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Oregon Wine & Biodynamics with Troon and Winderlea

Sep 22, 2020

A couple of weeks ago we attended the Virtual Wine Media Conference, the in-person event was originally supposed to be held in Oregon. Sadly this event was canceled due to COVID so Zephyr Conferences decided to create a virtual conference. They partnered with the Oregon Wine Board to have a virtual tasting.

We received two samples one from Troon Vineyard in Applegate Valley AVA and one from Winderlea in Dundee Hills AVA, in the Willamette Valley.

Wine Conferences during a pandemic

We usually get to take our own pictures of the vineyards and the people we talk to, but since we were on the computer, we have access to the pictures from the presentation to give you some perspective. The real bottle shots are ours. SO that being said, let’s get going!

These were samples sent to us for this tasting, however all opinions are own.

Biodynamics in farming

First a little about Biodynamics and why it should matter when you look for a bottle of wine. We have created a page where you can read more about biodynamics. Now for the short version. There are a couple of ways people talk about Bio-dynamics. Most critics use the Voodoo and spiritualism of the creator Rudolf Steiner to discredit the whole practice.

Rudolf Steiner lectures on biodynamics and the treatments were brought about in response to the bad soils that had been created by the chemical companies. These lectures advocated for a return to a more naturalistic form of farming. These lectures were meant for farming in general, and not really for wine farming, but the practice was meant to return health to the soil.

The theory of Biodynamics was truly developed after Rudolf Steiner’s death and is really based on past farming practices, very much like the Farmers Almanac, when you get down to its timing and Farm Practices. We have found that most people who go Biodynamic do so because it creates an Ecosystem that creates a healthier environment not only for the vines and the soil but insects and pest control systems that thrive and keep the entire Farm Healthy, including the people. There is a spiritualistic side but that is a topic for more in-depth analysis at a later date.

As I said you can read more on our page. But for this discussion, we will tackle just a couple of reasons for going biodynamic that these two wineries use. The first concept is you farm better. The way biodynamics really shines is the attention to detail, the use of organic manure, which created healthier soil and in turn healthier vines, in turn, healthier grapes, better wine.

Lavender at Cowhorn supporting pollinators and biodyversity — Lavender at Cowhorn supporting pollinators and biodiversity

Cowhorn Biodynamic Vineyard

Biodynamic Oregon Wines

Sally from the Oregon Wine Board was the host for this wine tasting, and she was hosting from Troon Vineyard.

Sally is a 4^th Generation Oregonian. She started us off with a little background on the Oregon wine region as well as their two newest AVAs.

She then introduced Craig Camp from Troon Vineyards who has spent 35 years in the Industry, as well as Bill and Donna of Winderlea.

She talked to us about each of the AVAs where these wine were produced.

Oregon Wine Map Applegate Valley AVA from Oregon Wine Board

Oregon Wine Map Dundee Hills AVA from Oregon Wine Board

Oregon Wine Region Stats

Oregon now has 800 wineries within 21 AVAs with the addition of Tualatin Hills and Laurelwood District AVAs both in Willamette Valley AVA approved in June 2020.

We head first to Southern Oregon to Troon, to taste the Kubli Bench Amber.

Troon is in the Applegate Valley, which is a nested AVA within the larger Rogue Valley AVA. It was established in 2000.

There are 20 wineries in the Applegate Valley, 2 of them are biodynamic; Troon and Cowhorn. These two vineyards encompass 10% of the AVA’s area.

Applegate Valley Stats

Applegate Valley’s wine history began in 1852 when an early settler named Peter Britt planted wine grapes. In 1873, he opened Valley View Winery, Oregon’s first official winery. Valley View closed in 1907; then Prohibition hit.

It wasn’t until the 1970s after modern pioneers began discovering the neighboring areas’ quality wine growing conditions, that the Applegate Valley experienced a resurgence of winemaking. According to Dr. Gregory Jones, climatologist and director of Environmental Science and Policy Program at Southern Oregon University where he focuses on suitability for viticulture,

“The Southern Oregon American Viticultural Area (AVA) offers the most diverse growing conditions in Oregon and arguably in the United States.”

From Oregon Wine Board

Oregon AVAs

Willamette Valley
Yamhill-Carlton
Chehalem Mountains
Tualatin Hills
Laurelwood District
Ribbon Ridge
Dundee Hills
Mcminnville
Eola-Amity Hills
Van Duzer Corridor
Southern Oregon
Umpqua Valley
Red Hill Douglas County
Elkton Oregon
Rogue Valley
Applegate Valley
Columbia Gorge
Columbia Valley
Walla Walla Valey
The Rocks District of Milton Freewater
Snake River Valley

Troon Vineyard in Applegate Valley

First, we spent some time with Craig Camp as he explained his history, a little about why Troon went Biodynamic, and then about their Amber (orange Wine)

Craig Camp

“Troon Vineyard is dedicated to regenerative agriculture and Biodynamic® agriculture in our quest to put back more than we take from our plants and soils. We believe the only route to memorable wines, that reflect the terroir of where they were grown, is to be found in the healthy soils and vines that are the foundation of Biodynamic® agriculture.”

Craig Camp is GM of Troon Vineyards and has worked in the fine wine industry for over thirty-five years. He co-founded Direct Import Wine Company in Chicago, an importer, and distributor of estate wines from France, Italy, Spain California, Oregon, and Washington.

Craig moved to the Applegate after having worked in Napa for 10 years. He moved north to grow Rhone’s.

The Troon vineyard is one of the oldest in the area, planted in 1972 by Dick Troon. The Troons sold the property and it was farmed Industrially and ended up with hard soils as hard as concrete and vine diseases.

Craig joined the vineyard and began farming biodynamically to help the vineyards recovery and they were certified biodynamic in 2019.

Craig Camp with Troon Vineyard in Applegate Valley Oregon Photo Courtesy of Oregon Wine Board

Craig came into biodynamics as a skeptic. They look at this as a “framework to regenerative agriculture”.

The heart of the process is compost to use as a probiotic. Luckily there is a large organic dairy farm next door. They just ordered 800 yards of manure. They make 200 tons of compost.

Troon Vineyards have this Planting Video on their Site.

see more Videos

“The Klamath mountains surround the valley to the west protecting it from the cooling air and rain from the Pacific Ocean”

The Applegate river greatly influenced the development of soils in the region, resulting in deep, well-draining stream sediments, including granites.

They sit at 1400 feet and the season is shorter, but on the longest day of the year, they get 70 minutes more sun than Napa Valley.

During harvest, the days shorten causing photosynthesis to stop allowing them high acid and lower sugar levels.

Soils here are not volcanic, rather the movement of the tectonic plates influences the geology of the region. You find decomposed granite and well as river and ocean sediment.

The Vineyard had red blotch virus and has to be completely replanted. They did soil pits and had scientists come in (Biomakers from Spain) to do genetic sequencing on the soils. They do this now every year, keeping the data to set a benchmark for the science of biodynamic farming.

Doing this over the next several years they can then track the science behind Biodynamics. The soil is changing here, the microbiology increasing. The plant biology is increasing and the fermentations much healthier.

They will replant every vine.

Troon Vineyard Kubli Bench Amber courtesy of Troon Vineyards

We are tasting the Kubli Bench Amber tonight. This is a blend of Riesling, Vermentino, and Viognier. The first Amber they did was from Riesling, then they did another from Vermentino and found that this blend works best. The Riesling is not long for this world. It is not meant for the climate and will soon be torn out and replaced.

This wine is 13.3% abv, pH 3.51, TA 6

2019 Troon Kubli Bench Amber, Estate Orange Wine, Applegate Valley

Food pairings with this wine range from Sushi to steak. Ambers are very food-friendly and can pair with a wide variety of foods.

We paired this with Sushi while we tasted and of course, this paired perfectly. Riesling generally pairs well with most foods.

It is 74% Riesling, 16% Vermentino and 10% Viognier.

The Riesling has high phenolics, encouraged by ripening the grape skins.

The Kubli Bench is a small 5-mile by 2-mile plateau. It is the bench of the old river with a 25 to 30-foot cliff down to the Applegate River.

The pH levels here are low. Their pet nat of Tannat has a pH of 2.9 with 9 grams of TA (acid).

This wine is part of their Kubli Bench Blend series of red, white and now amber. The varieties for this blend are fermented separately and are farmed as you would red wines. These are in 1-ton fermenters on the skins and native yeast fermentation. They foot trod them and it is 3 to 4 days before fermentation kicks in. In 3 weeks this wine is fermented to dryness.

They use neutral oak and age 6 months on the lees, then blend them.

They also do an amphorae amber. This is also on the skins and stems for 10 months. At the time of our tasting, this had just to press. It is done in a Georgian style, not excessive VA. They like their wines clean, from healthy grapes and these go into the Tuscan Amphorae.

Beckham Vineyard amphora - a NOVUM as Andrew calls them.

The amphorae is more aggressive and tannic and ageable, while this one is more forward and fruity. The Riesling has one more year.

They just planted Grenache Gris and Terret Blanche, that they ordered 2 years ago.

With the dry climate, they have fewer pest issues.

They have 3 amphorae from Andrew Beckham and will get 2 more next week.

They replant 10 acres each year. In 3 more years, they will be completely replanted.

Winderlea Vineyard in Dundee Hills, Willamette Valley

Winderlea is in the Dundee Hills. Donna Morris and Bill Sweat

There are more than 500 wineries in the Willamette Valley. The first of which was planted in 1965 right here in the Dundee Hills by David Lett, his Eyrie vineyard.

The Dundee Hills became an AVA in November 2005.

Winderlea Vineyard, Dundee Hills, Willamette Valley Oregon Photo Courtesy of Oregon Wine Board

This is the only wine that they produce at the Winderlea Estates Vineyard. It is made under the tasting room in the garage. The wine pump and press are powered by a garden hose. Their main facility is in McMinnville.

They began making this wine in 2009 using whole clusters. At that time, most of the Pinots in the area were destemmed. This is made from one block from their vineyard.

This is from one block of Coury Pinot Noir (Chuck Coury had a nursery biz and did some midnight suitcase cuttings, so who knows, they all might be different).

