Athena and I treked up to Seattle on Tuesday night for Wine and Spirits Magazine's "Hot Picks" tasting where Lisa Rongren of the Herbfarm restaurant was pouring our 2005 Athena Pinot Noir. She and Chef paired our wine with a really nice duck pate...yum!
We were very impressed with the event. The WSM folks did a great job of limiting attendance and kept the feeling very "civilized". Unlike so many other wine events we've participated in, we never felt crowded. The event was held in the Paramount Theater, a beautiful venue (and great for concerts, too).
More fun than the event, though, was the gathering at Quinn's up on Capitol Hill afterwards. Athena and I both flipped on the fantastic food (fries with gooey fontina and demi glace!). A fantastic place. It was also fun to talk to the Seattle restaurant glitterati in a more casual setting, too.
Anyway...More to come soon on our new winery in NW Portland.
Friday, June 27, 2008
Tuesday, May 06, 2008
Portland Indie Wine Festival Fun
Thanks to everyone who came out to the Portland Indie Wine Festival last weekend. Athena and I really enjoyed the huge crowd on Saturday. Indie has been such a fantastic event for us since it's inception four years ago. A smile comes to my lips as I think about our first year, pouring our very first release, our 2004 Purity Chardonnay. We're certainly less nervous talking to people about our wines now, but we get no less of a buzz from experiencing the great reception from all of you!
For those looking for more good Pinot Noir and food fun, join Athena in Seattle on May 20th at Ray's Boathouse for their annual Copper River Salmon and Pinot Noir Extravaganza. The food will be fantastic, and the Pinot Noir will be flowing...Athena's even bringing along a few sneak preview wines for the summer.
For other event news, keep checking on Boedecker Cellars.com
-sb
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Sitting in on 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 scores are based on a consensus of the jury members, so there were a few quite lively exchanges over a few wines. More surprisingly, though, all four judges rated most wines within one category standard of each other most of the time.While Athena and I didn't taste alongside the judges, we did sneak a few sniffs and sips, and I must say that I would have scored these wines the same as the judges.
Wines were rated Gold, Silver, Silver -, Bronze, Bronze -, Average, or Flawed. No wine in our jury's flight received a Gold -- they really held all these wines from new producers to HIGH standards -- but there were a couple of Silvers and many Bronzes.
Overall, the wines were the range of quality and stylistic correctness you'd expect from new small wineries. Some were great, some were odd, and some were straight up the middle.
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!
See you there - SB
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 scores are based on a consensus of the jury members, so there were a few quite lively exchanges over a few wines. More surprisingly, though, all four judges rated most wines within one category standard of each other most of the time.While Athena and I didn't taste alongside the judges, we did sneak a few sniffs and sips, and I must say that I would have scored these wines the same as the judges.
Wines were rated Gold, Silver, Silver -, Bronze, Bronze -, Average, or Flawed. No wine in our jury's flight received a Gold -- they really held all these wines from new producers to HIGH standards -- but there were a couple of Silvers and many Bronzes.
Overall, the wines were the range of quality and stylistic correctness you'd expect from new small wineries. Some were great, some were odd, and some were straight up the middle.
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!
See you there - SB
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Checking out a little Pinot Blanc
What's Pinot Blanc?
This is one place where the Wikipedia entry is pretty lame. Come on folks! To describe one of the great white wines of Alsace (one of my favorite wine regions in the world) as "a full-bodied white wine" is like calling Pierre Robert "a soft, creamy cheese".
At it's best, Pinot Blanc can be either spicy and round or massively flowery and aromatic. True, when overcropped or poorly made, it's a pretty generic white wine....But the same can be said for Riesling, Pinot Gris, or Chardonnay, too.
Why am I suddenly talking about Pinot Gris? Well, we might have lucked into some really beautiful wine that someone needs to unload to generate some quick cash flow. While we normally do not like to work with wines we don't personally make, this is an exception. The nose is hugely expressive, floral, and complex. On the palate, there's a nice balance of sweetness and slightly perceived astrigency - it'll definitely hold up to those late winter and early spring dishes. Likely, we'll bottle this under the Pappas Wine Co. label. Watch for it in May!
