Select Wines by Design

I was poking around the internet and saw a fun interview Amber did with Tim of Select Wines by Design. Since she doesn't write for our blog (yet), I thought I'd share her interview. I think I'll get Amber to write a blog note for our website...wish me luck.

Click on the link below to read her interview.

Amber's Interview

Memories

We celebrated a late birthday for my dad last week and went over to his house for dinner. The dinner was wonderful. My brother Robert brought sauteed Pheasant for an appetizer plus we had some great cheese and bread. Next we moved to the main course which was the most perfectly roasted beef tenderloin I have had in quite some time with garlic-cheese-mashed potatoes and a salad with candied walnuts, fruit and amazing greens. I was responsible for dessert so, having worked all day I decided to take the easy road and went over to the Patisserie. They have wonderful dessert options and you really can never go wrong! So, did my family get my home made touch? nope...but they got a wonderful ending to a fabulous dinner.

The point of my story was not to talk about the dinner itself but some of the wine we drank with dinner. We had a 2005 Cayuse Camespelo, 1996 Chateau Montelena Cabernet Sauvignon and a 1992 Dunn Vineyards Howell Mountain Cabernet Sauvignon. When I ran over to the newly opened bottle of the Dunn, I poured myself a rather large glass then proceeded to sink my nose into the glass. I was immediately overcome with this totally nostalgic feeling and I laughed to myself. Here are my crazy thoughts...most people smell something and it reminds them of an event in their past...maybe a campfire outside, or perfume or a smell that reminds them of visiting their grandparents. Some people hear a song and remember an old friend or something they were doing in an earlier part of their life. I haven't really had a nostalgic feeling in a long time, or at least that I can remember, and all of a sudden I was overtaken with a feeling of my young adulthood. O.k., more specifically my early 20's. It came with the smell of the Dunn Howell Mountain Cabernet...the deep cherry, the earth and intensity that filled my nose shot me back to the late 80's when my dad would share a glass with me. I remember this being the first wine I loved. I have 10 billion great memories of the Dunn Cabernet because it is the wine my dad would take out when I would come home for special occasions. I think he did this because he knew I loved it...(I think he did too). So, dad...(and Randy Dunn) thanks for the memories!

Wine to Barrel

Our first red wine of the year has been pressed to barrel. It's Merlot from Stone Tree. Beautiful color and concentration. We filled four barrels with free run juice (no squeezy, squeezy) just pure juice that gently drains into a highly sanitized holding tank that is then gently pumped into an empty barrel. Somewhere in all the gentleness a hose must have tried to jump ship because Steffan is about 75% purple. He has wine "legs" on his legs...actually little rivers of purple stains that flowed down his leg. His sweatshirt and shorts that were once gray have a nice hue of purple on them as well. I congratulated him then said, "good job, only 98.5% more wine to barrel down until you're done!"

Harvest is here!

Oooooh, don't you wish you could smell the amazing aroma of vinifera grapes fermenting? I inhale as deeply as I can each morning when I walk into the winery.

It's September 25th and we have so far brought in Merlot and Syrah. Today we will receive our first Viognier fruit.

Today I tank tested the Merlot with Steffan and it is already showing amazing fruit flavors and an elegance with structure and intensity. We have one lot of Merlot almost dry and the remaining Merlot still has some time to go through primary fermentation.


I drove last Friday to pick up Merlot from the Wahluke Slope and the first picture shows just about all you see on the way there. The 2nd photo is from Stone Tree Vineyards. The last photo is me driving our bad boy dodge with about 6 tons of fruit. The games have begun!

