A Blooming Hill Vineyard

Remember the contest we ran, asking people to guess the number of vines that would be planted in the new Pinot Noir block?  Well, on Monday morning Jim had the final count and by the afternoon, when we had checked the entries we were amazed to find that the winner - STEVE EASLEY - came within 72 of the actual number.  He guessed 2400 and the total is 2472!  Congratulations, Steve.

We were actually happy that it was someone who had come out here during the Chehalem Mountains AVA Tour and Taste over Labor Weekend, someone from our area; and, there was a possibility that it could have been someone from as far away as Russia.  I spent all week in the company of Russians from the Archangel region of Russia in the far north near the White Sea who traveled to Cornelius as delegates in the Open World/National Peace Foundation program that gives appointed and elected government officials a first-hand experience with American democracy.  I have been hosting annual visits for 12 years, since the program began.  This group was here to study issues of water management - and also to meet and live with American families and enjoy our lives with us.

Halloween Dinner - lots of wine on the table

This included a lively introduction to A Blooming Hill Vineyard - our cats, dog, horses and wine!  They heard about the contest early in their visit and got busy stratgizing how to go out and count and calculating how they could split the case of wine prize.  When they learned that none of them had won, one of our delegates said it didn’t matter as they thought they had consumed a case of wine during their dinners with us anyway!  More than, actually!  So, now they are back home in Russia and things are getting back to normal in the vineyard and winery.

One of the lovely delights of being married to a vintner is that I get to taste the wine at every step of the process - and sometimes before breakfast!  While most of the world is having orange juice, I got to taste the chardonnay that has been fermenting for about 24 hours!  This morning was particularly soggy in Cornelius but when Jim brought in a tiny jar full of the sweet liquid from the fermenter and I tasted it, honestly I was instantly tele-transported to a spot somewhere in the Caribbean where I might have been sitting under a pale pink orange silver satin sky and gazing at a gentle sea while breezes blew scents of hibiscus, citrus and guava my way.

Usually I don’t talk that way about wine but that is exactly the image I had this morning.  Jim’s chardonnay is like no other to begin with and this year’s will be exceptional, it looks like.  We can pre-sell it right now so we’ll figure out the case price and post it on this website.  In the meantime, here are pictures of Jim, my son Charlie and even me, working the crush over the weekend.  (Okay, I wasn’t really working the crush….I was doing a lot of inside tasks like making tomato juice out of our beautiful yellow/orange heirloom tomatoes!)

Charlie and Jim de-stemming

Yay!  The brix (sugar) and pH (acid) are where they are supposed to be and Jim and crew are picking grapes!

He got about a ton and a half of Pinot Noir grapes out of the first five rows so it’s looking like we’ll get the yield we hoped for.  Jim takes the grapes to one of the local Ag stores in Cornelius to be weighed.  The first step is to weigh the grapes in the container and then, when the container is emptied, to weigh that.  Once you subtract the tare weight of the container, you know the weight of the grapes.  This morning, while I was out doing exotic errands like picking up a cutting bar for the haybine, a water valve for a tire tractor and spending a gold brick to fill up the car with gas, Jim called me to ask if the dog was with me.  He wasn’t - which was unusual as Gemini loves being in the car - but Jim was actually glad since the dog had gone with him for the first weighing and now Jim needed him to find out the tare weight!

Now it’s 9:20 PM and Jim is sitting in the car in the garage listening to the NOAA weather forecast on the radio in the car, the only one that picks up that broadcast.  If he could, I think he would go out and nestle each vine in a soft blanket or a raincoat.

The grapes look terrific and the juice is just lovely.  We’ve tasted it straight - juice from the grapes - and, although we prefer our pinot as wine, we’ve had lovely pinot juice coolers with the addition of vodka.  Very nice!  So we’re off to a good start with the first wines available to the public from A Blooming Hill Vineyard…

Jim and faithful dog, Gemini....probably his best crew member

After several days of really wet weather, it is nicely sunny and Jim is happy, again. Well, maybe not exactly happy, but definitely more hopeful that his beautiful grapes will actually ripen before they become laden and soggy, too wet to support anything but rot. Of course, the sun is only one factor in reducing his worry at htis time of year; keeping the birds and wasps at bay also preoccupy him.

