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To make a reservation please contact Jeff Knapp at 503-565-2308
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Food and Drink
June 16, 2011
April 21, 2011
July 27, 2010
Carlton's Walk in the Park July 31 and August 1, 2010
I sent an email to a friend recently about Carlton's annual Walk In the Park event. It's a great local weekend in the cute town of Carlton with wine, food, art and old cars. There's hardly anything missing here! www.carltonswalkinthepark.com Don't miss it. And here's the rest of my email about places to stop by over the weekend (many wineries will be featured at the event.) We'll have a 1967 Corvette 427 convertible to show at the event; stop by and say "hi".
Some of my favorite wineries:
ADEA -- Gaston Dean and Ann Fisher; Dean is a pioneer in the area and a character!
Twelve -- new tasting room in McMinnville (but they are out in Gaston as well; open by appointment).
Anderson Family Vineyard, off 240, near Newberg (open by appointment). Lovely owners.
Steep slopes; deep roots. Drop-dead view site.
Winderlea in the Dundee Hills -- another great view from a very "green", interesting building. A first-ever rose' out this year, which is tasty!
Styring Vineyard, Ribbon Ridge Road, Newberg (open by appointment but very flexible). Top of the hill view. Couple from TX and their two kids; family owned and run.
Lenne' Estate in Yamhill - unique proprietors and view; ancient sedimentary soil produces black fruit flavors and rich textures: unusual. I love their smoky 2007 pinot noirs.
Biggies not to be missed: Domaine Serene, Domain Drouhin Oregon (known as DDO around here), Archery Summit
In Carlton at the Carlton Winemakers Studio (an incubator for smaller start-up wineries or limited producers) is probably my most favorite right now: Brittan Vineyards. Robert Brittan made Stag's Leap wine in CA for 16 years, plus time at two other great wineries. He's a 30-year veteran. And he helps Mo Ayoub make his wine, too. Also the winemaker for Winderlea. Mo has 4 acres in Dundee and has very special pinot noir. Tasting Room Manager at the Studio is Jeff Woodard who is warm, approachable and extremely knowledgeable. His sister, he will tell you proudly, makes her wine out of the Studio: Retour Expensive, old vines but new on the market and getting lots of press lately.
Most all of these smaller names are primarily pinot noir producers, but Oregon produces lovely pinot gris, and a good deal of chardonnay (much of it low oaked or no oak). I especially love pinot noir rose' and this time of year and there are lots of choices right now.
Trisaetum Winery on Ribbon Ridge Road near Newberg has a lovely art gallery with deck facing the sun and award-winning Reisling.
Too much fantastic wine; way too little time!
June 18, 2010
Rose' wine tasting, lunch event with modeled fashions!
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It's Time for a "Pink Me Up" on Saturday, August 7, 2010! | |||||
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Last of the total of 48 tickets are available!! No unpaid tickets are being held. Purchase online at: http://abbeyroadfarm.com/agrivino/Aug7.html | |||||
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June 14, 2010
May 8, 2010 Winemaker Dinner with Joe Dobbes
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Lenne' Estate Stop Hit the Spot
[originally posted 4/4/2010] On a recent cold, rainy and windy Saturday I muscled out of my warm and cozy house for a little wine touring. I had the foresight to head out Highway 240 from Newberg toward Yamhill for a stop at Lenne' Estate. One lone car was in the parking lot as I pulled into it on this gray day. Heading into the tasting room, a couple were heading out -- aimed for lunch at Jory at The Allison and hopefully near the fireplace, they said. Winemaker Steve Lutz, the sole person in the tasting room, greeted me and my husband warmly and offered up his $5 pinot tasting. We three sipped, spoke of terroir and bud break and checked out the soil sample prominently displayed. Lenns predominate soil type is peavine, Steve told us, a nutrient poor soil which produces small clusters and berries. The resulting wines have a concentrated mid palate and long finish, with black cherry and mineral components in the nose.
In no time at all the day was warmed and lightened by the tasting of these wonderful offerings and I was glad I'd ventured out. Lenne' Estate are producers of handcrafted, estate grown Oregon Pinot Noir. This Oregon Pinot Noir comes from their small 20.9 acre vineyard near the town of Yamhill, Oregon, in the Yamhill-Carlton District. Their winemaking style is minimalist, taking advantage of the profound flavors produced by this unique Pinot Noir vineyard. Lenne' Estate's first two Pinot Noirs were released under the LeNez label and are sold out. They have released their fourth Pinot Noir under this label, the 2007 LeNez Pinot Noir which is 100% estate fruit. They have also released the 2007 Lenn Estate label, the Karens Pommard Pinot Noir and just sold out of the Jills 115 Pinot Noir under this label. All the wines under the Lenn Estate label represent the best barrels from the vineyard in each vintage. We went home with a 2007 Lenne' Estate label and a newly released 2008 Lenne' Estate Sad Jack 777, which I found to be the most interesting of the offerings. We took the 2007 Lenne' Estate label to dinner that night, meeting friends at the new SubTerra Restaurant in Newberg. www.subterrarestaurant.com (Which was excellent and reasonable.) Lenne' Estate's shallow soil, dense spacing and diverse clones (Pommard, 115, 114, 777 and 667) all lend to the fine wine produced on this beautiful vineyard. The tasting room architecture is French inspired and a joy to behold on the Estate hilltop. Can't wait to come back when the sun is shining; I'll be sitting on the deck and back for some more exceptional pinot noir. www.lenneestate.com
Wacky Wayne Wows
www.abeautifuloregonwinetour.com
503-616-1918
March 20, 2010 Wine-inspired Dinner Announced
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Crazy for "no wood".