The Accidental Work Out

Last week I spent a little time in the fun city of Denver, Colorado. Talk about beautiful weather including sunny skies and temperatures in the mid to upper 70's. I did not have a car so was kind of forced to walk everywhere. In Walla Walla that doesn't always work as well because we are a little more suburban and things are not typically within "walking distance". In all reality, some things are within walking distance but our minds are programmed to hop in the car and take a drive. With fuel prices soaring we are trying to do our part to reduce our carbon foot print so with that being said I walked all over downtown Denver. I even accidentally walked 6 blocks to go work out. I was staying at the Curtis Hotel, a fun, new hotel that did not have their work out area up and running. The hotel supposedly has an in house cardio area, but I walked all over trying to find it and in my mind almost completed my workout. Then I walked to the front desk to ask where this cardio room was and they handed me a pass to the Colorado Athletic Club. So, pass in hand, no money, no credit cards or change of clothes I headed out onto the sidewalk and walked almost 7 blocks south to the club. I walked in (kind of winded) and headed towards the gym. I then walked all over the club trying to find towels thus obtaining yet another workout. After 30 minutes on the elliptical and then another 30 minutes with the weights I was ready to go. Not having a change of clothes I walked into the women's locker room and blow dried my shirt. Yep, a few folks wondered what I was doing but I was determined not to walk back to the hotel looking like a wreck.

Back to biz...I met some great folks while I was in Denver and was lucky enough to get to hang out with "D-Frol" of L'Ecole. We had fun checking out the restaurants and then I had fun picking her super intelligent, and super experienced brain on the ways of the wine world. I shared information as much as possible but when some one's being doing this longer than you've been around it's a little tough. Our schedules were completely the same and what we found out is that we have a lot in common. I'd like to list one big thing we share in common called "anal retentiveness". D-Frol, you know it's true so don't get mad! :-) It's super cool and fun to know that other folks have a need for organization as well. I didn't even need to look inside her much nicer looking folder than my worn Manila folder, I could tell you exactly what was in her file. She had all the same print-outs and trip preparedness going on that I did.

So here are a few differences from our trip. She had an amazingly successful Taste Washington Denver trade show. Perfect spot in the room and had tons of traffic to her table. I, on the other hand, was shoved in the furthest back corner of the room, blocked by another distributor directing traffic to their client wineries and then to add insult to injury our name was left out of the tasting booklet. I was amazed, shocked and embarrassed. So, I touted Bergevin Lane as the "best kept secret". I'm kind of wondering if it's still a secret that we were even there. The folks who did come to my table really enjoyed the wines and I was very proud because they were showing fantastic. I poured our 2005 Calico Red, 2005 Cabernet Sauvignon and our 2005Syrah. It was a red head day!

The next day was very fun because I did a ride-along with Elizabeth from our sales team in Denver. This is called a market visit. We were in the car from 9am until 6pm. There goes the carbon footprint but as far as we went we would've been walking for a week. We met a great group of folks and they were very receptive to Washington Wine. Here's how this stuff happens. Our distributor makes the appointments and then are kind enough to drive us around and work with us for however many days we're in the market. They devote about 98% of their day to working on our product. We drive to restaurant or retail accounts and meet the wine buyers. I would say that 95% of wine buyers are super fun, interesting people who have a passion for food, wine and the fun things in life. We sit down with the wine buyers and pull out our products. We then, wine by wine, taste through the wines. I sit excited and nervous and wait in anticipation for their response. These folks know how to taste wine so I don't tell them what they are tasting, I will share vineyards, blends and barrel treatments. Our sales rep in the meantime is hoping that because we've come all this way from the winery that we can add some additional excitement to the product. They are typically on some sort of commission so I feel obliged to help make things happen. We had a relatively good day but I learned that we still have a ways to go to get our name recognized. Not sure if it's just us or if there are so many brands out in the market that it's hard to keep track of all the wineries. The wines showed very well and we got some pretty good commitments. I would say it was a successful day. Now back to D-Frol, she went out in the market and got glass pours. For restaurant account placements that is when you do a happy dance.

Amber or I will keep traveling back to Colorado and rest assured there will be a day when Amber or I will be doing that same glass pour happy dance! You go D-Frol!!!

P.S. After D-Frol's market success she had a great dinner that evening and ordered an in-room movie (which cost almost as much as the room). I on the other hand walked, yet again, to pick up take-out food and watched cable T.V.'s "The Biggest Loser" oh, and ate a suger daddy. In house movies are a special treat for "closers!"

