I'm on an extended leave from my church job. It's called a sabbatical. While I'm away I am studying vineyards and winemakers to see what lessons we in the church might learn from these exciting and creative people. Last Saturday I went on a walking tour of Sokol Blosser winery. The winery offers the tours throughout the summer months. Several caches of wine are hidden throughout the vineyard and the group walks up and down, tasting wine and learning about viticulture and wine making.The tour included a quick stop at Red Ridge Farms to learn how they grow olives and press them into oil. They don't quite have enough Oregon olives to meet their needs, but are getting closer every year. I am so excited to have a local olive oil. Then I can make m own pesto with all local ingredients (I substitute hazel nuts for pine nuts). I really enjoyed this tour. It was informative, good exercise and fun. Our tour host was Jeff Knapp, the Hospitality Manager at the vineyard. He is animated and refreshingly honest. His knowledge of wine was deep, and he was able to communicate his complex knowledge in a down to earth and easy to understand fashion. Jeff grew up in the mid-west and decided at some point that he wanted to live in a place where they cherished food. Portland seemed a natural choice.
The first leg of the tour is down the hill and around the Concert Block at the very bottom of the vineyard. Jeff explains to us that the soil at the bottom of the vineyard is called Woodburn. It is the beautiful, sandy loam soil that was delivered to the Willamette Valley by the Missoula floods. It is a brownish color. Jeff points out that as we climb the hill the color of the soil
will turn to the classic red of the Dundee Hills. This is Jory soil and is ideal for growing Pinot Noir. At Sokol Blosser they use the lower quality grapes at the bottom of the hill to make a Pinot Noir Rose. They make a Rose from red grapes by leaving the juice in contact with the skins for a short period of time. The color of the wine comes from being in contact with the skins of the grapes. The pulp inside the skins has no color.
As we climb we see that some of the grapes in some of the clusters are starting to turn color. This is called veraison, and this is late as anyone I have talked to has seen it take place.
As we walk up the western edge of the Concert Block we are instructed to stay close to the vines on the Sokol Blosser vineyard. Just across the way are some of the first Pinot Noir vines planted in the Willamette Valley. We are looking at the ancient vines that make up Erie Vineyards. They are self rooted and therefore vulnerable to a root louse called phylloxera. It is deadly to roots of European vines like Pinot Noir. Sokol Blosser originally planted self rooted vines and suffered an
outbreak of the disease. These ancient vines (in the photo at the left--taken with a telephoto lens) are vulnerable and we could track it over on our feet, so we stay well away. At
the top of the Concert Block Jeff has a stash of wine glasses and a bottle of their Pinot blanc.
Last summer I had the privileged of meeting Susan Sokol Blosser and listen to her talk about the very beginnings of the wine industry in the Willamette Valley. Their winery went through a difficult transition from conventional farming to an organic approach. I've always wondered how they managed to make it. In the book Sokol Blosser talks about some of the difficulties they faced with blight and fungus, how it looked like they would loose entire sections of the vineyard. It turns out that when they made the transition they tried the bio-dynamic
approach. Organic farmers are allowed to use a number of sprays to treat their plants. Now the vineyard focuses on organic, sustainable farming methods that keep streams and rivers safe for fish and wildlife.
We see several other features of Sokol Blosser's care for the environment as we tour the vineyard. They have a grey water treatment field where wash water from sinks is used to irrigate a field. The water nourishes plants on the surface and then is filtered and makes its way back down into the water table to be used again. Sokol Blosser built the first building to be used as a wine tasting facility, and the first building to be used as a wine making facility. We also get to tour their barrel aging cellar. It is a concrete barrel vault construction which is buried in the ground. The very top has three feet of earth on it with native plants and grasses growing there. The building was the first wine facility in the state to be LEED certified for energy efficiency. It is a cavernous, damp space with wine barrels stacked to the ceiling on either side of the center aisle. Jeff explains that they can draw air through ducts that are buried deep in the hillside if they need to cool the cellar in the middle of the summer. The space also has an automatic humidifier with overhead sprinklers that come on if things get too dry.
We end the tour with a luncheon spread out for us on picnic tables just outside of the tasting room. It is a beautiful spread and the group of folks in the tour enjoy various conversations. The one at the far side is around ballet and dance, and the one at our side centers around teaching. I get a chance to ask Jeff his opinion of the '07 vintage which was so criticized when it came out. "It is one of my favorite vintages" he states. "We are raising the price from $40 to $50 dollars a bottle." We get to taste the '08 and the '07 and I have to agree that the earlier vintage is beautifully complex and more lively in aroma. This vineyard tour is a lot of fun and the $40 cost includes lunch. If you have some friends in town next summer who enjoy wine and are able to hike up and down a vineyard this tour would be a great Oregon Wine experience to share wit them.