Lenné Estate

Living the Dream, Vol. 2

Memorial Day weekend is always a big weekend in the Northern Willamette Valley and I am starting to think, an omen at Lenné.  Last year, I  was buying banquet tables the week before Memorial Day when I got the call. It was a friend who was doing some mowing for me and turned a corner and said he lost tension on the clutch. No problem I thought, must be a cable, after all, my little blue baby, otherwise known as a 60 hp New Holland TN75V, only had about 800 hours on it. Tractors are build like brick sh*#+t houses, or so the theory goes. And I had come to depend and trust, dare I say develop a real affection for that tractor. We had spent a lot of time together. That is me and baby blue in better times. 

That week, I had plenty to do to get ready for our first Memorial Day back in 2007. But when you are living the dream, sometimes the dream isn't like you dream about it. Over the next couple of days I spent about 14 hours under that tractor in the middle of the vineyard trying to install a new clutch cable and restore the tension.  But the only thing that was getting tenser was me and I finally had to  come to grips with the truch; my tractor done me wrong.

Well about a month and $4500 dollars later I licked my wounds and started rebuilding trust with baby blue. I still wonder about her at times, but so far so good. You wouldn't think a clutch would go out with so few hours, but stuff happens when you are living the dream.

This year was all different. We had a big tasting with our club members on a 95 degree day a week before the Memorial Day weekend. I released the 2006 Lenné Estate "Karen's Pommard" Pinot Noir. The wine represents our two best barrels from the 2006 Vintage and puts the o in opulent. You hear people say about wines, "oh it's a food wine." Well, I know what they mean and this is not a wine you would say that about. It is rich, textured and makes a lasting impression and judging by the sales that day, people agreed with me.

But I digress. A couple days before the big weekend I was feeling good, realizing I had already done much of the preparation for the Memorial Day weekend. On Thursday I decided to weed the landscape at the tasting room and give it a little bit of water. About noon, I noticed the water pressure starting to weaken. I jumped in my truck and drove up to the cistern at the top of the vineyard. Sure enough it was nearly dry. Back to the pump house to see what the problem was. Everything seemed okay, but didn't look like we had power.

Fortunately, I got a hold of my pump guy. When you own a piece of rural property, you have to have a pump guy. As luck would have it, he was in the area and stopped in a couple hours later. Yep no power, that was the problem. You also get to know a good electrician and fortunately, the guys who worked on the building initially were able to come out the following morning. That was good news considering I had a partner and his wife who were staying at the tasting room Friday night and probably would like a shower and the use of a toilet, not to mention the people over the weekend who might need the same relief.

But Friday morning, the electrician couldn't locate the break in the huge 4 0tt cable that stretched some 500 feet through the vineyard. I knew where the cable was as I trenched and buried it back in 2004, but the location of the problem was going to take some additional instruments. The electricians left and by noon on Friday I was a little panicky about the lack of toilets all weekend, but figured I could wire a generator into the pump house. I rented a generator and with a little help on the phone from the electrician, wired it all up and got water flowing to the cistern. Later that afternoon, I was feeling pretty damn smug,  realizing that I had reacted on the fly and learned how to wire in a generator and save the day, or at least the weekend.

About five on Friday I was waiting for my partner and his wife to arrive and turned on the faucet,-nothing. Up to the pump house again and I realized that the water was flowing into the cistern, but the immersible pump in the cistern wasn't bringing it out and down to the tasting room. I double, triple checked my wiring, called the pump guy who was probably halfway to Montana by now, being it was now six the Friday before Memorial Day, and when I got his answering machine, I did start to panic even more.

My partner and his wife finally arrived and we stared at it for a while until I finally decided to call it a night and left at around eight. I rigged up 50 gallons of water and a bucket so my partner and his wife could at least flush the toilets. I drove home wondering what the hell I was going to do the next day.