The Big Catch

I haven't written any updates to the blog lately because we've been in kind of an in between time period. We just went to Seattle for a wonderful trade tasting, we've been at home getting ready for harvest and sitting staring and waiting for all of our tomatoes to ripen. Very Very busy! :-)

Yesterday I had a wonderful opportunity to "go fishin" with one of our Swirlies and it was fantastic! My legs are aching today from walking up the stream and making my way through rapids and over slimy slippery rocks. It was a beautiful afternoon outside of Walla Walla and I couldn't have asked for a better evening.

So, do you want the fish tale or the real story!? I had MANY fish on my line but was only able to land this bad boy shown. He was a fighter and my rod almost snapped! (HA) but after HOURS of struggle I landed him. Truth, I had a good tug, got lucky and within about 20 seconds had the little dude in my hand.

Now fisherman Bruce...a whole basement dedicated to the art of fly fishing complete with an equipment storage area, outfitting area, a library of fly fishing books and a wall of fly materials. Who said guys can't sew? He was working on each fly and had the most detailed, involved knots, including fur, fuzzy string, clipping, really no cussing to speak of and in the end this beautiful little fly was created on a hook with no barbs that made my life fabulous and frustrated in one fell swoop.

So, back to the river, we hiked, fished, looked for the next great pool and continued on all afternoon. We fished until we couldn't see our fly and decided to call it a wrap. I hadn't thought about wine for 4 1/2 hours, I hadn't thought about food or anything...just my cast, keeping my right index finger on the line, watching the drift and waiting for "THE BITE!"

We walked back to the car and it took at least 30 minutes. I realized just how lost I got in fly fishing. Then my legs realized how lost I got in fly fishing too. Thank heavens for an almost full moon. We literally walked down the river by the light of the silvery moon (pun intended). So, to each of you out there looking for an adventure...my suggestion fly fishing. It's sustainable, it's great exercise for the mind and body and it's definitely good for the soul!

(The 2nd picture shows a profile of a fly fisher woman, notice the belt around the waders to accentuate the waist...the cute little footies that slip into borrowed boots that have felt on the bottom. What I felt was a glaring omission on my part was that I was missing my fly vest and hat!...well, maybe next time.)

...several hours later

...Hawkeye still on patrol, the winery is safe.

There's a new dog in the house!

We have a new member of our family! We were adopted by Hawkeye, a thirteen month red bone hound. He was bred for hunting but made a personal choice that he is a pacifist and decided that guarding the winery is the life for him! Chase our vineyard boy, guards Hawkeye at night and herds him around the yard and Callie, our Calico Cat makes sure both the boys are well behaved!

Hawkeye woke up for about 10 minutes this morning to go oversee Steffan and Kevin working on some filtration out in the production area. He decided all was going well and went back to his guard position. He may wonder out to the tasting room if you come in to taste wines so please say hello. If Amber comes out he may not follow and you will hear her comment about it (with a disgusted tone - at which point you may hear me chuckle in the back office) however if I come out, most likely a little red guy with short hair and a furrowed brow will follow. He couldn't be much sweeter and we're lucky he found us!...I keep humming, "and they called it puppy love!"



Hawkeye has total confidence in our tasting room area as he spent this last weekend with both Amber and me as we entertained new and old friends. The wines are all tasting great. We're excited as some 2006 wine will soon be making its way to the tasting bar as well as some new 2005 vintages. The Rose' and Viognier are almost sold out as well as the Intuition and Princess Syrah.

P.S. We just bottled our 2006 Syrah, Cabernet Sauvignon, Barrel Select Syrah and the Intuition. Just when we think we have our ducks in a row for bottling the bottling gods throw something else at us. We'll we learned yet a few more bottling lessons but the wine got to bottle, the sun came up the next day and all was well in our Bergevin Lane universe. We'll share the lessons learned in another bottling post!

Cool Pics!

So our friends sent us a picture of their latest vacation and guess who got to go with?...give up? Nope, not Amber....take another guess...nope, not Annette...that's right we stayed home and our wine got to go. Why does it get to have all the fun?! The 2007 Calico White and our 2007 Rose' went to Northern Wisconsin. Looks like fun was had by all! Thanks Schurtz family!

