What a difference.  As I might have mentioned before, we started planning the 2009 event in August of 2008…but we got to work on the next one as soon as our heads cleared from the February festivities.  That’s given us several advantages.

We’ve been reaching out to a few very distinguished wineries, and asking them to commit to participating.  The response has been more than encouraging.  Gratifying, even.  I can say that the selection of wines at the Friday night dinners will be much more international in scope this year, with prestigious vintners represented from Italy and France as well as California, Oregon, and points west.  And I can further state without fear of contradiction that the selection of wines at the Grand Tasting will be up a couple of notches from the previous not-so-bad level.

The Very Helpful Kristen Palazzo

(We’re also going to do a better job on the logistics and setup, so I don’t melt down at the start of the Grand Tasting, like I did back in Feb.)

The other thing that puts us ahead is that we can secure the wines we want throughout the year.  Previously, we had to wait until about a month before the event.  But we’ve already started laying in a sensational selection, and storing it in controlled conditions.  It’s sort of a good news/bad news situation.  The current economy (bad news) has put many great wines on the market at drastically reduced prices, and many wines that were highly allocated or simply not available are now up for grabs (good news).  We’re taking advantage.

Lovely and Talented Lou Bernardi and Wife Denise

And I’m getting huge support from some very dedicated people.  Founding Trustee Marshall Hanno, who never met a wine he didn’t like, the knowledgeable Angela Robertson from Angelina’s Restaurant, Kristen Palazzo from Premier Beverage, Lou Bernardi from Southern Wine & Spirits, and several of our other Founding Trustees are working their networks to confirm wineries and find us all those great deals. 

It’s gonna be fun.

It’s definitely not square one.  This time last year, the 2009 Southwest Florida Wine & Food Fest was but a distant gleam in the eyes of a deluded few.  We knew we needed to start getting organized, but we really wouldn’t assemble all our stuff in the same bag and begin working until around the first of August.

Things are different now.  First, I have an honest-to-Pete Wine Committee, composed of several knowledgeable and wine-loving professionals, and a very dedicated Founding Trustee named Marshall Hanno, who’s always generous enough to open up the good stuff.

Second, we’ve already had two or three (I forget) wine-intensified committee meetings, and developed a list of prestigious wineries we want to present to you next year.  Eight of them have already accepted our invitation, and are confirmed.  Sorry, the details are currently eyes only, but we’ll let you know after everybody is on board.

Third, we’ve been joined by several new Founding Trustees, and their support will allow us to set our sights higher for next year, and plan an even more entertaining and worthwhile weekend in February of 2010.

Fourth, the word is out among the vintners who supported us at the last event.  Not only are they delighted to come back, but they’re telling their winemaker buddies.  Napa is a very small valley.  So is the Willamette in Oregon.  People talk.

Luck is when hard work meets opportunity.  We’re very lucky (and encouraged more than somewhat) to receive this kind of response from the vineyard owners and winemakers, and look forward to offering a fine selection for you to discover.  Selecting them is one of the best parts of this job.  All that swirling and sampling.  It takes months.

Things could change.  Please come back soon for updates.

Well, we’re just about down to it.  Serious crunch time.  This is when events pile upon us, vivid dreams occur, we begin carrying on serious conversations with our own selves, and howling at the moon.  We develop mysterious twitches of the fingers and eyebrows.  There are fevered imaginings.  Midnight sheets are soaked with the peculiar perspiration of anxiety.

Behind the scenes...there are lots more boxes.

Less than two weeks to go.  Carolyn Rogers and I talk to each other nine times a day, even on weekends.  We send emails by the thousands, to liaisons for the host homes, to winemakers finalizing travel arrangements, to wine distributors making sure all the wines are accounted for and will get where they’re supposed to go.  To people who have reserved but not paid.  Sometimes we send emails to people we don’t even know, because we can’t help ourselves.

Bid on this! Six year vertical in a special Collector

My office is clogged with brown cardboard boxes full of wine bottles…and they’re heavy!  (The best wines often come in thicker bottles).  Some of the boxes will go to individual homes for the vintner dinners, and our stalwart volunteers from the Downtown Fort Myers Rotary Club are poised to deliver cases and cases of the stuff to host homes from North Fort Myers to Sanibel to Naples.  Many, many cases are destined to be poured during the Grand Tasting and Auction at Miromar Lakes.  Still others are tagged as auction lots, to be taken home by lucky winning bidders.  There are hundreds and hundreds of bottles, a wine lover’s dream (or nightmare, because they’re not mine and I can’t drink them), and each must be present and accounted for, and checked off against the Master List. 

