If you read Scott’s blog, you know that the meal that Gabe Rucker (chef of Le Pigeon) cooked for our pre-IPNC dinner on Thursday night, was delicious and that it was a hit.  Yes, the rack of lamb was excellent.  Nothing better.  Well, ok, I confess.  I’ve had something better.  I was lucky enough to eat leftovers from the event the next night…the way that the rack was meant to be eaten, as in, picking up the chops and gnawing on those delicious bones!  I’m pretty sure Gabe would want it this way!  While Scott was out at another IPNC event Friday, I stayed home with the young one, a plate of leftover rack of lamb, with a squash/potato gratin w/ lemon olive oil that I made, a bottle of hearty and pretty 2006 Passetoutgrains (Domaine Taupenot-Merme), and a little guilty-pleasure tv.  I wasn’t feeling sorry for myself one bit!  I followed that with a homemade blackberry cobbler (grandmother’s recipe) and local, organic blackberry ice cream.

Speaking of berries, I have to pass this on, while the recipe (Fresh Fruit Custard Tart) is still linked over at Food Day.  I enjoy making desserts, but have no discipline or aptitude for fussy ones.  I love winging it when it comes to cooking, and in general, desserts don’t like this, since baking can be more of an exact science than other dishes.  But not so this one!  You’ve just got to make this.  It could not be any easier.  This recipe should be called Liar Tart.  Because you’ll swear to your guests that you’re really not much of a baker, not much of a dessert maker, and they will swear that you are lying!  Or it could be called Domestic Goddess Pie, because that is what you’ll appear to be.  And still not content to just let a recipe be, I added some lemon zest and some lavender to the custard.  (I pulsed 1 tsp of lavender with the remaining sugar before dumping into the cuisinart with the sour cream and eggs).  Oops, by the way, do not make the tart in a pretty dish like this one in the photo.  For ease of slicing and removal, use a tart pan as specified in the recipe.

For those of you out of state, please forgive me for posting this photo of the bowl of raspberries.  It’s really how we put up with the rain all winter…the promise of these amazing, fat, clean, sweet berries.  I picked 7 pounds of these and they literally fall into your hands when you reach out for them.  I probably ate a pound as I picked.  And I paid just $7.  I hope I can manage to get to West Union Farm (u-pick, no sprays) one more time before the season ends. 

Wow. Whew. Five days of intense wining, dining, and hanging with friends old and new from around the world. Way too much great food. An embarrassing array of great wines. Another IPNC is behind us. I am happy, thrilled, overfed, and exhausted!

Where to begin? We started “softly” with a nice dinner at Bistro Maison in McMinnville Wednesday night, with our distributor from DC, my buddy Craig Williams from Napa, David & Juliette from DDO, and some nice champers from Marc Chauvet to start. The rabbit casserole was amazing, btw…

Juliette & Lanny at Bistro Maison

Party time in the winery...

Then our Thursday night pre-IPNC dinner at the winery, with special guests Anne & Hervé Sigaut, journalist Bruce Schoenfeld, and the best group of people we could hope to have. Gabe Rucker and Andy Fortgang from Le Pigeon blew everybody away with the dinner – the foie gras and duck confit salad, followed by the rack of lamb with lamb belly – way too good… Opened up the last mag of our first wine – the ’99 Kent Ritchie Vyd. Chardonnay – man did I luck out on that one. I had truly no idea what I was doing at the time (not that I have much of an idea now), but with Greg LaFollette’s gentle guidance we made a lovely, ageworthy wine. It was drinking really beautifully, and I’m glad to still have some 750s in the cellar…

Mike, Scott & the Sigauts in the tasting room

Guests Tom & Sandra Long from CA

Friday and Saturday were consumed with endless IPNC seminars, tastings, lunches and dinners, all of which were excellently planned and executed. It was a special pleasure to hear winemaker François Millet from Domaine de Vogüé hold forth on the intricacies of Chambolle-Musigny terroir, and to spend some time with him and his family during the Salmon Bake dinner Saturday night.