XOXO, Annette & Amber

Look out Calico... Duke is in the House!

Well a couple of fun pics from friends this past week. First and foremost we may have a new contender for our Calico label. Duke shows off his profile and believes his svelte figure will make him our new "label boy" for future bottlings! Then he turns around an well you can see for yourself...



On another note, some very good friends went camping and they took along one of our good friends, the 2002 Calico Red. They made the Calico it's own little hammock and everything. Check out the view! Well, the Calico lives better than we do. P.S. I made them swear it was not up there for target practice. They said they would NEVER waste a good bottle of wine on that!

Library Wines

We have always "saved" wine for our library and not having owned a winery before were never sure how much to save or what we should save. So, we saved everything. Well, now six years later we are learning what we should keep and how much we should keep.

Last week we did our first official library tasting. I guess in my little dream world I was anticipating a very formal setting, who knows maybe candlelight, table cloths, pewter spit buckets, beautiful crystal, an aura of elegance and then "the taste". In my imaginary world I envisioned the first taste from our library wine...the slow motion of the glass filled with liquid magic swirling as it slowly moved towards the nose, the exaggerated inhale and then the much anticipated moment..."the taste, the swirl, the swishing sound of liquid and the spit". I envisioned silence and then the lips parting in a smug smile. This would be followed by loud cheering in the background and harp music playing from the heavens, confetti dropping from the ceiling and the unstoppable flashing of cameras as the paparazzi was capturing the moment. Wow, wish I was there...

Meanwhile back in reality world, Steffan and I set up the wines, with our Riedel glassware, our plastic spit buckets and I think I had on crop pants, a t-shirt and my tennis shoes. We sat at my 6 foot plastic table with our spiral bound notebook paper and started to taste. The room was comfortably lit, (to see the color of the wine) a comfortable temperature, and a comfortableness with the tasters. We looked at the wine and set off to work. We tasted, said wow a few times and honestly had one whoa! After the tasting we let the wine sit overnight to taste again the next day.

Here's what we discovered...If it's not nailed down and the wine tastes good don't tell Amber and Julie because they will sell it! If it's an older wine don't hold back so many cases (in our case - until we learn the age-ability of our various wines)... Our 2004 Viognier is a little past its prime - drink immediately, our 2005 Viognier is tasting fantastic right now! These Viogniers are from different vineyards, different years, and have different flavor profiles. The 2002 Vintage is at a drink now stage. Our 2003 has a drink now for our Calico Red and our Cabernet Sauvignon, the Syrah is tasting really good and in the next year or so we'd recommend drinking that. We believe the 2003 Intuition can hang in there 1 - 3 years.

It was a fun two days worth of work. The anxiety has subsided, the fanfare has died down and we're plugging right along!

Brrrrrrrr...is it really June?

Here's the 4-1-1 at the winery

Steffan - purple teeth

Amber - purple fingers

Julie - purple princess

Annette - purple rain, purple rain...

Steffan - purple teeth: What does this all mean? Steffan has been analyzing, tasting, tasting, tasting, spitting, analyzing, tasting, and blending his little heart out working on our 2006 Reserve Bottlings. We have had a blast tasting through some amazing Washington State Syrah while we work on our 2006 Barrel Select Syrah. It's a tough task as you probably know but someone has to do it. While I get to sit in and reap all the benefits of his selection efforts he has literally agonized over each selection, each particular barrel and how much of each specific lot to put into the final blend. I smile, walk into his tasting area and sit down and sample. Then I knowingly add my feedback and he smiles, shakes his head agrees or tells me I'm off my rocker! ;-) The good news is that although he's the expert, what has happened is that all of the sampling, barrel sampling and knowledge of the vineyards has given me the capability of understanding what components we're looking for with our wine. So many thanks to Steffan for sharing the wealth of his knowledge and sharing with Amber and I so that we continue to evolve as wine lovers too!