We are taking precautions…I tied red and yellow curling ribbon to bamboo stakes, which have been attached to the tops of the posts at the head and foot of every few rows. These are meant to streak in the wind and frighten off the birds so they don’t peck away at the tender morsels of grapes. I think they make the vineyard look quite festive, too.

Wasps, the other predatory hazard, are being captured in high numbers in the yellow traps set out along the rows. This trap setting is a thoroughly disgusting procedure involving placing bait in the center of the trap - something formerly living and preferably approaching the high state of spoilage - to attract the wasps into a one-way fly-in to a cylinder containing soapy liquid that will prevent their flying out. Ever. And, thus, saving the grapes.

With favorable conditions prevailing, the sugar is rising and, tonight, Jim reported that the seeds have little spots of black in them and are beginning to have crunch. Once the seeds are fully black and nice and crispy, and the sugar is high enough, the harvest begins.

I am, in the meantime, working my way through the forms and procedures so we can properly record and label the vintage.  My latest little dilemma is over how to weigh the grapes as they are harvested.  We have a place to go where we can weigh them but I am uncertain as to what the government needs as to documentation.  In fact, I am unsure as to which government even needs to know as the Feds say it is the State and the State says it is the Feds….And we wonder why the financial structure of the country is falling apart.

Whooooo … We are so excited. Jim McLaren came out last weekend and taped a feature on the vineyard which is airing today, tomorrow and Sunday on www.1190kex.com. Today it is on the air at 12:43 PM and 5:35 PM. AND, IT IS A VIDEO ON THE WEBSITE …. just plug in the keyword GRAPE and the window will open. Jim is SO CUTE….

So, our contest for how many plants will end up in the new Pinot Noir block is still in full swing. Next week the last plants will go in and then we’ll know for sure and have a sure winner. The clue is that there are 69 rows. Here’s a picture of part the vineyard with its little green sleeves protecting those plants already in.

Send us your guesses …. and let us know if you liked the video/radio!

After a morning of a few more exploding irrigation pipes and a quick trip to Hillsboro Pipe Supply to get the couplers and blue glue, planting could begin in earnest …. and here is Jim putting in the first plant in the first row of 68 … or, maybe, 69 rows of varying lengths, he’s not really sure …  .  Read past the pics because we have a contest running and the winner gets a case of wine.

So the contest is … guess how many vines will be planted in the new Pinot Noir block.  The winner gets a case of our wine.  We’ll keep this running for a while because Jim says he doesn’t even know the number he has to wait until he finishes planting since every time he tries to figure it out, the number changes.   I’m not good with math,” he says.  And I answer that I can’t help him, math having been my least favorite subject.  No, wait, that would mean it had some favor with me at all; which, it did not.  The clues are above in the number of rows.  Not much of a clue, we admit.  Send us your guesses anyway because someone will win!

For the past few weeks, jim has been putting in a new Pinot Noir block.  This is hugely work intensive.  Actually, it started a year ago when the 20 year old Kotata Blackberry vines that grew in the designated area were removed to make way for the grapes.  I’m not sure Jim would have expanded if the blackberry market hadn’t dropped so radically.  Used to be you could get a nice price for the berries; but, manufacturers here now buy offshore and it was costing us more to grow them than we could get to sell them.  As delicious as they were, It was an easy equation to make the switch.  I’ll miss the pint or so I could eat on the way down to the mailbox in season but we did save enough to turn into a few pies, now residing in the freezer, and for about 10 gallons of Jim’s exceptionally delicious Blackberry Port.