You always hate to get a guy out of bed at 6:45 am on the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend, but I thank my lucky stars the pump guy who's name is Phil, answered the phone, a little groggy, but answered nonetheless. By 9 he was at the vineyard installing a new panel for the sump pump which had probably fried in a power surge when the power went or when we got it back on. At eleven that morning, water came flowing down the hill and ten minutes later our first customers came in and happily used the toilet. My partner and his wife even got to get a shower in later that day.

I guess small miracles, a little luck and a good pump guy are all big when you are living the dream.

Coming up for air

Sometimes blogging is like when a tree falls in the forest and you wonder if it makes a sound if no one is there to hear it. It even makes less of a sound when you skip say, three or four months between post. My bad. An excuse, well here it is. We opened the tasting room for good at the beginning of April of this year. But it is really just being finished and we are doing most of the work. The good news is that it is a beautiful place and we are open from Thursday through Sunday so you can enjoy it too.

Aside from Pinot Noir, we also taste some of our friends wine. At the moment we are tasting th e 2006 J. Christopher Sauvignon Blanc from Croft Vineyard. Each time I drink this wine I think that it should be planted all over the northern Willamette Valley. This is one of the best Sauvignon Blancs made in America. The lime, stone fruit and mineral components of this wine keep me drinking as much as I am selling. I don't really even like Sauvignon Blanc.

Sangiovese is another variety that isn't at the top of my list, but somehow David O'Reilly pulled off one of the best I have ever had. David owns Owen Roe and just makes delicious and sometimes profound wines. His recent release of the Dubrul Merlot was one of two wines that really made my palate stand up and take notice.

Both the J. Christopher Sauvignon Blanc and the Owen Roe Sangiovese are on the tasting list for the next week or two. We hope you will come up and spend some time out on the deck enjoying the view and even better, the wines.   

why vineyards are murder on blogs

A vineyard has a strange way of grabbing hold of you at the end of March and not letting you come up for air until the beginning of August. When you add a new tasting room on top of it, things can get pretty interesting.  It seemed like I blinked and and the blog went missing for several months.

In March, we had bud break and the game was on. I detailed some of my exploits with the tractor in an earlier blog. When bud break happens, spraying for powdery mildew begins. Fortunately, it has never been a problem in our vineyard except for two rows this year which I had a difficult time spraying until May because of construction debris.  But there is more than spraying that occurs in a vineyard and plenty of time to take it all in on the seat of a tractor. The spring growth has to be disked, mowed or cultivated or it will consume your vineyard. Weeds have a way of taking things over in Oregon, just look at any old abandoned barn .....if you can still see it through the blackberry brambles.

But the gods smiled on us so far this year. Although I follow the weather religiously, I actually do a little praying in June and in the fall. In 2004 and 2005 we had a disastrous fruit set. The warm sites , and Lenné is definitely a warm site, bloomed early and then it rained. The rain knocks the flowers off and they never have a chance to pollinate and form fruit. It just so happened that 2004 and 2005 were our first years of fruit. In 2004 I had hoped we would get 10 tons off of 10 acres, we got 5. In 2005, I was hoping for 16 tons off of 10 acres, we got 5.

Thankfully in 2006 we anticipate our normal tonnage of close to 2 tons per acre, or more importantly about two pounds per plant. Because vineyards are planted with different densitys, it is more pertinent to talk about pounds per plant versus tons per acre. At Lenné our vineyard is planted densly with nearly 2100 vines per acre. Many of the vineyards in Yamhill are closer to 1500 vines per acre and some of the older ones at about 1000 vines per acre. You can see that 2 tons per acre in a less dense vineyard, means more fruit per plant.

It is true that low yields produce great wine, but consistent yields like those in 2004 and 2005 that would just make for an early grave or a divorce for yours truly. The fact is the farming costs in 2005 were almost as high as the revenue will be from the finished wine. You might ask why we do it, but you would have to experience the wine to know why. The first wine from our estate vineyard will be available shortly. Unfortunately, the quantities are so small, most of it will be sold directly at the tasting room. If you want to experience the wine, you will have to come or call. The wine will be called LeNez(the nose in French pronounced..Le Nay, just like Lenné). There will be more information about the wine here and on the web site as soon as it is available.

