Join us for our annual pre-IPNC dinner at the winery on Thursday night July 26th at 6:30. This year we’re excited to welcome three of our great producers from Burgundy for the festivities - Hugues Pavelot from Domaine Pavelot in Savigny-lés-Beaune, Thiébault Huber from Huber-Verdereau in Volnay, and the return of Alexandrine Roy from Marc Roy in Gevrey-Chambertin.

UPDATE – star chef Daniel Mondok (whose new wine country restaurant “Paulée” opens in late May) will be cooking dinner for us!

This dinner is now SOLD-OUT. Email Kelly Karr if you’d like to placed on our waiting list…

Chef Daniel Mondok

Thiébault Huber

Hugues Pavelot

Alexandrine Roy

Please join us to celebrate France’s Independence Day on Saturday July 14th 1-5 with more Champagne!  We’ll open all three Gobillard:  NV Brut, NV Brut Vieilles Vignes, and Brut Rose.  

The Gobillards have been growers since the 1700s, and Paul Gobillard, Bruno’s great-great grandfather, bottled their first Champagne under their own label in 1858. Today they own a little over 17 acres in the villages around Epernay, scattered over 27 different parcels in the villages of Moussy, Pierry, Epernay, Cramant, Chatillon sur Marne, and la Chapelle Monaudon. Bruno Gobillard took over in 1994, and has quickly risen to cult status among Champagne lovers everywhere.

Tasting Flight $10, refundable with 3 bottle purchase.

Happy Bastille Day! France’s “Fête National” is essentially their version of our 4th of July. It’s celebrated on the 14th of July, commemorating the storming of the Bastille prison, the starting point of the French revolution in 1789.

Some of our all-time best memories of adventures in France include the Bastille Day celebration in the Burgundian village of Meursault (where they actually celebrate the night of the 13th.) The village square is filled with endless rows of long banquet tables, stalls are selling grilled sausages and some nice bottles of Meursault (bien sûr!), and there’s a fabulous fireworks show over the vineyards that rise above the multi-colored tiled roof of the village hall.

Bastille Day reveling in Meursault

After the fireworks, the band strikes up (featuring a number of world-famous vignerons), and everybody dances the night away under the stars and the white lights strung overhead across the square. It is a grand night indeed. While Bastille Day is always a great celebration, our Burgundian and Champenois friends don’t have a lot to celebrate this year. It has been a brutally tough season in the vineyards so far, marked by rains, cool weather, and worst of all, some devastating hailstorms. Over 50% of the crop in Pommard and Volnay appears to have been destroyed, and damage to a lesser extent hit all over the place, with Meursault, the Côte Chalonnaise, and some parts of the Côte de Nuits also feeling the pain.

I feel deep sadness for all of our producers who have been working like mad, nearly 24-7 this spring and summer, only to be hit again and again with some very tough love from mother nature. Cross your fingers with us that the crop that remains ends up making some lovely wines – we will need every golden drop!

We’re celebrating Bastille Day in Carlton with a special flight of the Bruno Gobillard Champagnes tomorrow afternoon (Saturday) from 1-5pm, so plan to stop in and party like the French – in style!

Champagne wizard Bruno Gobillard

The two biggest tasting events we’ve ever done are coming up on August 3rd and 4th – mark your calendars now so you don’t miss these. It’s my birthday (58, for those who care to know) – and I’m using it as an excuse to open up an unprecedented array of great wines the likes of which we have never even attempted previously.

On Friday night August 3rd at Scott Paul PDX, we’ll be pouring Nine, count ‘em Nine top grower Champagnes, including a full flight of cult favorites from Camille Savès. And we’ll be pairing the bubblies with my favorite Champagne pairings – sushi from Bamboo Sushi, French Fries with Truffle-Salt from Little Big Burger, and some exquisite Macarons from the pastry wizards at Pix. Whoa!

Michel Lafarge, a true master

Then our moveable feast moves to Carlton on Saturday August 4th, for a mega-tasting of the Masters of Burgundy and a Six Vintage Vertical of our Audrey Pinot Noir (2005-2010). Never before, and perhaps never again, will all these wines be open at one time in one place. Top-scoring Burgs from Michel Lafarge, Comte Armand, Bonneau du Martray, Buisson-Charles and Jean-Marc Millot, plus six vintages of a wine that’s been one of Oregon’s most lauded year after year. Happy Birthday indeed – come help me blow it out!

Hot tip – there is finally an iPhone and Android wine app that is useful and actually works – check out Vivino. It’s free, and I’m betting you’ll be hooked in about 2 minutes…

Join us in Portland for our continuing series of First Friday Happy Hours – 5-7p on Friday July 6th at Scott Paul PDX (2537 NW Upshur.)  We have a special flight of all Marc Chauvet Champagnes including the NV Brut, the 2004 Millésime and the 2002 Special Club, along with our new ’09 La Paulée Pinot Noir. Tasting fee $10, refunded with any three bottle purchase.

Scott is just back from Burgundy with stories to tell!

Note – FREE PARKING is available nearby at the Selco Community Credit Union lot, at the corner of 25th & Thurman.

Summer has arrived right on schedule here in Oregon – which despite our best wishes always seems to arrive no sooner than the 4th of July. Looks like an endless string of sunny-80-degree days ahead, and the vines are very happy indeed. We moved here in 2001 specifically to make Oregon Pinot Noir. I was convinced the northern Willamette Valley was the best place to grow Pinot in the New World. 11 years later, and I’m sure I was right. It also turned out to be the best place to live.

I am ridiculously blessed. Our quality of life here in NW Portland may be unsurpassed. Outside my front door, on foot in any direction in a matter of minutes, an amazing world awaits me every day. Let’s start with the bakeries (of course) – Ken’s, St. Honoré, Nuvrei, Lovejoy Bakers, Pearl, Grand Central, Two Tarts. Bagels at Bowery Bagels or Kenny & Zukes. Breakfast at Beesaw’s or Steppingstone. Or Coffee – Barista, NW Coffeehouse, Brecken or Dragonfly for starters. For supplies – City Market, Food Front, Zupans, Whole Foods, Elephant’s Deli. Pearl Specialties for wines and beers and spirits.

Lovin' life in the Rose City...

In restaurants we have a true embarrassment of riches – Paley’s, Wildwood, Noisette, Bamboo Sushi, Little Big Burger, Salt & Straw, Metrovino, Meriwether’s, Olympic Provisions, Bluehour, 23 Hoyt, Irving Street Kitchen, Dick’s Kitchen, Park Kitchen, Bent Brick, Ringside Steak, Andina, Café Mingo, Coppia, Kin, Oven & Shaker, Piazza Italia, Cool Moon, Davis Street Tavern, Ping – and that’s just scratching the surface.

Not to mention the world’s greatest bookstore in Powell’s. And if you let me go half a block across Burnside, there’s the amazing Living Room Theaters and the best chocolate shop – Cacao. And at the end of my street – trailheads into Forest Park, including my beloved Leif Erikson trail, where you’ll find me running most mornings while watching the likes of Olympians Kara Goucher and Shalane Flanagan blow by me like I’m standing still. Life is good.

Let’s kick off the start of this great summer in style, with a flight of the great Marc Chauvet Champagnes – we’ll be pouring from 5-7p Friday night July 6th at Scott Paul PDX – for our continuing series of First Friday Happy Hours – see you here!