[Chris Vais]

I have been offered and have accepted a position as a harvest cellar worker. This temporary position has the potential to morph into a long term position as the Seller Master for Lachini Vineyards. Whether this job becomes long term or not, is not as important as the exposure to the Oregon winemaking community I'll be getting.

 

Lachini is a biodynamic winery with estate vineyards in Newberg, OR. The winery is located in Tualatin, OR. Lachini produces 5000 cases per year of Pinot Noir, Pinot Grigio, Chardonnay, Cabernet and small amount of Merlot and Petit Verdot. The Bordeaux reds all come from eastern Washington.

 

Visited Sokol Blosser this past weekend. They were one of the first wineries to establish themselves in Oregon in the early 70's. They produce several different Pinot Noirs, so it is going to take a few more visits to sample everything they produce. On nice thing about being in the industry is the opportunity to taste wines that the general public never gets to taste.

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[94SilverCab]

Oh, how I envy you...best of luck, and don't forget that I accept Oregon Pinot in lieu of contributions 

 

I hope that you will connect with a few of the friends I pointed you to in our correspondence.

 

Regards,

 

Jay

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[ds968]

Good news Chris ! You’re doing something you enjoy so it does not matter in what capacity or even what it may morph into..( IMO ) live for the “ here and now “ and things will work out fine in the long term, no doubt ..

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[Chris Vais]

Jay,

 

I will be making those connections you referred me to this fall on the days that I'm not working. It took much longer to find a place to rent than we anticipated, so I took the first opportunity, that came my way, to get involved with this fall's harvest. The nature of the position is such that I should get a pretty hands on education on producing Pinot Noir.

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[Rap]

For Pinot advocates that’s important. We will await your observations!

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[Chris Vais]

Well the first couple of weeks of this years wine grape harvest in the Willamette Valley has been plagued with periods of rain. To date, Lachini has harvested 8 tons of Pinot Noir for sparkling Pinot Noir Rose. This wine is made in the traditional champagne method. This past Thursday and Friday we took in another 8 tons which was processed for Pinot Rosa (Pinot Noir Rose). About half of the fruit was whole cluster pressed and the rest was destemmed and pressed.

 

The weather will turn cooler with intermittent showers over the next week with much cooler weather by the end of next week. Much different weather than I was accustomed to in California. Despite the cool wet weeks we have had, the quality of the fruit we have brought in is absolutely beautiful, no bunch rot despite the rain.

 

We will see a the bulk of our Pinot come in the next two weeks to three weeks. Going to be some eighteen hour days.

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[94SilverCab]

Interesting that they are focusing on Rose'...I'm assuming that this will be resulting from skin contact.

 

Can't wait to hear more updates!

 

Jay

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[Chris Vais]

Jay,

 

High quality, fully dry Rose has enjoyed a resurgence in the market place. Lachini Harvests Pinot Noir for  the sparkling wine when the Brix is at 21 and the TA at around 12.5 g/L The Rose grapes were harvested at 22 Brix with a TA of around 6.5g/L. Both wines will have a beautiful Rose color because the juice is pressed off the fruit immediately, allowing minimal skin contact time. We are 16 tons into a 100 ton crush program with Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon coming in at the end of the week. We are going to have dry weather for the next week and a half so hopefully the TA in the the Pinot Noir will drop to around 2.8 g/L. The Cabernet, Merlot and Petit Verdot we use for the two Bordeaux blends we produce comes from eastern Washington.

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[Chris Vais]

We are 90 tons onto a 100 ton crush program. Destemmed the last 7 tons of Pinot Noir yesterday. This summer was somewhat cooler and a bit wetter, with lower temperatures and periods of rain this fall during harvest. The impact on the grapes was to extend hang time, lower brix and slow the drop in acidity. The extended hang time combined with wetter snd cooler weather will result in wines that a slightly lower in alcohol, with good acidity, requiring few, if any acid additions prior to fermentation. We are doing a 7 day cold soak prior to initiating fermentation. The purpose of the cold soak is to draw out color and tannins. The first batch of Pinot Noir fermentations are ending in the next day or so and that will give us our first assessment of this years vintage.