Anyway, tomorrow, we're back to notes about the 2006 Pinot Noirs.
-sb
This is one place where the Wikipedia entry is pretty lame. Come on folks! To describe one of the great white wines of Alsace (one of my favorite wine regions in the world) as "a full-bodied white wine" is like calling Pierre Robert "a soft, creamy cheese".
At it's best, Pinot Blanc can be either spicy and round or massively flowery and aromatic. True, when overcropped or poorly made, it's a pretty generic white wine....But the same can be said for Riesling, Pinot Gris, or Chardonnay, too.
Why am I suddenly talking about Pinot Gris? Well, we might have lucked into some really beautiful wine that someone needs to unload to generate some quick cash flow. While we normally do not like to work with wines we don't personally make, this is an exception. The nose is hugely expressive, floral, and complex. On the palate, there's a nice balance of sweetness and slightly perceived astrigency - it'll definitely hold up to those late winter and early spring dishes. Likely, we'll bottle this under the Pappas Wine Co. label. Watch for it in May!
Anyway, tomorrow, we're back to notes about the 2006 Pinot Noirs.
-sb
Monday, February 25, 2008
2006 Pinot Noir Futures tasting
We just held our annual WineSoup&Futures tasting at the winery last weekend. This was the first public preview of our 2006 Pinot Noir blends.
I have to say, the reaction to these wines was phenomenol, even to me (I love them all like children). We had planned for ~ 85 people to attend, but were instead faced with a winery-busting crowd of 105. This lead to a few logistical issues throughout the evening, but Athena and I enjoyed the buzz created by so many loyal customers providing reaction to the wines.
Here's a quick rundown of the 2006 Pinot Noirs sampled:
2006 Stewart Pinot Noir
2006 Athena Pinot Noir
2006 Anderson Family Vineyard Pinot Noir
2006 Momtazi Vineyard Pinot Noir
2006 Shea Vineyard Pinot Noir
2006 Cherry Grove Vineyard Pinot Noir
I have to say, the reaction to these wines was phenomenol, even to me (I love them all like children). We had planned for ~ 85 people to attend, but were instead faced with a winery-busting crowd of 105. This lead to a few logistical issues throughout the evening, but Athena and I enjoyed the buzz created by so many loyal customers providing reaction to the wines.
Here's a quick rundown of the 2006 Pinot Noirs sampled:
2006 Stewart Pinot Noir
2006 Athena Pinot Noir
2006 Anderson Family Vineyard Pinot Noir
2006 Momtazi Vineyard Pinot Noir
2006 Shea Vineyard Pinot Noir
2006 Cherry Grove Vineyard Pinot Noir
I'll get some more coherent tasting notes for each wine up later this week as I catch my breath, but suffice it to say that all of these already tasted like finished wines that had been in bottle for 6 months. The 2006 vintage is really amazing - the wines are silky soft from a tannin perspective yet still have the acid structure to remain vibrant. Athena and I have often used "Wow" and "Yum" when tasting during the blending trials.
For more info on the development of the wines, check back here or visit our website (http://www.boedeckercellars.com/).
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Pinot in the winery - More on the way for Friday
First Boedecker Cellars fruit of 2007
Our first fruit of the year came into the winery yesterday! We processed 1.8 tons of Pinot Noir from Carlton Hill Vineyard. This is a beautiful little (6 acre) site in the Yamhill/Carlton AVA. David Polite, the vineyard owner and winemaker in his own right, dotes on his beautiful corner of the world. This is small viticulture at it's best! David personally loaded bins of grapes from his tractor to the Boedecker Cellars F250 after supervising the picking crew.
This year, we received Dijon clone 777 from Carlton Hill, and if this fruit is indicative of the vintage, 2007 is going to be fantastic for Oregon Pinot Noir. Just into the fermenter, we have ripe flavors, great color, and tart, zingy acidity! This will make for some really graceful wine.