Now, a confession:  As I began this task, I decided that, as much as possible, all the wines would come from their “home” regions of the world.  That is, the Sauvignon Blancs that we serve would come from their “native” region of the Loire Valley, or from New Zealand, which has created SBs of surpassing quality.  Same with the Pinot Noirs from Burgundy and Oregon, and Syrahs from the Rhone and from Australia.  However, there are some excellent wines that just don’t fit the mold.  Take Don Melchor Cabernet Sauvignon, for instance.  It’s from Chile, but it makes the Wine Spectator Top 10 list just about every year, and I couldn’t resist ordering some for you to try.

 About the varietals:  I also promised myself at the beginning (last August…seems like decades ago) that we would present a selection of wines to please every taste.  In a perfect world, maybe…but we’ve done our best.  For those who enjoy the more traditional white wines, there will be fine examples of Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, and other well-known varietals, but you’ll also be able to discover some tasty Pinot Grigios, and, if memory serves, perhaps even a Vernaccia di San Gimignano.

The major wine distributors who serve our area have made special efforts to provide us with wines that offer enjoyable discoveries.  Most, as promised, are well-known varietals, but you’ll be pleasantly surprised at many of the producers.  Trust me, the ones you want to try first are the ones you’ve never heard of.  That’s the whole point.  We’d love for you to come home from the Grand Tasting having discovered some new favorites.

Since last August, there have been dozens of meetings with homeowners, chefs, wine distributors, and the marvelous people at Miromar Lakes.  We’ve worked through countless proposals and plans, checked everything in punishing detail, gathered with our generous Founding Trustees for update meetings and to solicit their suggestions, made hundreds of lists, drunk unconscionable amounts of wine.  Now, the dozens and dozens of people who have worked on this most worthwhile project for the last seven months are just about ready for Showtime.  Please excuse them if they’re be a bit distracted over the next two weeks, but their anxiety disorders, mild psychotic episodes, and moderate hallucinations are mostly harmless.  It’s the price we pay to help seriously ill children, and it’s more than worth it.

See you there!

The history of wine cultivation in South Africa is more of a saga than a story.  Even though wine grapes have been grown, and wine produced, in the country for hundreds of years, none of it ever made an international impact…until now.  The situation is due partly to political isolation and partly to a certain contrarian way of thinking, keeping the South African wine world in the Dark Ages for as long as anyone can remember.

That’s all changed.

Prospect wine country

But let’s go back a bit.  Time was, when the majority of grapes in the country’s winegrowing regions (Stellenbosch, Franschoek, and others) were sold to cooperatives – basically a large group of farmers selling fruit to a central facility that produced wine that was, at best, undistinguished.  And the majority of the wine production was under the control of a central quasi-governmental agency called KVW, which placed more importance on quantity than on quality.

Next, the government, for reasons that nobody has ever understood, prohibited the importation of foreign grape varietals, so that most growers were forced to grow what was already there, such as Pinotage and Chenin Blanc, which they call Steen.  Now, Pinotage is capable of being made into extremely drinkable wine, but mostly it wasn’t. 

Third, there was the economic isolation of the country due to apartheid.  It’s likely that only Argentina faced more political and economic challenges in the international wine market than South Africa.

But not any more.  Today, the country is producing (and, luckily, exporting) world class wines make from the prime noble varietals, like Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay, Syrah, and others.  Pinotage, when it’s grown at all, is now being made into a much more distinguished drinking experience.  Famous South African names like golfer Ernie Els are in the business, and that certainly doesn’t hurt.

For a country that has only recently made a worldwide wine impact, the viticultural history is actually quite long.  It can be traced back to the Huguenots (so named because they were Not Huge) who arrived at the Cape of Good Hope around 1686-1688, fleeing the religious persecution (some things never change) decreed by the Edict of Nantes.  The city named Franschoek means “French Town” in Afrikaans.  Many were experienced farmers, with special skills in viticulture (they were French, after all) and in less than 50 years they planted over a million vines.