 

The sparkling wine and the Rose will both be very nice wines, very aromatic, great flavors with beautiful color.

 

I've been drinking a Trisaetum Winery 2015 Estates Reserve Pinot Noir this evening. It is one of the best Oregon Pinots I've tasted. The 2015 Ribbon Ridge is equally is good. Nice classic Pinot nose, well balanced, soft mouth feel, moderately tannic and very subtle oak. I've had a few Pinots here that were so oaky they tasted and smelled as if there was an entire lumber yard in the bottle. I've also tasted a couple of organic wines that were quite flawed. One, a Pinot with noticeable volatile acidity (vinegar) present and the other a Rose that had a distinct hydrogen sulfide nose that dissipated when I dropped a copper penny into my glass. If your going to produce organic or natural wines you had better pay very close attention to sanitation and fermentation.

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[Rap]

Chris keep up the posts. I continue to learn about wine from you. Much appreciated!

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[Chris Vais]

My stint as a cellar worker for 2019 harvest has come to an end. I learned quite a bit.Here are a few of my observations.

 

This could well have been the final bite of the apple for me. Cellar work for this 71 year old was an 8 week beat down. I simply don't have the ability to work 12 to 15 hours a day at heavy physical labor, even with two days off a week. It may be time to retire or perhaps find a winery the isn't understaffed and has equipment that is appropriately sized to the case volume. A one ton capacity press when you are processing 100 tons fruit  doesn't get it. A typical press run is 80 minutes and it has to be cleaned between runs. Makes for very long days. By way of comparison, Longevity, where I worked in California, had a 2 ton press and we were doing 30 tons a year.

 

Stylistically, Oregon Pinot Noir is different. At the winery I worked at, the Pinot Noir fruit was de-stemmed or in some cases fermented whole cluster. In either case the de-stemmed or whole cluster fruit was placed in refrigerated truck trailers where it was allowed to cold soak for 7 to 10 days at 40 degrees. No fermentation takes place during this time. The purpose of the cold soak is color extraction. The end result is that the wine is very extracted, dark in color with a substantial amount of tannin. Evidently, the extended cold soak is commonly employed in Oregon. My experience with Pinot Noir vinting in CA was that the fruit was cold soaked for no more than three days resulting in a lighter bodied wine, more in line with  a Burgundian style Pinot Noir. Most of the Oregon Pinots I've tasted to date, are, to my palate, over extracted. Mind you these wines are not flawed in any way, just a different style of winemaking

 

That said there are a boatload of Pinot Noir producers here, so there is much tasting to be done this winter. Jay has given me some good recommendations that I will checking out in the coming months.

 

As far as the 2019 vintage is concerned, the cool summer punctuated with a smattering of rain and the rainy early fall slowed down the ripening process, and often resulted in the fruit being harvested wet rather than waiting to let it dry and risk bunch rot. I would expect the wines to be somewhat lower in alcohol as a result. 

 

There is also a serious craft brewing culture here. I've found some very nice Pilsners and IPAs.

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[Roboman]

Hmmm, I can see I'll need to try some US wines so I can make some comparisons.  We live in France near the Mediterranean just North of the French/Spanish boarder, so understandably I now have a palate for wines of this region.  For the most part they tend to be strong reds, both in taste and alc level, or sweet/dessert wines.  Fitou and Corbieres are the regional AOC. Fitou is a blend of Syrah, Carignan, and Marsalan (and I think Mouverdre is permitted), Corbieres is essentially from the same region but of different blends; both tend to be 14%-15.5%.  Pinot Noir from Burgundy now tastes a little light to me, but so long as it's not rough then I'll hardly turn it down   

Wine tasting opportunities are abundant (and free!).  In our village of just 850 people there is one major cooperative, fed by about 200 vigneron, and another 6 independent producers.  Most, if not all, the surrounding villages have small producers, but not all have a major cooperative.