Following the removal of the old vines - a nasty, prickly job that also involved rolling up miles and miles of wire which might have a future life - the soil had to be conditioned for the new crop.  That was accomplished by putting in wheat, something new for Jim to fret over.  It all managed to come up and look exactly like wheat and was ultimately harvested into a giant combine, but not before saving 50 lbs. from which I mill flour (using my new Kitchen Aid attachment) to make bread.  This is not cost-effective as the attachment cost $99 and it is a slow process to grind the two cups of wheat into 3 cups of flour.  Nevertheless, the bread tastes great and, at this pace, I’ll be making well into my 70s or even 80s.

Our Wheat ... Also looking a little like funny, little aliens who might have appeared in Star Trek

With the wheat harvested, the field got disked and thrown up and tossed around and irrigation was placed (this is a very long and ongoing saga that may have no end given that the pipes randomly start spurting every time the water is turned on), plastic laid out, posts put in, tubing stretched across the field.  It’s beautifully ordered, which took days and days of laying it out, crossing it out, laying it out again on graph paper.  Everything about the grapes is hand done and hard thought out!

So, with a lot of the daily tasks left out, that brings us to today and the arrival of the 3000 plants.  They were so CUTE on the truck, all stacked and with their tender vines sticking out at odd angles.  Here’s a picture of Jim unloading the first flat.  The crew who work for Jim really teased him about being a proud papa and telling him he should really hand out cigars.

The Proud Papa

One of the things I truly love about the Northwest is how everybody is so willing to help everybody else.  When I first moved out here, my friends in New York were aghast.  My best friend asked me what I was doing moving to a place where they served lox in its natural state.  Soon they wanted to know what it was really like out here (i.e., was there indoor plumbing yet….).  I told them there were two major differences:  the first, when it gets to be above 50 degrees out here, people put on their shorts; and, if you have a good idea out here people will say “Oh, that’s a good idea.  How can I help you?”  Whereas, in New York, people will say “Oh, that’s a good idea.  It’ll never happen; you’ll never do that.”

That has held up time after time and as recently as this morning when I talked to Rick at Oregon Barrel Works who is making four new barrels for us out of Oregon oak.  They will be Burgundy shape, of course, and medium toast.  As we got to the end of the conversation, he wanted to know when we thought harvest might be and when i told him Jim is thinking right after Oct. 15th, Rick said that was what everybody was saying.  It was good to get that confirmed and I said how much I appreciated the informal network of information.

Just last week someone stopped by to get some of our bedding straw (for horses, not grapes!) and it turned out he was part of the Chehalem Mountains AVA so Jim offered him a taste of the Pinot Noir in the barrel.  Jim mentioned that it was light in color and Todd said everybody’s seemed to be this year.  Not only did that relieve some of Jim’s (misplaced) anxiety about his wine, it made us feel part of the larger whole of wine producers. It’s that collegiality that makes this a wonderful place to live, to grow and to protect the land by using its potential to sustain us.

Here’s a picture of the lovely Chardonnay grapes.  Oh, and of one of my pumpkins happily growing in the vegetable garden.  I’ve got about a dozen, all grown from seeds from my last year’s jack-o-lantern!  And that pumpkin came from one of our new neighbors down the road who gave it and a couple of others to us in exchange for a Christmas tree, which we also grow!

Lovely Chardonnay Grapes. Tasting this Chardonnay Jim makes takes me in my mind to a fresh, glassy waterfall in an elegant woods filled with sun dappled spaces.

After the whirlwind of the Tour & Taste weekend, followed by our Labor Day party for the community association, I jumped on a plane - actually, four planes - for a quick trip to LA and then Coloma.  In each place Jim’s wines got a little showcase (by me) and were delightfully received.  One esteemed wine drinker called the Chardonnay a little like Vigionier (something I thought, too) only better!