Planted in 1974 and originally named Dundee Hills Vineyard, there was phylloxera in the vineyard when Donna and Bill bought the property. They asked around to see who might be able to help prolong the life of a vineyard with phylloxera and they were pointed to Doug Tunnell of Brickhouse, Rudy Marchesi of Montinore, and Beau Frere all biodynamic vineyards.

They hired Philippe Armenier as their biodynamic consultant and he consulted with them for 3 years.

They try to work on the biodynamic calendar. Bill grew up in New England where they farmed by the farmer’s almanac, so this was intuitive.

This is practical, as a winegrower and a business. You are on the ground spraying, you go by each vine and you can see differences in the vineyard and know if something does not look right.

Biodynamics provides better carbon sinks, microbial diversity, and activity.

Bill finds that the vines are more consistent, and the canopy stays healthy through harvest.

For the 2017 vintage they had good water and snowpack. Budbreak was normal, then they had heat in May and the hottest August on record. This was a big vintage with 4.3 tons per acre. It allowed them to pick the fruit that was the most robust and drop the clusters not up to snuff.

This is 100% whole cluster. Part went into Amphorae 500 liter from Tuscany with a stainless steel top with added dry ice. This fills the amphorae with CO2, so you get carbonic maceration bringing out the red fruit notes. Gases can escape but not air cannot get in.

Another part went into 4 puncheons (400-600 liters, like a mini fermenter) and part in 2 Macro Bins.

Fruit was harvested on 9-26-17. The puncheons and macro bins were pressed on October 17^th, the amphorae went to press on November 8^th.

The 2017 vintage was the first Amphorae. This then went into neutral French oak barrels for 18 months. Abv 13%, pH 3.6, TA 5.4, bottled 3-15-19, and just 229 cases made.

Bill finds the whole cluster to be more aromatic. With the stems, the potassium in the must raises the pH.

Wine Media Conference Winderlea Pinot Noir courtsey of Winderlea Vineyards

Elevage: 18 months in French Oak Barrels 0% new

pH: 3.6

TA: 5.4

ABV: 13%

Bottling date: 3.15.2019

Production: Certification: Demeter Biodynamic® Certified

WINE DESCRIPTION

The only wine produced onsite at the Winderlea Estate Vineyard, the Demeter certified Biodynamic® Imprint Pinot noir is made by owner Bill Sweat using old-world winemaking techniques and 100% whole cluster fermentation.

TECHNICAL

Harvest Date: 9.26.2017

Clones: Pommard, Coury

Fermentation: 100% Whole Cluster

1⁄2 ton Clay Amphora, pressed on 11.08.17

4 Puncheons, pressed on 10.17.17 2 Macro Bins, pressed on 10.17.17

2017 Winderlea Imprint Pinot Noir, Dundee Hills

These both were great wines. Both wines had complexity and Nuance. I return to the basis that when you have a healthy vineyard, you have better grapes and therefore better wines. It matters how you get there.

Troon is keeping data on there journey of taking a chemical and diseased vineyard and transforming it using Biodynamics. In the future, you can see at least some of the science behind the process.

These are both vineyards we will be following, and we hope to get back to Oregon when we are allowed to travel, to speak with each of these vineyards and get you some more in-depth pictures and stories and about how these Oregon Wines are really a cut above.

We have many more stories from Biodynamic vineyards that tell the same tale and produce some excellent wines. As they say, why drink bad wine? Search these winemakers out and you really will taste the difference.

Visit These Links for more on these wines and Biodynamics

Michael and Robin Renken travel and chronicle stories from wine country. While Robin does much of the writing, Michael typically captures the visuals via video and photos to showcase the region, the wine and the people.

Michael Renken

42 Aspens Productions LLC
Photography & Video
Production
702.604.8101

42 Aspens Productions Web Site
[email protected]

After years of putting together
shows, lighting them and making
everyone look good, Michael turned
his skills to the camera, capturing
moments and telling stories
through photos and video.

Red Willow Vineyard in Washington’s Yakima Valley – an iconic vineyard and a trailblazer in Modern Washington Wine

Aug 28, 2020

The drive to Red Willow Vineyard, in Washington’s Yakima Valley, takes you to what feels like the end of the Universe. You head out on West Wapato Road and drive until it feels like Mt. Adams is right in front of you. Really the mountain just gets bigger and bigger. You are almost as far west as there are vineyards in the Yakima Valley. It felt like we had driven forever, and I was getting a bit concerned. It’s not easy to get a signal out here. I was staring hard at each passing sign to be sure we didn’t miss the road to turn on. At last, we found the road and made the turn.

The Drive to Red Willow. The view of the Chapel in the distance from Wapato Road

The entrance to Red Willow Vineyard in Washington's Yakima Valley

Jonathan Sauer is waiting for us. His crew is gathering up at the end of the day. He assures them he will close-up. Jonathan could not be nicer. He has a humble air about him, but he is friendly and brings a brightness to the conversation that puts you immediately at ease. He is the 4^th generation of his family to work on this farm. His father Mike, first planted wine grapes here. We gather up our equipment and climb on the ATV to head up the hill, into the vineyard.

The History of Washington Wine

Before we go any further, perhaps I should share a bit of context. You see, Red Willow Vineyard is legendary when it comes to Washington Vineyards. Let’s go back to the beginning and give you some background.

How did grapes get to Washington?

The Hudson’s Bay Company planted the first grapes at Fort Vancouver back in 1825. Wine grapes followed the early French, Italian and German settlers. Irrigation arrived in the Eastern part of the state in the early 1900s, meaning this dry desert region on the east side of the Cascades could begin to grow. Vineyards began to pop up in the Walla Walla and Yakima Valleys. Then of course came Prohibition.

Dr. Walter Clore – The Father of Washington Wine

It was 1934 when Dr. Walter J. Clore arrived in Washington. He studied horticulture at Washington State College and then was hired to teach at the WSU Irrigated Agriculture Research Extension Center in Prosser, WA. With the ability to irrigate, Washington was learning to grow fruits and vegetables. He met W.B. Bridgman, who had a vineyard planted to Vitis Vinifera. Dr. Walter Clore took cuttings to establish a block to study in Prosser. Eventually, he would start test blocks from these vines around the state, working with growers to test for issues with climate, soil, wind, etc. He shared this collected information with the growers, building a database of research, and determining that indeed, vinifera grapes could grow in this region. One of these test sites was Red Willow Vineyard. Mike Sauer worked with Dr. Clore to plant an experimental block of 20 varieties in 1972-73, as well as mounting a weather station.

David Lake – Master of Wine

Associated Vintners, now known as Columbia Winery, was created in 1962 by a group of friends. These 10 visionaries, 6 of whom were University of Washington Professors, were determined to prove that Washington’s Columbia Valley was a great place to grow and make wine. I would dare say that worked. I am sure that most of you have tasted a wine from Columbia Winery. It is the 2^nd most well known wine brand in the state of Washington and can be found most anywhere. In 1979 they named David Lake, MW to be their winemaker a job he held until 2006. David Lake was Canadian but had worked in the wine trade in Britain before coming to America. He worked at Eyrie in the Willamette Valley before joining Associated Vintners, based in Seattle. It was this same year that he met Mike Sauer. Mike describes him as having “a European sensibility” when it came to wine. He released Washington’s first vineyard-designated wines back in 1981, all were Cabernets, coming from Sagemoor, Otis and… Red Willow Vineyards. He was known to motivate growers and shared his knowledge. It was David Lake that encouraged Mike Sauer to plant Syrah, the variety that Red Willow is perhaps best known for these days. Now you have a bit of background. This humble vineyard is one of the great vineyards in Washington State and some of the legendary names in Washington Wine helped to form it.

Red Willow Vineyard

Red Willow Vineyard’s Chapel Block

Jonathan Sauer drives us up the hill, and we stop below the Chapel Hill’s west slope. The Red Willow Chapel sits on a hill so there are aspects on all sides. The west slope fruit is intense, dark, and tannic. The east slope, with its soil windblown loess, has more perfume in the wine, giving it more elegance. This is a significant difference in fruit, when as Jonathan says, “You can throw a ball from one to the next”. The south slope is more of a mix of the two styles. Here, from just within the Chapel block you have the makings for a beautiful blend, with depth and complexity, just from one variety.

“It’s probably easier to make a wine that I’m gonna get stuff from Wahluke and Horse Heavens and Walla Walla and I’ll get all these different components and create a blend. But to do a vineyard designate, it can be a little more challenging. But yet, when you do it right it can just be a magical wine, just that sense of place you get from it.”
Jonathan Sauer, July 2019

The Chapel block itself is 100% Syrah, which is how it got its Chapel, reminiscent of the famous Chapel in Hermitage in France, where some of the most famous Syrah on the planet grows. The entire Chapel hill is broken into Syrah, Sangiovese, and Viognier. Mike Sauer planted the Viognier to go with the Syrah. In the Northern Rhone, the two grapes are often blended or co-fermented, so it seemed appropriate to have a little of that to mix in. When they were planting the Viognier, they looked to France for inspiration.

“…well it’s grown on the steepest kinda warmest sites over in France so let’s do that here! So, you’re kind of guessing. It really isn’t until 10 years later or even longer that you say, well that was a good guess, or maybe I shouldn’t have done that. We’re a young industry and even though our vineyard is approaching 50 years, I think we’re 47 this year. We’ve still got a lot to learn and each year we’re trying to get a little better and learn a little more. We haven’t been here for centuries like the Old World.”
Jonathan Sauer, July 2019

Precipitation and irrigation

We continue to drive into the vineyard, and I notice that each row has a tag on the end with a winery name. They sell fruit by the acre not the ton, so the winemakers can drop fruit as they want. It might make the fruit more expensive, but the winemaker has the choice. The blocks have tall signs over them telling you what variety the grape is and the year it was planted.

Eastern Washington only gets about 6-7 inches of precipitation a year and the majority of that comes in the winter. 2019 was an anomaly and they had snow in February. This caused the vines to take off early.

We turn around and head back toward the Chapel then stop where the original 73 Cabernet had been planted. There were 3 acres that they finally took out and replaced with Syrah. The wineries loved it, but the vines had leaf roll virus and the yield was down to just 2 tons to the acre. They couldn’t allow the leaf roll to spread, so they had to pull it out.