Amber's purple fingers...she's working on our "Killer B" wine club package...it's a lot of effort but wow, how exciting to have the most amazing wine club members ever! We love our Swirlies!!! It has been fun to listen to Amber work with our friends, old and new, who wander into the tasting room. She has been up front working on the computer so has had a chance to get out of her office and work with folks behind the bar. Kind of brings an old western tune to mind..."she's back in the saddle again..."

Julie - purple princess...Julie is managing all of our back office stuff...keeping us organized, working on the Killer B wine club package and holding down the fort. In addition, she lovingly helps many of our tasting room customers!!! Julie is the best person to work with because she has the capacity to understand our insanity and bring us in off of the ledge when we get crazy. She's fun to share recipes with and has an amazing sense of humor. Oh yeah, she's even good at what she does at work! What a bonus.

Annette - Purple Rain... Due to the awful weather (I promise not to complain when it is 100 degrees, I promise not to complain when it's 100 degrees) I have been reduced to having my brainstorms in the rainstorms! I am having a blast doing a little bit of everything such as tasting events, blending, helping out everyone at the winery...maybe I'm not a purple rain maybe I'm just the purple helper because my responsibilities seem to cross with everyone. Yep, scratch purple rain because although I've had many brainstorms...I think I'm the purple helper. I feel like I'm doing a little bit of everything...not sure if I'm doing anything well but I love variety.

Speaking of helping, we've had such great people helping and supporting us along the way, including our vineyard managers, our fellow winery owners, our great distributors and fantastic customers that we're very excited to be doing what we're doing. Life is about doing what you enjoy and even though this business is super competitive, super costly (when you're doing things on a smaller scale) and very regulated...Amber and I can truly say we love what we do!

Here's wishing each of you the ability to follow your dreams and the ambition to fulfill your heart's desires!

Spring showers bring more spring showers....

We can not believe how chilly this spring has been. The weather will tease us with a little sun and then it says, "NOT" and we're back to drizzle! However, despite the fact that we all feel we've been in hibernation forever all is looking good in the vineyards...our little buds are starting to flower on the vine so we're on our way into the 2008 harvest season. We've been keeping ourselves busy at the winery with racking, blending and just finished with our Spring Release. Talk about a fun weekend! We had the most amazing folks visit us over Spring Release. The weather was pretty well behaved and it appeared many folks had a wonderful time. We're pretty sure we had the coolest folks visit our winery. We tried to even adopt ourselves out to a few families! ;-)

We had two very special releases that came and went with Spring Release weekend, our 2005 Barrel Select Syrah - Columbia Valley and our 2006 Pinot Noir - Walla Walla Valley. Both were limited releases.

We're off to Seattle this weekend for a fun wine dinner at Wicked Cellars in Everett, WA (Friday evening) and then the Seattle Cheese festival on Saturday at Pike Place Market. Should be a fun weekend. Oh, here's a link I thought you might enjoy. Thank Amy for the kind words! Until next post... Amy's Blog.

Roadtrip - Bend

Driving to Bend, Oregon gives a person much time for introspection...basically this photo shows (in my humble opinion) the main landmark between Walla Walla and Bend. The tennis shoe tree! I couldn't really check it out on the way because there are also no rest stops between the two points...well for most of the way.

I cataloged, in my opinion, the three points of interest between Walla and Bend...

1) A bald eagle
2) Sage Brush
3) A tree with gazillions of tennis shoes strung up in its branches

