Why is Pinot Noir So Expensive?

That's a Pinot Noir cluster to the left. Let's start with the grapes. The pine cone shaped clusters (that's where the grape gets it's name--pinot means pine cone) are incredibly dense--the grapes are packed closely together. This makes the clusters vulnerable to mold and mildew. If you've ever been in the Willamette Valley in the fall you know how beautiful it can be. You also know that it can start raining in October and let up sometime in mid to late June. The grower and wine maker are always walking a fine line of wanting to let the grapes ripen properly, and getting them in before bad weather sets in. In addition to being closely packed together, the grapes are extremely thin skinned. That means they will dry up if the weather gets too hot, they will be adversely effected if the weather is too cold. The grapes like to be nice and warm during the day, and to cool off at night. That's one of the reasons they grow so well here. We have this huge air conditioning unit called the Van Duzer Corridor that delivers cool, moist marine air to the the valley all summer long.

In addition to the grape being thin skinned and vulnerable they also require huge amounts of hard labor. They can be trimmed and thinned four or more times before harvest. I've seen up to a third of a crop laying on the ground a few short weeks before harvest. Wine makers sometimes take this step to help the remaining grapes either mature more quickly, or to concentrate the flavors of the remaining grapes. Not many clusters are left on the plant in the first place. Several are removed by hand shortly after the fruit sets up. The vines are severely pruned back in the dark of winter. Grapes are related to ivy, and if they weren't trimmed they would produce only vines and little fruit. When the fruit has set in late spring, early summer, the canopy is trimmed back to provide optimum growing conditions for the remaining grape clusters. The grower wants the grapes to get adequate sun light (but not too much) good air movement (to keep the grapes from molding) and just the right amount of fruit to maximize flavor.

All of the grapes in the vineyards I've visited
have been harvested by hand. Ideally the harvest takes place early in the morning. Each cluster carefully cut and gently set into a holding container. The harvest hands literally run with the full buckets to the end of the rows and set them in larger containers to take to the winery. Once at the winery every cluster is inspected
and gone through (again by hand, no machines
to help the process along.) The clusters in the
photo above are being sorted by the workers
at Maysara Winery. All that work and we
haven't even started the wine making process
yet. The grapes are separated from the stems
by a machine that delicately removes the grapes with a minimum amount of damage. The machines are expensive. Now the grapes are placed in some kind of container to ferment. Some wine makers add yeast to the mix, others just let nature take it's course and used the yeast that is already present on the grapes themselves.
There is one more huge expense of making good Pinot Noir--new French oak barrels. The barrels cost around $1,200 each. The average barrel holds about 25 cases worth of wine, so just the oak alone amounts to about $4 per bottle. Each barrel releases about 60% of its flavor the first year it is used, about 3o% the second year, and about 10% the third year. After that the barrels are flavor neutral and will not make a significant difference in the flavor of the wine. Wine makers use different combinations of new and old barrels in their wines. Some use only neutral oak (such as Eyrie Vineyards here in McMinnville) others use all new French oak barrels while most use some combination of the two. If you are purchasing a Pinot Noir for less than $20 in many cases they've skipped the oak barrels all together. One way to save money is to make the wine in stainless steel containers, and add oak chips to the mix. Willamette Valley Vineyards has a Pinot Noir called "Whole Cluster" where they do not separate the grapes from the clusters, but put it all together into a stainless steel container with no oak added. There are exceptions to this rule. Our shop carries several amazingly good value Pinot Noirs. Maysara makes a second label called 3 Degrees (named after the Momtzie's three beautiful daughters), Stangeland Vineyards has a great '07 Willamette Valley Pinot for under $20. Owen Roe Winery
creates the beautiful Sharecropper's Pinot Noir which sells for right around $20. The grape cluster at the top of the page was photographed at Coeur de Terre Winery in the McMinnville AVA. Scott and Lisa Neal the owners have painstakingly hand grafted the vines on their property and then planted then all by hand. In a bad economy they decided to make a bargain Pinot for $20. We have a hard time keeping it in the shop. I know from personal conversations that they are losing money on the wine. That is the reality of a bad economy. Bad news for the vineyard owners and wine makers. Very good news for you. (And it goes great with turkey.)

Eola Hills AVA

What's an AVA? It is an officially recognized geographical area that grows wine. They are administered by a federal bureaucracy, so the rules get a bit strange. First of all there are big AVA's and then they can be further divided in to sub zones of that larger one. All of the vineyards around where I live (and all the way south to Eugene) are in the Willamette Valley AVA. There is a very small sub AVA just west of here now called the McMinnville AVA, even though the city limits of McMinnville are not a part of it. They wanted to be called the McMinnville Foothills AVA, but the federal government did not feel that the word "foothills" was a legitimat descriptor of an AVA. Weird. So, now we have wineries in the city of McMinnville that are not a part of the McMinnville AVA. It gets confusing. Great wine comes from both the city and the AVA.

