Umpqua Valley Wine Continues to Amaze

One of my most respected winemaker has said that the grape the Umpqua Valley will be famous for may take another 200 years to discover! In the meantime, our current winemakers continue to experiment with different varietals. We already have vines that represent varietals from France, Italy, Spain, Austria, Hungary, Germany and Switzerland.

Yesterday, will on tour, I had the opportunity to take a little sip of Malbec. I won't jump the gun here and divulge the source, as it was an "under the counter" taste! For a new release I'd give it 3.5 Yums. A little floral, a little spicy, with solid fruit. Already nicely balanced.

Just goes to show that we are living in Wine Paradise. What a great place to live out my wineau days! It's a whole lot of fun watching our AVA grow and discover new facets of its wine growing ability.

Not a Drop of Wine for Weeks!

Yipes. What could cause such a monumental shift in my habits? How about pneumonia! And five days in the hospital, to boot. All because I traveled to my dear Mom's 90th birthday celebration. That explains where I've been hiding for the past month. Finally, I feel well enough to write my blog.

So what does a fellow like me do when they can't (shouldn't) drink wine? Why, live vicariously thru my wife, of course. As I write she's off on a wine tour. And yes, I'd love to be with her. But her stories of this or that wine keeps my thirsty intellect happy.

This past Tuesday and Wednesday, she had the pleasure of escorting the Director of the Rhone Rangers ( a large CA based organization dedicated to promoting the Rhone wines of France) to nearly half of our local wineries that produce a Rhone wine. Think Syrah. Everyone had a great time and I lapped up the details from each day's events.

I'm a pretty simple man, if I can get you to taste and understand a certain wine, I have done my job. And there's nothing so gratifying as turning someone who understands fine wine onto our Umpqua Valley wines. Chokes me up. Our winemakers are foremost kind and generous people who have dedicated their lives to producing the best wine they can. That in itself makes my recovery bitter-sweet, I can't wait to get back to my beloved Umpqua Valley wine!

A Witch's Brew

Ever wonder why that YellowTail Syraz always tastes the same, year after year? Welcome to the world of wine adjuncts. Hundreds of compounds you can toss in the wine to get whatever it is you're after. Sounds yummy, eh?

I call this "Messin' with the Mother"! Growing grapes is a tricky business. When the weather is great you can get a good crop; when the weather is bad you get a so-so crop. Question is: Do you doctor up your crop to match the expectations of the market?

The saying used to be: You can't make a great wine from crappy grapes. Not anymore. If the color is a bit thin, just add concentrate. Not getting the sugar level you wanted; just add sugar. Seems to me that some of the wine out there doesn't even need grapes in the first place!

This is why I always suggest getting out to the wineries. It's within your rights as a consumer to ask what's in the wine. And it's up to you, of course, if you can live with the answer. For me, I like to believe that what I am drinking is a true interpretation of what the season was like for the grapes.

I do understand that in this competitive business the luxury of calling a certain grape's performance a loss, can make or break a wineries bottom line. If only the Fed's would subsidize the grape growers like they do the massive farm corporations, then maybe we could go back to the idea of Vintage. When only the best years are made into wine!

New Vs. Old

Having spent many a happy year in the heart of CA wine country, I like many, had a bit of adjustment to the finesse of our local wines. Let me be clear, I think both styles of wine have a place on our "American Wine List". But to some who haven't spent the required time "practicing" the art of wine tasting, the disparity between the two expressions of wine making, can be a mystery.

Simply put, our American wine journey started in Europe. Our ancestors brought the vine with them into a new environment. Vines didn't do so well "back East", so it wasn't until the CA wine industry geared up that wine in America became a viable option. But CA is a lot different than Europe for the most part. Most all of Europe is above CA longitudinally, meaning shorter cooler Summers. Here, the vines went nuts. Lots of fruit and lots of sugar, ie. alcohol. AKA, fruit bombs.

Enter the Umpqua Valley. Same latitude as Tuscany in Italy and the Rjoha in Spain. Hence our growing season matches more closely to Europe than CA. Grape berries do not have as much sugar as CA. Match this with a generally more "hands off" approach to wine making and you end up with a more balanced wine. Instead of the fruit overpowering the wine, our wines bring out more of the subtle flavors in the grape.