The beginning of Nebbiolo and Syrah at Red Willow Vineyard

We continue to the ’85 Nebbiolo block. “Dad tells a story where right about harvest time, they’re picking grapes and people are going everywhere and he had this guy show up and he had a bottle of Barolo in, I don’t know, both hands or something, coming up talking a million miles an hour and said “I want you to plant Nebbiolo! I’ve got a restaurant over in the Seattle area called Café Juanita and blah, blah, blah, and Dad’s like ‘okay, that’s nice. I’m kinda busy right now’.” Later speaking with someone at the wine shop in Yakima he found out that the restaurant is well known with month-long waiting lists for reservations. Intrigued with Nebbiolo he spoke to David Lake about planting it. David Lake thought this was interesting, but he said “…you know, really if you want to plant a classic variety, that I think would be really well suited for your site in Washington, you ought to look at Syrah.”

So, David Lake called and found French Clone cuttings from Joseph Phelps in California, and they planted Syrah, which is now so iconic for this vineyard.

This started their pioneering wave, they tried Malbec, Sangiovese, and Viognier and Mataro. The winter of 96 was really cold, when the Syrah survived that, they knew this variety could do well in the state and it started to take off.

We turn to the 3 acres of old Syrah. Bob Betz calls this Le Côte Patriarche, Jonathan tells me. This wine is one of the Betz family wines top releases and it is typically sold in pre-sales. Barrel ratings for this wine are 94-96. Mark Fiore at Efeste and Andrew Rich also make Red Willow vineyard-designate Syrahs.

We head up the final stretch to the Chapel and pass the 93 Mataro block. This small block is planted on low trellis mimicking the method in Madrid to gain the solar heat from the ground for ripening. Jonathan was glad that was all.

“We had a lot of moisture so the vines kind of took off early…and then you don’t want to stress them, right when they are at bloom and set really, so you’ve got to keep watering them. We’re well past that now, so when you are past that you hit the brakes and just dry it out. So, there’s so much influence that a grower has in this state over that water, it’s huge. It’s probably one of the biggest factors of consistency and the benefits that it leads to in quality. It’s tremendous, influencing the berry size, the vine, the exposure it gets, and the canopy. It’s tremendous. It’s one of the great factors Washington has. There’s a lot of them, the cool nights, the latitude…and right at harvest time, it’s always so magical, your days are shortening enough and just that northerly latitude … the cool nights keeping the acidity within the wines that you find a lot in Washington. It’s a great place to be a grower.”

Jonathan Sauer, July 2019

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Ancient Soils and the Peninsula Block

We leave the Chapel Hill behind us and drive through what they call the Saddle and then into the Peninsula block, to a point where there is a cutout. Here you can see the layers of soil.

Red Willow is a high elevation vineyard. The building at the bottom of the vineyard that we came from sits at 1100 feet. The top of the Marcoux block which is the furthest north block is at around 1300 feet. The Missoula Floods, washed into about one-third of the way up this hill. You can see the ancient soils that remain above where the floodwaters came through. The strata layers are different. You also find pumice here from the volcanos of the Ancient Cascade Mountains.

This is like the lightweight stone that you often see for removing callouses, which is a direct projectile out of the volcanos. You also find compressed ash. Each of these soils tie back to a major geological event. We are looking at millions of years of geologic history in front of us.

The whole region is an uplift, that gives this region all these east/west ridges. Most of the world has north/south Ridges. The Peninsula Hill was a unique fold that came out of the Ahtanum Ridge that sits north of the Vineyard. I ponder for a moment, visualizing this hill as an island in the Missoula floods.

Jonathan tells us they are really farming to showcase the soil, looking for an active biological soil and trying to do things minimally.

150 acres of wine grape plus…

Red Willow Vineyard is planted to about 150 acres of wine grapes. They also farm concords for jelly and juice. Jonathan points out the darker green areas in the lower sections of the property with overhead sprinkler systems, unlike the drip irrigation used for the wine grapes. They also do a bit hay, about 30 acres.

As to the wine grapes, they grow about 17 varieties and Jonathan says the beauty of that is that they all ripen at different times, with harvest lasting about a month and a half.

“Start with the Sav Blanc and Gewurz and go through Merlot, Syrah and then the mid-season, I usually say Cab Franc, Lemberger. Then we go into Cab, Sangiovese. We’ve got one row of Aglianico, it’s usually about at the end. And then the Nebbiolo we have on this hill, kinda right at the end.”
Jonathan Sauer, July 2019

We continue North toward the Marcoux Block pausing at the 91 Sangiovese, which was some of the earliest Sangiovese planting in the state. This is getting close to the northern edge of the vineyard. Past this you can see the sage brush leading toward the ridge.

The first block planted was in the Peninsula block the 73 Cabernet. Jonathan says his father planted some Semillon and Chenin Blanc in 1971. He planted them low on the property with the concords and they froze out. “I guess that was our first lesson. Put them on the hills out of the good fertile soil. After that, it worked pretty good.”

The Experimental blocks and the wineries they work with

Mike Sauer also planted an experimental block, here at Red Willow Vineyard, back in the early 70s with Dr. Walter Clore. Jonathan says it had about a dozen varieties including rkatsiteli, a hardy grape from Ukraine. Out of that experimental block, his dad really liked the cab franc. He planted his first block of that variety in 1985.

With the cab franc, merlot, and cab sav growing here, DeLille was about to release a Red Willow Right Bank Blend. All of these are old blocks. I looked the wine up after getting home. The 2017 vintage was recently released only to the DeLille Wine club, so if you manage to get your hands on a bottle, treasure it

The different winemakers I had spoken with seemed to really revere Red Willow Vineyard. I mention this to Jonathan.

“Well we really like everybody we are dealing with. Especially if somebody is going to do a designate. We really try to do our best. … Dad’s really an endearing personality in the industry. A lot of people have got a lot of love for Mike and what he’s done, and we’re just trying to continue that, and not mess it up. Maybe add a little bit as we go.”
Jonathan Sauer, July 2019

We look through the Marcoux block to the Ahtanum Ridge. Jonathan was hoping that the wild horses would be out for us. Sadly, they must further down the valley. What a visual, picturing these tan rolling hills with wild horses galloping through.

We turn around and head back toward the Chapel then stop where the original 73 Cabernet had been planted. There were 3 acres that they finally took out and replaced with Syrah. The wineries loved it, but the vines had leaf roll virus and the yield was down to just 2 tons to the acre. They couldn’t allow the leaf roll to spread, so they had to pull it out.

The beginning of Nebbiolo and Syrah at Red Willow Vineyard

So, David Lake called and found French Clone cuttings from Joseph Phelps in California, and they planted Syrah, which is now so iconic for this vineyard.

Lowe Wine – Drought, Biodynamics and Soil

Apr 22, 2020

The drought in Australia fueled the fires we saw the beginning of this year. We talked with David Lowe at Lowe Wine about the drought and about biodynamics, a subject you know we are very interested in.

The drought in Australia

David says that the drought has been very damaging for people who were not prepared for it. We later spoke with another winemaker who explained the earlier longer drought that the country had gone through. After a short reprise they plunged into the current drought which is more severe.

Biodynamics and how it helps with drought

Droughts can be debilitating and this is a country that waffles between severe drought and flooding. David feels that he has set his vineyard on the right path over the past 20 years setting it up to be more drought resistant. Removing all the damaging pesticides and letting diverse native grasses grow have helped with ground cover and have limited pests. They don’t irrigate so the roots have dug deep.

“In fact our Shiraz roots go 5 meters deep were all planted with a shovel and a bucket of water and we’ve relied on rainfall scarce as that’s been, all the time and we’ve never lost a vine. They’re quite productive in fact they look better than most vineyards that are drip irrigated. “
David Lowe, October 2019

An explanation of biodynamics

David tells us there is no recipe for bio-dynamics, it is about observation, learning when to interfere and when not to interfere. He gives us a description from his consultant on bio-dynamics, comparing Newtonian science, which is absolute and the philosophy of Goethe, who looked at the precedents and how they occurred and looked for an explanation. If he didn’t find it, it was because it was something we did not completely understand.

“So to me bio-dynamics understands and respects the precedents and what’s happened in nature over the last 5 or 7 thousand years as been mapped and tries to apply Newtonian science to it. I find it a really interesting way to do it. We’re not just looking at the sky and the cosmos and the land and saying, oh we’re all hippie about it. But there is a scientific reason it happens and we’re trying to find it. If we can’t understand it, at least appreciate, this has happened and work with it.”
David Lowe, October 2019

Soils in Australia and Mudgee

We move on to discuss the soils here in Mudgee and within Australia. This is an ancient and eroded land. It is the oldest land form in the world, part of the Gondwaraland. Changes in soil here come from erosion. So the top of the hills are stony and rocky while the bottom fills with silt and loess. On the slopes, of course you get a variation. Variation makes winemakers happy.

Working with soils to make the best wines

David has tried to map the soils and work with it. There is quartz and shale with minerals. It’s well drained and that important for the grapevines, it encourages them to dig deep which promotes drought resistance and increases the quality.

“We’ve said we don’t care about what crop we get off it any year, we care that it’s the best wine possible. Because we are in control of our market, because we are in control of our all of our sales, as you see, our only sales are here, we can tell the message. People can respond to the authenticity of growing and making it and selling it onsite. That’s worked with us. Probably as an accident, but we’re not going to stop it now.”
David Lowe, October 2019

More from David Lowe

We have one more conversation to share with you from our visit with David Lowe. The next one gets pretty geeky on yeasts and barrels!

We’ve written a bit on Lowe Wine

As always be sure to follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and sign up for our monthly newsletter to keep up to date on all of our posts.

Robin Bell Renken I have always loved people’s stories. I spent a career in Theatre helping to tell stories, as a Stage Manager. Daily enabling artists to freely and safely tell stories through their art. Then I fell in love with wine. There are so many details, so many nuances, not just in the glass, but in the vineyard, the region and the people. As I met winemakers and vineyard owners and even the people in the tasting room excited to pour me a glass and tell me the story of this wine, I knew these were stories I wanted to share. I completed my study and became a Certified Specialist of Wine and continue learning daily as I meet and interview people in this industry.