On my way I made a huge strategic mistake, I passed Biggs Junction without stopping at a bathroom. I basically had to go to the bathroom all the way from Biggs Junction to Madras which is about 1 and 1/2 hours. Doesn't sound far but after a huge bottle of water it felt like a three day trip. As I would pass through towns, all of which did not have a welcoming rest stop I was getting antsy...I grew up on a farm so am no stranger to the great outdoors, if you get my drift. I was starting to check out sagebrush...is it big enough to hide behind? Nope not a one, at least that was close to the highway...the song, "I can't drive 55" was blasting in my head as I was passing multiple semi-trucks trying to find a relief zone. FINALLY just before Madras is a rest stop. Good thing...guess what, just my luck, the bathroom cleaning guy was in the women's bathroom...I'm thinking great now what? I finally say, "look, can I have a few minutes? I promise I'll be quick!" He is very kind, probably sees my look of desperation and walks out. I make it to the bathroom and just as I'm thinking, yeah baby life is good, my mind says, "hey, what if this is one of those bathrooms that has a hidden camera in it?" Then I tell myself I'm a nutcase and walk out of the bathroom, of course I've washed my hands and attempted the wall air blow dryer which spits out the equivalent of a slight wisp of air, I give up and dry my hands on my pants...I walk out of the bathroom and look at the open door right behind the stalls...it's the workman's work closet, on closer inspection I see it's right behind the women's restroom so now my mind is back on the hidden camera...I then think great, if I'm on camera at least I could have been in bikini shape, not Antarctica winter wear shape. Now I'm feeling sorry for the guy if he did happen to catch anything on tape! Then I look around, I'm feeling totally relieved and realize the sun is shining and it's a beautiful day. Hey, if he did catch anything on camera it's his eyes that are going to burn out so, I forget my moment of insanity and realize I'm excited to get back on the road.

Not to brag to all of you however, during this road trip an amazing thing happened, I won my first ever karaoke contest held on a road trip between Walla Walla and Bend. After my acceptance speech in which I thanked all my fans, thanked my parents for their support, I thanked my family and friends, and finally finished by thanking the sage brush and vast amounts of nothingness...I continued on my journey.

So now, I'm totally relaxed, loving the road trip and starting to feel a little hungry. I make it to Madras and as I'm driving through town I am challenged by a sign that reads, "Best Burgers in the West - Original Burger Works" Not one to shy away from challenges I decide to stop. I pulled into an old fashioned drive in area and push the little metal button. A young woman's voice asks me what I would like...I order my cheeseburger and think to myself that if the order taker woman comes out on skates that's it, they win! She didn't come out on skates but she did deliver a good burger, fresh, great flavor, but as much as I would like to say it's the best in the west I'll have to give it a rating of "pretty darn good, not the best...but pretty darn good".

So, on to the point of this trip...to meet the wonderful folks of Bend and Redmond, Oregon and share our wine. All I can say is thank you Bend (& Redmond)! What a great place, especially if you're hanging out with the locals. I was totally taken care of by the folks at the Riverhouse Resort...talk about a room with a view!


We spent an evening at the Marz Bistro enjoying exceptional appetizers, great company and if I don't mind saying, some pretty yummy wine. We then wandered next door to meet Josh and Chris at the Astro Lounge, shared some wine and then tried a drink or two which contained "muddled items" I asked Josh if these items were confused? I kept wondering, why are his ingredients muddled? Well, he showed me his secret and then the wondrous new term "muddled" was clear as mud to me. I'm going to start muddling things too.

The next day we held a tasting at the Riverhouse Resort and it was the most beautiful day. I met many wonderful folks and after the tasting raced over to Redmond, Oregon to Avery's Wine Bar. An exceptional new spot in Redmond owned by a mother daughter team with an amazing chef in the kitchen named, Tim. He paired small bites with each of our wines. He managed this spectacular pairing by reading tasting notes, because he didn't have the wine prior to taste. The food was wonderfuuuuullllll. The place was packed and I don't think I've worked that hard in awhile. The people were lots of fun. I would have brought all them back to Walla Walla with me if I could have fit them in my car.

My best friend on this trip was Rick! Thank you Rick for taking good care of me, calling me to make sure I was safe and sound and for the great conversation. I would have stolen you too, and brought you back to Walla Walla but that means our awesome Bend, Sisters, Redmond sales person extraordinaire would not be working on selling our wines. So, darn it! I'll just have to come back and visit. Make sure when you talk to Amber you tell her we had an awful time, that there is nothing going on in Bend and it's totally boring...that way she'll let me come back! :-)

Road trips are fun.

