We left the GPNW the 2nd week of January, the latest we have after left the area. It was wonderful to spend time with the family over the holidays. As you saw before, we stopped at Yosemite along the way, so it has it’s own page, look for it in the previous posts if you haven’t already seen it.
From there, we headed over to Tucson to spend a week to warm up and hopefully thaw out after the cold of the north. We spent the time close to Jim & Allison at their winter hideaway. We traveled to one of our favorite AZ wineries, Callaghans (needed some wine that is LONG GONE), did some hiking and of course, relaxing.
Here are a few pictures, more coming in the next post
I blackmailed Jim into taking me to Walla Walla for the Holiday Barrel (Dec ’09) tasting for our 19th anniversary. It was definitely worth it. We had a great time, visiting with "old" friends and hopefully making new ones. I put the list of wineries together that we wanted/needed to taste at and it was long; too long to do in 2 days, so I had to pare it down. It was hard, I tell you! Those that we did get the chance to visit, thank you for such a great time. For those of you that we didn’t make the visit on this trip, sorry, no reflection on you, just a reflection of not enough time!
I love this saying on some of his bottles: This wine was produced, stared at, liberally sampled, blended, coddled and eventually bottled by Stephenson Cellars LLC.
So much wine, so little time. When we tasted wine in Walla Walla in May of 2005, there were about 80 bonded wineries (licenses), today, that number has doubled. I will keep coming back as long as there is wine to be tried
Thanksgiving weekend wine tasting is a huge tradition in the Oregon Wine Country and Jim and I have participated since the mid 1980′s. If we are in town, we head out the Friday after Thanksgiving to check out old favorites and try a few new ones.
This year, many of the wineries did a Pre-Thanksgiving party for their wine club & list people. Jim and I, along with my sister Teresa & her hubby Al took advantage of a few wineries during that Saturday. Jim and I also went out to visit a few wineries on the Friday after Thanksgiving.
For us, that is a quiet weekend of tasting We spent the first weekend in Yamhill/Carlton and then the 2nd weekend in the Newberg/Dundee area. Very quiet, not a lot of crowds in any of the tasting rooms, in fact, no crowds at all. The roads were the same as usual, but for those that did make it out to enjoy the wines, it was much more quiet and personal than usual. That is a good thing for the taster, but not so good for the winery.
There is so much wine to be enjoyed, I keep working at it all the time Let me know if you are going to be in the area, I can give you some helpful hints on where to go.
What an experience! I want to thank Jim for being such a great sport while I had so much fun learning (he was working). I also want to thank my family & friends for voting for my video, even though I was the only entrant That’s enough of that for now…
I was so busy socializing, tasting, eating, tasting, and visiting that I did not take a lot of pictures, aren’t you lucky! So here are a few, just to give you an idea. It was hard work, really! Starting at 9:00am to 5:00pm, we judged flights and more flights of wine. Over 100 wines each day, we stopped long enough to discuss the wines between each flight and to have a little lunch. It’s a great thing that I had already learned how to spit, wine that is.
Friday night there was a potluck at Bob W’s house. That was a great way to meet many of the people involved in the Platinum judging and to share a lot of wine. I could have gone crazy, I did try many of them, but just small sips so that I could make it through the night and not be burned out for the weekend. It was a tough job, but I knew I could do it.
Saturday, I learned real fast the process of wine judging. The folks from the "backroom" bring in a flight of wine, place it in front of you and off you go. Sniff, swirl, sniff, slurp, swish, spit, savor… write notes and judge. You do that with each wine, up to 12 glasses in a flight. The moderator lets you know what the score is and writes up a profile for the wine. If there is not a clear decision on the rating (based on 4 scores), then it is discussed until concensus is reached. It takes time and effort, but still, for me, very interesting. Then it starts all over again with the next flight. Oh darn… bring it on!