Picking Calendar:
We're trying to fight off our urge to pick in the face of the coming rains, as most of the flavors are not really there yet. We do, however, have ~ 25% of the Pinot Noir fully ready to bring in thanks to the efforts of Bob Van Steenberg at Cheery Grove Vineyard. The rest of the dates are very speculative and will have a lot to do with the rain we do or do not get the first week of October.
Friday, Sept 28th: Cherry Grove Vineyard, Block 3 and Block 8 ~ 8 tons
Rain -- Sat/Sun/Mon???
First Week of October (maybe): Cherry Grove Vineyard, Block 6, Block 7
Momtazi Vinyard, Block C
Stoller Vineyard, 115 block
Second Week of October: Anderson Family Vineyard, South Block
Amalie Robert Vineyard, Block 10
Stirling's Vineyard (?)
Third Week of October: Anderson Family Vineyard, Chardonnay
Stirling's Vineyard, Pinot Gris
Fourth Week of October: Aardvark Vineyard, Grenache
Wren Vineyard, Chardonnay
Our first fruit of the year came into the winery yesterday! We processed 1.8 tons of Pinot Noir from Carlton Hill Vineyard. This is a beautiful little (6 acre) site in the Yamhill/Carlton AVA. David Polite, the vineyard owner and winemaker in his own right, dotes on his beautiful corner of the world. This is small viticulture at it's best! David personally loaded bins of grapes from his tractor to the Boedecker Cellars F250 after supervising the picking crew.
This year, we received Dijon clone 777 from Carlton Hill, and if this fruit is indicative of the vintage, 2007 is going to be fantastic for Oregon Pinot Noir. Just into the fermenter, we have ripe flavors, great color, and tart, zingy acidity! This will make for some really graceful wine.
Picking Calendar:
We're trying to fight off our urge to pick in the face of the coming rains, as most of the flavors are not really there yet. We do, however, have ~ 25% of the Pinot Noir fully ready to bring in thanks to the efforts of Bob Van Steenberg at Cheery Grove Vineyard. The rest of the dates are very speculative and will have a lot to do with the rain we do or do not get the first week of October.
Friday, Sept 28th: Cherry Grove Vineyard, Block 3 and Block 8 ~ 8 tons
Rain -- Sat/Sun/Mon???
First Week of October (maybe): Cherry Grove Vineyard, Block 6, Block 7
Momtazi Vinyard, Block C
Stoller Vineyard, 115 block
Second Week of October: Anderson Family Vineyard, South Block
Amalie Robert Vineyard, Block 10
Stirling's Vineyard (?)
Third Week of October: Anderson Family Vineyard, Chardonnay
Stirling's Vineyard, Pinot Gris
Fourth Week of October: Aardvark Vineyard, Grenache
Wren Vineyard, Chardonnay
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Well , I knew this fall was likely to be fun, and it certainly is turning out that way. With some significant level of rainfall expected next week, we're making the decision to pull in some fruit this week. Even with the cold weather, we have a couple of blocks that are ready to go today, and we could have another 4-6 tons coming in over the weekend.Here's the schedule as I know it:
Wed, Sept 26: 1.5 tons Pinot Noir from Carlton Hill (sometime in the afternoon)
Friday or Saturday: 2.0 tons Pinot Noir (I'll know the actual date on Wed)
This first fruit is quite ripe (already 24+ brix) and the flavors are good, seeds are brown, and color looks nice. So we have nice signs of physiological ripeness. On top of all that, we have really zippy acidity! Fruit like this produces bright, razor-sharp wines that show good complexity early and age forever...and it's the type of wine I love! Finally a vintage where we'll produce more wine for the Stewart blend than for the Athena blend - Cool!
Seriously, though, 2007 has all the hallmarks of a world-class Pinot vintage. All we need to do now is pray that the forecasted rain turns into irritating showers next week. Keep thinking sunny thoughts.
Cheers - Stewart
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