The de Vogué Seminar

Ahh, Salmon Bake. One of the best nights of the year (right up there with La Paulée in Burgundy in my book) – a beautiful night under the stars, surrounded with great friends, wine and food. Oh, and did I mention the wine? A few good bottles were going around. (Understatement of the year.) We really enjoyed an excellent bottle of the ’99 Charmes Chambertin from Taupenot-Merme, and an ’04 Romanée-St. Vivant from J-J Confuron, amongst way too many others. Journalist David Schildknecht (who covers Burgundy, all of France except for Bordeaux and the Rhône, and Germany and Austria for The Wine Advocate) was on hand, going around with a bottle of our ’07 Audrey that I’d given him earlier in the evening, and he was pouring it blind for a bunch of his winemaking friends from around the globe. He came back to report that 17 out of 18 thought it was from Burgundy! That to me is the highest praise I could dream of – believe me I was over the moon to hear that the wine was enjoyed and appreciated for its elegance and finesse…

Salmon Bake at sunset...

If that wasn’t enough, we followed it all up with another great dinner at Le Pigeon in Portland – Anne & Hervé Sigaut, their agent Mike Stephens from Beaune, and Allen & Erica Meadows joined us for another round of hedonistic delights. I couldn’t help myself – I had to order the fois gras terrine. Over-indulgence? Undoubtedly, but god it was delicious! I talked Anne Sigaut into trying the foie gras ice cream profiteroles for dessert, and for a non-dessert eater she seemed pretty pleased. Allen brought a nice ’96 Corton Charlemagne from Tollot-Beaut, and we followed with an ’01 RSV from Confuron, which was stunningly silky and refined. In all, a great, great night.

Foie Gras and avocado terrine

This afternoon we’re pouring wine with the Sigauts for a group of the top sommelliers and retailers around Portland, after which I am officially going into retirement for about 36 hours. (And hitting the running trails in Forest Park to try and reverse some of the damage from five straight days of hedonistic excess!)

We had the great pleasure to join a group of about 100 local Carlton residents, winemakers, business owners, etc. at the lovely hilltop estate of Rick & Heather Karl just outside of town. After we closed the tasting room yesterday at five, Martha, Pirrie and I headed up Stag Hollow Rd. to the Karl’s estate and vineyard – what a spectacular view!

That’s the top of one of the blocks of Rivenwood, with Soter’s Mineral Springs vineyards in the distance. The Karl’s place is sweet, the sun was shining, and the prime rib and pork on the grill was sublime. Everybody brought a bunch of great wine, some local micro-micro brews were on tap, and the company was unsurpassed. A great bunch of folks, kids and dogs all over, huge platters of cupcakes and chocolate-chip cookies – it doesn’t get a whole lot better!

We lingered on and chatted the early evening away, while Pirrie and friends soared on the kid-heaven tree-swing that zooms out over the vineyards – one of those moments when it becomes very clear that “life is good” indeed!

Huge thanks to the Karls for putting on this wonderful day! What a great way to kick off a week of celebrating, wining & dining. I’m really looking forward to seeing everybody coming in for IPNC – friends old and new from all over the planet (and perhaps a decent bottle of wine or two along the way!)

I’m just back from Seattle, where I got to see soccer giants Chelsea play a pre-season match against the Seattle Sounders of the MLS – in front of 65,000 crazed fans at Qwest Field. What a blast! Huge thanks to our great friend and customer Phil Franks for hooking us up with our new friend and customer Ed Murray, who hooked us up with the tix.

A stadium full of fellow soccer geeks!

Chelsea had only returned to training for a few days after their 6-week summer break – but even rusty and out of shape, their superior skills and talent clearly showed, and they cruised to an easy 2-0 victory. It was great to see Frank Lampard score a goal, and new signing Daniel Sturridge as well. With all the upheaval around the Premier League this year, it could be anybody’s title for the taking, and Chelsea will certainly challenge for the top. (Just to be clear, I am an Arsenal supporter. I’d say we’re in good shape for another top-4 finish, with an outside shot at the title…)

A sweet spot on the lake...

