Holiday Barrel Tasting

Holiday Barrel Tasting is here! A fun weekend of festive lights, festive folks, and festive wine! Well, in our opinion wine is always festive. We'll be barrel tasting our upcoming 2006 Francisca's Syrah. This is a Walla Walla vineyard designated Syrah which comes from a boutique vineyard just south of Walla Walla. Here are Steffan's notes from our tasting this morning. "Smooth, very rich and succulent it offers notes of citrus, violet and perfume intertwined with blackberries, black cherry, wood smoke, vanilla, oak and notes of tar. A little meat and earthy undertones add to the complexity and brings out additional layers as it opens up in the glass."

Tim and Cisca (Francisca's Vineyard owners) add their thoughts as well, "Since we only have 4.3 acres in Syrah, we truly are a boutique vineyard. We do most of the work ourselves, so you can find us in the vineyard most everyday from February to October. Our philosophy on work is, “Everyday in the Vineyard is a Holiday”. All the work - pruning, thinning, pulling shoots and leaves for sun exposure and harvest - is done manually. Each of the 4400 Syrah vines have hands-on treatment 7 to 8 times a year.

We installed a wind machine for frost protection in early spring and early fall. We control moisture by reading the moisture levels in the soil with sensors and water through drip irrigation when needed.

We are happy that Bergevin Lane Vineyards is the exclusive recipient of our Syrah because one of our goals was to be working with a winery that we could connect with and develop a relationship of mutual trust and friendship. Our goal is to be recognized as a quality grower and hopefully have a vineyard designated Syrah."


We hope to see one and all this weekend! Tis the season!

Happy Thanksgiving!

We're thankful that it's time to spend a day with friends and family and eat our little hearts out! Not that we haven't done that all fall! The jeans are feeling a little snug. Here in Walla Walla we have to add an extra layer of fat to keep us warm because it gets pretty cold. Today is a perfect pre-Thanksgiving day. Overcast, with the temperatures in the mid 20's. Frost all around and a layer of fog that covers the valley. Perfect time to get that fire roaring, snuggle up with a loved one, a glass of wine and a good movie.

Steffan shared some Viognier with me yesterday and we tried two different samples. One from our Walla Walla Viognier site and one from our Sunnyside site. Both were very unique due to terrior differences. Last year our Walla Walla Viognier (still very young) gave off big honey notes in the mouth and this year we are tasting more varietal characteristics of tropical fruits, banana and pineapple. The Sunnyside Viognier grown in a cooler site gives off a very fresh flavor, with some citrus notes. The blend of the two should be fantastic. We all truly enjoyed the 2006 Viognier and look forward to our next release. Our 2007 Viognier will be hanging out with us in barrel until bottling some time in March with an anticipated release next May or June. It's always hard to wait because by nature we're not really patient people and this business requires LOTS of patience. So, guess I'll keep myself busy doing other things while the Viognier continues to spend quality time in the barrel room.

Wishing you all a very Happy Thanksgiving. Gobble Gobble!

PDXposed

PDXposed came to Walla Walla to highlight some of our wineries, the Marcus Whitman and Hamley's of Pendleton. Sit back, grab a glass of wine and enjoy. I'll post both links. This is the full link and runs about 28 minutes - PDXposed or the shorter version: PDXposed - Bergevin Lane

Cheers!

Home for the Holidays

Amber and I spent last weekend at the Resort at Paws Up located outside of Missoula in Greenough, MT. What a great weekend! We saw friends from our last dinner in June and made many new friends. The Resort is fantastic and we can't recommend it enough for a fabulous retreat. We started Friday evening with a cocktail/wine reception and on Saturday enjoyed a wonderful five course meal paired with our wines. We decided to try a sport clay shooting course that was really fun. I'm pretty sure that had we been tasked with bringing home dinner, the food would have been scarce. The clay discs were safe and sound...other than the embarrassing thud as they shattered when they hit the ground, untouched and still in one piece. Now, the tiny pretend clay rabbit whizzing past us across the meadow, that was another story, BANG...the poor little thing would have been stew. (We're not hunters in real life so Amber and I pretended we were playing Wii.) Our thanks to all of the folks at the resort who made this event possible. In addition we were lucky to have my brother and sister-in-law join us for their sixth wedding anniversary. They made the weekend extra special. P.S. to all of you at the Resort who were celebrating events as well - Happy Birthday, Happy Anniversary and Happy Honeymoon! You know who you are! To our Friday night posse, big shouts for making the evening so memorable! You all were so much fun!


And back to the winery....

Steffan has been crazy busy in the winery. We brought in our final fruit the last week in October. So now we finish primary fermentation on our remaining lots, press them into barrels and move into the holiday activities. We're getting ready for Winemakers’ Fête we're pouring as a reception winery that evening (Thursday, November 29th) then getting ready for a fun Holiday Barrel Tasting Weekend. Our Club Swirl event is Friday night and we'll have festive decor and as always our amazing fellow Swirlies in attendance. Saturday is great food and live music with Tom Simon and friends. Our preview barrel sample during HBT is guaranteed to give your eyes, nose and mouth happy feelings!

November 30th we'll be releasing our 2005 Intuition which is our Reserve Bordeaux Blend. We're very excited for this release and I want to give a few hints about what to expect from this wine. Your eyes will get lost in the deep dark color, moving towards your olfactory senses you'll experience hints of toast, spice and vanilla, as the wine flows into your mouth you will find a wonderful integration of fruit, tannins and oak, the finish lingers on and on with engulfing flavors of cassis and blackberry.
Intuition anyone?