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!