A Blooming Hill Vineyard

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More exciting than I can tell you….the white wine is bottled and we actually sold our first bottles! We bottled 149 cases the weekend of my birthday and set up a little winery setting at the Forest Grove Farmer’s Market on Wednesday, May 27th!

It was sociologically interesting to me to be there …. people make eye contact but don’t come over unless they are invited so I said “Would you like to taste some of our wine?” about a thousand times and was amazed that I felt sincere about it each time! Not everyone wanted to do it but everyone was gracious. The first bottle sold quickly…a man came up, tasted, asked the price, said “I’ll buy that…” and I said “What? Say that again? Did you say you wanted to buy a bottle???” I can’t imagine what he thought but he laughed and seemed pleased when I told him he was our very first customer! Jim and I drank a toast to him at dinner late that night!

The job of being married to a winemaker…really, how nice is this?  Here I am sitting at my computer doing actual work and Jim shows up with a glass of newly filtered Pinot Gris for me to taste.  Luckily, it’s the end of the work day for me so I can do this and not render myself incapable of a reasonable decision in my job, should one be required!

The wine is lovely.  It is the color of a canary diamond.  I want to wear it as perfume because it has a lovely, light floral scent.  A thousand years ago I used to wear Diorissimo…mostly because a man I was dating brought me back a bottle from a trip to Paris and I immediately told him it was what I wore most often.  He said “Either this is an amazing selection on my part; or, you are a very clever girl…”  I never did quite answer.

But, I digress.  The wine is delightful.  It is still early in the maturing cycle and you can taste that it will add roundness as time goes on.  Still, the essence of a lovely wine is right there.   Yesterday we tasted and Jim tested four of the barrels of Pinot Noir.  Every one of them had exceptional wine in it. Barrel Number 3  (we informally named them for the 12 Apostles so this would be James, amazingly enough)  is especially good!  I know I resisted the idea of writing about the tastes we detect in our wine but, really, it’s the way to let people know what to expect.  I wonder what you will make of the fact that I taste graham crackers at the finish of Barrel #3, James….

So the news here is good … we really like the way the wines are developing; all growing things are breaking free of their winter-wear and have put plump buds all over themselves, like trying out a new mascara that adds volume; the tomato seeds are starting to sprout in the greenhouse; we’ve still got stores in the pantry to hold us over until the garden performs its annual Major Symphony; and a horse is about to foal - probably this week.

See why I love this job??

So I’m sitting here playing paper dolls with our labels as we work through the federal government’s process of label approval. We’ve been turned down once because some of our letters weren’t 2mm higher than other letters. How tall is a mm anyway? I’m not really grousing, however, as -– knock on wood –- getting our approvals and licenses, server’s permit, and whatever else we’ve needed has been relatively uneventful. And we’ll get through this next step, too, because we are very smart people and have cleverly engaged a label company that also helps through this process. Isn’t it interesting how entire industries grow up around consumable products?

Anyway, we need a couple of labels for bottles we are donating to two auctions coming up: one helps the Oregon restaurant industry advocate for good business practices; the other, Salud!, the Oregon Pinot Noir auction that raises money for healthcare for Oregon’s seasonal workers – a very good thing.

And there is news on the actual winemaking front: we have a new white called Mingle. It is a divinely bright tasting blend of the three grapes Jim grows: Riesling, Pinot Gris and Chardonnay. We’ll debut it this spring and we are confidently hopeful that it will be a hit and a signature wine, along with the Pinot Noir.

Jim is now through the winter pruning. We thought, just in time for spring! But we were surprised with an overnight snowfall last night that left 3 inches. It’s warmed up enough to have melted by now; although, I can still see some on the nearby slopes of neighbors’ fields. What a time of year; the buds on the Magnolia tree are about as fat as they can get without actually popping open and there are daffodil, crocci and even parsley leaves braving the still-chilly air. They all look like little space beings trying to absorb and understand these strange surroundings. Hope they know they will be very welcome!

