What a cool opportunity to grow up in the wine business.

Maybe not the next gen… but possibly the next-next generation of Oregon winemakers

*The minors in these photos did not consume alcohol.

However the rain has now set in. To limit the amount of water the grapes are absorbing we called the crew at our proprietary vineyard, Larkins Estate, and said pick it all and bring it in.

Here is the result thus far with more on the way.

At least Rich, VP of Winemaking, is still smiling. That is always a good thing!

Although it might not be ideal for production to see all this fruit at one time we have a very strong team who will put their heads down and plow through it.

It gave me an idea though. Maybe we should market a grape maze as a spin off of a corn maze. We’ll invite friends out during Harvest to wind their way through bins of fruit. Shhhh… don’t tell the production team I even mentioned such and idea. I can only imagine the eye roll I would receive. It is all about making top-notch wine at this time of year. So we better all stick to corn mazes.

There are more outside too, heading to the de-stemmer.

Just two days before the first fruits of the 2012 vintage were delivered Joe trekked down to Southern Oregon to see longtime friends, the Moores, at South Stage Cellars. They were hosting a wine dinner and invited Joe to be the guest of honor, as he is their winemaker under the custom winemaking segment of his business. Other than having a wine label the Moores are first and foremost farmers and Joe has been purchasing the great fruits of their labor since the early 1990s.

Read more and see pictures from the dinner published recently in The Examiner by Janet Eastman.

Andy, our Assistant Winemaker, said last week that if we continue to have warm dry days, this harvest could look very similar to 2008 (a very, very good year). That is music to ears of the valley. However, he added that if it were to start raining day-after-day we would have to bring all the fruit in at once and that would create quite the headache for our production team. So everyone keep enjoying the sunshine. I don’t want to hear any mention of fall weather; got it?

Yesterday we had about 5 tons of Grenache Blanc delivered from Craterview Vineyard in Southern Oregon and our team is currently in the midst of pressing Viognier, delivered this morning from Sundown Vineyard, also in Southern Oregon. I can vouch for how great the fruit tastes as I am sitting here munching on some as I type. There is nothing like freshly picked wine grapes!

Delicious (and yes I tried some) Viognier grapes

Griffin showing our intern Trevor how to operate the press

Mmmm fresh pressed grape juice

We had two presses in use today, this being the 2nd

These bins were full this morning, but now that fruit is on its way to becoming the Dobbes Family Estate 2012 Viognier YAY!

It is always exciting to receive great ratings on the wines our team works so tirelessly to craft. New scores were just released from Stephen Tanzer’s International Wine Cellar. We’re proud to say that we received eight scores of 90 points or above. Thank you for enjoying our wines as much as we do.

It is wonderful to see Oregon’s 2010 vintage getting great press right out of the gate.

Cheers to drinking some fantastic 2010 Pinots for years to come!

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Previously Charles Hesson (our former and dearly missed Hospitality Manager and certified Sommelier) was the Chief author of our tasting notes. He’d sit at his desk with a bottle of wine, then swirl, sniff and sip until he had a sheet full of notes that could be fashioned into a polished page that we hand out as tasting notes.

I asked Charles before he moved to Arizona how he can come up with all the aromas and flavors that he jots down on his notes. He said that he has a rolladex in his head and as he smells and tastes a wine it just spins round-and-round, until he has those ah-ha moments of what strikes him.

I wish that Charles could photo copy his rolladex and allow me to have it as well, but I know that it took many years of study and exploration for him to know all he does. I look forward to the day my rolladex can help me pinpoint what aromas and flavors a wine possesses.

With Charles off to Arizona we had to turn to others to help write the tasting notes. Instead of asking one single person to write them we decided many heads are better than one. The entire production team gathers to discuss and collaborate on the tasting notes. Because each person’s senses will interact with a wine in unique ways hopefully having a variety of senses working together will give a good picture of what the wine will express itself as to many people who will read the tasting notes.

Here are some pictures of our most recent session of Tasting Note collaboration.

Our VP of Winemaking Rich popping open a bottle

The lovely Sarah is our lab technician and just finished her degree in winemaking at Chemeketa

Brad also works in our lab. He may have had the hardest job which was taking everyone’s comments and writing them down in an ordered fashion.

This is a bottle of our Sauvignon Blanc that was pulled out of the tank for tasting. We needed to create tasting notes for the wine club brochure since club members took this lovely wine home in their summer release. However if it went through the bottling accurate notes could not be made due to the bottle shock the wine would be under.

The whole gang doing a great job collaborating!

Then we turn this…

…into this!

The first annual Hood-to-Coast commemorative label for the 30th Anniversary of the relay

Safeway could not keep the commemorative bottles on their shelves last year, so we have upped our game for 2012 and have bottled both commemorative Pinot Noir and Pinot Gris. Once again Safeway will carry the wine for a limited time, but you have the opportunity to pre-order your wine as well direct through us.

If you want to ensure you don’t miss out on this year’s Hood-to-Coast label we highly recommend you pre-order. If you are a participant in the race we will even deliver your wine to you at packet pick-up. Quantities are limited, so we can’t promise this wine will last long.

Take advantage of our 12-12-12 SPECIAL OFFER.

Today was bottling day! The Hood-to-Coast bottles were jostling down our bottling line just moments ago. It was fun to see those fun labels go on our delicious wines.

See you at Hood-to-Coast!!!

The most recent vineyard update is as follows:

• Shoot thinning and suckering is officially complete.
• Compared to last year shoots are probably 10 days more advanced.
• Back on May 10^th we really dodged a frost bullet.
• The vineyards are looking really good at this point. In years like this one, where we had a later bud break and rapid shoot growth, we tend to see fewer problems with insects like rust mites, erineum mites or thrips.
• The shoots have progressed out of their delicate stage faster than in years with earlier bud break followed by cold, wet temperatures.

Overall Joe is really happy with how this vintage is currently looking. After the last few vintages the entire winemaking team is crossing their fingers for a warmer weather vintage, which is a lot less stressful.

Vice President of Winemaking, Rich Martinoff, had been tracking heat units from the beginning of the year through the middle of May. However he concluded this was bad luck and has since left nature to run its course.

With each year winemakers are reminded they have no control over the weather and it is best to just accept the growing season for what it is and be very thankful for those vintages that require less hair pulling and nail biting.

We will keep you posted as things continue to progress over the summer.

Take a look at the progression…

First comes digging out the new patio area and removing the old pavers

Then comes a level layer of sand

Then laying the new pavers

Looking good!

Progress!

Ta-da!

Beautiful from every angle

We can’t wait to see lots of our friends enjoying the new outdoor seating all summer long!