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Notes from the cellar
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Notes from the Cellar
July 4, 2008: Bloom for Independence
Day!
The recent warm weather has
caused an explosion of growth in the vineyards over the last
couple of weeks. Vines went from tiny and 2-3 weeks behind
normal to 4 foot shoots and full bloom all across the valley.
With decent weather forecast for at least the next week, this
could be the most uniform fruit set we've seen for a few years.
Also on the "exciting news"
side, we've officially started construction on our new winery in
Portland.
Boedecker Cellars is teaming up
with
Grochau Cellars on the Portland Wine Project.
We're re-using a beautiful building in the industrial district
of NW Portland, and we're scrambling to get the winery ready for
crush by this fall! More on this later.....
June 14, 2008: Warm weather finally
here!
It's been a cold, damp
spring in Oregon this year. There's still more snow in the
mountains than there was last February. Highs in the 50s
in June. But the warmth and sunshine are finally here, and the
vines are jumping! While there is a little worry about the fact
that we're probably 1-3 weeks behind normal, the warm sunshine
on tap for the next two weeks should get us back on track.
It's going to be a great year!
March 13, 2008:
"Observing"
the Portland Indie Wine Festival jury
For those of you not
familiar with the
Portland Indie Wine Festival, back in 2005, Lisa Donahue of
LAD Communications and Catherine Healy of
Flint Design were brainstorming about how to promote their
new, small winemaker clients. They came up with the idea of a
juried event for small, independent wineries along the lines of
the
Sundance Film Festival. This is a fanstastic event!! We have
participated since the launch....which happily corresponded to
Boedecker Cellars' first release, our 2004 Purity
Chardonnay.
Anyway...Each year the wine for
PIWF are selected by a jury of wine judges, wine media, and
established winemakers from around the US. This year, Athena and
I were invited to sit in as "observers" during the judging. This
meant that we sat with one of the jury panels and listened to
their judging criteria, comments, and debate. It was actually
quite enlightening to experience.
The wines receiving marks high enough to enter the competition
will provide everyone who comes to the
PIWF this year a great experience. Come check it out, and
support the growing wine industry in Oregon!
For more details on the judging, check out our blog:
www.boedeckercellars.blogspot.com
Feb 5, 2008:
Well, we're fast
approaching our first bottling of the year. Next Friday,
we'll be bottling the 2006 Pappas Wine Co. Pinot Noir.
While it's only 400 cases or so, going through the bottling prep
for the first time each spring always seems more difficult than
the subsequent runs. Moving all the wine into tank,
checking out all the equipment, ensuring that the bottles and
labels all show up on time....it's a rough awakening from the
holidays. Athena's been doing the bulk of the work, and
she's done a great job getting us ready to roll in record time!
The wine itself tastes really nice in tank. The 2006 PWC Pinot
turned out dark and brooding yet silky smooth, just like the
vintage. I can't wait to see how it develops in bottle!
Dec 31, 2007:
Athena and I decided to end the year with a marathon blending
session. We spent the last two weekends tasting through
and blending our 2006 Pinot Noirs. Believe it or not,
tasting through 80 barrels and deciding on where they'll all go
is a grueling task (I know, little sympathy out there).
We're both thrilled with our preliminary results. Our 2006
Pinot Noirs are showing all the softness associated with the
2006 vintage, but there's great underlying complexity and
ageworthy structure, too. Now if we can only get the wines
bottled!
Nov 26, 2007: Finally,
all of our wines from 2007 are now in barrel. Athena put
the last of our young, delicious Grenache to barrel this
morning. Whew! This has been a loooong harvest, but we have some
really fantastic wines on the way from this vintage.
Nov 5, 2007: Believe
it or not, our last grapes were delivered today. We decided to
make a small amount of Southern Oregon Grenache this year, but
we didn't realize that we were picking the coolest growing
season in two decades to start this new project! The fruit
comes from Aardvark vineyard in Talent, OR. The vineyard
manager, Doug Kodak, did an excellent job of keeping the fruit
in good shape. This is going to be some wonderful wine!
Oct 14, 2007:
Whew! The last of the Pinot Noir is now in the winery!
Even with all the rain, the fruit is beautiful and showing great
acid/tannin structure. What a difference the extra 7-10
days made in terms of flavor. Everyone who waited to pick
will be very happy they endured the extra weather-induced stress
in order to allow the grapes to develop.
Oct 3, 2007:
Rains making us all
nervous, but the early-harvested wines are lifting our spirits
every time we taste out of a fermenter. Bright raspberry,
cherry, and cranberry flavors jump out at us, and the acid
structures promise a very long-lived wine.
SEPT 27, 2007:
Our first little bit of Pinot Noir came into the winery
yesterday. We brought in 1.5 tons from Carlton Hill Vineyard.
Vineyard owner David Polite is gracious enough to give us a
little bit of the fruit that he does not put into his own
Carlton Hill Winery label.
The fruit was beautiful, with ripe, cherry candy flavors and
truly great zingy acidity. If everything in 2007 looks
like this, Oregon will turn out some fantastic Pinot Noir.
We're bringing in some more
fruit tomorrow, this time from Cherry Grove Vineyard. We
have two early-ripening blocks from that site, and our samples
from Monday showed ripe, lush flavors and good ripeness.
It'll be nice to get a little
 more
fruit into the winery, away from the rains.
Speaking of rains, we're
holding our breaths now. The forecast is looking wet to
really-wet over the next six days, and the bulk of our Pinot
Noir still needs a little more time for flavor development.
We'll be crossing our fingers and counting on some dry local
variations to keep the fruit looking good. Hey, it rains
in Burgundy all the time - elegance over power is a great way to
go with Pinot, and a little bit of cool, wet weather will help
keep the fruit in the 'elegant' zone while the ripening process
finishes.
For more details on harvest
schedules and ferment details, don't miss my blog at
www.boedeckercellars.blogspot.com
Cheers - Stewart Boedecker
SEPT 19, 2007:
It's a cool, cool year in the Willamette Valley, leading to lots
of winemaker angst (Will the weather hold? When will the grapes
ripen?) in late September. WONDERFUL! Athena and I
traveled around to all of our Pinot Noir sites over the weekend,
and we tasted fantastically, beautiful fruit. While
nothing is ripe yet, the bright acidity points to a year full of
nuance and prettiness - just the kind of vintage that got me
excited about Oregon Pinot Noir! Hopefully we'll start
picking in 10-14 days. In the mean time, we'll enjoy the late
fall weather and anticipate some great wines.
Cheers - Stewart Boedecker
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