Robin Renken is a wine writer and Certified Specialist of Wine. She and her husband Michael travel to wine regions interviewing vineyard owners and winemakers and learning the stories behind the glass.

When not traveling they indulge in cooking and pairing wines with food at home in Las Vegas.

A Vineyard walk on Candy Ridge, Candy Mountain AVA with Seth Kitzke

Mar 31, 2020

It was July 2019 and we were on summer whirlwind trip called #thescenicroute. We had come from the beautiful Columbia Gorge region and were meeting Seth Kitzke at Candy Ridge Vineyard at Candy Mountain.

We pulled in and up to the Kitzke Cellars tasting room, on a Monday. Their tasting room is only typically open on the weekends, so we pulled up to a very confused looking gentleman. This was Paul Kitzke, owner of the estate and winery and Seth’s dad.

Seth had evidently not mentioned us coming and Paul was surprised to see people at the tasting room so early, not to mention with camera and recording gear. After a quick explanation, he warmed and looked to invite us in just as Seth pulled up.

Seth’s tasting room for his own brand Upsidedown Wine is in Hood River, where we had just been, but he was coming from a meeting somewhere else this particular morning. He had managed to squeeze us in to the middle of his day.

So where exactly are we?

Well, we are in the east end of the Yakima Valley in Eastern Washington. The area is near the Tri-Cities close to the city of Richland. Candy Mountain is just South East of Red Mountain the fairly famous Yakima Valley AVA that is winning high praise for it’s grapes and wine.

Washington AVA Map Courtesy of Washington State, with Candy Mountain AVA — Washington AVA Map Courtesy of Washington State, with the area of the Proposed Candy Mountain AVA penciled in.

We started in the vineyard with Candy Mountain in the background. The view is the same as the view on the sketch on their labels. The first thing I wanted to know about was the proposed AVA.

Candy Mountain AVA( it is now Official)

You know we get into proposed AVAs, we’ve talked about the proposed AVAs in the Willamette Valley and I was really curious about the proposed Candy Mountain AVA. When approved, it will be Washington’s smallest AVA at around 820 acres. Seth told us it’s been submitted and approved on the Washington State side and now they are just waiting on the Federal stuff. The application was “Accepted as Perfected” on January 24, 2017.

As of the date of this piece, the time for public comment had closed and it was just waiting. Likely it will be waiting a bit longer with everything slowing down right now. It’s a little confusing. I went to the TTB page and they are no longer listed on the “Pending approval” page, but they are also not listed on the “Established AVA” page. So they are sitting in limbo in between. As Seth put it “It’s sitting on someone’s desk somewhere in a stack waiting to get stamped.”

Details on the proposed AVA

The thing is, that this AVA which would be nested in the Yakima Valley AVA spills a little over the edge and they would need to expand the Yakima Valley AVA by 72 acres to adjust the overlap. *Update! My understanding is that the adjustment to the Yakima Valley AVA is complete.

The AVA is on the the southwestern slopes of Candy Mountain. Seth mentioned that the slopes here are south facing due to the the way the ridge and Mountain are oriented. Red Mountain AVA with it’s much larger 4040 acres, wraps around Red Mountain with vineyards Southeast facing, south facing and wrapping around to some that are south west and west facing also.

“…Candy Mountain doesn’t really have that option. It’s pretty much all directly south. You might have a tiny bit of southeast and southwest..”
Seth Kitzke, July 2019

Seth studied sustainability and tourism before getting into wine and like preserving ridge lines and views. He mentions that a hiking group that used to do “hike, wine & dine” events bought up the land that goes up to the ridge so that the views won’t ever get obstructed with a bunch of houses.

Candy Ridge Vineyard

Kitzke Cellars on Candy Ridge in the Yakima Valley AVA

The Candy Ridge Vineyard is the Estate Vineyard for Kitzke Cellars. They have another vineyard, the Dead Poplar Vineyard which is in the lower Yakima Valley directly across from (but not in) the Red Mountain AVA.

Here at the Candy Ridge Vineyard they are mostly growing Bordeaux varieties, Cab Franc, Cab Sav, Petit Verdot and then some Syrah in the back and some Sangiovese out front.

“The sangio is kind of an anomaly here. It’s all east facing all lyre style trained stuff, like a double cordon that comes up and splits, a lot more shade.”
Seth Kitzke, July 2019

Their neighbor Jim, is kind of the reason Seth’s parents started growing grapes. He has Merlot that was planted in 1982 as well as some other varieties that they get some of. Seth says that he is really the pioneer of Candy Mountain.

Cabernet Franc and Caliche soil

We walk into the vineyard and Seth points out Cab Franc that was planted in 2008.

Cab Franc by the Lawn at Candy Ridge Vineyard

“We kinda added as the wines proved themselves. My parents started gobbling up a little more of the square footage of the area, planting more rows…basically the yard was big and they were like “hey let’s plant some more cab franc.””
Seth Kitzke, July 2019

The cons of caliche soil

Previously all the cab franc was east facing out front and the back was just Petit Verdot and Cab Sav. But just because they had the space didn’t mean it would be easy. The front is rocky with floating basalt in the loam. In the back…well

“My dad called me a wuss, because I couldn’t dig the poles when we got up here. The caliche layer is like calcium carbonate, a really hard layer, like natural cement. He ended up bringing in our backhoe. When we had the backhoe in here it broke 2 teeth off the metal bucket on the backhoe. It shows you how hard this stuff really is.”
Seth Kitzke, July 2019

Caliche comparison at Kitzke Cellars — In the lower hand basalt, in the upper caliche. The caliche, while really hard, is so much lighter.

But there are also pros…

The caliche though, has is pluses. The berries on the cab franc in the back are tiny little stressed berries, where as the ones in the front get a little more size on them. Stress berries equal tasty wine typically. The Cab franc in the back has more shatter and natural stress from the caliche layer. But caliche is also porous.

They had a foot of snow as late as early March in 2019. Where as with basalt the moisture would evaporate, the caliche layer locks the moisture in and holds it. In early July when we were there it was the first time they had turned on the water this season. They were trying to get the canopies to shut down and focus on fruit. You can see in the video that the canopies were kinda going a little crazy.

Petit Verdot and new training systems

We moved on to the Petit Verdot. Seth was getting ready to implement a new training system.

“So you can see we are leaving some of the suckers low this year. This stuff is all around 20 years old and you are getting older and older wood on the cordon. So to preserve the vineyard and make it healthier longer I’m going to slowly start switching to can pruning, lower that way there are less cuts, less possibility for disease, or at least that’s what they say.”
Seth Kitzke, July 2019

This system keeps fresh wood which encourages sap flow. Vines produce less as they get older. Seth wants to keep these elderly vines as happy as he can. At 20 years old they only do one color pass at veraison. The vines tend to regulate themselves keeping to 3 to 3.5 tons per acre. 3 tons is Seth’s sweet spot for quality.

How to manage Syrah planted East/West

We walk back to the Syrah in the back. This is trained differently. When his parents first put these vines in they were not really thinking from a wine making standpoint. This part of the vineyard is all trained east/west. That sounds crazy to anyone who knows much about planting vineyards. You typically run north/south to get the best of the sunlight. Here with the east/west vines, you get sun on one side of the vine all day. So, what do they do?

“We’ll hang more fruit on the shady side, less on the sun side.”
Seth Kitzke, July 2019

Seth notes that in hot areas in Washington, syrah can get rich, ripe, jammy and high in alcohol. He wants to taste the terroir, not just the fruit. So they pick separately the sunny side and the shady side, with again, more fruit on the shady side. This allows them to really keep the alcohol down. We later tried a syrah in the tasting room that Seth said was picked at 23 brix and came out at 13.3% abv. Still it was phenolically ripe with time to develop without the sugar spiking. Rather than pulling out this vineyard, they found a way to work with it that really works for them.

More to come!

Stick with us. We spent a ton of time talking with Seth out in the front vineyard and then in the tasting room where we tasted through Kitzke wines and Upsidedown Wines and talked about all sorts of interesting stuff. You can read about that here. One thing we spoke about was the Grenache that Seth was getting from the WeatherEye Vineyard up on Red Mountain. More on that soon.

Tasting with Seth Kitzke at Kitzke Cellars Candy Ridge Vineyard Washington — Tasting with Seth Kitzke at Kitzke Cellars

In the meantime, some links…

As always be sure to follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and sign up for our monthly newsletter to keep up to date on all of our posts.

When not traveling they indulge in cooking and pairing wines with food at home in Las Vegas.

Armstrong Family Winery – The Journey to Washington

Mar 18, 2020

We were driving through rolling hills of fields of wheat for as far as the eye could see. This is the Armstrong Family Winery’s Valley Grove Vineyard. It is their home and an oasis in the wheat fields.. You’ve seen it. It’s popular for car commercials these days, and for good reason. It’s spectacular, and eerie. The vastness makes you feel at once both immense in this wide open vista and extremely small.

Armstrong Family Winery Barn at the Valley Grove Vineyard built in 1895 with clouds above — The Historic Barn at the Armstrong Family Winery’s Valley Grove Vineyard

So this is wine country? You wouldn’t guess that from the scenery. We were driving North out of the city of Walla Walla Washington, past the penitentiary and into the open fields of wheat. Finally, we turned and came upon a green patch. Turning in, we crossed the creek to a spot of green with trees, vineyard, a house and cottage and a spectacular historic barn.

We sat with Tim & Jennifer Armstrong on their back patio overlooking the Audrey block of cabernet sauvignon.

Armstrong Family Winery

It started in Chicago

Neither of them were really into wine to start with. It wasn’t part of their lives, even as young adults (I can relate to this personally). When they got married, Tim had a little interest in wine. He had been to New York and someone poured him a glass of Opus One (lucky guy).

Well, this hooked him on Bordeaux wines and soon enough he was spending a good bit on wine and investing in Bordeaux futures! His pragmatic wife Jenifer asked “Hey, do you know what you are doing?” He found an online class from the UC Davis extension that they both took.

They literally would mail DVD’s
Jennifer Armstrong, July 2019

Yep, they are a little dated by this. They sat in their Chicago bungalow learning about wine and Tim realized that this was his calling. He had grown up in Wisconsin surrounded by farms, and while the family didn’t farm he had a propensity for mechanical things. That and his love for wine…he’d found his bliss. Jen was skeptical, but supportive.