We then headed for the “after party” at Ed’s gorgeous lakefront digs on the shores of Lake Samammish. Great beef was grilled, many excellent wines were opened – including a ’96 Pol Roger bubbler, assorted old ports and Cabernet-based wines from CA and Bordeaux (hey it was only Port and Bordeaux, I didn’t take notes!), and a bottle of ’99 Charmes Chambertin from Taupenot-Merme that was showing exceptionally well.

Now on to the final prep for IPNC 2009, kicking off with our sold-out dinner here at the winery Thursday night with special guests Anne & Hervé Sigaut from Chambolle-Musigny. They’ll be pouring and participating in all the IPNC events throughout the weekend, and we’ll be featuring their gorgeous wines here at the tasting room all week – so one way or the other, plan to get up close and personal with the Sigaut wines asap.

Time to get into the cellar and pick out some good bottles for all the dinners coming up, including the Paulée-style Salmon Bake soirée at IPNC Saturday night. Here’s another shot from last year’s bacchanalia…

Kelley Fox with Thiébault & Marielle Huber

IPNC – the International Pinot Noir Celebration - kicks off a week from tomorrow with our annual Thursday night dinner at the winery, and I am really excited. It’s always the best week of the year, with 60 of the top producers from around the planet and 650 of the most avid Pinot lovers all together for three days of great tastings, seminars, meals, and endless fun. If you’re headed our way, please plan to join us in the tasting room – open 1-5 Friday-Sunday.

Journalist/Author Jordan Mackay with Thiébault Huber at IPNC 2008

I’m looking forward to welcoming Anne & Hervé Sigaut from Chambolle-Musigny for their first IPNC visit, and of course they’ll be our special guests of honor at our dinner (helmed by Le Pigeon superstar chef Gabe Rucker!)

Big thanks to mega-sommelier Christie Dufualt of San Francisco’s RN74 – who chose our 2006 La Paulée as her “Best Value Red” in the latest issue of Sommelier Journal. What can we say – she has excellent taste! (and is a wonderful human being to boot.)

Our 2008s are being bottled as we speak – more details and photos from the line in the next post…

What a spectacular day yesterday – sunny and warm, a nice breeze to keep it comfortable, and the best of an Oregon summer on offer. First, a stop at the Portland Farmer’s Market – it’s getting to be peak berry season, and Martha & Pirrie loaded up on some excellent raspberries, blackberries, and some killer cherries too. Pirrie wolfed down her market fave – the New Mexico breakfast burrito (spiced-up scrambled eggs, spicy potatoes, bacon – yum!)

We then headed uptown to the Bastille Day celebration in Jamison Square Park in the Pearl – great live music, tons of booths, games, food, a wine garden (featuring some of our Chavy & Gueguen whites), and of course the annual waiters race. I chowed on a sandwiche Merguez-frites from Fenouil, and the girls had a croque monsieur from Nuvrei Bakery and a salmon-confit salade niçoise from Metrovino – fabulous street-fare at its best!

Lots of fun stuff on stage – including this madame singing classic French café tunes -

The waiters race is a blast – with all the entrants taking four laps around the square with a bottle of Perrier and three full glasses on their trays – kudos to the winners (and all who had the guts to go for it!)

We then decided to head across the river for the Mississippi Street Fair, which was jam-packed and hugely festive. Food, bands, drink, and a throng of Portlandians of every stripe jamming the new hipster-strip for about a dozen blocks – big fun all around.

We were heading out to our Carlton cottage for the night, and on an impulse decided to stop into Farm to Fork – the exciting new resto on Rt. 99W in Dundee. That turned out to be the best decision of the day!
Chef Paul Bachand’s food was excellent across the board, and the setting is really well done -a great eye for detail and design, and simply a massively huge and welcome addition to the Willamette Valley wine country. (Not to mention their 20-room luxury Inn at Red Hills – which was already booked up and full, a great sign!)