I never give my chocolate cake recipe to anyone within a 50 mile radius of where I live…why let anyone else get the glory that always follows the first taste;  know what I mean?  The velvety, fudgy chocolate cake goes oh-so-well with Pinot Noir and I will be serving it this Valentine’s Day.

Jim and I served his Pinot and my chocolate cake at our wedding - 16 cakes in all and about 200 bottles of wine.  We were surprised by the number of bottles consumed; well, at least that were  missing from the inventory after the wedding.  Some time later, when I was back in New York on a visit to my sister, my brother-in-law offered up a bottle with dinner one evening.  “Oh, no,” I demurred, “you keep that one to enjoy since I get all I want at home.” “Don’t worry,” he said, “we brought back a case…”  Ah ha. And that accounted for some of those 200.  I later found out that other family members, staying at a local hotel for the wedding weekend, probably had a better party than we did with their absconded case of Jim’s Pinot Noir. ( Keep viewing…this is from an image on a page and I can’t get rid of all the white space. )

Oh well, they didn’t have the chocolate cake leftovers (of which there weren’t many….) as I shuttled those off to the freezer for later, delectable, chocolate smeary consumption.

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Why the chocolate brings out the deep, rich and fruity taste of the wine I don’t know, but it does; maybe it’s the butter that rounds out the oak with which the wine is aged.  Maybe it’s that the cocoa bean is such a good complement to the grape.  I have noticed that as the cake comes closer to room temperature and the wine has settled in its glass, together their flavors and aromas develop into something sweeter and lingering.  Maybe it’s that the cake is so rich and dense and the wine has a light feel - delicate without being slight - and that produces this lovely couple.

Whatever the magic of the pairing - and part of it might be suggestion by clever marketers - it provides a charming experience on Valentine’s Day.  In fact, it reminds me of a true story a friend of mine told me:  he and his wife were living in Paris where she was a student at le Cordon Bleu for a year.  On one day the class was learning chocolate and spent all day surrounded by, almost immersed in, the divinity of chocolate confections.  She came home, my friend said, smelling head to toe of chocolate.  He told me it was the best night of his life.

Happy Valentine’s Day

Not that we are hurrying the wine….far from it.  Jim is babying his wine, which means it will take as long as it needs to develop.  I’m writing about wine in a hurry before I head off to a conference in San Francisco for a few days.  Before I go, however, Charlie-my-computer-literate-son fixed the photo upload function on this blog so I added a picture of the fabulous hitching post I talked about in the last one.  It’s in the last one so please go take a look.

And while I am at it, I’ll just stick up a few pictures here.

These are pictures of us watching the inauguration, including Gemini.  We are all wearing “official” inauguration tee-shirts we got in DC the week before the BIG EVENT.  The city was pulsing even then and it was fabulous to be there.  We drank Jim’s wine to celebrate this spectacular moment in American history.

Not exactly, of course, because it is DARNED cold and we’re supposed to have 45 mph  winds believe it or not, but there are crocii putting up their diminutive green necks in front of the rock near the peonies.   The real sure sign that spring is approaching, of course, is that Jim is out in the vineyard pruning.  The other day he came in and told me it would take about 27,000 minutes.  What? He measured it in minutes because he had a pretty good idea of how much time each plant would take.    Actually, I forget the number of minutes he said but he’ll be pruning through February.  And that’s with the assistance of David, who works for Jim.  David is a terrific person who has a real feel for the grapes and the rest of the work on the farm.   We’ve come to have great affection for David.  He and his wife Georgia made us the most amazing Christmas presents:  David is part Seminole so they created two tomahawks and a gorgeous carved post Jim is going to use as a hitching post.

RIGHT HERE I NEED TO NOTE THAT THE IMAGE UPLOAD FUNCTION SEEMS NOT TO BE WORKING SO THE LOVELY PHOTO OF THE HITCHING POST, ETC. WON’T BE HERE UNTIL MY SON HELPS ME FIGURE THIS OUT.  (HE GAVE ME A MONTH’S SUBSCRIPTION TO DIALAGEEK FOR CHRISTMAS BUT I HAVEN’T ACTIVATED IT YET…WAITING FOR A LONG MONTH IN WHICH I WILL BE HOME EVERY DAY TO TAKE ADVANTAGE.)