A bottle of Merlot

How did they decide on Washington? Here’s the story. It all kind of started with a bottle of Merlot.

So when we were in Chicago, we were buying mostly Bordeaux, getting progressively geekier about those wines and paying a lot of attention to the wine that we were drinking. One day Tim came home with a bottle of Walla Walla Merlot. It was a Walla Walla Vintners bottle.
Jennifer Armstrong, July 2019

They had been thinking about wine making and researched different regions. Virginia & North Carolina, came up since they were near to Jen’s family. They thought about New York with the Finger Lakes region. With Tim in the technology industry, the Bay area was an idea, but that bottle of Walla Walla Merlot….

We tasted it and were kind of blown away. It tasted like the Bordeaux that we had fallen in love with.
Jennifer Armstrong, July 2019

What blew them away? Tim says this bottle was new world fruit with the structure and earthiness they loved about Bordeaux.

It really was striking this balance between old world wines and the California west coast wines that we had gotten to know.
Tim Armstrong, Armstrong Family Winery, July 2019

Armstrong Family Wines start in Woodinville

So now Washington was a viable option for them. They spent a couple years doing research and paying attention to the region. When an opportunity to move to Washington for Tim’s job came up, they made the move. This was the opportunity to be a part of a world class wine region. Something you can’t do in Napa or Sonoma without coming in with a large fortune. In Washington it is still possible to own a small vineyard and make wine, without being a millionaire.

Tim flew to Seattle and a friend told him he needed to check out Woodinville. He was blown away. Here people kept their day jobs and moonlighted as winemakers! It occurred to them that they could pursue this and get started right here.

They moved out in 2010 buying grapes even before the furniture was delivered. They met people at a wine shop and then a brewer/winemaking supplies company who referred them to people in the warehouse district where they bought a couple hundred pounds of grapes.

Immersive education and a fast track to winemaking

Tim arrived on Jennifer’s birthday in October around 7:30 am to pick up the grapes. Well, the grapes were not there. While he waited (until 4 pm) for the grapes he had them put him to work. He had his first experience in a commercial winery that day. Waiting for those grapes, he helped out, cleaning things and shoveling grape must.

The next summer he called John Patterson of Patterson Cellars in Woodinville. Tim told John he wanted to make some wine and work with him. John tried to talk him out of it. He was unsuccessful. In 2011 Tim & Jen contracted 6 tons of grape and made their first vintage. So the 2010 home batch they started…by the time it was ready to bottle, they were bottling it in a commercial winery. Fast tracking for sure.

Tim dove into classes with the WSU extension as well as South Seattle Community College. As the business evolved they signed a lease at the end of 2012 and opened their own space in 2013. 2013 they did their own crush, in their own facility in Woodinville. By 2016 they had 52 tons of grapes in that tiny spot. They had upgraded equipment, but it was just Tim, Jennifer and Jennifer’s Dad doing it all.

They played the winery tetras game, which was more difficult in this area. The Warehouse district tasting rooms were open all day, so you couldn’t utilize outdoor space in the parking lot until late at night. They pulled 10 all nighters that harvest. They determined it was time to make a change.

The Walla Walla spell

They fell for Walla Walla. It’s easy to do. A drive through town will have you enchanted and you won’t ever want to leave. So they didn’t. They found a small vineyard north of town that was for sale and their fate was sealed. With a vineyard, a house, a historic barn, a creek, a guest cottage…it was perfect.

Not that it was easy. The spot was originally out of their budget. They kept their eye on it and eventually the price came down. Sadly it went under contract just before they got to it. Their disappointment only lasted a day, when a friend in the industry told them the contract fell through. They drove up from Seattle immediately and the rest is history.

The Valley Grove Vineyard is 22 acres with 2 blocks of cabernet sauvignon. They had to do some retraining of the 17 year old vines and pulled their first harvest in 2019. They now have 2 tasting rooms, one in Woodinville and one in Walla Walla, and they have plans for the winery they want to build here on site.

Our conversation didn’t end there. Join us as we talk about the history of the vineyard, and their plans for this beautiful spot just outside of Walla Walla.

For More information

Want more information? You can visit their website or read the other pieces we’ve written about them.

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Robin Renken CSW (photo credit RuBen Permel)

When not traveling they indulge in cooking and pairing wines with food at home in Las Vegas.

Sarah Hedges Goedhart on her journey to winemaking and biodynamics

Jan 29, 2020

When we planned our trip to Washington, I was specifically looking for biodynamic vineyards. Biodynamics in wine is a subject I find fascinating and quite honestly, I find I really like speaking to the people who are into this practice. They feel like my kind of people.

These people are passionate, care deeply about the planet, they are detail people who are not looking to cut corners just to make a profit. They believe strongly in doing things the right way.

Choosing Hedges Family Estate on Red Mountain

As I looked at the Red Mountain AVA, I searched for a vineyard that was using biodynamic practices. Hedges Family Estate was the only one that came up, so they were kind of a shoo-in.

I continued to look into the property (and it’s stunning) and came across a video on their site, that was warm and a bit enchanting.

Then I read a bit about Sarah Hedges Goedhart and her approach…and well that pushed it over the edge, I knew I wanted to speak with her.

Red Mountain AVA, I searched for a vineyard using biodynamic practices. Sarah Hedges Goedhart and Hedges Family Estate

Sarah’s journey to winemaking

We spoke with Sarah about the history of the winery. It’s come along way from the days when her father started buying and selling bulk juice. Back then, her 12 year old self had no interest in the business and no desire to live in eastern Washington.

They came every summer from Seattle, where they lived and as she got older, she got into wine. But her true passion was to be a veterinarian. Her father insisted that she get a business degree. She got that degree in San Diego and then went to Santa Barbara to get the pre-reqs for vet school. It was there that she met her husband. Okay…actually they met in high school, but they reconnected in Santa Barbara.

Getting hooked on wine in Santa Barbara

While going to school she got a job as a tasting room manager at the Santa Barbara Winery. Her future husband was working there in production. It was there that she got hooked. They would pick 2nd harvest grapes and make bathtub wine. They had the bug, and were on the journey to start their own winery.

On to Preston in Healdsburg

They ended up in Healdsburg working at Preston, where she learned biodynamics, organics, in addition to breadbaking and olive production. This was about the entire culture of working with the land.

Preston is a kind of magical place. We visited in 2011, I remember feeling like I’d taken a step back in time. This is simple beautiful Americana with home baked breads and olives in the tasting room. This is a farm and an enchanting one at that.

Returning to the Tri-Cities

California is an expensive place to live for two people just starting out and her brother suggested they come work at the family winery. Sarah started out working on the garden and hosting people and a year later became the assistant winemaker to her uncle, when the position opened up.

When she started as assistant winemaker, Hedges was making about 100,000 cases a year. That’s quite a jump from the 8,000 cases she assisted with at Preston.

Biodynamics at Hedges

In 2007 they started the biodynamic conversion. At this point 3 of their vineyards are biodynamic and 2 are organic. Bit by bit they add livestock. Right now they have chickens and a turkey and they want to add sheep. It’s a gradual process and she wants to be sure that they understand and adapt to each part before moving on.

Native ferments

The first wine they tried to make biodynamically was in 2011, with a native ferment. Native ferments can seem simple, just leave the tank alone right? Nope. Since then they have been using the pied du cuvee method. You get a bucket of grapes and get your fermentation started there.

Soothing tunes for the wines

She has also incorporated music in the cellar. She had a white wine that was a little reductive. It seemed to her that the wine was stressed and struggling, so she asked the cellar crew to play mellow spa music. Of course they thought she was a little crazy, but tasting the before and the after…they became believers.

The Goedhart label

The label had been their dream when they lived in California, but with California costs, it was just not possible. In 2005 they moved to the Tri-Cities and started their label with a winery in the basement of the ranch house they were living in. They both had full time winery jobs and would do this in all their free time as a labor of love.

Their focus was Syrah. Not a fruit bomb, but not an old world overly lean wine either.

This wine was to be elegant with a bit of restraint. They ran the label for 6 years. On weekends they would be open for tastings and she would make wood fired breads and panini’s.

Kids, a full time job and running their own winery became too much, so Hedges took over the label. Once the kids are raised, perhaps they will try this again. In the meantime, she can continue to make their Syrah in the style they like here.

Sarah on Syrah

Sarah and I spoke about the Syrah they are growing here. They have the Joseph Phelps clone, which was the first clone available in Washington. This clone tends to be lean with herbal characteristics. Then they have the Tablas clone. This is the clone that Tablas Creek brought over from Chateauneuf-de-Pape.

She describes this clone as “Wild, savage, and fruity”. They do multiple picks over a few weeks, keeping clones and picks separate and then she can blend these to create that elegant style of Syrah that they enjoy best.

We have recently opened up two different Syrah’s from Hedges and both were pretty exceptional. My palate obviously is in line with the style of Syrah that they are making.

Sarah on the reason for biodynamics

I asked Sarah what was most important to her in biodynamics…

Preserving land for the future, for kids, for everybody. I think that’s the one thing on this planet that we’re screwing up and we really need to turn it around. What do we call ourselves? Stewards of the land it’s our responsibility to keep it around.
Sarah Hedges Goedhart, July 2019

The property is beautiful. That is reason enough to come. In addition the wines we tasted here were delicious and their was quite a portfolio of wines to taste. Sarah even brought in a couple of barrel samples for us to taste. The topper here is the people. Sarah was a joy to speak with, her father Tom said a hello as he came through the tasting room.

They had just finished a morning meeting before Sarah came to speak with us. The volume here is high. They do make quite a bit of Columbia Valley wine in addition to the Estate wines that Sarah focuses on, but it’s still a family business. It has that blend of Washington practicality with the elegance of a French Château, blended with the relaxed biodynamic style that Sarah brings.

Panorama of the Hedges Family Estate Tasting Room

Tasting at the Château at Hedge Family Estate on Red Mountain

2017 Biodynamic Syrah Barrel Sample at Hedges Family Estate Red Mountain Yakima Valley Washington

As always be sure to follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and sign up for our monthly newsletter to keep up to date on all of our posts.

When not traveling they indulge in cooking and pairing wines with food at home in Las Vegas.