We enjoyed the next two bottles - PN and the Chard - after a thrilling day river rafting on the America River lower South Fork.  You need to know that I never even got into a sleeping bag until I was well into my 40s and that was on a ferry trip up the Inside Passage in Alaska.  And, at that, we slept in sleeping bags on deck chairs on the open Solarium deck so it wasn’t like squirriling on the ground with creepy things.  And I haven’t been in a sleeping bag since.  Thank you, Lord.  So, for me to go rafting is a BIG DEAL.  Oh, did I mention i also get seasick??  Nevertheless, I wanted to do this and believed everyone when they told me I wouldn’t have any problems on the river.  It was enormously fun and quite a bit scary, too.

Are They Kidding .... I Need A Glass Of Wine

That’s me on the left in the dark shirt (I am either smiling or grimacing), Jim on the right in a dark shirt and his brother Jerry and nephew Tommy about to disappear into the rapids in the front!

By the time we got home, the grapes had begun turning their beautiful deep purples and golden greens.  The weather is now perfect for their ripening - lovely, hot days and cool nights.  I tasted some of the Pinot Noir grapes in the little vineyard Jim planted first to test trellis designs and they are sweet.  He worries about every grape, which means his masterly touch is evident in the finished product.  He’s talking through the harvest and crush since this is the first harvest from which we will keep all the grapes.  Also waiting for us at home was our Winery License so we’re good to go.

That fabulous Chardonnay Jim makes will be the first wine we can sell along around next January!

This first event, part of the Chehalem Mountains AVA Tour & Taste, was so much fun for us.  One of the things I totally love about Jim is his pride of place.  Before the weekend, we talked about the interior clean up of the winery - you know, wipe off the tile surface on the sink, get the workers’ coffee pot out of there - so I was so surprised when I walked out of there and saw that Jim already had everything swept off, wiped down, washed and sparkly and all the doors graciously wide open.  It was so nice.

We didn’t really expect many people to show up because we are pretty far off the beaten path of most of the Chehalem Mountain AVA wineries … but we did have some guests and it was thrilling and exciting.  So this is a little thank you to all of you who made the trip.  We loved meeting you.  We loved talking to you so much that I can see we’ll want to invite you back to dinner so we can spend a lot more time with you.  And they’ll have to add hours in the day if I’m going to have time to get to know everybody who ultimately visits us at the winery!

The wine seems to have gotten high marks from everyone who tasted it!  I did finally have to take Jim by the shoulders and make him stop coming up with reasons why people were “probably just saying that” and tell to him to just, even for 5 seconds, enjoy the fact that he makes good wine!  What a worry wart.  The chardonnay, which is different than what most people are used to, really hit a good note and will actually be the first wine we can sell in about 6 - 8 months.  Not surprisingly to me, we did give a few people a taste of the glorious Blackberry Port Jim makes and they loved it.  One man handed his wife the car keys and said “Pick me up on Monday!”  We loved that.  Of course, Jim makes the port just for us so it won’t be for sale, even though I’ve tried to persuade him that it will fill a very nice little niche….I’ll keep working on him.

There was an added thrill this weekend.  A few months ago, through a story in the AARP magazine about people who work after “retirement”, I reconnected with friends from the early days of my last marriage in the 1970s.  In fact, these people were neighbors of my late husband and, I found out on Sunday night, actually sold him the land to build his house.  They still live in Connecticut and were out here visiting their Portland son and family and came for dinner on Sunday.  Really, I cried.  John, as luck would have it, used to be a wine importer.  To say he is straightforward with his opinion would be a huge understatement so we were nervous about what he might say of the wine.  So you can imagine my delight when he started figuring out how much we would earn from a very nice wholesale price-point he chose!  More than that, though, it was the perfect end to the perfect weekend event for us - warm people, warm reunions, new friends and the sense that everybody wants this to be a success.  Jim’s dream of being a good steward to the earth and its servant in producing its bounty is that much closer to reality!

Somehow, I missed getting a shot of our friends John and Nanette.  I’ll get one from them and attach it later.  In the meantime, here are Jim and Gemini pretty much wiped out after two busy days!