At, this point, I must say that we’ve got to be some of the happiest winemakers on the planet. 90% of our fruit is now in the winery and happily fermenting, and the aromas and tastes coming from the tanks are really extraordinarily nice. Winemaker Kelley Fox and Jeremy Brown, our Kiwi cellarman/resident wild child- are doing a magnificent job.

The Ribbon Ridge fruit was as good as we expected on Thursday. It is definitely a candidate for the star of the cellar at this point – but to be honest they’re all good. The wild ferments are all behaving themselves nicely, and they’re exhibiting gorgeous fresh cherry mousse aromas. Nothing in the world smells a s good as a winery in the middle of crush. especially this year!

Mother nature was clearly on our side this fall, as the miraculously perfect September ripened our fruit at a nice, slow pace. A rainstorm hit the valley on Thursday night, ending a string of 30+ perfect days. We still have our 2 acres of Maresh to pick, and many other producers still have a lot of fruit on the vine. It is supposed to dry up in the next 24 hours (we’ve had intermittent drizzle since the rain Thursday night) – and the fruit still in the vineyards looks very healthy and strong. We’re expecting a string of dry days starting tonight, and are thinking about picking the Maresh on Sunday. We’ll see how it develops from here. The fruit is in good enough shape to come through the rain without any detrimental effects – unless we get an unexpected extended hard rain over many days – in which case splitting would be a potential issue. Just checked the updated forecast as I’m writing this – it looks gorgeous starting tomorrow, with sunshine and no precipitation for the forseeable future…

Live from a little break in the action during crush… We decided to bring the Shea block 21 in today rather than yesterday – just brought in 2.3 tons of beutiful fruit from this great old-vine block. Excited to have Gina & Emily from Restaurant Eugene in Atlanta here helping us for the next couple of days. We are getting them nice and dirty, sticky with grape goo, and they seem to be having a ball. We’re awaiting our 4 acres of Ribbon Ridge fruit to arrive any minute – should be about 7-8 tons all together, and as good as all the fruit has been so far, this is likely to be the best of them all this year. More later…

I can’t tell you how happy I am with the quality of all of the fruit we’ve brought in to this point. All of the Stoller and the east side blocks of Shea are in tank and ambient-soaking right now. They’re already showing nice color, and they smell and taste great. We’re scheduled to pick Shea block 21 tomorrow morning, and then all of Ribbon Ridge on Thursday.

The weather has remained a vision of perfection – with highs near 80 and lows 37-40 these past few days – unbelievable. It looks like we have a shot of a few showers maybe Friday or Saturday, but we will have everything picked except for Maresh by then. The Maresh, our highest elevation/latest-ripening site, looks like it should be ready to go on or about the 4th or 5th – we’ll see how it develops…

Harvest 2005 has begun!!! The first two tons of Stoller Vyd. – from Block 32 have just arrived at the winery. The fruit looks gorgeous, tastes great, and the numbers look amazing as well. We’re picking at 23.5-24.0 Brix on most of this younger vine stuff, and the pHs are in the 3.2 range, acids at 7-9 grams – the best balance I have ever seen so far in Oregon. Suffice it to say I am very very excited about the quality so far. We’ll also pick Stoller blocks 32 and 60 this morning, and then move on to Shea Vyd. tomorrow…

On another note, I am very sad to report that my mom passed away on September 11th, after a short struggle with advanced lung cancer. She was in great spirits right up to the end, in keeping with her life-long pattern of always finding the best there was to be found in any situation . She was a great mother and grandmother, and loved deeply by all she knew. I loved her with all my heart, and will miss her deeply every day of my life. In her honor, I am thinking of possibly doing a “Cuvée Ruth” bottling from this outstanding 2005 fruit. More soon as the harvest continues…

A quick note from the vineyards. It looks like nothing will be ready before Sept. 20th or so. Earliest pick will likely be some of the young-vine blocks at Shea, which look to have a healthy 1.75-2 tons/acre of uniformly ripening fruit right now. Next will likely be Ribbon Ridge, with Stoller and Three Sisters several days behind those at this point. Then Shea 21 and Maresh – those should be the last by at least a week or ten days. At this point, it’s all about mother nature…

Hey, what happened to August? Boom, it’s gone, and I can’t even remember it. It seems all is way too busy these days – but it’s all good stuff, so no complaints here.

We just finished bottling the 2004s yesterday (100% under the Stelvin screw-cap closure), and they are really gorgeous wines. I’m very excited, as the quality is superb across the board. As I’ve mentioned before, production was way down in 2004, and there is just not enough wine to go around. Here’s how it breaks down – about 400 cases of a delicious Cuvée Martha Pirrie, 425 cases of a complex and elegant La Paulée, and 135 cases of a sublime Audrey - and unfortunately that’s it.

I was very happy with the Stelvins, and am delighted to know that we are giving our customers the wine in the best condition possible, with zero chance of the wine being contaminated by TCA from tainted corks. Research also no shows us that the wines will develop in bottle over time exactly as they would under a great cork, only without cork’s variability. We are proud to be on the leading edge in using these Stelvin closures for ultra-premium age-worthy Pinot Noirs.

A quick look around our five vineyards shows less crop than we had first estimated – probably more in the 1.25 – 1.5 ton/acre range in general, with some blocks well below that level, and one or two approaching 2 tons. In other words, 2005 will be another year with less wine than we would normally produce, but the quality should be high again. It’s all about the next 4 weeks, during which time the character and quality of the vintage will be determined. Details as they happen…

So it occurs to me that I haven’t posted recently on what’s going on in the vineyards. Overall, it was a spotty fruit-set this year, due to cool & rainy conditions that prevailed in early to mid-June. Nowhere near as poor as last year, however. On average, I would say we will harvest 1.75-2 Tons/acre in most of our blocks this year, which is what we like to see in most years – knowing that this crop level seems to bring the plants into the best balance and gives us the finest quality fruit at the end of the day. Last year we averaged just under 1 ton/acre – the quality was quite good, but at that level we can barely produce enough wine to stay in business.