Hedges Family Estate – Red Mountain Washington – the history

Jan 22, 2020

Hedges Family Estate

I had heard of Red Mountain. It is on the East end of the Yakima Valley AVA in Washington and was all the buzz. I had even heard it called “Washington’s Napa”. I was skeptical, not of the wines, but of the buzz. So on our first trip to Washington for a wine conference in Walla Walla, we focused our extra time elsewhere.

Returning a little less than a year later, we had a little more time to spend and time to research. As we have been focusing on biodynamic vineyards, we looked for one in the Red Mountain AVA, and came across the Hedges Family Estate.

Hedges Family Estate

The history, the beginnings

As I started exploring their site and learning about the Estate and the family I was anxious to see the property and speak with Sarah Hedges Goedhart, the daughter of the owners and their winemaker.

The property is beautiful. Upon arriving you feel as if you have been swept away to a French Château. This is no accident. Sarah’s mother Anne-Marie, is originally from Champagne….but wait….let me tell this story in order.

Tom Hedges & Anne-Marie Liégeois

Sarah’s farther Tom is from the Tri-Cities area. His family arrived in Washington back in 1888, settling first in the Waterville area and farming wheat, then moving to Wenatchee to grow apples. Her grandfather got a job in Hanford, so the family moved to this area.

Sarah’s mother, as I said before is from Champagne. It was at a party in Mexico, that her parent’s met. Her mother, there studying language, her father, studying tequila production, while getting his masters in International Business. 3 months after the party they were engaged, a year later married. It’s a romance that is coming up on 45 years.

The beginnings of the Hedges Brand

They traveled the world with her father, Tom, working in International Produce sales, spending time in South America, North East Canada and finally ending up in Seattle, with Tom looking for a new direction. West Coast wines were becoming a thing, so they started brokering wines, starting with bulk wines internationally, then getting more specific when they started getting requests for Washington wines.

The first Hedges wine was sold to the government of Sweden. 5000 cases blended from the bulk wine they sourced from Washington. It was popular and inexpensive compared to European wines. The 2nd year they doubled their volume and decided to try selling this wine in the states. This is when the Hedges Brand was born. They moved from buying bulk wine to buying grapes.

The decision to build on Red Mountain

Then came a trip to Vin Expo in Bordeaux where they were continually asked where their vineyard was. Her father was confused, but her mother explained. In France you are nothing without land. So then the decision to be made was, build a winery or buy land? Her father went to a High School reunion in 1989 and heard that Red Mountain was going to be big, with the best fruit in the state. So decision made, they bought 40 acres at somewhere around $1,200 an acre, and they got the last private water rights ever granted in the area.

The Château

Hedges Family Estate the garden with the fountain Red Mountain Yakima Valley Washington

Chateau is on Red Mountain in Washington. Hedges Family Estate.

View from the Hedges Family Estate on Red Mountain

In 1995 they broke ground on the Château. This is a place that with it’s attention to detail, transports you to France. Vines line the circular driveway leading up to the Château. You enter through the cobbled walkway shaded by Umbrella Calabra trees, with stone benches and lanterns that you can invision lit at evening. When you reach the entrance you arrive in a courtyard with seating under the trees and a large fountain. The large winery doors beckon, but so does the view of Red Mountain the other direction.

We will continue with our interview with Sarah, discussing the biodynamic practices they have chosen to employ on the estate.

As always be sure to follow us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter to keep up to date on all of our posts.

When not traveling they indulge in cooking and pairing wines with food at home in Las Vegas.

12 Days of Wine Day 10 – Girardet

Dec 22, 2019

If you have tried today’s variety I want to hear about it! This is Baco Noir, a French American hybrid created by Francois Baco from folle blanche (which is a wine grape from France) and a red grape of the vitis riparia species (comes from America, but the exact grape is unknown). This variety is often found on the east coast and chilly North American regions like Ontario and New York.

Baco Noir at Girardet

The vines for this wine came from New York. In the late 60’s Philippe Girardet was bored of rocket science so he and his wife Bonnie headed north in their VW bus. They settled in the Umpqua Valley in Southern Oregon bought some land, built a cabin and decided to plant a vineyard.

Well to plant a vineyard, you need vines. So they headed cross country in the VW bus and picked up vines in New York, among them Baco Noir.

It was 1990 before Girardet did a single varietal bottling of Baco Noir, the first time this had been done. In 2009 it was Matt Kramer hailed as one of Oregon’s best reds in the Oregonian.

We are here to make discoveries, not to follow the beaten path.
Philippe Girardet, Co-Founder Girardet Vineyards and Winery

Girardet Tasting Room in Umpqua Valley in Southern Oregon

Marc Girardet

Marc Girardet was born in 1975, so the vineyard had just recently been planted. He grew up on the vineyard and then in the winery as that was built. He was away for a bit in the Air Force, but the vines called him home. In 1999 he took over the winemaking from his father. It was time for dad to enjoy the fruits of his labors.

The vineyard

We spent an afternoon with Marc, talking on the patio, driving through the vineyard and tasting wine. Marc has planted the back vineyard(Shale Rock Summit) to Italian varieties now including Sangiovese, Barbera and Teroldego. We watched the jackrabbits, talked about the vines, the bush training he was doing and took in the view.

Jackrabbits in the vineyard
Marc & I by the Sangiovese on the Shale Rock Summit Vineyard at Girardet
Ancient Marine Shale
Grapes at Girardet
View from Girardet and the ShaleRock Summit Vineyard

We did a short version of our visit that you can read about here The Scenic Route – Flash Tour 2019 Part 2 – Southern Oregon Applegate and Umpqua Valleys and you can be sure that we will be following up with more in depth information on our visit.

2016 Girardet Baco Noir

The grapes were hand harvested and hand-punched twice a day during fermentation and the resulting wine was aged in small French barrels for 15 months before bottling. 490 cases. Vegan Friendly!
http://girardetwine.orderport.net/product-details/0009/2016-Baco-Noir

This wine sits at 13.4% abv and they note plum, blueberry, black cherry, dark chocolate and cinnamon spice in the tasting notes. It ran $34.00. Yep, sorry, this vintage is sold out, but never fear the 2017 has been released and sounds even more delicious with additional notes of clove, tobacco, cedar, vanilla and caramel. It also runs $34.00

The Tasting

Girardet Baco Noir with aroma inspirations

This wine came with the promise of notes of plum, blueberry, black cherries, dark chocolate and cinnamon spice.

The first thing I got on the nose was brambles and dried herbs, with a backing of that black cherry and then blackberry with spices in the background. It had great acidity (think sour cherry) and lots of red and black fruit on the palate.

The Pairing

Okay…this was a late night tasting. I was soooo hungry at work, and I was craving pasta. I mentioned this to Carlo (a handsome Italian I work with, who is a great cook). He rattled off sauces…bolognese, puttanesca. Both sounded delicious, but I didn’t have the time to make those this evening. Then he said a word I had not heard…amatriciana. What is that? “You chop up bacon and sauté it, but don’t let it get crispy…” (Then he left to do a cue and I was waiting breathlessly for the rest of the recipe!). He returned to tell me to add peeled tomatoes, salt and pepper, maybe a little basil if you have it. So…a late night grocery run on the way home for these simple ingredients and voila!

We also paired with Gouda, bleu cheese and blackberries and a little dessert pairing with brownies. All good choices.

Only 2 more days! Noooo!

Yep…there are just 2 days left in our 12 Days of Wine Celebration. Come back tomorrow…

As always be sure to follow us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter to keep up to date on all of our posts.

12 Days of Wine Day 6 – Armstrong Family Winery

Dec 18, 2019

Today we venture out of the Yakima Valley, sort of….This wine is from Armstrong Family Winery, who are located in Walla Walla. We spent an afternoon with Tim & Jennifer Armstrong at the vineyard this summer (you can read about it here). But, sadly…the fruit from this vineyard, did not go in this wine.

Here’s the deal…

Tim & Jennifer started their wine journey near Seattle with Tim working with a winery in Woodinville. (Well actually they met in Milwaukee and spent time in Chicago before heading to Washington…but Washington is where we get to the good part).

After sourcing grapes, they found a vineyard near Walla Walla (which is where we visited them). They now have a tasting room in both Woodinville as well as Walla Walla and their vineyard has just had it’s first estate harvest! So…you need to get in line for the 2019 Vintage!

Armstrong's Valley Grove Vineyard Barn Walla Walla Washington

Their property is stunning, with the historic barn that now graces many of their labels. The vineyard is 20 years old, and they have been retraining it. I look forward to the vintages that will come from the estate and to seeing their dream of a winery and tasting room on property progress. In the meantime, you can visit by booking the guest house they have on property.

Okay…on to this particular wine.

Armstrong Family Winery 2016 Bogie’s Blend

Where does the name come from?

Bogie, the family dog is a blend of beagle and basset hound. The wine named in his honor is a blend of 55% Syrah & 45% Cabernet from the Columbia Valley. Bogie joined the family 13 years ago as a rescue.

Elephant Mountain Vineyard fruit

Well…I know it says Columbia Valley, but those grapes come very specifically from Elephant Mountain Vineyard, which we visited a while back. This vineyard is super nested. So yes, it is in the Columbia Valley as the label says, it is also within the Yakima Valley AVA (which is in the Columbia Valley AVA) and then it is in the Rattlesnake Hills AVA (which is within the Yakima Valley AVA).

So, when I said we ventured out of the Yakima Valley at the top…well i was only telling part of a truth. Yep, this wine actually comes from fruit from the same AVA as that lovely Côte Bonneville Riesling.

The Tasting

Armstrong Family Winery 2016 Bogie’s Blend with it’s flavor profile

So you may have noticed by now the photos of the wines with their flavor profiles. Well, I only had one bottle of each of these wines, so I referred to tasting notes to find the flavors and pairings ahead of time. For this lovely photo I blended Tim’s notes with a review of this wine and put together a spread of black cherries, tobacco, spice, vanilla, rose petal, lavender, roasted walnuts, coffee, blueberry and anise.

Did I get all that from the wine when I opened it? First I found stewed red berries and spice then florals, yes…dried rose petals and lavender. Then the nose took on those cocoa notes, I thought of chocolate covered dried chukar cherries (which seem appropriate as we are in Washington). The tannins were tingly, not drying and I got a bit of mocha and smoke…and a little cigar tobacco.