Last weekend my mother was visiting us, so we went wine tasting. I really like the Eola-Amity Hills AVA for wine tasting. There is something special about the land and the climate that makes for some wonderful wines. The better known wineries are: St Innocent Winery, Bethel Heights, Witness Tree, and Cristom. If you'd like a nice day tour, these wineries have great selections, are open most weekdays and weekends and are fairly easy to find from the highway. Keeping in mind that I like to find value wines of good quality, my two favorites are St. Innocent and Witness Tree. Mark Vlossak, at St. Innocent, is one of my favorite wine makers. He crafts some of the best Pinot Noir in the world (not according to me, but according to a major french wine magazine) and you can buy a bottle for around $20! That's amazing to me.

On this particular weekend we visited some vineyards in the west Salem area. My favorite was Stangeland Vineyard. We got a chance to sit down and talk with owner/winemaker, Larry D. Miller. I love it when you visit a winery and a get a chance to talk to the people who actually own it and run it. Making wine is a labor intensive business and I understand how it is almost impossible to have the wine maker present to talk with folks when they drop by for a tasting. That's what makes it a treat to meet someone like Larry who runs the tasting room and loves to talk with folks about his wines.

He started his vineyard on the current sight while it still was owned by his parents. Larry had been running a wine shop in Salem and had been purchasing wine from David Lett. He asked Lett what he thought about planting a vineyard in west Salem. Lett thought it was a great idea and did what he often did--provided help to a struggling vineyard start up. He also provided cuttings from his vineyard to get Larry started. Those vines are now over 25 years old and they are producing beautiful, complex, lively Pinot Noir.
Larry is also one of the few winemakers/vineyard owners I've met who is willing to admit that the ecconomy is not doing well. He placed some of his reserve wines on sale this summer for almost half of what they would normally sell for. He also admits that 2007 was a difficult vintage. Instead of making several levels of wine in 2007 he simply blended them together in a cuvee. The '07 Pinot Noir features a beautiful photo of Mount Hood on the label. It sells for $17! That's an amazing value for wine this good. We now carry it in our shop. We love to find values like this. It's difficult to find an Oregon Pinot Noir for $20 or less, so we're excited when we find one, especially when the wine is as good as this is.
If you are planning a Thanksgiving trip to wine country you might want to consider this AVA for your trip. If you are traveling here from out of the area take my advice and stay in Salem. Avoid Dundee at all costs, as it has a tendency to turn into a giant parking lot. Better yet, avoid Thanksgiving all together and make a trip down some other weekend. These Eola-Amity Hills wineries would make a great day of wine tasting. If you are down for Thanksgiving weekend, stop by the shop and say hello. We'll be tasting wines from Sol et Soleil winery here in McMinnville at Wednesday Wines. We'd love to see you.

Chinatown in McMinnville Underground

Our church youth group was treated to a special tour of what was at one point the Chinatown of McMinnville. It sits under a few of the store fronts on Third Street. Our host was Matt Worrix who owns the building. When he purchased it he said that he found a few strange things in the basement. Many of the boards had Chinese writing on them. Matt has restored the area to what he imagines it was like when the Chinese community lived down there.

Before they could live there, a huge amount of work was required. They had to hand dig out the entire basement of the building. You can still see the marks where the shovels carved out part of the structure.

It was especially fun to tour the labyrinthine maze a few days before Halloween. Of course the whole tour I'm thinking, "Man, this would make an amazing wine cellar." But that's just me. The underground dwellings date back to a time when we were exploiting cheap Chinese labor in this country (yeah, way back in the day.) The Chinese labor force was building our infrastructure and cleaning up our messes, but they couldn't legally be seen in public during daylight hours. Thus the need for underground shelter.

There is something really fun about having a youth group tour a spooky underground dwelling and then having the tour guide tell them that there is a human skull in one of the side rooms. It's also fun to see the kids laying down on one of the cots and try out an opium pipe. Very educational. For example did you know that when you are smoking opium you absolutely can not lay down on your back? You might forget to swallow and drown in your own saliva. What great things there are to learn just outside my front door. There are rumours that some pretty amazing parties have taken place down in that basement, but that's just rumours. Several people on the tour mentioned that they'd done a similar tour in Pendleton and that the underground dwelling there is several blocks long.

