The relentless pursuit of tranquility…
Tomorrow morning we head off for our annual Labor Day Weekend trip to the Metolius River in central Oregon. It’s perhaps my favorite place to re-charge the batteries and get ready for the intensity of crush, then the Paulée dinner, then Salud, and then my annual fall pilgrimage to Burgundy. Last chance to chill, as it were, the proverbial calm before the storm. And what a calm it is…
The Metolius flowing through the "town" of Camp Sherman
Meanwhile, the weather here in the north valley seems to be holding up nicely as the grapes continue on their journey to ripeness. What exactly constitutes “ripeness” is a matter of great debate among winemakers everywhere, of course. To me, it means grapes that are nicely in balance with fruit, acidity, and tannin – and potential alcohol that ideally is around 13-13.5% if mother nature allows. At any rate, I still think we’re looking at maybe the 1st week of October or so. The Biodynamic calendar shows a great picking day for October 6th – maybe we’ll get lucky and the ripeness and the calendar will line up in our favor…
Across the pond, our Burgundian growers are telling me that they’ll be starting mostly between the 10th and 15th of September – they’ve had an excellent growing season overall (never without some problems in Burgundy, it seems) – but they’re on track for a potentially excellent one if two more weeks of good weather ensue. I’ll keep you up to date as it all develops…
On the footy front, I was a bit crushed to see Arsenal lose to United on the weekend, as they outplayed and outperformed the Manchester side for the vast majority of the game, only to lose on a dubious penalty and a horribly unfortunate own-goal. Oh well, the season is very very young. Nice to see Inter slaughter Milan last weekend, and my boys in Barcelona and Lyon are also off to excellent starts. Many many months of excellent matches to come betwen now and May – which makes me a happy man…
On the local front, another great dinner at Farm To Fork in Dundee last night – Chef Paul Bachand is doing a delicous job, with a menu that makes me want to order everything on it. The new luxury destination-resort – The Allison – in Newberg, is now open, and early word is that their new restaurant “Jory” (named after the soil type in some of our vineyards here) is very promising indeed. (In fact Paul Bachand told me he ate there the other night and loved it.) I look forward to trying it out soon…
Have a great Labor Day weekend – we’re open in the tasting room Fri-Sun from 1-5, with lots of great Burgs and Pinots open for tasting – come on by if you’re headed this way!