[originally posted 12/14/2009] I'm always hunting and sipping to find low oak or no oak Chardonnay. My new personal obession is Chehalem's 2008 INOX Chardonnay. $19 Check out the 'quotes" below; I am only one of many fans. Grab some dungeness crab and this bottle! Fabulous food Chardonnay. From their site:
INOX takes its name from the abbreviation of the French word for stainless steel, inoxydable. The wine was created differently from most Chardonnay you've had. We think we've succeeded in expressing the crisp, steely, and fruit-rich side that we love about some Old-World Chardonnays. What makes this possible is the use of exclusively Dijon clones, exceptionally well suited to Oregon's cool climate and exhibiting a richness that does not depend on oak. Entirely tank fermented, without malolactic fermentation or lees contact, INOX screams of the hallmarks of a cool climate-brightness, pinpoint fruit, and explosive aromas and flavors. We intend INOX for a full range of use, from hot weather chilling to elegant dinner complements.
The Vineyards
Fruit comes primarily from our Estate Vineyards, predominantly Stoller, with a measure of Corral Creek. Dijon clones 76, 95, and 96 are fermented together for a fully complemented wine. The estate vineyards are planted on two different soil types: Stoller on Jory and Corral Creek on Laurelwood. In 2008, we also bought Dijon fruit from some of our Willamette Valley neighbors: Gran Moraine, Banks, Temperance Hill, Thistle, Elvenglade, Willamette Valley Vineyards, Roserock, and Willakia.
The Vintage
The 2008 vintage saw one of the coolest growing seasons on record, with 1,976 degree-days of heat during the growing season, versus the average for the last twelve years of 2,212 degree-days, and second only to 1,968 degree-days in 1999. This vintage resembles 1999 in the counterintuitive ripeness of the crop we finally harvested, and both vintages showed very good acid levels and excellent, full ripeness at lower sugars. Look for both whites and reds to excel this year, with very agreeable wines, rich and complex from release to old age. Lower croploads, almost half-crop in nature, also similar to 1999, brought some of this richness, with harvest dates that were two-plus weeks later than average but not experiencing significant rainfall.
Lovely white fruits, flowers, and spice, locked in a lushly rich Chardonnay, this INOX continues the long-lived, perfectly balanced food wine weve made now for seven vintages. There is jasmine, pear, mineral oil, kiwi, lime, vanilla, pineapple, fruit candies, and stone, suspended by a tension of ginger, minerality, and acid. The wine is both brightly acid-driven and richly emollient, finishing dry and bracing.
Quotes
Wine Enthusiast, December 2009, Paul Gregutt: 90. INOX is Chehalem's unoaked Chardonnay, and Chardonnay doesn't get any more transparently fresh. Flavors of flower water, mineral, kiwi, lime, fennel and bracing minerality deliver pure pleasure. A great food wine.
Portland Monthly, September 2009, Oregon's 50 Best Wines, Cond Cox: #41. Firm green-apple acidity and not a whiff of oak. Virgin Chardonnay.
Wine Advocate, August 2009, Jay Miller: 88. Baking spice and apple aromas, a dry, crisp, vibrant mid-palate, good balance, and a lengthy, refreshing finish.
Unoakedchardonnay.com: Delicious! Sometimes a smooth unoaked is just the right thing for the moment. Sometimes it's a crispy unoaked that hits the spot. As presented in 2007, this vintage continues to have zing. Refreshing. A definite fruit presence, but not sugary-sweet. It's just right... we know by the labels that the makers view their product as a work of art. We agree: it's lovely.
Paulgregutt.com, August 25, 2009, Paul Gregutt: Chardonnay doesnt get any more transparently fresh. Flavors of flower water, mineral, kiwi, lime, fennel and bracing minerality deliver pure pleasure. A great food wine.
NPR (National Public Radio), June 13, 2009, The Splendid Table featuring Ray Isle: One of my favorites and one of the ones that started this trend in the US toward unoaked chardonnay...lovely sort of spicy melon-pear flavors and what I think of as a tongue-tingling texture. It really brings your tongue to live instead of sitting on it like an elephant. One of the models of the form. It's a really wonderful wine. To listen...
Wine Review Online, June 23, 2009, Thinking Outside the Barrel, Robert Whitley: I had to go to Oregon's Willamette Valley to find an example of oak-free New World Chardonnay that satisfied the Chablis craving within me. Chehalem's 2008 INOX is made from estate vineyards that were planted a few years back to the Dijon clone of Chardonnay, which is well-suited for cool-climate Chardonnay production. From the first sip I knew this was the Hold Grail of un-oaked New World Chardonny...
New York Times, July 29, 2009, Eric Asimov: Chardonnay producers have already been moving away from overt oakiness for several years. I expect to see even more chardonnays using no-oak marketing terms like naked, virgin, inox, metallico and the more plain-spoken unoaked.