Normally, we’d think of South Africa as a “new world” region, but the wine styles give more than a casual nod to Old World tastes.  Many of the reds are redolent of game and earth, much like good Cotes du Rhone.  Since the major winegrowing regions are clustered in the extreme south of the country, and since they receive abundant cooling ocean breezes, the white wines (Chenin Blanc and Chardonnay) are likely to be fruit-driven with crisp acidity.  Recently, the industry has begun experimenting with Sauvignon Blanc, hoping, no doubt, to cash in on the tremendous popularity of the grape (thank you, New Zealand).

Many excellent examples of South African wine will be available for your international sampling pleasure at the Grand Tasting.  And here’s more good news:  if you’re in the mood for a wine journey to this up-and-coming region, most of the major winegrowing regions are an easy drive from Capetown.

Gesondheid!

Harvest in South Africa -- very mechanized

In previous postings, the subject matter (and my thoughts) have wandered all over the planet.  Happens a lot.  But now it’s time to regain control and consider some winegrowing areas that are, relatively speaking, right around the corner.  Good thing, too, because it means that if you’re even a slightly moderate wine geek, you can go there without a passport and reasonably expect that English will be spoken. 

My favorite road sign

Like California, f’rinstance.  The Golden State no longer corners the market winegrowingwise.  We savor the big, juicy cabs, syrahs, and pinots that come out of Oregon and Washington State, and one of my favorite Champagne-style sparklers is being made in (of all places) Albuquerque, New Mexico. 

The landmark Mondavi winery

But if you want to hunt with the big dogs, California is still the place to be, and Napa is generally where most people start.  It’s pretty much the first place you come to when driving up from San Francisco. 

Many (but not all) of the wines being served at our hosted dinners on Friday night, February 27 are sourced from the Napa and Sonoma regions.  As the crow flies, the two valleys are practically bedmates, but the differences are striking…and so are the wild winding roads that run between them. 

Is this California's most famous grocery store?

The thing we like best about the area is that anybody can make wine – anybody – and practically everybody does.  (Y’know, in LA every waiter is an actor?  In this part of the world, every waiter is a winemaker)  Our friends Stephen and Sue Parry have a lovely home on the Silverado Trail, and the property is blessed with about 2 acres of really nice Cabernet vines.  So there’s a Parry Cellars label, and the Parrys make about 250 cases a year, which they sell to very fine restaurants, close friends, and others who find their way onto the mailing list.  Lucky us.

Then there’s Rob Fanucci.  By day he’s an attorney in St. Helena, but on the weekends he morphs into this crazed Zinfandel fiend who ferments the grapes in big plastic tubs in the driveway of his grandfather’s house.  No fancy stainless steel fermentation tanks for him.  (His wine is called Charter Oak, it’s terrific, and he puts his phone number on the label).

Rob Fanucci makes wine. Debi helps.

Then there are the Tilleys — Chris and Pauline–whose big-time Cabernet will be enjoyed at one of the dinners.  Chris actually went to St. Helena High, and now he and Pauline are back in the valley again, turning out the wine of their dreams, just a few hundred cases each year. 

John Caldwell is kind of the same, only different.  Another successful entrepreneur who wanted to make a small fortune in the wine business by starting with a large one, John was able to buy large tracts of land east of the city of Napa back in the Seventies.  Of course, it’s worth umpteen times what he paid for it, but it hasn’t gone to his head.  His cabernet and syrah grapes are worth thousands of dollars a ton, so when he got tired of selling them to other wineries, he decided to start his own.

One thing led to another, and now he has a huge cave drilled into the hillside, with a complete winery, barrel storage, tasting room, everything.  His wines will also be poured at a dinner…and also at the Grand Tasting on Saturday.  Just one more darn thing to look forward to.

John Caldwell likes Debi better than me.

The date is getting closer, and the volunteers are getting crazier and more twisted by the minute.  I’m starting to feel like Hunter S. Thompson on a bad day.  But seriously, folks…this is fun, and if we can help some sick children get better, it’s more than worth it.

And don’t forget the accent circumflex….

If you’ve ever been to Bern’s Steak House in Tampa, you’ve probably seen the huge backlit photo mural that takes up the whole wall of the first dining room on your right.  It’s the Rhône River, with the legendary hill of Hermitage tucked right into the bend.  I’ve never seen that hill up close and personal, but it’s definitely on my bucket list.  Meanwhile, I’ll just keep drinking the wine.  It makes me feel close to the actual place.