Willamette Valley Wine Tours

We've gotten our latest venture off the ground, thanks to the artistic talents of Matt Meier. Matt is good friends with our children and is starting up a career as a graphic artists. He did the logo to the right for Wednesday Wines. Yes, that's right, we are going to offer wine tours. We've done a couple of test runs and they have gone really well. Last weekend we hosted a group of friends from Lakewood, Washington (just southwest of Tacoma). We've knows most of the group from when I was a youth director at Little Church on the Prairie. Isn't that sweet? It's a weird name when you consider the fact that it's a huge church located at the edge of a strip mall. People use to call the church and ask to speak to Laura Ingles. That never got old.
Included in the group were two former members of my high school youth group now grown with teenagers of their own! It's a bit disconcerting to encourage these beautiful young women to drink when I spent so much time in their formative years trying to convince them not to do so. Also in the group were our friends, Clint and Tami. We lived in a common house with this couple right before we went to seminary. I called it "The Commune" mostly because it drove Tami crazy when I did so. We got a chance to connect with Tami after decades of being out of touch and it was wonderful. Connecting with old friends is as good as opening an old wine. It's a great pleasure.
We were fortunate to be hosted by Lisa Neal, of Coeur de Terre vineyard. Lisa and Scott are typical of the winemakers I know in this region. They have worked tirelessly to get their vineyard into production, all the while having to work other jobs and at the same time raise a young family. I don't know how they do it. Lisa and her husband, (and winemaker) Scott, started the vineyard by hand grafting thousands of vines. Most people purchase vines already grafted to root stock. This is truly a hands on operation. Lisa is the vineyard manager and gave us an extensive tour of their property. It was especially enjoyable since the grapes were very close to being ready to harvest. We were even able to use a refractometer to measure the sugar content of juice. (It was at about 20 brix and rising.) This is going to be a very good harvest for the Willamette Valley.


It is also a great pleasure to see someone deeply enmeshed in something about which they are extremely passionate. Lisa is an amazing woman. She has a calm, centered presence which instantly puts people at ease. She is connected with the land on which she works. She shared with us her concerns about the way pesticides are used in viticulture and the way that she and Scott have been able to make their vineyard organic and sustainable. She also discussed how they decide on the amount of fruit to leave on each vine, how long it takes the vines to come into production and their long term goals for their property.
Lisa and Scott have also built a new tasting room which is gorgeous. They were able to include used Douglas Fir beams in the construction. The light-filled, warm environment is so beautiful. The views out the large windows are stunning in every direction. There are also some interior windows where you can look down inside the production area of the winery. The winery can be difficult to find and mostly open by appointment. If you'd like to visit, stop by the shop and let us know. We'd be glad to give the winery a call and give you a map to find it. Or, if you want to come down with a group, we'd love to host you here in McMinnville. Just let us know.

One Year for Wednesday Wines

We recently celebrated our one year anniversary of Wednesday Wines. It's is a grand experiment. According to Lenard Sweet in The Gospel According to Starbucks, what we need in our culture is a third place--somewhere we can go and relax and hang out with people and just be. For me our wine shop fills that need. It's a place I love to go and hang out. Every once in a while (like today) Kathy, our proprietor, will become so desperate that she will ask me to watch the shop. This is a dangerous situation. I don't do details. I like the big picture. Things like making change do not come easily for me. I hope everyone was keeping track with me today. If I shorted you I'm sorry--it wasn't on purpose.
Thursdays are especially fun because it's the day of the Farmer's Market right outside our door. We have a special called "Thirsty Thursdays" where we serve wines by the glass for $3 each. It's a great bargain. Quite a few folks go across the street to Harvest Fresh and grab a sandwich and then come to our place and get a glass of wine. I just love to see people sitting outside on the sidewalk enjoying a glass of wine. It is such a beautiful picture to me. Today we wanted to linger and enjoy this last gasp of sunny, beautiful weather in the Willamette Valley.
Fall may be my favorite season here. The days can be sunny and beautiful. The nights are cool and temperate, and, yes, it's time for grape harvest. It's such a gamble for the wine makers to figure out when to harvest. According to those I talked to over the weekend, it's going to be an early, wonderful harvest.
I tasted a 2008 Pinot Noir as it was going into the bottle and it was fantastic. Were 2007 was a difficult year if you didn't wait for the fruit to get ripe, 2008 was perfect. That means you may want to pay more money for a wine from 2007--find a great winemaker who could handle a difficult vintage, or buy a slightly more expensive wine from your favorite winery than your normally would. In 2008 you can probably buy a less expensive wine, and it will quite likely be very satisfying. From every indication 2009 will be another great harvest. Get out and enjoy the wineries in the area. Fall is the perfect time to go for a visit. The crowds are gone, you may get to see the winery in action and there is just something wonderful about tasting a beautiful glass of wine with a slight chill in the air and the leaves turning colors. Skip the football games and hit the wineries.

