You wouldn’t normally expect to hear this from a winemaker on the brink of harvest, but the good news is that it going to rain a bit for the next 3 or 4 days, starting on Wednesday night, it seems. Yes, this makes me very happy! One, this will slow down sugar accumulation in some of our younger vines (which have been sugaring-up rather quickly over the last week, without much flavor development yet), and two – any extra day we get before the start of harvest is a godsend at this point, as the winery is of course still not remotely ready…

We’ve sampled every one of our vineyard blocks over the past 24 hours, and nothing is terribly close to ready at this point. Two of our blocks at Shea and one at Stoller are getting close, but a little drink from the expected rain should do them good – the fruit is starting to dehydrate a bit. Supposedly a string of mostly sunny, 68-degree days are on the way to follow, which should bode well for the flavors we’re looking for and hoping to achieve without excessive ripeness. Keep your fingers crossed!

While most of the media is obsessed with re-hashing the events of 9/11 five years ago, I have my own private 9/11 to reflect on today. My mother passed away one year ago today, after a short battle with lung cancer. I miss her every day, and Icould not possibly count the moments that I’ve made a quick mental note that I’ve got to tell her something, or show her something that would make her smile, or ask her a question about something from my childhood – only to realize that she is indeed gone. I love you and miss you, mama, so very much…

On the winery front: Since my last report, we’ve received our chiller, but of course we still have no outlets to plug it into. The destemmer has arrived (the top half of the basket is missing), the press has arrived (the bottom half of the digital display is missing), and of course the manuals are all in Spanish or German or Japanese, none of which we read or speak. Oh well, par for the course. I’m told that replacement parts are winging their way in from France and Spain as we speak. The grapes wait for no one, so we’ll be making wine with or without the replacements shortly…

All things considered, we’re in remarkably good shape, and I remain firm in my blind faith that all will be well. Which of course would not be remotely possible were it not for the exceptional efforts of Kelley Fox, who is really pulling things together for us, creating a semblance of order out of all this chaos…

It’s also time to officially wlecome our two assistant winemakers for harvest 2006 – the lovely and talented Jeremy Brown of New Zealand (he worked with us last year, and with me at Domaine Drouhin in 2002 & 2003) and his lady, the lovelier and just as talented Marietta from Spain. I thank them both in advance for their invaluable contributions to harvest 2006 – which we expect could start as soon as this weekend. Oh shit!…

Fall 2006 -

Our new winery, New Releases, Futures, and a new annual event – “La Pauleé de Carlton”…

Another gorgeous Oregon summer has blended gracefully into fall and a healthy crop of beautiful Pinot fruit is coming into the winery and beginning its magical transformation into that divine liquid we call pure Oregon Pinot Noir…

Home at last!

After having made our wine in shared facilities since we started, it is amazing to finally be in our own new space. Our brand-spanking new winery was sort of “ready” as harvest began on September 22 nd – well, at least ready enough that we could start the winemaking process while construction continued above and around us as we worked. (There seems to be some unwritten law that wineries are not actually allowed to be completed in time for harvest – no matter when you start construction.)

Over the years we’ve made our wines at eight different facilities – (Flowers, Scherrer, Selby, Laird Family Estate, Tandem, Domaine Drouhin Oregon and the Carlton Winemakers Studion – but who’s counting!) It’s been a wonderful experience every step of the way, but nothing beats having a winery and all the equipment all to yourself. Please come visit – our tasting room is open 11-4 Wednesday-Sunday, and we’d be happy to tour you through the facilities and taste you through the wines. Come and check out the 2005 Cuvée Martha Pirrie while it lasts…

The 2005 Wines

Those who’ve been around the winemaking business a long time will tell you that there are no two vintages alike. In our seven harvests so far we’ve certainly seen that to be true, each one having its own distinct character and personality. 2005 in Oregon gave us two harvests – one before the rain, and one after. An endless string of perfect sunny, warm days and cool nights (with an average diurnal fluctuation of 30 degrees) continued through Sept. 29th – and then we got whacked with a bunch of rain for five solid days. Wonderfully for us, everything at Shea, Stoller, and Ribbon Ridge was ripe and ready and picked by the 29th (We picked on the 23rd, 24th, & 29th.)