Vineyard in Chateau-Grillet

Of course, there are two Rhônes, one in the north, the other in the south, and it’s tempting to talk about them as if they were two parts of the same place, like north and south Fort Myers.  Apt comparison, that, because the two halves couldn’t be more different.

Separated by about 30 miles, the northern and southern winegrowing regions of the Rhône have separate traditions, and make their wines in divergent ways.  In the north, it’s all about Syrah (with Roussanne, Marsanne, and Chardonnay for the whites) while in the south Grenache is king, supported by Syrah, Mourvedre, and about a dozen other varietals, a surprising number of which can find their way into the final blend. 

And, while white Hermitage (a blend of the two or three whites mentioned above) is one of my favorite treats, the Rhône is really all about the reds.  Smoky black fruit, sweet earth, and spice.  Yum.

Start with Côte Rôtie in the very north – the “roasted slope” if you’re speaking French.  Here, the wines made from Syrah can absolutely sing.  The area, divided into it sub-appellations, like Cornas and St. Joseph, also includes some idiosyncratic areas such as Condrieu, which makes only white wine from Viognier, and Château-Grillet, just about the smallest wine appellation in France, and maybe in the world.  Ten acres.  One owner.  Nobody knows what he does.

Chateauneuf du Pape, or what's left of it

(By the way, the French, like the Australians, like to throw a little Viognier into their Syrahs for softness and aroma, but unlike the Australians, they don’t tell you that they’re doing it.)

In the north, the name to know is Guigal.  The family has been making wines from their own vineyards as well as purchased grapes for practically ever.  Ironically, though, they received Wine of the Year honors in 2002 for a Châteauneuf du Pape, which comes from the south.  Go figure.

Moving right along, as the hill of Hermitage looms above us, the big dogs are Paul Jaboulet Aine and Michel Chapoutier, whose wines occupy many slots in my cellar.  (Sidebar: Michel conducted a tasting of his red and white Hermitages a few years ago at the New York Wine Experience, and it was the most boring session I ever sat through.  I am told that I slumbered.)

The Southern Rhône is a little harder to get your arms around.  While the North sticks to growing basically one red and three or four whites, they really get nuts in the South.  They grow Carignan, Cinsault, Counoise, Muscardin, Vaccarese, a grape called Bourboulenc that I could never figure out…well, you get the idea.

Hermitage and the Rhone River

But…the law and long tradition allow winemakers to blend them all together into wines that offer a truly multidimensional oenological experience.  If you’re a winemaker in Gigondas or Vacqueyras, for example, you can put up to 12 different grapes in your reds and 11in your whites.  Talk about variety.

What Hermitage is to the North, Châteauneuf du Pape is to the South – the premier wine region.  The “new chateau of the Pope” was originally constructed in the early 1300s, just after Pope Clement V, who had previously held the enviable position of Archbishop of Bordeaux, got homesick and decided to relocate the Papacy from Rome to southern France.  One can easily understand the impulse.  Over the next 70 years, viticulture in the area was enthusiastically promoted by a succession of parched pontiffs, and the rest, as they say, is history.

So, Grand Tastingwise, you should look for examples of the Rhône varietals from France, as well as from California.  See, there’s this group of winemakers out west who call themselves the Rhône Rangers, and they dedicate their waking hours to making wines with those blends, in that tradition.  We’re fortunate to have sourced several bottles that typify the historic (and delicious) styles of this important region.

You really, really do not want to miss it. 

G’Day, Mate…and good wine, too.

We’re at a wine tasting in Aspen, sitting across the table from Stephen and Prue Henschke, with several glasses of their legendary Hill of Grace Shiraz in front of us.  As I sip through the vintages, I’m blown away for several reasons.  First, the Henschkes on the other side of the table are practically legends or Australian national treasures or something.  Second, their Hill of Grace is one of the most famous wines to come out of Australia (along with the fabled Penfold’s Grange and Clarendon Astralis).  We’re drinking eight different vintages, and since the stuff costs about $350 a bottle, there’s not much chance I’ll ever have any in my cellar.  Third, the wine is arguably one of the purest expressions of what Australian winemaking is all about.

