I got to do something I have been wanting to do for a long time last weekend--a walking tour of Coeur de Terre Vineyard. In my mind we would walk around the vineyard, taste wine in the actual place where the grapes were grown, and then move onto the next block of the vineyard.The reason for the tour was the 5th Not Very Annual Joelapalooza! What is that? Well every once in a while my good friend Jeff Peterson's much younger and better looking brother comes to town from his home in New York City. Tradition calls for a gathering at the farm, eating way too much food and drinking just the right amount of wine (and other beverages.) Joel is a lovely human being, and it is always so much fun to be a part of the event. As always, I served as host and cook for the event.
I love to walk, and I love to eat, and I enjoy wine a great deal, so to combine all of these activities into one was a lot of fun. I'm wondering how I can get some of my theological work into that mix. If you'd like to set up a tour, just let me know. I'm always ready to talk about wine, and there is just something about an event like this one that makes me feel closer to heaven.
We started just outside the tasting room and climbed the steep road up to the very top of the vineyard. Next we headed down my favorite path to the Syrah Block. In the photo above is my friend Jeff with his long suffering mother and the rest of the group getting to taste the Rustique Rose` which was made from the Syrah grapes. You can make a rose` from any red grape by removing the juice from the grape skins before they have had enough time to color it. It is the skins which give wine it's color. Almost all wine grapes are white on the inside.
We walked down to the bottom of the vineyard and tasted the Rennelle's Block Pinot Noir. Rennelle's was the first to be planted at the vineyard and the age is showing impressively.
That's Joel in the photo above (no not the one in the dress, but right behind her.) We are making the steep climb along Abby's Block and heading for the huge heart shaped rock that gives Coeur de Terre it's name (heart of earth). The group were all troupers walking up and down steep slopes in various kinds of footwear. When we returned to the tasting room I had set out a spread of three salads (Farro, Caprese, and a green lettuce with an oil and vineyard dressing.) We also had sun dried tomatoes, kalamata olives, sliced baguettes from Red Fox Bakery, grilled zucchini, salami from Fino and Fondo, and cheeses from the Willamette Valley Cheese Company! It was a wonderful spread of locally produced and grown foods.
I love to walk, and I love to eat, and I enjoy wine a great deal, so to combine all of these activities into one was a lot of fun. I'm wondering how I can get some of my theological work into that mix. If you'd like to set up a tour, just let me know. I'm always ready to talk about wine, and there is just something about an event like this one that makes me feel closer to heaven.(All photos in this post (along with 173 others!) were taken by my good friend, Miriam Peterson)