All we had remaining on the vine when the rains came was our 2.5 acres of Maresh vineyard – the old vines at the top of the Dundee Hills planted in 1970. This also played into our favor, as old vines tend to be rather impervious to the weather, and a few days of rain didn’t affect these hearty old plants at all. If anything, it may have helped a bit, giving a drink of water to some stressed plants in what is always a late-ripening site. We waited until October 9 th to bring in the Maresh fruit, and as you’ll see further on, it turned out to be the single best lot of the vintage for us…

To download our current order form, click here.

The new Cuvée Martha Pirrie is here…

Last year this wine sold out in the blink of an eye, and this year we have only a few more cases to sell than last time, unfortunately. Yields were down again in 2005, but not as sharply as 2004. Still, we have a scant 125 cases of this bottling available. I love everything about it – I just wish there was more…

2005 Cuvée Martha Pirrie Pinot Noir – $24
125 cases available

From our blocks of three of Oregon’s most prestigious vineyards comes the 2005 version of our value-priced Cuvée Martha Pirrie. (Named after our daughter, Martha Pirrie Wright – she goes by “Pirrie”.)

Shea Vineyard – Great structure, ripe black fruits and earthy aromas from the old-vine Pommard clone in Block 21 and younger Dijon clones 777 & 828

Stoller Vineyard – Pretty aromatics and juicy raspberries from “Goat Block” and blocks 21 & 32Ribbon Ridge Vineyard – Lush, hedonistic fruit, a sweet, juicy mid-palate, and rich textures from this special spot in one of Oregon’s hottest new appellations.

All fruit was picked on September 23, 24 & 29. The wine was aged for 10 months in French oak – 20% new – and was bottled un-fined and un-filtered on August 21, 2006.

Scott’s Tasting Notes
Put them all together and you get a rich, mouth-filling wine that is fruit-forward, sexy, and long. Blackberries and black raspberries dominate the nose, with a lush mid-palate and black-fruit flavors that keep flowing though the long and elegant finish. Drink now and over the next 3-5 years.

To download our current order form, click here.

La Paulée & Audrey Futures…

Mother Nature was kind enough to give us more La Paulée in 2005. (Audrey is, of course, its usual micro-production of a whopping six barrels.) We’re excited to offer these wines as futures – they’ll be ready for release in April, but you can purchase them now at significant savings over the release prices. Futures are sold in 6-bottle increments only. You’re welcome to come taste the 2005 futures with us over Thanksgiving weekend (see details below…)

2005 La Paulée Pinot Noir - Futures Price – $30
(will be $40 on release)
1,892 6-packs produced

La Paulée – our most complete and complex wine of the vintage. We individually selected 40 barrels in our cellar for this cuvée, from three different vineyards and eight separate blocks:

Shea Vineyard – 19 barrels (47.5%), from our old-vine Pommard clones in Block 21, and Dijon Clones 777 & 828 from Blocks 10, 18 & 19

Ribbon Ridge Vineyard – 13 barrels (32.5%), from our blocks of Pommard and Dijon clone 777

Stoller Vineyard – 8 barrels (20%), from blocks 32 & “Goat block”

All fruit was harvested on September 23, 24, & 29. The wine was raised for 10 months in French Oak – 20% new – and was bottled un-fined and un-filtered on August 23 & 24, 2006.

Scott’s Tasting Notes
Each of these lots on their own was very nice, but the combination truly brought out the best in all of them. This is a succulent and seductive Pinot, scents of crushed Oregon raspberries and heady aromas, leading into pure, round flavors of black cherries, raspberries and wild strawberries. This wine should flesh-out in the bottle over the next six months, and should be at its peak 2008-2011.

To download our current order form, click here.

2005 Audrey Pinot Noir - Futures Price – $40
(will be $55 on release)
261 6-packs produced

Once again a scant six barrels were selected this year to proudly wear the title of Audrey. For this special bottling we select our purest, most elegant, most intoxicatingly delicate wine of the vintage. (Audrey is named after and inspired by the timeless icon of natural beauty, elegance, and grace – Ms. Hepburn.)

The 2005 Audrey is comprised entirely of fruit from our blocks of Maresh Vineyard, situated high atop the steep Dundee Hills. This makes it a “single vineyard” wine – a rarity for us, as we’ve often stated we generally prefer to blend from our different sites to create more complete and complex wines. However, when a single vineyard produces wine like this – there is no reason to add fruit from anywhere else. Any addition could have only diminished the purity, the lacy elegance, the captivating aromas, and the special “sense of place” this wine conveys.