It takes the "Three P's" to really understand each style. That's Practice, Practice,Practice!!

One Man's Vision

It was a true honor to attend the memorial for Richard Sommer yesterday afternoon at the winery that he created back in 1961. Several hundred people came to pay homage to this remarkable man. He seemed to have touched so many in all his interests which appeared to be anything outdoors. From hiking the mountains to snapshots of native plants, to planting the very first Pinot Noir in the State of Oregon.

Let me repeat that: He planted the very first Pinot Noir vines right here in the Umpqua Valley. And we all know that today just a short 48 years later, Pinot Noir is Oregon's calling card. Begs the question of what will the Umpqua Valley look like in another 50 years??

Well, let's see. There will be a huge split between "Corporate Wine" and "Artisan Wine". This already exists to a large part in areas like Napa Valley, compared to our own wine region which is still exclusively family-owned. Wine is a world-wide commodity and will continue to grow in a division between "grocery store wine" which is controlled by massive distribution corporations that control 90% of what you find on the shelf, and the small case lot winery producing local wines.

Our region is truly the last of the premium wine growing areas in the U.S. This is not by accident. The corporate model demands large tracks of acreage to produce as many tons of grapes as possible. Quality takes a back seat to quantity. The corporate winery produces a "cocktail wine" made up of 100 or more adjuncts (stuff you throw in the wine)to give you the same wine year after year. Thankfully our terrain works against this model. Therefore, the small grower/winemaker will continue to survive here.

I feel our destiny is to become a mecca for wine enthusiasts that are regecting the formula wines of the corporation. And more importantly we will be able to offer a complete array of wine varietals that most current regions can not. We will become more and more unique in the fine wine world. Lucky you if you're just starting your wine journey!!

Will Remain Wine Drinker!

So I took my own advice and have been working the harvest at Becker Vineyard. The important word here is WORK. Let there be no illusion, harvest is the brawny part of the wine makers art.

A short rundown of the process is: First you have to bring in the fruit by clipping off the bunches from the vine. Easier said than done. The little rascals can be firmly twisted around the canes and you have to hunt to find the stem. Then there's the standing and bending to get all the clusters. As most fruit hangs off a "fruiting wire" at the optimal height for the winegrower, that means if you're 6 inches taller than that person, you have to bend over a lot!

OK so far. The fruit is dropped in a pail. Another person rides the ATV and picks up those full buckets and leaves the empties. The pails are transported to the winery. There they are emptied into a large bin or directly into the hopper of the de-stemer and crusher. Each pail weights a good 25 pounds, which seems like a hundred after the 100th pail!

The crushed fruit minus the stems pour out the chute into another pail. Those pails have two destinations. If you are making a Rose then you load that pails content into the press, and out comes your Rose ready for a bit of yeast. Or you can empty the pail, juice and skins into a fermenting tank to make a red wine.

All in all, in this small operation you process a good 2 tons of fruit an hour. Each one of those pounds someone is lifting or cutting or pressing. The thankful part is that Harvest is once a year.

That's a snap shoot of one winery here in the Umpqua Valley. Others with a bigger operation will have mechanized many of these steps. You can go as far as letting machines do all the work, from shaking the berries off the vine, fork lifting them into huge crushers, and then pumping the juice into the fermenters.

For me it's a bit more Romantic to handle the lushish fruit from beginning to end.
Just don't expect me to ever own a winery, I prefer to drink the wine than make it!

Will work for wine!

I've said it before but it stands repeating: All of our wineries here in the Umpqua Valley AVA are family owned. What that means is that many of the wineries rely on the whole family to get out there during harvest to pick the grapes. And some go as far as advertising for local volunteer help.

So why not contact your favorite winery this week and ask if they need any help. Even if they don't, they will be grateful for the asking. And if they can use your help you can feel apart of the wine making process. Here is a list of wineries.

Most often you can put in a few hours in the field, or make sandwiches for the crew, or help at the crush pad. Every little bit can mean a great deal to these hard working winemakers. Besides you can have some fun in the sun for a day!