This wine sits at a hefty 15.2% abv, but it is surprisingly smooth. This wine runs $42.00. It was the wine we enjoyed sitting on their back patio overlooking the vineyard as we chatted with Tim & Jennifer.

View from the patio at Armstrong — The view while sipping Bogie’s Blend

The Pairing

I did roast some walnuts to pair with this and they were perfect. We made a perfect bite with bleu cheese, honey and rose petal…and then another with the walnut, raspberry jam and a sprinkle of dried lavender…the combinations to delight with this wine are endless.

Armstrong Family Winery Bogie's Blend — Armstrong Family Winery 2016 Bogie’s Blend

Half way there!

I don’t know if that is good or bad. I kinda want this to go on forever! None-the-less we are on to Day 7 tomorrow! See you then!

As always be sure to follow us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter to keep up to date on all of our posts.

Cowhorn – well of course it’s biodynamic…

Nov 22, 2019

If you are familiar with biodynamics, the first thing that will come to mind when you hear the word is often cowhorns. Bill Steele and his wife Barb, run their property biodynamically and own it right up front with their name, Cowhorn Wine.

The truth about those cowhorns

If you are not familiar with biodynamics, one of the most commonly discussed practices involves cowhorns. Cowhorns are filled with manure and buried in the ground, where they perculate over the winter and come out in the spring filled with all sorts of good microbes. This is then made into a solution (Preparation 500) which is sprayed in the vineyard to encourage all those good microbes to flourish in the soils.

Visiting Cowhorn Wines

Last July we had an opportunity to spend the morning with Bill Steele at his biodynamic vineyard in Southern Oregon’s Applegate Valley AVA. Bill walked us through the vineyard. It’s set in a valley and feels like it’s own world. The sound of birds in the trees that surround and dot the property, the buzz of bees as they wake up in the lavender patch, the sound of the water trickling over rocks from the pond…all are enough to make you want to move in and never leave.

The view at Cowhorn in the Applegate Valley of Southern Oregon

The decision to go biodynamic

Bill and his wife Barb were living a homeopathic lifestyle, both of them working in the financial sector. They were ready to make a lifestyle change and get back to the land and found this property. As they explored options for farming techniques for their vineyard, Barb met with some biodynamic farmers in Sonoma. It was more than just the farming techniques, this was a group of like minded people who were open and willing to share. Barb felt they had found friends. These were people who held the same reverence for the earth and they were an inclusive group.

Receiving help and paying it forward

They had help getting started from Brickhouse in the Willamette and from Benzinger in Sonoma. Now as Troon (another vineyard in the Applegate Valley) works toward becoming biodynamic, they can pay it forward, helping as they were helped.

And they were lucky. When they purchase the property it had been untouched for 15 years, so they started their biodynamic vineyard from a relatively clean slate. Troon has a harder road to hoe. Their vineyard had been managed conventionally for a period of time and the journey to biodynamic will take longer, as they restore the vineyard to a semblance of normalcy in soil.

Why Demeter Certification?

I asked Bill about why he felt Demeter Certification was important. I know wineries that are farming in a biodynamic style but have found the certification to be difficult due to time and expense. For him, it is important because as he says “Wine travels”. With his asparagus, it will be sold close by and people can get out and see how he is growing. With wine, if you are sitting on the other coast and want to support biodynamic vineyards by having a bottle in a restaurant, or picking up one at the store, the Demeter certification is the only way you can be sure of what you are getting in the bottle.

Biodynamics in the winery

I had seen on their website that they were certified as a Biodynamic farm & Winery. I don’t often hear about the winery side of biodynamics and asked Bill about this.

There’s over 200 additions that wineries can put into our wines without disclosing. The only one that we can read about is sulfites. So at Cowhorn, as the winemaker I can guarantee you that there are no additives in there….I actually make my own sulfites. What I do is, I take distilled water and pure SO2 gas, and I diffuse the gas through the water to a certain concentration. The reason for that most folks will use something called “potassium metabisulfite”. I don’t really know exactly what’s in it, but what I wanted was the purest wine that I could have. So what’s in my wines is: organic grapes Demeter certified, a little bit of distilled water and a little bit of SO2 gas, and that’s it.
Bill Steel July 2019

The patio at Cowhorn — The Patio and creek at Cowhorn

Why biodynamic?

I asked Bill what the most important thing about biodynamics was to him.

I think the thing that is most important to me is that 365 days a year I can have people on the property. My friends kids, my nieces, my nephews, the dogs, people bring dogs here everyday. There is no hazmat suit here, so it’s a safe environment.
Bill Steele July 2019

Quite honestly, I’ve asked this same question to other biodynamic growers and the answer is the same.

The truth about industrial agriculture

Perhaps we don’t think about the hazmat suits that are so often found in agriculture. We prefer to think of bucolic farms and quite honestly, agriculture prefers that we have that image in our minds. But it’s there. Industrial agriculture, which is probably where your lunch came from is filled with chemicals in fertilizers and pesticides. The people who work these farms pay a price with their health. They typically don’t get paid much and rarely have insurance. There is a reason that these farms use migrant workers. You see photos in ads of beautiful produce on the vine, not the chemical sprayers and then the people doing the backbreaking work of picking and breathing in the chemicals left behind.

So choosing biodynamics, or even organic or sustainable foods and wines, makes a difference. Perhaps for you, the choice is just for your own health. But there is a bigger picture, with many more facets. We will continue to explore these through vineyards and wineries…but it carries over to so much more in our world today.

Visiting Cowhorn

If you want to get out and see this beautiful vineyard for yourself… you will find them in Southern Oregon, outside the city of Jacksonville at 1665 Eastside Road, Jacksonville, OR 97530.

They are open for drop ins from 11-4 Thursday to Sunday. You can also reserve a tour or tasting on their website. https://cowhornwine.com/#visit

For more on Cowhorn Wine check out a couple other pieces we have done.

As always be sure to follow us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter to keep up to date on all of our posts.

The Scenic Route Part 7 – Du Brul to Hiyu

Sep 24, 2019

Our time in Washington was nearing it’s end on our grand tour the Scenic route. Morning had us traveling from Walla Walla west to the Yakima Valley once again to visit with Kerry Shiels of Côte Bonneville. We met her for an interview at their tasting room in Sunnyside.

Côte Bonneville, the scenic route

Driving through the small town of Sunnyside you come upon a quaint restored building that was previously a train station. When Hugh and Kathy Shiels moved to the area, Hugh set up practice as an orthopedic surgeon. The renovated Train Station was his office for many years. It has now become their beautiful tasting room.

Cote Bonneville, Tasting Room Sunnyside Washington, the scenic route 2019 — Cote Bonneville, Tasting Room Sunnyside Washington

Kerry is a wealth of information on the area and the science behind the vineyard and wine making. Kerry has an engineering degree, which she put to use with Fiat in Italy, before returning to get a degree in Viticulture and Enology and then taking over as winemaker. She is smart and intense, a woman who made her way in the male dominated engineering field.

DuBrul Vineyard

We headed to their DuBrul vineyard before things warmed up too much. The drive up to the top was a little sketchy for our Kia hybrid, but we made it. The mountains were both out (Mt Adams and Mt. Ranier) as we reached the top of the vineyard to walk through the vines.

Own rooted vines

We talked about the aspect of this vineyard, which allows them to grow so many varieties well and discussed the difference with own rooted vines.

Cote Bonneville, Dubrul Vineyard Grapevines

“It’s like reading Tolstoy in Russian”.
Kerry Shiels of Côte Bonneville and DuBrul Vineyard

Dubrul Vineyard with Kerry Shiels — DuBrul Vineyard with Kerry Shiels

This is certain to be a topic we hear more about and lamented over as phyloxera has been found in Washington and precautions will need to be taken. I will tell you that I find the difference in the character of the wines from own rooted stock undeniable and wonderful.

You can look forward to hearing much of our conversation in future posts. It was really a fascinating morning.

Co Dinn Cellars

We made a stop to visit Co at his tasting room at Co Dinn Cellars. Co also has a renovated historic building in Sunnyside. His winery and tasting room are in the old Water Works. It’s a gorgeous space.

Co Dinn Cellars Tasting Room Sunnyside WA

Co dinn Cellars Tasting Room in Sunnyside Washington

Co Dinn Cellars Tasting Room in the restored historic waterworks

Co dinn Cellars Tasting Room

Co Dinn in the Winery at Co Dinn Cellars

Co dinn Cellars Tasting Room

He showed us around and took us through a tasting. We also had an amazing conversation on closures…more on that later.

We headed back to the Gorge and through Hood River then off to Hiyu on the Oregon side of the Columbia Gorge AVA.

Hiyu Wine Farm

Go to the website…the water colors will enchant you. I was sucked in immediately and knew that I needed to visit this place.

Hiyu is 30 acres of wine farm. There is a sense of wildness here. Nate Ready, a Master Sommelier and China Tresemer fell in love with the beauty of this region. This place is undeniably stunning, with it’s glorious views of Mt. Hood.

The idea didn’t begin with wine. They really wanted to cultivate a lifestyle. From 7 acres in 2010 it expanded to take in another 20 acres in 2015.

We arrived a bit early, and walked in to see if it was okay if we explored the property. There was a bit of chaos happening, the goats had just escaped and there was some scurrying to round them up.

Community within the staff

The farm has a staff that includes a handful of interns. Duties rotate weekly, so everyone gets to do each of the jobs. This insures that no one takes for granted the job someone else is doing. It has a little 60’s 70’s nostalgia feel to me. A little feel of a hippy commune, and I’m down for that.

Hiyu Farm

Hiyu Vineyard

Phoebe a goat a Hiyu Wine Farm

Hiyu Goats

Hiyu Ducks

Hiyu Farm

Gardens

The garden in front of the tasting room is an edible food forest. You will find Goji berries and rock herbs here seasonally. We headed up the hill to the garden. Wild and overgrown, the things that were complete for the season were taking their natural course, going to seed to prepare for the next season. There are flowers and herbs, annuals and perennials, artichokes, favas and cardoons.