Maresh vineyard was planted by Jim Maresh in 1970, making it one of the true grand-daddies of Oregon vineyards (in fact only four Oregon sites are older.) The plant material is believed to be some form of the Swiss Wadenswil clone, planted on its own roots, and is of course a wide-spaced (6×10), non-irrigated planting.

Picking date was October 9th. The wine was in French oak for 10 months – two of the six barrels were new – and it was bottled un-fined and un-filtered on August 23rd, 2006.

Scott’s Tasting Notes
This wine is aptly named. Delicate and graceful yet stunningly beautiful, light on its feet but with deceptive power, floral and wild berry aromas flow seamlessly into ripe sweet mid-palate red fruits, and the purity carries on and on through the long, seductive finish. Let this wine develop to full complexity over the next 5-7 years.

To download our current order form, click here.

EVENTS

La Paulée de Carlton – Saturday November 4th!

One of the great traditions in all the wine world is Burgundy’s “La Paulée”. This French term is the name of the harvest celebrations that began in Burgundy centuries ago, originally as a small feast the winegrowers would host for their pickers and winery crews on the final day of harvest at the estate. Over time this mutated into the now famous “La Paulée de Meursault”, where hundreds of winegrowers from all across Burgundy get together for a 10-hour lunch in the cellars of the Chateau de Meursault on the 4 th Monday of November, and each guest brings several prized bottles from their cellars to freely share with all. (If you ever get a coveted invitation to this event – re-arrange your life to be able to go – it is truly amazing.)

I’ll be attending once again this fall – the Paulée is part of a three day weekend celebration in Burgundy called “Les Trois Glorieuses” – which includes the famous Hospices de Beaune auction. As last year, I’ll be looking to purchase a barrel or two at the auction – watch this space to see if we’re successful…

In recent years, enterprising Burgundy lovers around the world have created their own “La Paulée” celebrations – there is one every couple of years in New York, and occasionally in San Francisco as well. That said, the time has come for the soon-to-be-famous “La Paulée de Carlton”.

Beginning Saturday, November 4th, and all first-Saturdays in November to come, we will proudly host the Oregon version of this bacchanalian feast here at the new Scott Paul winery and tasting room in Carlton. Watch your mailbox for your invitation.

Ours will be a two-pronged Paulée. To begin we’ll have an open-house from 11-4 in the tasting room – and we’ll open up a bunch of great wines from our cellars to taste throughout the day. Then, we’ll have a reservation-only dinner in our cellars that night, with seating limited to 50 Pinot lovers – who will all be asked to bring a few bottles share in the traditional spirit of La Paulée. Places at the dinner are $100 per person, and may be reserved by calling Kelly Karr at (503) 319-5827 or email kellykarr@scottpaul.com. We look forward to celebrating the harvest with you!

We’re proud to be participating for the first time this year in…
SALUD – the Oregon Pinot Noir Auction

Scheduled for November 11th & 12th, this outstanding event brings together 42 of Oregon’s top producers and hundreds of Pinot lovers over two days for a tasting, barrel auction and gala dinner to support medical care and services for the vineyard workers throughout Oregon. It’s a tremendous cause, and the wines up for auction are not available anywhere else – these are exclusive cuvées bottled expressly for SALUD. We’ve selected a single-barrel from our old-vine block of Maresh Vineyard in the Dundee Hills for our 2005 SALUD bottling, and it is truly a special wine. See www.saludauction.org for more details…

Thanksgiving Open House

Then on November 24 th & 25 th, it’s our first ever Thanksgiving Weekend Open House in our new facilities. Join us for your opportunity to sample the 2005 Audrey and La Paulée futures, and snap up the 2005 Cuvée Martha Pirrie while it lasts. As always, the futures will be offered at significant savings, and we’ll also have a few Burgundy surprises available for tasting and purchase.

Come early to beat the crowds – we’re opening at 10am each day – hours are 10-4 Friday & Saturday November 24 th & 25 th. Admission is $5 per person, which includes all tastings and yummy delectables. (Our tasting room will be open our regular hours 11-4 on Sunday November 26 th, minus the Open House food goodies & crowds!)