Wine is a cultural artifact, and reflects the general personality of the country and the people who produce it.  I think this is particularly true for the Aussies.  If you’ve ever hung out with any, you know them to be hale and hearty, outrageously sociable, and your best friend right from the first handshake.  Accompanied by a ringing “G’day, Mate,” they’ll give you a slap on the back so hard it knocks you down.  The wines do the same thing.  They’re often characterized as the “in your face” variety.  Sorry for the mixed metaphor, but truer words were never spoken. 

In fact, Americans like the Aussie approach to wine so much that the country will soon be the second largest importer to the US.  Back in 2004, over 20,000,000 cases of Australian wine reached our shores.  In 2006, over 7 million cases of Yellow Tail Chardonnay alone made it to our supermarkets.  The numbers tell the…tale.  (I just had to do that).  For a country that spent much of its winegrowing history making sweet wines, that’s quite an achievement.

Surprisingly, about 60% of the grapes grown in Australia are white:  Chardonnay, Riesling, Semillon and the like.  Around 30% are red, and the rest go in to the “stickies,” or sweet wines.  It is, of course, the big heavy, extracted, fruity reds that capture our attention and interest most vividly.  In fact, the big Shirazes and blends can be so powerful they need to age for eons before you’d dare open the bottle.  (I attended a vertical tasting of Penfold’s Grange a few years ago, and we drank the 1971.  It could have used another 10 years in the cellar).

One of the world's most famous wine labels

It’s also interesting that, considering their winemaking success, the Australians have no native grapes.  Everything grown in the country originated at one time or another from cuttings brought from Europe and South Africa in the late 18^th and early 19^th centuries.  The country also leads the world in the mechanization of wine production, especially the grape-picking part.  They never had an abundance of cheap labor, as the Californians did, so necessity was the mother of grape-harvesting invention.

Unlike the French, Italians, and even the Californians, most Aussie wines, even the greatest ones, are blended from fruit that’s sourced from very extensive areas.  Not much single-vineyard designation here, not much talk of “terroir” or the importance of some sacred little piece of land that grows heavenly grapes.  The designated winegrowing regions are enormous, and the grapes that wind up in the bottle come from far and wide.  It would be like Napa winemakers blending in grapes from as far away as Washington state.  They’d sooner slit their wrists.

With Aussie winemakers Sara and Sparky Marquis

About 99% of the winegrowing regions are clustered in the southeast corner of the country, with Margaret River the lone exception, being located all the way over there in the far southwest.  And most of the famous valleys, like Barossa and Coonawarra, are relatively close to cities, making wine tourism a very easy thing to do, as long as you don’t mind driving on the wrong side of the road after a few tasting room visits.  (Of course, you could do that here….)

Another thing that makes Australian wines so much fun is that they like to put puckish and whimsical names on their bottles.  The Monkey Spider.  The Dead Arm.  The Carnival of Love.  Mollydooker.  Two Left Feet.  The Stump Jump (don’t ask….).

Vineyards in the Hunter Valley

But what, you ask, has all this to do with us?  Simply put, we plan to have our Aussie cousins well represented at the Grand Tasting on Saturday, February 28.  Shiraz, of course, even one of the upper-end products from Penfold’s.  Their famous blends will also be on the table, like the characteristic concoction of Grenache, Syrah, and Mourvedre, commonly known as GSM.  We’re still searching out some whites, but we’ll let you know when we find them.

Until then….g’day, mate!  (They really do say that.)

When I lived in Madrid in the early 70s, I’d buy my wine at the little wine shop on the corner.  Since they dispensed wine from big barrels along the wall, I had to bring my own container, and found out that large Nescafe instant coffee jars were the best.  The bodega clerk would fill it up, then calculate the price according to some arcane formula that’s comprehensible only to Druids and Basque separatists.  Was the wine any good?  I have no idea.

Madrid--The Plaza de Cibeles with the central post office.

One step up from the fill-it place was the wine sold in supermarkets, which came in real bottles.  One I particularly enjoyed was called CASA (the initials stood for something) which cost about 25 cents a liter and was sealed with a little plastic button.  Then someone told me that the stuff in the bottle had never seen a grape.  It was water and alcohol with some sugar and flavoring. 

I went back to the Nescafe jar.

My, how things have changed. 