Vineyard

From here we walked the vineyard and then up to the hill where the view of Mt. Hood is simply breath taking. Winter to spring the cows, pigs and chickens wander through the vines, grazing and fertilizing. There is an acre of pear trees left. They have a green house and make compost on site.

Falcon boxes protect the vineyard. And they have grafted field blends. They don’t hedge the vines here, allowing them to be a little more wild, and do just 1 pass with a scythe. Cinnamon is used to prevent powdery mildew.

Livestock & Animals

There are cows and guinea fowl. A 100 year old irrigation ditch feeds the pasture and gardens. We wound down by the pond and visited with the ducks and came around to the goats. Phoebe the matriarch stood on the fender of the horse trailer. They were fiesty, but contained once more.

There are hawthorn trees and over by the house there are currants. I was reminded of days as a child on mountain farms in West Virginia. Life is allowed to thrive and be wild and perhaps a bit messy.

Mt. Hood

The day ended with spectacular views of Mt. Hood. We leave you hear with a bit of spectacular nature.

Beckham Estate Vineyard – The story

Jul 18, 2019

It was early morning of our last day in the Willamette Valley and we drove North from (where we were staying) heading toward the Chehalem Mountains. The road into Portland was moving fast and we came up a hill, with the side of the roads deeply forested. There was our turn. We had to make it fast. And suddenly, from the whirl of fast trucks, we turned and turned again into the quiet of the forests on Chehalem mountain. This is timber country. Deep forests with early morning mist. It was a magical escape from the fast morning pace on the road behind us.

We were running early (it’s in our nature), so we had time to drive and explore the mountain. When you reach the top, you find clearings, fields with houses or sometimes, giant pink painted adirondack chairs, between bunches of Douglas fir. We followed the google maps and ended up on a gravel road at one point, but found our way back around to Beckham which actually sits on Parrett Mountain on the South west end of Chahalem Mountain. We knew we were in the right place before we could read the sign, because of the clay amphorae at the gate.

Discovering Beckham

I came upon Beckham in the usual way, at least for me. When researching where to go in a region, I head to the regions site, in this case the Willamette Valley Wine and one by one, I click through the links and check out the sites for each winery. The Beckham site stopped me as I saw their Amphorae Project video. I read on, and knew that these were people I wanted to meet.

Beckham Vineyard wines 3035 — Tasting with a view at Beckham

Beckham Patio 3089 — Tasting with a view at Beckham

We arrived and met Annedria Beckham who walked us to their tasting room, that sits just down from their home, next to the garden. We met Ruby Tuesday, their dog and Annedria set us up at the picnic table on the patio for a tasting.

She and Andrew bought this property in 2004 to build an art studio. Andrew is a high school art teacher and a ceramics artist. He teaches in Beaverton at the High School. They bought this little house in the woods to grow a garden and raise a family.

Directly across the street there was a little 2.5 acre vineyard. The owners were in their late 70’s early 80’s and had 20 year old pinot noir and chardonnay vines back in 2004. They farmed the fruit and had someone else make the wine for them and then on Saturdays they would sell their $11 pinot noir out of their garage.

… we were there quite often, fell in love with the idea of growing something on our property. Andrew went and helped Fred prune the vineyard that first year, came back with a truck load of Pinot Noir cuttings and said “Hey hun, how ‘bout we plant a couple rows right over here for fun.” I humored him thinking he will get over this crazy notion, we didn’t know anything about growing grapes. Next thing I know we are propagating vines on the coffee table in the living room.
Annedria Beckham, Beckham Estate Vineyard July 2018

As the tale goes, the vines then went to heat mats in the garage and then a timber company was called to see what the 60 year old Douglas Fir on the property was worth. They negotiated and had the company come and cut the timber, but they were left with the stumps, limbs and the mess. They cleaned that up themselves with a rented track hoe and a cat. There were some pretty big bonfires and they have been using the limbs for firewood ever since. Finally, after some grading, the first block was ready to be planted in May of 2005.

Beckham Vineyard panorama 1 — Beckham Estate Vineyard Panorama

They began with own rooted, dry farmed Pommard and Wadenswil. They added on and planted about 2.5 acres the first year and another 1.5 the next. This was a gradual slow process, bit by bit as their budget and time could allow. This is a labor of love, that grew out of a passion. They dove in headfirst into farming.

So once we put our little baby sticks in the ground we had to keep them alive. So when I mentioned dry farming, we hand water about 15 lengths of hose and a few beers and me after work every day, watering just to keep them alive that first year, and then after that they were on their own. Just a little in 2005 and spot watered some stressed areas in 2006 but since then they haven’t seen a hose.
Annedria Beckham, Beckham Estate Vineyard July 2018

At this point they were focused on the farming, so they sold their first tiny batch of fruit to a winery in Dundee in 2007.

But we had those first few babies, we were really excited for and at that point you’ve hand rooted every vine, pounded every post, run every wire, hand hung every cluster and then at that point to give them away to someone else was nearly heartbreaking. But Andrew got to stay and help with crush deliver the fruit and help with processing and then went back every couple of days. He came home and said “I don’t know that I can continue to farm with this much energy and effort and then just hand it off to someone else. I think we should make wine.”
Annedria Beckham, Beckham Estate Vineyard July 2018

They did spend another year selling off fruit, while Andrew apprenticed for a few years with different wineries. In 2009 they kept the fruit to make their own wine. The first year it was 250 cases of one wine. In 2011 they opened the tasting room. At the time it had a roof, but no sides, only one light and no running water.

.. but people came and they got to taste one wine about 5 different times, because that was all I had. And they came back and they bought and they came back and they brought their friends.
Annedria Beckham, Beckham Estate Vineyard July 2018

All this time Andrew was still teaching as well as working for a couple of different winemakers and they now had 3 children. Annedria began working for the Chehalem Mountain Wine Growers Association in 2008. Their executive director went on maternity leave and Annedria was asked to fill in, and the previous director never returned. She found this to be a wonderful way to immerse themselves in the community.

When we speak about Oregon wine country, you always find people speaking about the generosity of the community, with people happy to share their time, resources and knowledge.

To have David Adelsheim on speed dial? How lucky was I to be in that position. It was a wonderful way to learn how winemaking works and making business decisions….hey this first restaurant wants to have our wine, how do I price it? I have no idea? So asking those important questions and having the right people to be able to talk to while Andrew was working in the vineyard and the winery.
Annedria Beckham, Beckham Estate Vineyard July 2018

At this point we tasted the first of the wines. It was the 2015 Estate Pinot Noir, which is a composite wine from the entire site. They make about 300 cases of this. It’s 30% whole cluster with native yeast fermentation.

Growing Organically

They farm organically here and have been farming organically since 2013. They are not certified. It’s expensive and time consuming to become certified, and they are looking into that now. They would need to hire someone just to deal with all the paperwork for this and they are a small operation.

Beckham Vineyard 3197 — Chickens in the vineyard at Beckham

A lot of folks are like “how do we know that you are doing everything organically unless you are certified?” I’m not doing something for someone else, we are small enough that I’m not putting it on my label, we still sell the majority of our wine direct to consumer. You can walk around and see that we farm things organically. I grow for my family. My kids are running around these vines, our chickens are running around these vines. That we are eating the eggs from, we have sheep around the vineyard the majority of the year. We do it for us.
Annedria Beckham, Beckham Estate Vineyard July 2018

Beckham Vineyard Lawn mowing sheep 3216 — The sheep at Beckham Estate Vineyards

They’ve started some biodynamic practices, burying their first 500 cow horns in 2017 with their first sprayings of the solution in 2018.

Annedria poured us the Dow’s 2015 Pinot Noir, which is from Andrew’s favorite couple of barrels from each vintage.

Their first vintage was in 2009 and all they had was the Estate bottling. Of course it’s tough to do a tasting with just one wine, so she asked Andrew how they might make a second wine, and that is how the Dow’s came about.

Beckham Vineyard Dows Pinot noir 2015 3042 — 2015 Dow’s Pinot Noir Beckham Estate Vineyards

Dow is a family middle name in the Beckham family with over 20 Beckham sons carrying the name. In 2011 they added their wine club and Annedria asked how they might get a 3rd release. They only had Pinot Noir, and rosés were just becoming popular again so Andrew made her the Olivia’s Rosé and Sophia’s Pinot Noir. Sophia’s is the first release, elegant and delicate, the Estate follows with more complexity and then the Dow with a little new oak and a darker fruit profile.

This was all of their estate wine until 2013 when they started the Amphorae Project.

We will continue our visit with Annedria and Andrew Beckham with a pod cast speaking with her about the addition of their riesling, their inspiration in the Jura and the Amphorae Project

As always be sure to follow us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter to keep up to date on all of our posts.

Crushed Grape Chronicles

Wine Conferences during a pandemic

Biodynamics in farming

Biodynamic Oregon Wines

Oregon Wine Region Stats

Applegate Valley Stats

Oregon AVAs

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Craig Camp

Winderlea Vineyard in Dundee Hills, Willamette Valley

Michael Renken

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The History of Washington Wine

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Dr. Walter Clore – The Father of Washington Wine

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Ancient Soils and the Peninsula Block

150 acres of wine grape plus…

The Experimental blocks and the wineries they work with

The beginning of Nebbiolo and Syrah at Red Willow Vineyard

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The drought in Australia

Biodynamics and how it helps with drought

An explanation of biodynamics

Soils in Australia and Mudgee

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So where exactly are we?

Candy Mountain AVA( it is now Official)

Details on the proposed AVA

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Cabernet Franc and Caliche soil

The cons of caliche soil

But there are also pros…

Petit Verdot and new training systems

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More to come!

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Armstrong Family Winery

It started in Chicago

A bottle of Merlot

Armstrong Family Wines start in Woodinville

Immersive education and a fast track to winemaking

The Walla Walla spell

For More information

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Choosing Hedges Family Estate on Red Mountain

Sarah’s journey to winemaking

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Soothing tunes for the wines

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Sarah on Syrah

Sarah on the reason for biodynamics

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Hedges Family Estate

Hedges Family Estate

The history, the beginnings

Tom Hedges & Anne-Marie Liégeois

The beginnings of the Hedges Brand

The decision to build on Red Mountain

The Château

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Baco Noir at Girardet

Marc Girardet