it is just grapejuice

Andrew Will winery is located on Vashon Island, Washington.   It has a population that is about 11,000.  Two of these 11,000 people make some of the greatest wines in Washington state. 

Notice the winery in the back left corner. 

The adventures into Oregon wine country are in full swing!  We, 8 of us, are staying at the Domaine Serene “bunk house”.  It is almost like a wine reality TV show.  You know the drill- put 8 people from across the country who are strangers add alcohol and see what happens.  As it turns out, all of us are getting along like pees and carrots! I secretly keep waiting for Puck to show up (:

So far the wines of the trip have indeed  been from Domaine Serene.  Upon arrival on Saturday afternoon we went to a chardonnay tasting that featured 18 Oregon producers. My favorite was far and away a 3 Liter of 2000 Cote Sud that was being poured by wine maker Tony Rynders.   After the chardonnay tasting we headed up to our accomodations and then to the Ponzi wine Bar for a reception.  It was great to to see all 275 campers in one place….post reception we headed to Ken and Grace Evenstad’s house that is located high in the hills of Dundee.  We had a wonderful dinner and vertical, out of magnum, of ’93, ‘95, ‘98, 2000 and ‘02 Evenstad reserve. 

 Yesterday began with a school bus ride to a brief introduction into Pinot Camp and then on to Montinore winery where we tasted through 3 flights of white wine from across the Willamette valley.  The flights featured Chardonnay, Pinot Gris and then a miscellaneous white flight that featured pinot blancs, rieslings and gewurztraminer.  We ate a wonderful lunch and then back on bus for a trip to Elk Cove Winery.

The workshops at Elk Cove focused on viticulture- one of my favorite topics.  I feel most at home in a vineyard…post discussions on many aspects of wine growing we headed back to Domaine Serene for a dinner and tasting under the stars.  There were all kinds of wines flowing…some highlights included a ‘92 St. Innocent ‘Freedom Hill’ Vineyard and a ’98 Penner Ash.  Life is good.

Who knows what pinot noir life will bring today…all I can say is that drinking Oregon Pinot Noir makes me want to sing “kumbyya”  

Mikey P, brother and fellow winemaker, will be in town on July 10th for a very special tasting at (L).  Mike will moderate a tasting of the legendary ‘06 vintage (particularly in Central Coast) of Pinot Noir.  He will be showing 2 wines from P2, 2 from Palli and 2 from Loring Wine Company.  I was in idyllic Lompoc this spring and the ’06’s from all 3 of these wineries are showing great already.  Please leave a comment if you would like to attend this extremely rare opportunity.

“Some people are in the inheritance business, I’m in the borrowing business.  Some people farm because they inherited the land, I’m just borrowing it from my children”

Eben Sadie, Sadie Family Vineyards, Paarl,  South Africa

“The scope of the subject of wine is never ending, [as indeed,] so many other subjects lie within its boundaries. Without geography and topography it is incomprehensible; without history it is colorless; without taste it is meaningless; without travel it remains unreal. It embraces botany, chemistry, agriculture, carpentry, economics – any number of sciences whose names I do not even know. It leads you up paths of knowledge and by-ways of experience you would never glimpse without it.”