Pirrie on the job
doing quality control
| As I write this mid - September, we’re still a week or two away from picking the first grapes this year. We’ve had abundant sunshine of late, with lows in the 50s and highs in the 80s for the last several weeks – all setting us up for what could be another excellent year. Between now and harvest, of course, things can and will change a few dozen times. Winemaking can teach you a lot, most importantly patience. I’ve also learned that making predictions, worrying, or complaining are nothing but exercises in frustration, and that nature always has the last word anyway! In Burgundy the 2007 harvest is finished, with an early start around September 1st for most of our growers. The growers are reporting that two weeks of near-perfect weather just before harvest saved the year, and the early indications are that the wines will be supple with ripe fruit and good structure. More on this after my trip to Burgundy in mid-November. In the meantime, more of the outstanding 2005 Burgs are on the way shortly – details later in this newsletter The 2006 Cuvée Martha Pirrie is safely in bottle and ready for its public unveiling. The 2006 vintage finally gave us a normal-sized crop of beautiful fruit (we keep all of our vineyards down to 2-tons/acre maximum – but nature kept us below 1-ton/acre in ’04 & ‘05) – so we finally have a little more wine to go around. We bottled 964 cases of this little beauty, and we’re excited to share it with you. 
Ribbon Ridge Vineyard
|  Stoller Vineyard in the Dundee Hills | The 2006 version is culled from six different vineyards that lie in five different AVAs here in the Willamette Valley. This gave us a broad palate to work with in arriving at the final blend for this cuvée, and we’re very happy with the results. The grapes are from our blocks of Shea Vineyard in the Yamhill-Carlton AVA, Ribbon Ridge Vineyard in the neighboring Ribbon Ridge AVA, Stoller Vineyard in the southern end of the Dundee Hills AVA,Momtazi Vineyard (our first year working with this fruit) - a biodynamically farmed site in the McMinnville AVA, and two new sites for us in the Eola-Amity Hills AVA – Zenith Vineyard and Zena Crown Vineyard. Each of these parcels brought their own unique characteristics, but it is indeed the whole that becomes greater than the sum of the parts. The 2006 Cuvée Martha Pirrie offers bright red fruits on the nose and entry, with ripe raspberries leading into yummy cherries and some blackberry notes. It’s lithe and slender like a model on a Paris runway, but a lot more approachable. This is classy and elegant juice to drink now and over the next 3-5 years. You’re invited - please plan to join us in Carlton for our Release Party & Open House on Saturday September 22nd from 11 to 4 – the new Cuvée Martha Pirrie will be open for tasting, along with a selection of yummy Burgundies from our Scott Paul Selections portfolio, and we’ll have some delicious nibbles to accompany all. Yes, we made more wine in 2006, but there is still relatively little to go around – so please act quickly to make sure you get your hands on this one before it’s gone… On-line ordering has returned to scottpaul.com – just click here to access your secure order form… By now the world knows about the once-in-a-lifetime quality of the amazing 2005 Burgundies. Our first shipment last spring virtually sold-out before it even arrived in the country. Our second shipment is on the water as we speak, and is expected to arrive by mid-October. On top of additional quantities of many of the wines we brought in this spring, the fall shipment contains some new wines from producers we’ve been working with, and a couple of new producers to introduce you to as well. We will begin offering the next shipment of the 2005 Burgs the week of October 15th. Watch your email for the announcement, and we urge you to act quickly to secure the wines you want. The Sigauts have been passionately but quietly making gorgeous wines in the tiny village of Chambolle-Musigny for generations. The secret is out and the quiet is about to be a thing of the past. The estate totals 17 acres, including spectacular old-vine parcels of Chambolle 1er Crus Les Fuées, Les Sentiers and Noirots – many of which are plowed by horse. Hervé follows the lunar calendar for most activities in the vineyard and cellar, and prefers to touch the wine as little as possible during élévage. The winemaking facility was re-built in 2004, with a sorting table, all stainless-steel fermentation tanks, and full temperature control. New oak is kept to a maximum of 40%. The wines are thoroughbred examples of the magnificent terroirs of Chambolle-Musigny. 
Frédéric Gueguen
in his vineyards in Chablis
| Young Frédéric Gueguen is the son-in-law of Chablis superstar Jean-Marc Brocard, and he started his own domaine in 2005. He was fortunate to be able to purchase a collection of superbly situated old-vine parcels, with lovely pieces of village-level Chablis as well as the 1er Crus Côte de Lechet, Fourchaume, and the rarely seen l’Homme Mort. Frédéric makes his wines at the Brocard facility in the village of Chablis. As is traditional in Chablis, the wines are fermented and aged 100% in stainless steel - he uses absolutely no oak whatsoever. The wines are totally pure expressions of the unique and magnificent terroirs of Chablis. Many wine lovers firmly believe that the world’s greatest expression of Chardonnay comes from these limestone soils in France’s most northerly still-wine grape growing region – and I for one wholeheartedly agree. Just a reminder that we’ll be offering futures on the 2006 La Paulée and Audrey Pinots this fall – watch your e-mail for the announcement in the 2 nd week of November. As always, we offer these wines at a substantial discount to futures buyers, and the wines will be ready for pick-up or delivery in April. 