And the best of Burgundy too…

Earlier this year, we started up our new import division – Scott Paul Selections – focusing exclusively on the great wines of Burgundy. Our portfolio includes over 40 different wines from eight of Burgundy’s finest small family domaines, many of which are not available anywhere else in the U.S. We take great pride in representing the following fine Burgundian producers:

Domaine René Leclerc – Gevrey-Chambertin
Domaine François Lamarche – Vosne-Romanée
Domaine Thierry Violot-Guillemard – Pommard
Domaine Aleth Girardin – Pommard
Domaine Huber-Verdereau – Volnay
Domaine Réyane & Pascal Bouley – Volnay
Domaine Buisson-Charles – Meursault
Domaine Philippe Chavy – Puligny-Montrachet

To download our complete portolio, including tasting notes and reviews by esteemed Burgundy critic Allen Meadows/Burghound.com – click here.

To download our current order form, click here.

Producer profile – Domaine Buisson-Charles

The village of Meursault is known throughout the world for its spectacular vineyards, home to some of the finest Chardonnay this planet has to offer. Michel Buisson is the 4 th-generation vigneron to run his family’s tiny 5 hectare (12.5 acre) estate, with holdings in Meursault’s finest 1er Cru and village level vineyards. He is assisted by his daughter Catherine and son-in-law Patrick Essa, representing the 5 th generation to tend these spectacular old vines.

The 1er Cru holdings total just 1 hectare (roughly 2.5 acres) – split between tiny parcels of Charmes, Goutte d’Or, Bouches-Chères, and Les Cras. Each of these parcels may produce only 3-4 barrels each vintage. The village level holdings are well situated and very old – average vine-age nears 60 years.

Leading Burgundy authority & critic Allen Meadows writes “For those who enjoy very pure, elegant, and intense white burgundies, Buisson-Charles should be on your list.” (For Allen’s tasting notes and scores on the Buisson-Charles wines, please see our complete portfolio here.)

The wines are fermented in the traditional 228-liter French Oak barrels, of which about 25% are new each year. Wines are aged in the barrel for 12 months, and are racked only once prior to bottling. The vinification is very traditional, very hands-off, and the resulting wines are pure and extremely true representations of their terroir – these are classic Meursaults in every sense of the word. The Buisson-Charles wines are approachable in their youth, but shine their brightest with many years of bottle age – 10, 15, 20 years or more in the best vintages. The Buisson-Charles wines will be featured in our tasting room throughout the fall…

Don’t forget to click the “BLOG” button on our website –
where we post frequently with the latest updates.

As always, we thank you for your continued support!

Cheers,

Martha & Scott Wright

Well, it’s down to the nitty-gritty. I’m guessing we’ve got fruit ready to pick in about 20 days. Our new winery has no electrical outlets, cooling system, or chiller yet. Other than that, we’re ready to go! Up to this point I’ve been operating on blind faith that somehow or other we’ll be ready, and I see no reason to abandon that approach at this point. As someone famous once said – “Hope is not a business plan” – but hope is all we’ve got for now, and I’m sticking with it!

The vineyards are looking great at this point.From our seven different vineyards this year, we will harvest 16 different parcels separately, some of which will be vinified in two or three or more different lots – so we could have 50 or so different ferments to manage this year. That’s why they call it crush! Ready or not, here we come…

Ahh, the glamorous life of the vigneron. I’m sitting here watching the plumber clean out the drain line from our air conditioning system at home, as it is a clog in this line that he believes is causing the water to pool under our hot water heater and one of the wine cabinets. No serious damage to anything, but it’s disconcerting nonetheless to open one’s wine closet and find inch-deep puddles of water on the floor. Yikes! As soon as he’s done, I’ll be running out to our new vineyard blocks down in the Eola hills, and I’ll report back on the progress there shortly…

While I wait I’ll use this opportunity to mention a couple of life-altering wines consumed during the IPNC festivities a couple of weeks back. Pascal Bouley of Volnay brought over 6 bottles of his 1993 Pommard to pair with one of the courses at dinner at the winery, and I’ve got to say it was simply stunning. Still amazingly young in many respects, it had dazzlingly complex secondary aromas, lush mid-palate fruit, endless length, and plenty of primary fruit still – indicating that there is a considerable life yet ahead of this wine. As Allen Meadows said that night “… and Village wines don’t age…” A couple of nights later at the salmon-bake dinner, a cornucopia of vinous delights was capped off by a perfect bottle of 1985 Clos de Beze from Drouhin. What a splendid wine. All silk and lace and flowers and berries in perfect harmony, a seductive and intoxicating nose that kaleidescoped throughout the night, and for me a near perfect expression of the noble terroir of Clos de Beze. One of those bottles you never want to end…