For starters we had the divine duck & pork Rillettes, a richly flavorful almond soup, and the warm truffled goat cheese tart – each of which was totally delicious. In fact I think we were swooning. Then for the main course, Martha had the leg of Rabbit with truffled carrot puree, I did the 16oz grilled Rib-Eye with Arugula, and Pirrie had the Coulotte steak – and again every bite was right-on. We really enjoyed a bottle of 2007 Pinot from our friends Patrick Reuter & Leigh Bartholomew (our winemaking neighbors at the Carlton Winemakers Studio for a few years) and their Dominio IV brand. Their ’07 “The Red & The Black” pinot was brimming with rich, mouthfilling mid-palate fruit, very nicely balanced, and really lovely with the food. Bravo!

Both desserts were also swoon-worthy – the vanilla-bean & mascarpone cheesecake and the bittersweet chocolate timbale – extra miles will be run this week on their behalf!

In all, what a great day to be alive, a great day to spend with family, a great day to enjoy Oregon’s bounty. I am a lucky man, and life does not suck!

Ever since I had the chance to hang out in Burgundy last fall with uber-sommellier Raj Parr (top wine dog of the ever-expanding Michael Mina restaurant empire), and heard about his plans for “RN74“, I’ve been salivating. RN74 is the name of the national two-lane highway that runs through the heart of Burgundy’s Côte d’Or. It is now also the name of the most exciting restaurant/wine bar in San Francisco’s vibrant food & wine scene.

Just open less than two months, it’s already packed. It’s easy to see why. The food is excellent – a nice modern take on upscale bistro fare, with a fresh & local California flavor. The wine program is quite simply the most ambitious, comprehensive, dynamic, and thrilling Burgundy & Pinot-based selection I’ve ever seen on this side of the pond. (And it blows away virtually everything on the other side as well.) And it’s a creative, unique, and vibrant space. It’s a good thing RN74 is not in Portland, because I’d be there every day – and be fat and broke in short order.

The one feature that immediately gets all the press and is an absolute stroke of genius is RN74s “last bottle board” – if you’ve ever been in a French train station you’ll recognize it instantly. At a reported cost of about $100K, this board updates patrons on which wines in the cellar are down to the last bottle or two, and their availability and prices update on the board just like the train info at the Gare de Lyon. When the last bottle of anything gets sold, the tiles on the board flip one by one to reveal a new offering, and on it goes. Absolute genius.

Jordan Mackay – the talented SF-based wine & spirits writer (and author of the wonderful book Passion for Pinot) agreed to join me for lunch, and lunch we did, in a fine. leisurely, Burgundian fashion. Starting with an ’06 Colin-Morey St. Aubin (from the board – there must’ve been one more left, ’cause the board didn’t change), which we enjoyed with some sauteed trumpet mushrooms that were spot-on delicious. I went with the slow-roasted pork sandwich, Jordan did the soft-shell crab sandwich, and a bottle of ’06 Chambolle-Musigny from Jean-Marie Fourrier tied it all together. The sandwiches rocked. The wine was so good I nearly wanted to weep. Elegance, finesse, purity, transparency, weightlessness – not bad for a humble “village wine”.

What did bring me to tears was the “Collection” - the cellar list of hundreds and hundreds of amazing old burgs. Two of the greatest wines ever bottled, the ’47 and ’49 de Vogüé Musigny are both on the list (at several thousand bucks a pop, and rightly so) – just knowing that there’s a place on earth that has these two wines in the cellar and on the list somehow makes me feel like everything is right with the world. The selections are mind-blowing and endless. You could drink your way through this cellar for years, and be a very happy person every day.

And of course I had to give dessert a try. The intense and dense Valhrona chocolate mousse cake may soon require a 12-step program of its own. I had to order a second one just to make sure it was as good as I thought it was. It was.

Speaking of great French food and wine – I just finished the fascinating “Au Revoir to All That – Food, Wine and the End of France” by Slate wine-writer Michael Steinberger – a wonderful read documenting the fall of France from the top of the world’s gastronomic perch, and the cultural upheavel that is seeing the France we know and love mutate into something entirely different. Well-written, well-researched, and a must for all food & wine lovers and francophiles of every stripe.