Jim's New Hitching Post, Carved by David Kendall

Jim frets over every aspect of the grapes and wine, which is definitely a big part of why his wine is so good.  His  touch with each vine allows him to know what is happening at any moment in the vineyard.  If there is the hint of a change, he knows it.   It’s some extra sense he has for growing things.  He told me that fox, in the winter, can hear the sound of mice under the deep snow and know where to pounce.  I think he hears the language of the vines.

This phase of pruning goes faster than it does later on.  He is done with the lopping - removing what he doesn’t want -  and is now in the final stage of creating the shape of the vine for this year.  It is way easier now than it will be in a few months when little buds have to be flicked off and, later, when the plants begin to be lush with growth; but, it will be warmer as spring develops.  At this moment, the earth is cold, the air is cold, Jim’s fingers and toes are cold.

The vines, so far, look great.  There is such a beautiful order to them and I know it is very satisfying to Jim to see them take shape the way he wants them to.  So, tonight we are drinking his 2007 Pinot Noir with dinner and, since impressions of wine can be very suggestible, I’m sure we’ll taste the early breaths of spring in every mouthful.

A long time ago, back when I lived in New York, in one miserable and cold winter when we all slogged around in puffed out coats, there was an ad campaign on the sides of buses that I just loved.  It had a beautiful woman in the midst of a beautiful entry arc underwater in a toasty tropical setting.  “Why Be Cold and Wet….” the tag line read, “when you can be warm and wet.” Very sane advice for the winter months.

On the other hand, our grapevines have just emerged from their puffy jackets of a rare and abundant snowstorm and are currently spending most of their time being cold and wet.  They are dormant and Jim says the snow actually carries nitrogen from the atmosphere to the soil where it will stay until needed for spring nourishment.

It’s New Year’s Day.  What was uncovered once the snows melted away was the miracle that inside those winter limbs and branches, at the ends of them, fat buds of Magnolia and Rhodedendron were waiting to show off  and remind us that soon we will almost hear them pop open as the days continue to lengthen and spring dances in from around the corner.

We brought in the New Year with bouillabaisse and Jim’s lovely Chardonnay and tonight we will have some interestingly shaped pasta with red clam sauce made with canned tomatoes from our garden, some added fireworks from our own jalapenos, and all the flavors swirled together with a little bit of Jim’s Pinot Noir; the rest of which we will finish off as the evening passes into night and the beautifu entry arc of the New Year takes us under its spell.

We are snowbound. The vineyard is covered with many inches of beautiful, pure snow. Our curtain of trees is sheathed in snow and it is swirling around us.

It has been like this for a week. Jim hikes out to the winery to test things and swirl things and comes back half frozen. We have given each other the winery as our holiday gift this year and I am very happy with my twelve barrels of wine!

I did my first chromatography testing this week. Luckily, I can do this at the kitchen table in our nice warm kitchen. It is nerve-wracking, holding tiny pipettes that have and inside diameter of 1.2 ml and aren’t very long. Dipping each one into the wine samples - four times each - for 12 samples and two acids takes its toll on my fingers, which get stuck in the pick-up position. The whole process involves laying out a grid on a piece of special paper, dotting it with malic acid and lactic acid at either end and the wine samples in between. Once it’s dotted - oh, each sample has to dry before the next is added so a hair dryer is involved - the paper goes in a jar with the equivalent of a developing liquid. It sits there for 6 hours or more. The wine creeps up the paper leaving a mark that looks like a UFO, as does the acid. Where the wine mark is compared to where the acid marks are demonstrates whether the wine has gone through malolactic fermentation. Jim wants his Pinot Noir to do this as it changes the puckery malic acid into softer lactic acid, a much more desirable taste and feel.