I’ve just booked my flights for November to head over to Beaune for the Hospices auction again this year. My mouth is already watering at the prospects of lunch at Ma Cuisine and more life-altering wines at La Paulée…

I spent the morning making the rounds of our vineyard blocks. We are just finishing up crop-thinning (various sites are between 20%-75% through veraison.) Clusters are larger this year, similar in size to 2002. We have thinned to one cluster per shoot, (or less in many cases), and we estimate an average of 2 tons per acre for the year – just where we’d like to be. Our blocks at Maresh will be significantly lighter than that – I’d guess just over a ton to the acre on average there…

We have also just signed a deal to add some more acreage down in the Eola hills, picking up a lovely 4-acre piece off of Zena Road, a tiny parcel just below Bethel Heights, and another 4 acres above Belle Provenance. I’ll be down there on Friday to check cluster weights and progress…

Save the date – La Paulée comes to Carlton on November 4th!

“La Paulée”, in addition to being the name of one of our finest cuvées of Pinot Noir, is the name of the traditional end-of-harvest celebration in Burgundy. The tradition goes back hundreds of years, and began with individual wine growers celebrating the harvest with a party for their vineyard and winery crew. Over time it evolved into what is now the famous “La Paulée de Meursault”, wherein a few hundred of Burgundy’s top vignerons get together at the Chateau de Meursault each November for a harvest feast and a cornucopia of great wines – with each guest bringing several treasured bottles from their cellars to share.

The time has come for “La Paulée de Carlton”! We will begin the tradition here at our new winery and tasting room on Saturday November 4th – details coming as soon as we figure it all out!

Save the date – La Paulée comes to Carlton on November 4th!

“La Paulée”, in addition to being the name of one of our finest cuvées of Pinot Noir, is the name of the traditional end-of-harvest celebration in Burgundy. The tradition goes back hundreds of years, and began with individual wine growers celebrating the harvest with a party for their vineyard and winery crew. Over time it evolved into what is now the famous “La Paulée de Meursault”, wherein a few hundred of Burgundy’s top vignerons get together at the Chateau de Meursault each November for a harvest feast and a cornucopia of great wines – with each guest bringing several treasured bottles from their cellars to share.

The time has come for “La Paulée de Carlton”! We will begin the tradition here at our new winery and tasting room on Saturday November 4th – details coming as soon as we figure it all out!

I am happy to report that I fully enjoyed my first day off in a month or so yesterday, and am now nearly fully recovered from IPNC, my birthday, Carlton’s Walk In the Park, and a few other events I can’t even remember at the moment.

IPNC was wonderful as always, and our dinner here at the winery was a blast. It was an honor to have Thiébault Huber, the Bouley family, and Allen Meadows join us for our first dinner in our new digs. The wines and food (from Scott Dolich of Park Kitchen) rocked, and a good time was had by all…

The 2005 cuvées have now all ben racked into tank to settle out for a couple of weeks prior to bottling. I’m really excited with each of these wines, and look forward to the release of the ’05 Cuvée Martha Pirrie at the beginning of October. As always, we’ll be offering futures on the Audrey and La Paulée bottlings this fall – watch this space and your email for details as they develop…

We’ve had a nasty heat spike over the last couple of days – as high as 108 on Friday, then around 100 thru today. It is supposed to cool off into the low 80s for the rest of the week. This seems to happen about once a year here, and it normally happens during IPNC weekend. Thankfully, this year we should all be a lot more comfortable for a change, if the forecast for this weekend is accurate.

The vines react to this heat by simply shutting down, and they’ll resume their normal cycles as soon as the temps drop back to normal levels. This can serve to slow things down by afew days, which is fine by me this year, as we’re going to need all the time we can get to get the winery ready. Construction continues along at a good pace, but we have absolutely no wiggle-room if we’re going to be ready for crush. What, me worry?