Big ups to Carmen & Eric at wine country institution Nick’s Italian Cafe in McMinnville – they are really nailing it and putting out some of the best food in the valley.

We had a great meal there last night. “We” included Doug Tunnell from Brick House, Brian O’Donnell from Belle Pente, Jay Somers from J. Christopher, and Professor Chang-rae Lee from Princeton – he’s an author and creative writing teacher, in town for a week to write a piece on the Oregon wine industry for Food & Wine magazine.

He’s a fascinating and very bright guy, his passion for wine is genuine, and we had a nice “round table” discussion about the Oregon wine world over several wines and way too much great food. (Wines included ’06 and ’07 Pinots from all of us, some Chardonnays from BP and BH, and a killer Sauvignon Blanc from JC.)

But the food! Ahh, the food. Great, fresh, local, expertly prepared, every bite delicious. I started with a wonderful selection of house-made salumi, followed by an amuse-bouche of some marinated mackerel, then a vibrant and deeply flavorful minestrone, fresh pasta with potatoes and peas, and then the roasted pork loin and pork sausage. Oh yeah, and then the chocolate pound cake with orange cream. So much for eating simply and light. (It’s an occupational hazard, these delicious multi-course meals. Somebody’s got to do it!)

Once the only decent restaurant in wine country, long a winemakers hangout – Nick’s is now at the top level of dining in the Willamette Valley. If you haven’t been in a while, you haven’t been to Nick’s. Check it out when you can. In the meantime, I’m off to the running trails in Forest Park to try and mitigate the damage!

Seeing their events listed in the publication, Edible Portland, made me check out the website for Growing Gardens.  I’m glad I did.  I’ve signed up for two classes.  Their mission:

GROWING GARDENS digs at the root of hunger in Portland, Oregon by building organic Home Gardens in urban backyards.  Our Youth Grow school garden clubs create future veggie eaters and cultivators. Our Learn & Grow classes cover cooking, preserving & more.

Right up my alley.  I’m following them on Twitter, and I’ll let you know how tonight’s class on year-round gardening goes.  Each year, I want to do one or two new things in the garden.  This year, it was growing things from seed, which I mistakenly thought was beyond a newbie’s abilities.  Apparently, not so.  See photo below of Burgundy Bush Beans just 14 days after planting seeds.  Later this year, I want to take a first stab at some winter vegetables, so the timing of this class is perfect.  I’ve registered for next month’s parent-child class on veggie gardening too.  Also, a photo here of some homegrown kale, which I would have to nominate as a best yield/most trouble-free crop.  Another nominee in that category are the sugar snap peas which are just starting – the first small crop went into a potato salad with chopped green onion and mint.

Please join us July 4th weekend for a vertical tasting of one of our most popular Oregon Pinots, Cuvée Martha Pirrie (vintages 2000, 2002, 2005 and 2007). We’ll also have two Burgundies on the tasting flight that weekend. The tasting, part of the ongoing Oregon 150 celebrations, is also a benefit for Ecotrust’s Farm to School Initiative.  http://www.ecotrust.org/farmtoschool.

A Fourth on the 4th:  We’ll donate one quarter of your $10 tasting fee AND we’ll refund it if you buy three bottles of wine.  Saturday and Sunday 1-5 pm at our Tasting Room.

For other Winecountry July 4th/Oregon 150 events click here:

http://www.willamettewines.com/oregon150/events/6-july/july4_redwhitetrue01.shtm

If you cannot make the event, but would like to purchase some of the older vintages of Cuvée Martha Pirrie, please contact Kelly, 503-319-5827 or kellykarr@scottpaul.com.  They are $30 per bottle, and only a couple cases of each are available.

“…considered by many around these parts to be the standard against which all other Oregon Pinot Noirs in this price range are measured. Year-in, year-out, this wine is a spectacular buy for the money.”  Storyteller Wine Co, Portland