Labels 101

So, here's the label story. I "let" Amber do all the project management with our labels...it's intensive work from creation, approval to final print. She creates the front and back label (with help from our creative team CKA and Tapp) and then sends it to me to check for any potential typos, content issues etc. I then act as if I've been in charge the whole time and point out all the changes needed. If any of you have worked with us you'll know that goes over really well, NOT. It's almost comical and we've actually learned to laugh at ourselves, quite often. So, once she gives the final G-O, we go to print. The actual creation of labels has always been very vague to me. I am very visual so in my mind the labels miraculously appear and we put them on the bottle. Bob Seitz, of Tapp Technologies, has been extremely helpful in getting us from point A to point B and sent us a visual story of how our labels get printed. Fun stuff so thought we'd share. You can click on this link to see for yourself.

Our 2007 Calico White will be ready April!

Valentines...Chocolate, Wine...hmmmm.

We were hanging out in New York and this message pops up on
Amber's blackberry about our 2004 Intuition. Seemed totally appropriate for Valentine's Day! Geneveyln, thank you for the smiles.

Happy Valentines! XOXO,



Here's the link to Vinolin or you can check out Genevelyn's blog site!

as posted by Genevyn..
04 Bergevin Lane Intuition Columbia Valley

"Hangin' round downtown by myself
And I had so much time
To sit and think about myself
And then there she was
Like double cherry pie
Yeah there she was
Like disco superfly
I smell sex and candy here" Marcy Playground

Technical Data: (from Bergevin Lane website)
Variety: 57% Cabernet Sauvignon, 21% Merlot, 15% Petit Verdot, 7% Cabernet Franc
Vineyards: Alder Ridge, Stone Tree Vineyards
Oak: Aged in 100% French Oak for 18 months
Alcohol: 14.2%
Cases produced: 175


This Washington State blend is simply sexy, with candy-like cherry, vanilla and coffee flavors,balanced by a more complicated long, spicy, silky solo in the middle of the glass. It's a one-hit wonder wine, not because Bergevin Lane only makes one good wine, but because it stays with one persistently, like a well-constructed song that is haunting sometimes, but at others, forgettable in the world of greats. I've thought of Bergevin Lane Intuition a lot lately while humming that Marcy Playground song.

Wine in New Hampshire!

We are excited to be represented by Exclusive Wines in New Hampshire and they recently showed our wine at the Winter Wine Festiva at Wentworth by the Sea. They sent us a link so thought we'd share! Click here to view!

Happy New Year!

Well it's 2008 and we're off and running. End of year reports are due, we're planning our trips for 2008 and in the cellar we're doing some serious racking. This is a great time to get a real feel for the 2007 vintage and the different fruit we crushed. Steffan comes in to our office with a very serious face - the wine-poker face and then we sit back and take a sip. There is always pressure because it's usually blind...we smell...sip...spit...sip...and then let the wine swish around our mouth. It is fun to try to get a feel for the varietal...sometimes the fruit will be stingy and hard to taste and smell because it's young, sometimes it just blasts out screaming, "I'm here!" Although the wine is so young you can get a real idea of what is to come. All the fruit is super great but we do have one challenging block of cabernet. Steffan is going to "manhandle" it as he says and we'll see how it changes the flavor profile. We'll have more information in a month or so.

You may be asking yourself why the picture of cleaning supplies? Well, it kind of symbolizes starting off the new year with a fresh, clean slate. We're embracing 2008,our new sales goals and some great upcoming opportunities. The inside story is that I had to snap this photo because we have a new cleaning person, totally sweet, and Amber is ensuring that all cleaning supplies are properly used in the correct places. I was quite impressed to find the little post it explaination notes for each product. I believe there was also a white glove test! I wouldn't want to be up against that!

We're off to New York for Taste Walla Walla New York in a few weeks. Very exciting and it will be our first trip this year to go sell some wine. We're looking forward to meeting our distributor in person and also meeting some new friends. We are thrilled that (I'll use initials) D.M. (new friend - thank you Duffy Waldorf) has already set up an appointment for us to do a tasting. Now that's having a super cool customer.

That's the scoop from the winery.