In a normal year, if we weren't building a tasting room, I would get a chance to breath a little now. But plenty remains to get done if we are going to open this amazing place for you to see. But I promise I won't be a stranger, I don't want to keep this beautiful place to myself.

Is Oregon wine too expensive?

Oregon wine is too expensive, at least that was the perception I got while sitting in my lawyers office. I think he was referring to Pinot Noir specifically.  I had the feeling he still enjoyed Oregon wine despite the price, however. I know his perception echos that of the average consumer in Oregon.  Those same consumers have an entirely different perception about California wine, they see it as a good value compared to Oregon. And it is. What about wine from the Napa Valley you ask? Well these same Oregon consumers probably never drink it because it really appeals to a niche market made up of wine lovers, collectors, business people on an expense account...the same people who buy Oregon Pinot Noir.  In fact most of the people who buy good Oregon Pinot Noir are just like me, people who pay the $40 dollars for something special to compliment the Saturday evening meal, but are looking for $12 dollar wines on Wednesday.

The problem is that Oregonians have grown up with Oregon wine and remember the eighties when a bottle of Pinot Noir was well under $20. What they don't remember is the taste. The wines in the seventies and eighties often came from vineyards that were entirely over cropped and in a marginal year the wine was thin. Even in the good years many wines never realized their potential because most sites could never ripen the amount of fruit left hanging. The winemaking was different as well with many wineries handling Pinot Noir with equipment better suited for Cabernet. Today, some of the world's best wine is being made in Oregon but it comes at a price and in low volumes because of the climate and the grape variety that is suited for it: Pinot Noir.

Oregon really is a marginal place to ripen grapes. Let me be more specific and say the northern part of the Willamette Valley is a hard place to ripen grapes. Reminds me of another hard place to ripen grapes: Burgundy. The fact is that the best Pinot Noir in the world grows in marginal climates. The nuances of Pinot Noir only reveal themselves with extended hang time. But it is a double edged sword, you can't let too many grapes hang in cool climates. Instead you have to drop some of the fruit so the plant uses its energy to perfectly ripen a little fruit before the fall rains finally come for good. In marginal climates, too much fruit produces thin, overly acidic wines; there just isn't enough sun to ripen copious amounts of fruit in Oregon.  The northern part of the Willamette Valley will never be able to compete on a volume basis with the other warmer winegrowing areas of the world.

Fortunately for people who appreciate great wine in the world, the market for fine wine increased dramatically in the 80's and 90's and most Oregon producers moved away from producing volume, substituting quality instead. With the increase in the fine wine market, vintners could afford to make significant changes in the vineyard and not lose their shirt on the shelf. Wine technology also progressed along with the knowledge of how to apply it in Oregon. Everything changed. Now, Pinot Noir comes from vineyards that are at significantly lower yields than those twenty years ago. In fact, on a per acre basis, Yamhill County Pinot Noir comes from some of the lowest yield vineyards in the world.

The other thing that changed in Oregon was a new generation of winemakers and grape growers who built on the wine and farming knowledge of their predecessors, refined it and tapped into that expanded market for fine wine. They started severely limiting the yields in vineyards and employing more handcrafted techniques for making Pinot Noir including the use of gravity processing. All these changes were expensive and only became reality because of the changing market place. A bottle of Oregon Pinot Noir comes from a vineyard yielding 2 tons per acre versus the 5 tons and above per acre typical in California.  A high end Oregon Pinot Noir may come from even lower yields. Our Lenné Pinot Noir from 2004 and 2005 come from yields well below a ton per acre because of the poor fruit set and the wine is dramatic because of it.