After Saturdays judging, we went out to Alexandria Nicole Cellars for dinner. Jerrod, owner/winemaker of ANC, was on the panel that I was a part of and he put on a spread! Kristine, she works in the tasting room at ANC, did an exceptional job to keep us all happy, well fed and provided with adult beverages. Jerrod has an exceptional employee in her. I want her job when I grow up… If you have never been out to ANC, you need to give it a try, if nothing else, try their wines. I bought several to bring home myself! I even snagged a prized bottle of Petit Syrah and a Syrah late harvest dessert wine, my mouth is watering just thinking about it. Here’s what we had for dinner, and oh, BTW, the chef, Frank was awesome too. I need to go back and try out his restaurant in Prosser, WA.
Mediterranean relish served over squid ink risotto
Monster’s Main Course:
Grilled pork tenderloin with
pomegranate sauce
Petit Fillet of beef tenderloin with
peppercorn sauce
Potato Napoleon
Frankenstein’s Finish:
Chocolate Decadence with
chocolate cherry sauce
Once again, there was a lot of great wine to drink with dinner, though I drank a beer too (it takes a lot of beer to make great wine and in this case, to clear the palate). ANC not only has wine, they have 2 rotating beer taps, so, hey, if your hubby would rather have beer than wine, you have it made in the shade at ANC!
Sunday was all about finishing up the judging, over 100 more wines to "get through", but in my case, to enjoy. Since I don’t do this for a living, it was a thrill to be able to taste through all of these wines, but remember, we did it blind! All we knew was what the varietal was (Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, etc), and each wine was judged on it’s own, not against each other. I did very well, thank you very much. My scores (though they did not count) closely matched the "real" judges on the panel. Not all the time, but over 85% of the time I think, so hey, I too could be a judge Any one need a wine judge??? I work for wine…
All of the wines judged in this 10th Annual Platinum Judging have already won at least one gold medal in some other wine competition. All we did was judge the "already" best of the best and come up with the "Best of the Best" in each of the varietal categories. Here is a little info on how the wines faired:
Total wines judged: 451 Double platinums: 16 Platinums: 66 Double golds: 193 Golds: 149 No medals: 27
You can find out which wines won which rating in the December issue of Wine Press Northwest… more info on who participated in the judging:
Judges: – Dan Berger, Wine Press Northwest columnist and international wine judge, Santa Rosa, Calif.
– Parks Redwine, director of the Northwest Wine Summit wine competition, Atlanta, Ga.
– Winnie Alberg, wine judge and vineyard manager, Ellensburg, Wash.
– Jay Drysdale, wine judge and VQA liaison, Oliver, British Columbia.
– Jarrod Boyle, owner/winemaker of Alexandria Nicole Cellars, Prosser, Wash.
– Bob Woehler, Wine Press Northwest tasting editor, Kennewick, Wash.
– Ken Robertson, Wine Press Northwest columnist, Kennewick, Wash.
– Coke Roth, international wine judge and vineyard owner, Richland, Wash.
I want to thank everyone associated with the Platinum judging, for such a fabulous time. You can invite me back any time now it’s time to go enjoy a glass of wine…
By now, you might be a little tired of hearing about Lenne, but I am never tired of telling you about it! Jim and I are partners (just a little reminder) and we get to enjoy a few perks because of it. I love telling people that I/we are partners, but I think Jim likes to tell them even more.
Saturday night, Steve had a little get together for all the partners that could participate. When Steve has a party, he HAS A party! He is a great cook and dinner was absolutely delish! He made some of his famous pizza appetizers along with some Italian meats & cheese to start with. Dinner was braised short ribs or salmon, roasted red potatoes and a pear/filbert/goat cheese salad with mixed greens. I could have eaten all night, but trying so very hard to watch portion sizes For dessert, there was a mixed berry cobbler that was just yummy with creme fraiche.
Well, of course there was wine too! We went through the current line-up of what is being poured in the tasting room. Steve then brought out a couple of bottles of the 2008 Lenne Estate Pinot Noir (no, it has not been released yet). It is going to drink beautifully when released. He also had a few other Pinot’s on hand from other winemakers. It was really hard not just to stand there all night and enjoy.