Maresh Vineyard in the Dundee Hills
| The good news is that there is a lot more of the La Paulée this year. The bad news is that there is less of the Audrey, however. Only five barrels were chosen for the 2006 Audrey (once again all from our old-vine parcels of Maresh Vineyard in the Dundee Hills), resulting in a scant 219 6-packs available for sale (or 1,314 bottles - that sounds better, perhaps?) Details on the futures offering coming soon… It seems you can’t pick up a newspaper or magazine in recent months without seeing an article about the eco-friendly/organic/green-ness of wine, wineries and vineyards. For the most part I think this is a good thing. I’m proud that our industry (specifically here in Oregon) is leading the way in environmentally responsible farming, winemaking, and even winery building. The governor of Oregon has even recently announced a “carbon-neutral challenge” to the wine industry. At Scott Paul, our philosophy on all this is very simple – “Do the right thing”. I doubt whether we’ll ever go for organic or biodynamic certification (we’re a four-person company, and the paperwork hours for certification can be better spent serving our customers, I think.) Same goes for “Green” certification for our facilities. This year we switched to tree-free paper for all of our labels, and for many years now we’ve used bleach-free craft cardboard for all of our packaging. We purchase 100% wind-generated electricity. We used recycled and reclaimed materials, formaldehyde-free plywood, low or no-VOC paints, and we restored century-old agricultural buildings rather than build new. We run the company vehicle on biodiesel. We farm our vineyards biodynamically. We are simply trying to do what we believe in, trying to do the right thing. There are situations, however, when being “green” can actually compromise the product. It very well may be more “green” to use FSC-certified cork to close your wine bottles than it is to use the Stelvin closure we use. It is certain, however, that using cork to close wine bottles ruins 3-10% or more of all those bottles of wine. It makes no sense to me to be “green” if it means bringing to market a product that one knows to be compromised. I’m also not so sure about the “Carbon-Neutral” thing. I find it absurd that a local Land Rover dealer is advertising themselves and their cars as Carbon-Neutral by virtue of the fact that they’ll buy carbon credits (sending money somewhere to have new trees planted) to supposedly offset the emissions from their gas-guzzlers. My hope is that the Carbon-Neutral challenge program for wineries recently issued in Oregon will encourage more participants to find ways to truly lessen the environmental impact of their farming and winemaking. Finding out how much damage you’re doing and writing a check to offset it doesn’t seem to be the answer, at least to my way of thinking…
Growers Dewey Kelly and Tim & Kari Ramey at La Paulée 2006
| Mark your calendars for Saturday November 3rd – it’s our second annual La Paulée de Carlton dinner and tasting. All day long we’ll be pouring a selection of the newly-arrived 2005 Burgundies in our tasting room, and that night we’ll celebrate in style with the La Paulée dinner in our cellars. Join us and more of Oregon’s top winemakers for a true bacchanalian extravaganza. In the tradition of La Paulée in Burgundy, everyone is encouraged to bring some special bottles from their cellars to share with all revelers. Invitations for the dinner will be mailed in October – please respond quickly if you’d like to join us – attendance is limited! Again this year we’re proud to have been chosen to participate in SALUD, the Oregon Pinot Noir auction. Every year a selection of Oregon’s finest Pinot producers each make a single barrel of exceptional wine specifically for SALUD, which is then auctioned off in case lots to raise funds for free healthcare for Oregon’s vineyard workers. It’s a great program, the events are first-rate, and we’d love to see you there. The events are scheduled for November 9 th & 10 th this year – and you can get ticket information and full details at: http://www.saludauction.org It’s a private party – for you and a few thousand of your closest friends! Join us for the annual shindig – we’ll be open 10-4 (come early to beat the traffic and crowds) on Friday & Saturday, November 23 rd & 24th. Your $10 tasting fee includes an array of cheeses and charcuterie, and of course a killer line-up of wines. The 2006 Audrey and La Paulée bottlings will be available for purchase as futures, and there should still be some 2006 Cuvée Marthe Pirrie available as well. We’ll also open a rockin’ selection of 2005 Burgundies, some that will be available for tasting this weekend only. We’ll also be open regular tasting room hours 11-4 on Sunday the 25 th, without all the Open House hoopla… 
The Village of Volnay | I’ll be off to Beaune Nov. 12 th-21 st for the annual Hospices de Beaune auction and festivities, and most importantly to get a first look at the maturing 2006s in barrel at all of our estates. This is the first opportunity to really get a handle on the quality and character of the 2006 wines, as well as get a quick look at the just-fermented 2007s. As always I’ll be attending the La Paulée celebration there, and will post on my blog frequently to keep you up to date on the hedonistic delights that my work forces me to endure… 
The Chateau de Vougeot | We’re excited to continue our series of Burgundy seminars next year, with classes for both beginning and advanced Burg-lovers. If you’ve ever wanted to learn more about one of the world’s finest (yet most confusing) wine regions – these seminars are for you. We’ll be starting up the classes again in January – watch your e-mail for all the details. As always, thanks for joining us on our amazing journey! Martha, Scott, Kelley, Kelly & Emily – the Scott Paul team | 
