A Blooming Hill Vineyard

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.

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