It’s always fun to get together with like minded people. We are all partners, but for various reasons. We haven’t seen any of them for a couple of years, so it takes awhile to catch up, but catch up we did.
It was a perfect evening, friends, food & wine. The patio at the tasting room was the perfect venue. The sides were down and the two heaters were running. It was cozy and intimate. What a perfect end to the 2009 harvest.
Well, the previous Platinum Judge post took you to the website where I submitted the video and anyone could vote (Thank YOU to those that did). Here is the video only if you want to watch it here. I posted it out on YouTube, so you can watch it as many times as you want
I lost a couple nights sleep over this dang thing, I was figuring out the pictures and the words in my head before I put them down on paper. I picked out all the pictures, put them in some semblance of a sequence and then taped the words. I did the words in one take, figured I couldn’t do too much better. I had to think about all the times I did presentations at work and my speech classes to make sure I didn’t talk too fast (yeah, I know I do…) and to enunciate so that people could understand what I was saying. Not bad, even if I do say so myself.
I was the only one that submitted a video, so I won by default, but it was fun. What did I win? I won the opportunity to be a non-voting judge during a 2 day wine judging event in Kennewick, WA. We will be there over Halloween weekend, should be a wonderful learning experience. Get to taste (and spit) over 300 wines from OR, WA, ID, and BC. I am really excited.
"We" finally finished harvesting on Monday, Oct. 12th. Jim and I participated in two days of harvesting, Oct. 5th & 9th. Both days were foggy in the morning, the first morning was a lot colder as the fog rose and stayed at the vineyard level. The grapes were happy though and that is all that counts. All totaled, there was about 38 tons of Pinot Noir harvested from the Lenné Estate Vineyard. Not bad, for a nine year old vineyard. It is growing up to be something wonderful.
Enjoy a little slideshow of the two days Jim and I spent at the vineyard harvesting; me, mostly taking pictures
Keep your eye out for the 2009 vintage late next year or early 2011, you are going to like it.
What can I say? We love to go out to Lenne and show it off. Dave & Vicki came up to the Portland area for the last weekend in September and we were able to meet up at the Lenne tasting room. What a great way to enjoy an afternoon!
Looking over the vineyard towards WillaKenzie vineyards
Lenne chicken keeping vigilance
enjoying the afternoon on the patio
Thank you Dave & Vicki for taking time out of your busy weekend to come join us. Also, sorry that Steve & Beth were not able to be there, we missed you!
Hot off the press; from the Wine Press Northwest weekly email dated 10/13/2009:
Congratulations to Kim Waddle, the only entrant in our contest for a seat at our Platinum Judging. She will join nine other judges to taste through more than 300 wines from Washington, Oregon, British Columbia and Idaho that won gold medals in any of about 30 top-flight competitions we tracked this year.
We are about ready to really get down and dirty and start picking the majority of the Lenne Estate Vineyard. The grapes are in excellent shape, great color, flavor, sugars & PH. Any day now, the 2009 harvesting will begin.
Here are a couple of pictures that I took a week or so ago out at the tasting room/vineyard.
Looking up at the tasting room & vineyard from Hwy 240 just before you turn onto Laughlin road.
The tractor is ready to start placing the bins around the vineyard to be filled with the grape clusters.
The grapes & grape clusters are huge this year, may have to treat them a little different as we harvest them this year.
My mouth is already watering, thinking about the 2009 vintage. Part of the 2008 vintage will be released over Thanksgiving, they say it is going to be a good one, but our 2007 was also a great year, even with all the rain. If you haven’t had any 2007 yet, you should, it is silky and smooth, just a luscious mouth full.
Let me know if you are going to be in the area, I can give you some helpful hints on where to go.
Looking over the vineyard towards WillaKenzie vineyards
Lenne chicken keeping vigilance
enjoying the afternoon on the patio