Ben Stien is a Genius with Metal

We have a new-old railing over the top of the stairs that go to the basement of our house. Some people call it the large space under our house a basement, I call it a wine cellar and the future home of the Vicar's Vault (where you can rent your own wine storage!) My friend, Ben Stein created the railing for me. I purchased some used railing at Aurora Mills Architectural Salvage. They have an amazing assortment of used items, and at a fraction of the price of the stores in Portland. It's a funky, fun place to visit. But the railing didn't look anything like this when I purchased it.

First of all it was in two pieces. Ben had to cut up the pieces and then add the larger three inch posts in between them to make the railing long enough. He then added the trim pieces to the top of each post. Finally he had to fabricate the bottom half circle section so that the railing was tall enough to pass modern code. The fact that you can't tell what Ben did to make this piece work is a testament to Ben's skill as a metal worker.

In Ben's other job he works as a millwright at Cascade Steel Rolling Mills. What that means is that Ben is responsible for making sure that everything keeps working. If it's broken he fixes it. If they don't have the part to fix it, he manufactures it on the spot. Ben is a genius at seeing the solution to a problem. I've gone with him to Mexico to build houses with Amour Ministries. I always dislike being on Ben's sight because they always give him the most challenging location--the one with insurmountable problems. I've seen Ben stand and look at a big problem for about ten to fifteen seconds, and then, presto-chango he's come up with the solution.
(To the right is Ben's beautiful wife, Liz helping to pick up the railing from the painters.)

When Ben delivered the railing my next door neighbor was admiring Ben's trailer (after he admired the railing of course.) "Where did you buy that?" He asked. "Buy?" Ben asked. No, he made it. He has jigs for the trailer so that he can carry up to five canoes at one time.

As we were unloading the railing Ben knew exactly how to lift it and carry it over. At one point he looked down at the railing and said, OK, let's lift here. "Why here?" I asked. It turns out Ben had put a mark on the railing to indicate the balance point, so if you're standing at that point, half the weight is on one side of you and half on the other. Those are the kinds of details that make Ben amazing at what he does. If you have a chance, come by and look at the railing. It is spectacular!

Bottling Before Harvest

There are crazy times in a winery. By far the craziest is harvest, but it is closely followed by the process of getting the wine into bottles. I really like to see the winery in full scale production. I tried to sneak into Maysara today to return the plates and forks that I'd stolen (inadvertently) when we did the Habitat Fundraiser up there. Tahmiene Momtazi, the winemaker was up to her armpits in hoses and equipment, but still took the time to say hello, and answer some questions about the process. In this picture they are bottling their 3 Degrees Pinot Noir label. All of the hoses are running down a long hallway, and then connected to a truck which actually bottles the wine. There are companies that do nothing but go from winery to winery and bottle their wines. Another company supplies the bottles for the process. Another has responsibility for the labels, and yet another for the closures for the wine (in the case of Maysara, aluminum screw tops.)

All of these things have to come together at the same time for the process to work effectively. There is a time crunch, because as you are finishing up the bottling process, the harvest is sneaking up right behind you. Most smaller wineries do not have enough room to store last year's wine and this years. They have to get last year's into the bottle, and then get the bottles off to storage. By the way, in our area the vast majority of that storage is provided by Catholic Monks who converted from book binding to wine storage at an amazingly blessed time.

For the starting wines in the line up Tahmiene simply pumps them from the oak barrels into the stainless steel tanks and then out the hall way to the bottling truck. For the most expensive wines they will do the impossible--raise the full barrels up to the top of the gigantic stainless steel tanks and gently load one by one. It's gentler on the wine, but can be treacherous for the winemaker. Tahmiene had been run over by a falling wine barrel during a recent bottling and all she could think to do was try and save the wine! She was having a heck of a day when we were up there. First the bottling truck had to reschedule, then the closures didn't arrive on time, then she was run over by a barrel. Tahmiene had a friend point out to her that it was always the bottling of the red wines that got her in trouble, never the whites. Not sure what to make of that.

Still, she looked a lot better than her dad. Moe had recently had a beam fall on his little finger and smash it. As a woodworker, it's the kind of accident that I have nightmares about. Sometimes I'll wake up from the middle of a dream frantically pulling my hands out from some machine or other. I like my hands, and I'd like to keep them attached to my body. So I'm sending prayers of healing to Moe and to Tahmiene this week. They are making such beautiful wines in an eccologically sustainable way and that is wonderful. So I hope they are kept safe from harm (or more harm anyway.)

If you want to see me cut off something or other, I'll be working down at Wednesday Wines this Saturday afternoon showing different way to use old wine barrels to make craft projects. At least if these barrels fall on me, they're empty.