Viura vines in the north

One, the fathers and grandfathers learned winemaking from their forebears, who learned it from theirs, so what was good enough for grandpa was good enough for them.  The barrels were supposed to smell like the floor of a chicken coop.  When fermentation started, it started.  When it stopped, it stopped.  But the sons and daughters learned their winemaking techniques from the University of Bordeaux or Bologna, or UC Davis or Fresno State.  Big difference.

Very old Graciano vines

Two, every aspect of winemaking technology has come a long way in the last 25-30 years.  The kids understand it.  The dads don’t.

Three, like many other countries, the Spanish are starting to cultivate little areas well outside the traditional winegrowing regions.  These are places with
 weird names, regions I’d never heard of, and I used to live there.So, what’s on the table at the Grand Tasting, Spanish-wise?  I’ve become a big fan of the whites, such as white Rioja, made from a blend of traditional Viura and Malvasia grapes.  And some of the Albariños have recently gathered 90 points or so from some critics.  Not surprisingly, the country is also flirting with (and in some cases getting married to) the great international varietals like Cabernet Sauvignon and Syrah.  Sure, the time-honored Tempranillos and Garnachas are still the favorites, and are now being made in a much more pleasant and accessible international style, but don’t be surprised if the equivalent of Italy’s Super-Tuscan blends start to find their way to the market.

Wine cellar in Ribera del Duero

For the reds, then, we’ll be looking at some of the newer-style wines (many made from Garnacha) that are crafted in a more fruit-forward style, unlike the earthy, rustic flavors of the past.  Some will be from regions that have been making wine for millennia, such as Rioja, Ribera del Duero, Priorat, and Penedes.  But we’ll also be searching out some that have emerged from those tiny new non-traditional places, like Yecla and Monsant, a relatively recent appellation just 30 minutes outside of Barcelona. 

Madrid -- The Royal Palace

Pretty smart, those Spanish.

IT’S WILL-AM-ETTE, OKAY?

Drives the Oregonians nuts, when they hear people say “Or-uh-gone” instead of “Or-uh-gun.”  And “WILL-a met” instead of…what it’s supposed to be.  Maybe it’s their fault for giving such difficult names to their geography. 

They can be forgiven, though, because, aside from the priceless French region of Burgundy, the folks up around the Umpqua and Rogue Valleys – and especially Willamette, have been turning out Pinot Noirs that may just bring tears to your eyes.

Vineyards on the rolling terrain of Willamette Valley.

You have to be a little crazy to grow Pinot Noir in the first place.  There are a ton of reasons it’s called the “heartbreak grape,” but we won’t punish you with them right now.  So, as the Oregonian wine industry grew, it attracted (indeed, was started by) a group of dropouts, burnouts, and highly successful people who just wanted to Get Away From It All.  In the early 1970s, if you got tired of making millions as a corporate lawyer in San Francisco, or a statistician who just couldn’t possibly crunch one more number, you went to Yamhill County and tried your hand at Pinot Noir.

Just as Robert Mondavi put California wines on the world stage, David Lett did the same for the wines of Oregon.  In 1979, at an international wine tasting competition, his Eyrie Vineyard Pinot Noir came in third among 600 wines, beating out many legendary and obscenely expensive Burgundies.  It was like the American Olympic hockey team defeating the Russians in 1980.

The French went, bananas, or bananes, the way they say it.  They exclaimed, “Sacre bleu!  C’est imposible!” or words to that effect.  Then they did what anyone would do:  they demanded a recount.  A second blind tasting competition was held the next year, staged by Robert Drouhin, one of the most legendary figures in Burgundian winemaking.  At that contest, the Eyrie Vineyard Pinot Noir did not come in third.  It came in second. 

Domaine Drouhin in the fall

Joseph Drouhin immediately went to Oregon and bought as many vineyards as he could get his hands on.

Today, the Drouhin family, along with other legendary names such as Grace and Ken Evenstad, create silky, sensuous, Pinot Noirs in several Oregonian valleys, and do so with style and elegance.  Of course, where you grow Pinot Noir you grow Chardonnay, and the cool climate in this region produces a lean, minerally version that’s very different from the buttery, oaky, California style.  Other cool-weather grapes, such as Pinot Gris, also do well here.  Grapes such as Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon, which like somewhat warmer climes, are generally not well suited to this region.

More rolling hills--more vines

We will be featuring Oregon Pinot Noirs and Chardonnays, along with a few carefully-selected Burgundian versions, at the February 28 Grand Tasting. 

You should come.