days to extract color and flavor
Ferment the berries for 7-14 days, until all sugar is consumed
Pump the free run wine from the fermentation tank into barrels
Shovel the berry skins into a small press and lightly press them to extract additional wine
Age the wine in barrel

This is oversimplified, but it captures the basic steps.

When I say that I’ve been pressing wine, this translates to a fair bit of prep work and a lot of manual labor. For prep work, I’ve been deciding what wine goes in which barrel. Different coopers, forests, toast levels and barrel age all play a role in final style of the wine.

I bought some used neutral barrels this year, and several are dried out and not holding liquid. I’ve been trying to soak them so they’ll be tight. I have just enough barrels, so I need them to work.

With my spreadsheet in hand, I tackle the task of shoveling and pressing. Its mindless manual work, but I still like it. It feels good to get the wine safely into the barrels. Once the skins have been pressed and you remove the wooden press shell, you end up with a cake of dry grape skins. That’s the pic included with this post. The Pinot Noir skins are a rich burgundy color not adequately captured with my little camera.

Right now I have 26 barrels filled with wine. Four contain Syrah, and 22 contain Pinot. I have 12-14 more to fill with Pinot. It’s a good year.

2006-10-11T12:00:00.000-07:00

Oregon Pinot Noir Crush…

is underway. And it’s going well.

It’s been a crazy last couple of months – getting ready for crush and then processing the fruit.

As the dust begins to settle and I take stock of what is going on, it turns out that I’m making Pinot Noir from seven different vineyards, and sourcing fruit from a total of 10 vineyards. I’ve processed nearly 20 tons of grapes for vintage 2006. That’s a tenfold increase from last year.

I prepared a comprehensive harvest plan prior to crush, but it turned into a dynamic exercise. At times it felt like a miniature version of a commodities exchange floor with deals happening on the fly.

For example, one producer ran short of fermentation bins and the suppliers were sold out. The fruit was being harvested and they had no place for it. I just happened to be at their winery picking up grapes from a different vineyard. I had extra fermentation bins, and we made a deal for me to buy some of their fruit in exchange for selling them bins. Meanwhile, some “maybe” deals fell through and others came up.

The net of it is that I got Pinot noir from some of the state’s best vineyards, including:
- Coleman Vineyard (McMinnville AVA)
- Momtazi Estates, home of Maysara wines (McMinnville AVA)
- Hawk’s View Vineyard (Chehalem Mountains AVA)
- Bishop Creek Vineyard (Yamhill-Carlton AVA)

Our excellent fall weather allowed the grapes to readily ripen – resulting in nearly perfect fruit. Regardless, there is considerable diversity across the vineyards. A couple of vineyards produced clusters looking more like Cabernet than Pinot – they were huge. A different site produced tiny clusters with very small berries… probably ¼ the size of the other sites.

These variances yield different concentrations and nuances in flavors, color, and tannins. It’s exciting to process the fruit side by side and watch each vineyard go down its own path. I can hardly wait until the wine is finished. 2006 is going to be a year of stellar Oregon Pinot Noir.