Science in action.

We were planning to send wine to family as holiday gifts but we may never get out of the driveway again. Instead, we are sending Flat Wine. If any of you have or know any third-graders, you know about Flat Stanley, a cardboard character sent around by third-graders to someone willing to take him on adventures, take pictures and describe where he has been; then, send him back to the student who writes a story about what happened to Flat Stanley. Our great-niece, Kate, sent us one a few years ago. Flat Stanley had many great adventures like visiting Pacific Science Center in Seattle, going to an Easter Dinner and a Passover Seder, cooking, sharing space with a couple of cats. Kate’s mom sent my son, Charlie, a Flat Jake when Charlie was at the South Pole for a few months and had to leave his cat, Jake, with us.
So it’s logical that we would send Flat Wine. Given our weather situation, the Flat Wine bottle is going to get to a lot more holiday parties than we are.
No mind…we’re happy in our winter wonderland. One more thing, Gemini now has an assistant dog, Trouble. And that’s another story for another time.

Remember how I’ve written about anytime anyone drinks Jim’s wine and says they like it…he says, “Yes, but they know us”…well, last night we had an experience with about 75 people WHO DON’T KNOW US (at least, most of them) and they tasted the wine and really liked it.  So now he can’t say that anymore.

We were invited by Merrie French at Valley Arts in Forest Grove to pour the wine at their First Wednesday celebration, the time of month when they open their new exhibition.  This was an especially great time to do it because it was also the night of the annual Holiday Lights Parade in Forest Grove so there was a delicious ripple of happiness and expectation in the air.  We put on our pretty clothes (Jim, too) and spent the evening among lovely people who were all in a happy, festive mood.

I had just gotten my Server’s Permit - a process involving taking a 3.5 hour online course with a little quiz at the end of each unit, a qualifying quiz with 50 questions of which the applicant has to get all right to be able to take the final exam; and, the final exam which must be passed with a grade of at least 70%.  I did get only 98%  (I’ll have to find out which question I got wrong) and now I know important things about how long it takes the liver to metabolize one drink (1 hour), how to recognize signs of inebriation (poor judgement, loud and inappropriate talking and laughing, missing your mouth with the glass).  I also know some very clever techniques to take away a drink (wipe and swipe is the best).  That’s how I got to be “your server Holly….”

We had a little raffle for a bottle of wine and tried to get either the kitties or the dog to choose the winner - whichever piece of paper was touched first was the winner.  You’ll see in the attached photo that we couldn’t get them terribly interested

in the process so Jim did the honors.  Note Jim’s belt buckle: a prize from a horse show! 

In addition to the major highlight of having people enjoy the wine, the Parade was really fun.  Every service truck and vehicle in Forest Grove was strung with holiday lights and kids were waving shyly; there was a band on a trailer; boy scouts and girl scouts, veterans, residents from a senior residence - all bundled up in wintery and holiday sweaters and blankets waving and smiling.  A precision marching group of girls came by in purple and there were baton twirlers.  Really, it doesn’t get any better than this.  It got us in the spirit.  Speaking of our spirit, we sell Christmas trees every year, hardly making any money but the same families come back over and over and it is so fun to see them each year.  Jim dreamed up the idea of a Treasure Tree for kids from which they pluck a small gift after their family picks out a tree.  Here’s a photo of our Treasure Tree and also some of the available trees.

I spent all week in the company of Russians from the Archangel region of Russia in the far north near the White Sea who traveled to Cornelius as delegates in the Open World/National Peace Foundation program that gives appointed and elected government officials a first-hand experience with American democracy.  I have been hosting annual visits for 12 years, since the program began.  This group was here to study issues of water management - and also to meet and live with American families and enjoy our lives with us.

Halloween Dinner - lots of wine on the table

This included a lively introduction to A Blooming Hill Vineyard - our cats, dog, horses and wine!  Chehalem Mountain wine from our humble vineyard was a big winner.  Now they are back home in Russia and things are getting back to normal in the vineyard and winery.