Good wine just doesn't come cheap in Oregon. While land is very expensive in the Napa Valley, farming an acre of high end Oregon Pinot Noir requires more hand labor and higher costs than farming the same acre of Cabernet in Napa. The winemaking is more expensive as well as the wine is made in much smaller lots and has to be handled more by people versus machines. But that's why Oregon wine is so compelling, few other places, notably Burgundy, perhaps Piedmont, depends on humans for its product and legacy.

Oregon Pinot Noir is a niche market, just like Napa Valley Cabernet is a niche market. As I told my lawyer, I don't drink Oregon Pinot Noir every night, I search for the $10 dollar Spanish, French, Washington....and yes on occasion California wine to match my Tuesday evening meal. But no wine comes close to the excitement and satisfaction I get from good Pinot Noir. There is just something ethereal about the stuff which won't grab you like the big wines you are used to. When it does take hold, your palate will change, your perception will change of what great wine is about. It won't happen to everyone, Pinotphiles like me probably wouldn't like that anyway, but I hope it happens to you, that you know one of life's great pleasures.

Pinotphile

It wasn't long ago that I was drinking high-end Pinots on a daily basis. That is one of the advantages of working for a quality wine producer in Oregon- you get exposed to wines you normally can't afford to drink every night. The quality of the wine is an important aspect for employees of Oregon producers and the glue that holds many of them to a producer. Lets face it, jobs in the Oregon wine industry don't pay much and smart employers keep their staff happy with generous discounts on the wines their employees help produce and market.

But when you leave a producer you are thrown on the street to sort through the world of retail wine looking for that ten dollar gem. What amazes you is how many palatable wines there are today in the lower price range. What doesn't surprise you is how few wines in the lower price range, while palatable, can really hold your interest with layers of flavor. Creating those layers of flavor isn't cheap. For Pinot Noir producer it means farming intensely with the right techniques and lower yields. Ironically, it takes more labor to get to lower yields and there is no other variety that is as yield sensitive as Pinot Noir. It just doesn't produce interesting wine with higher yields.

Knowing the intense farming practices that go into Oregon Pinot Noir is just one more reason to admire the dedicated producers here. The other reason is the wine in the bottle. After not having had an Oregon Pinot Noir in nearly two weeks, I recently opened a bottle from a small producer called Carabella. The 2002 Pinot Noir(sold out now) was a good example of why I started chasing this variety in the first place. The quality of the vineyard was evident in the wine. The wine was dark and brooding and expressive at the same time with a silky mouth-feel t. And the wine had what all good Pinot Noirs have, mouth-watering, but not mouth-puckering acidity and a long finish. It was a wine to sit with, enjoy, think about Pinot Noir and renew a palate dulled by the Spanish, French and California bargains I have been drinking daily.

It turns out that Carabella is the dream child of Mike and Cara Hallock. What is impressive about the wine is the same thing that stands out about any quality wine, the site and the people behind it. The 49 acre site was planted in 1996 after a ten year search by the Hallocks. They settled into a site of mixed volcanic soils about 40 minutes Southeast of Portland. Aside from Pinot Noir, the site is planted to Pinot Gris and Chardonnay. After trying the Carabella Chardonnay it is clear that they are one of the leading producers of high-end Chardonnay in Oregon. Many people started pulling out Chardonnay at about the same time the Hallocks were planting this variety. Most people had the wrong clone, but the Hallocks planted after new clones became available and today they have two blocks planted of the Dijon76 clone planted at Carabella Vineyard.

Carabella's story is unique, just like most other Oregon producers. This is one of the few places where you are drinking an expression of individuals more so than of an entity. It was the Hallock's passion, intelligence and perseverance that you taste in their wine and their understanding that the starting point for a great wine is a great vineyard. Luckily for me the ending point was in my glass, making me think about Pinot Noir and why I chase this elusive variety.

Probably the best place to find Carabella's wines is go to the source. Rumor has it that their website is in the process of being updated which will include ordering direct if you are in a shippable state. For now you can get contact information directly from their website and download an order form. www.carabellawine.com