Many years mother nature will set a crop with a potential of 3-4 tons/acre, and we have to green-harvest and drop fruit in mid-August to get down to our target of 2 tons. This year, there is really nothing to drop, except for a few weaker clusters and some wings. It is a tough year to estimate the crop – as the set is not uniform from plant to plant. Within the same row we’ll see plants with 16 clusters and some with only 3 or 4 – so the actually yield will be difficult to predict. I expect that it will probably be a little lower than we think when all is said and done. All that said, here’s the breakdown –

Maresh – Uneven set in all blocks, clusters smallish and fairly even, Old-Block looks the best… Not much to drop

Shea – Consistently inconsistent set, cluster morphology looks good overall, plants are healthy and balanced so far… Will drop thirds and wings in all blocks…

Ribbon Ridge – Looks good overall – weaker in the south blocks. I would guess 1.75 tons on average – will drop only some weaker second clusters….

Stoller – Block 32 will be weak again this year – very poor set – maybe 1 ton? Block 21 and 60 are pretty solid – very little to drop…

Three Sisters – Maybe the best set of the bunch. Should be a solid 2 tons or so here …

Just noticed some color change happening over the last couple of days – will check all blocks tomorrow and report back on the progress of veraison…

Just a quick note to report on a couple of gorgeous wines we enjoyed at my b –day dinner Thursday night (at Gotham Bldg. Tavern here in Portland) – The current release of the Krug multi-vintage Champagne is stunning as always – yeasty, brioche aromas and laser-pure flavors of lemons – it is truly said that there is Krug, and then there is everything else. We also brought from our cellar a 2002 Berthau Chambolle-Musigny les Amoureuses – perhaps one of the most stunning young Burgundies I’ve enjoyed in some time. It probably lacks the structure and acidity to go the distance, but for the short to medium-term this wine is elegant, plush, long and purely delicious. We ordered a bottle of the 2001 Domaine Pavelot Pernand-Verge;lesses Isle des Vergelesses from my new ami Hugues Pavelot (see below) – and this wine was the perfect yang to the Amouresuses yin. Simply another amazing young Burg, with beautiful earth notes and black fruits and intoxicating intensity.

And of course the food was spot-on delicious as well – there are only a handful of kitchens in the Northwest cooking at or above this level. Bravo! A great night was had by all…

Just a quick note to report on a couple of gorgeous wines we enjoyed at my b –day dinner Thursday night (at Gotham Bldg. Tavern here in Portland) – The current release of the Krug multi-vintage Champagne is stunning as always – yeasty, brioche aromas and laser-pure flavors of lemons – it is truly said that there is Krug, and then there is everything else. We also brought from our cellar a 2002 Berthau Chambolle-Musigny les Amoureuses – perhaps one of the most stunning young Burgundies I’ve enjoyed in some time. It probably lacks the structure and acidity to go the distance, but for the short to medium-term this wine is elegant, plush, long and purely delicious. We ordered a bottle of the 2001 Domaine Pavelot Pernand-Verge;lesses Isle des Vergelesses from my new ami Hugues Pavelot (see below) – and this wine was the perfect yang to the Amouresuses yin. Simply another amazing young Burg, with beautiful earth notes and black fruits and intoxicating intensity.

And of course the food was spot-on delicious as well – there are only a handful of kitchens in the Northwest cooking at or above this level. Bravo! A great night was had by all…

It has taken a couple of days, but I am now sufficiently recovered from the IPNC bacchanalia to post coherently!As always, this year’s event was a full-on festival of hedonism. Hey, somebody’s got to do it, right?

I was honored to be chosen as the moderator of the tri-continent winemakers panel, which was held at my old stomping grounds at Domaine Drouhin. We had really good, illustrative examples of the differences between Burgundy , New Zealand , and Oregon Pinots – and the discussions were both interesting and informative. Thanks to Blair & Nigel of Felton Road , Pierre from Domaine Cornu, Hugues from Domaine Pavelot, and DDO’s Allen & Arron for the great wines and enthusiastic participation…

I also had the good fortune of dining a couple of times over the course of events with Allen Meadows of Burghound.com – for whom I have the utmost respect. Allen is always a pleasure to be around, and his depth of knowledge of Burgundy is truly unparalleled. Of course some amazing wines made it across my lips over the weekend – at IPNC you can’t help stumbling across astounding wines at every turn. Highlights for me this year were bottles of the 1949 Camille Giroud Musigny, a 1929 Boyer Charmes-Chambertin, a ’53 Corton-Grancy from Jadot, 1950 and 1959 Y’Quem (ok, not Burgundy, I know, I know…) a ’62 Giroud Clos Vougeot, an ’85 Groffier Amoureuses, and of course the magnum of ’88 Jayer Cros Parantoux.

As for the current release wines at the grand tastings, I was particularly impressed with the pure, elegant wines of Domaine Cornu (from the largely unknown appellation of Ladoix – really gorgeous wines), and the beautifully balanced assortment of Savigny-les Beaunes from Domaine Pavelot – especially a couple of vintages of the 1er Cru La Dominode…

Tomorrow is my birthday – 51 – I believe there may be some Krug in my future, as well as a bottle or two of something emanating from the village of Chambolle-Musigny – I’ll report back in the aftermath!