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?

Fun in Walla Walla

O.k....last weekend was a whirlwind. Started off Friday afternoon with a celebration of our great aunt's life. Margaret Bergevin passed away October 7th at the age of 93. Her funeral was mixed with sadness but an undercurrent of strength. She left quite a legacy. Her immediate family are made up of many farmers and cowboys. The younger folks and out of town folks felt a little out of place without their Wranglers. I saw a few new pairs of boots (current purchases) in the tasting room over the weekend! We saw relatives we have not seen in some time and met many new ones as well. So, our thoughts and prayers are with Great Aunt Margaret. Your presence made the world a happier place!

We had our first chance to meet our cousin Jake Bergevin, his wife Christina and their two boys. He is a fabulous Jazz musician as well as a really nice guy. He and his band ended up doing a little improv down at the Backstage Bistro on Friday night. You can check out Jake's website at www.jakebergevinmusic.com We have both of his CD's in the tasting room.

While that was going on I was attending the 5th annual Entwine auction. It was a really nice evening, great auction packages, really fun people and The Marc did a great job. I had to give a speech (which could be a whole story in itself) and it was in front of the whole group, approximately 405 folks including Governor Gregoire. Can you say nervous??? I'd tell you how it went but I can't remember...think I blocked it out. ;-)

Saturday the tasting room was busy and full of really cool people. We caught up on news about our good friend Bear (one of the owners of West Seattle Cellars) and he is doing much better so hugs and kisses Bear! We miss you.

Saturday evening was spent with friends. Without mentioning names I think I'm still laughing at our conversation. I'll be watching the mail to see if we get an evaluation on the evening. I hope we passed! I'd love at least 1 - 2 exceeds expectations. These folks just made it possible for 100 children in Laos to receive new uniforms compliments of Dennis Uniform and FedEx. You can check out the story (go to May 7th) at www.wegougo.blogspot.com We had dinner at Saffron, Island and the whole crew were amazing! We then went over to Backstage Bistro and listened to Gail Pettis. Her vocals are amazing and she sang the best rendition of Happy Birthday I think I've ever heard to our friend Julie. We shared a bottle of Jaden's Reserve 2003, had some 1994 Andrew Will Cabernet Sauvignon, a glass of champagne, decaf coffee and we were full. I mean stuffed...no more room!

Sunday I cooked most of the day and made the Cook's Illustrated, Nov/Dec 2007 Pot Roast using a bottle of our 2004 Merlot. The evening was spent with family, our dear friend "E", and an amazing 2002 Leonetti Reserve, thank you dad!

All in all...what a nice weekend. The sun was shining...Life is good.

Harvest A-B-C's

Harvest is about half to three quarters of the way complete. Here's the scoop on getting the fruit to the winery.

A) Go to each vineyard site often and randomly sample the clusters. Be sure to take your 4 and 3/4 year old daughter so that she can laugh because it's so much fun, then complain because her legs hurt from so much walking, then giggle because she gets a special treat for helping out in the vineyard, then cry because she got a sticker in her boot, then wonder where in the heck she can go to the bathroom almost before it's too late. Then jump back in the truck and drive fast, because it is a long way to the port-a-potty only to hear her yell, "I can't believe I'm going to the bathroom in the port-a-potty", and then hear her yell, "new rule, NO MORE port-a-potty's". Then get back in the truck haul yourself back to the last block you were sampling in and start again. Start randomly selecting your clusters until you have the correct amount needed for your lab analyst. If you are the owner of the winery be sure to calculate just how much wine could have been produced from all of the clusters you had to sample to see if the fruit is ready. Try to get the thoughts about shorting the amount of fruit you are picking for the lab person out of your mind so that you have a good sample.

B) Walk into the winery with your sample bags feeling quite accomplished because you've just walked about 15 miles, carried about 20 lbs in each arm and your daughter made it out on her own two legs. Hand the loot over to the winemaker, make sure to let him know how much you went through and hard hard you worked to get those samples!

C) Sample the vineyard over and over until you're sure there is no more fruit left in the vineyard to even sample! :-) Then wait for the call that the fruit if ready, now your excitement level starts to build. Call your dad who is now mad at you because he's driving truck (pretty much for free) and let him know the fruit is ready for pickup. Know he hasn't complained too much (in all seriousness he is the best and doesn't complain) but you randomly hear comments that his golf game is just awful. Inside realize, it's probably due to the fact he's been driving truck about every day. Hang out until you get the call...."I'm 15 minutes away with the fruit!" Get your crew ready and yell, "Game On!" ...more harvest notes to follow.

A quickie! Project Foodie!

O.k. we've been meaning to get this link on our blog site so here goes...as some of you know my passion is food and I've been addicted to cooking shows ever since I started watching the galloping gourmet waaaaaay back when. I think I was about 5 years old. I graduated to PBS Saturday when they started their cooking programs and now am a fan of Bravo and FoodTV network cooking shows. I'm always playing with recipes but am not a trained chef so for as many success stories that I have in the kitchen there are also many train wrecks! Thanks to my family for sticking with me!

We were approached by a woman named Pam and she said via email, "Project Foodie (http://www.projectfoodie.com) does spotlights on wineries in which we present a recipe and wine pairing to tantalize our readers with amazing wines."

Talk about perfect timing, I had just made a dish using our Calico White and had taken a picture...don't ask me why I take pictures of my food. I guess you could call me obsessed, or ask if I don't have anything better to do OR you could guess that I was thinking about making a personal cookbook for my family members. My recipes are totally raw stuff...meaning not professional, not specific ingredient amounts because I use a little of this, a little of that and I always have a glass of wine in hand when I'm cooking. So, back to the story...click on the link and you will see what I'm talking about. A huge thanks to Pam with projectfoodie.com. She was fantastic to work with! Check out their site.