One of our village producers exports to UK and The States, "Domain Jones", her wines tend to be a little expensive, another from a few miles away "Gerard Bertrand" is perhaps more reasonably priced but a touch tannic for me.

We also make our own wine; our third season now.  Our first season we made Cartagene, Floc de Gasgoine, and sweet natural wine ..... or should I say we tried to    The Cartagene is "point and shoot" so that worked okay, the others were AWFUL ..... but our drains were clean!!

Last season was greater success and the wine improved over the year.  And this year's harvest is presently sitting quietly in glass "bonbonnes" waiting to be filtered and bottled.  We have just one stock, but this year it gave us about 45Lts including sediment, which should result in about 35Lts of wine.

Enough for now, I'll see if anyone is interested in discussing "wine across the water"

Cheers  ..... no emoticon for wine?

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[Chris Vais]

Roboman,

 

Interesting post, one of the things I enjoy about discussing wine with my European brothers is that you make wine from grapes I've never heard of. The climate where you live is much the same as the wine producing regions in California, so I'm not surprised that the wines from your home region are similar, fruit forward, higher in alcohol. The wines from Burgundy will almost always be lower in alcohol and somewhat lighter in body. As I noted in my post about the winery I worked at this past harvest, cold soaking the fruit will extract color, flavor and tannin making a more robust wine, but it is possible to overdo it.

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[ds968]

Its all about individual taste, I for one, will not touch any light body wines, and particularly not the ones where you can taste the dirt ( the regions soil ) in them. Many French wines are notorious for that . I like very bold, rich, heavy , ( or whatever you call it ) fruit forward wines with high alcohol content . Although many of the lighter ones generally compliment food better than the bolder ones, theyre not appealing to my pallet . But as they say,.. À chacun son goût . And thats literally speaking , when it comes to wines ..

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[Rap]

I found that as my wine palate grew that I enjoyed Pinots more than heavier wines. Ds as you say it really is about preference which is what makes wines such an interesting experience. 

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[Roboman]

[quote name="ds968" post="188349" timestamp="1574820072"]Its all about individual taste, I for one, will not touch any light body wines, and particularly not the ones where you can taste the dirt ( the regions soil ) in them. Many French wines are notorious for that . I like very bold, rich, heavy , ( or whatever you call it ) fruit forward wines with high alcohol content . Although many of the lighter ones generally compliment food better than the bolder ones, theyre not appealing to my pallet . But as they say,.. À chacun son goût . And thats literally speaking , when it comes to wines ..[/quote]

Bien sûr, à chacun son goût ... both Carignan and Marsalan have that "poohy smell" (not seen that in the tasting notes) and can be a turn off. My favorite is Syrah, or a predominance thereof. We have a vigneron nearby who happily just gives "the bird" to the AOC system and produces great wines. Cyril Cordina, excellent wine but a small productor so I'm afraid it is unlikely to make it to the States. Shame, you would like it.

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[Roboman]

[quote name="Rap" post="188350" timestamp="1574853096"]I found that as my wine palate grew that I enjoyed Pinots more than heavier wines. Ds as you say it really is about preference which is what makes wines such an interesting experience.

[/quote]

Hi Rap, we are vegetarians and so our stronger food tastes tend to come from cheese; blue cheese and red wine .... match made in heaven! Having said that I like Pinot as wine without food. It is very pleasant, but is lost amongst stronger cheese. So if I'm having Pinot it tends to be a precursor .....

Life is too short for crap wine! .... I think that was Oscar Wilde

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[Roboman]

[quote name="Chris Vais" post="188348" timestamp="1574816314"]Roboman,

 

Interesting post, one of the things I enjoy about discussing wine with my European brothers is that you make wine from grapes I've never heard of. The climate where you live is much the same as the wine producing regions in California, so I'm not surprised that the wines from your home region are similar, fruit forward, higher in alcohol. The wines from Burgundy will almost always be lower in alcohol and somewhat lighter in body. As I noted in my post about the winery I worked at this past harvest, cold soaking the fruit will extract color, flavor and tannin making a more robust wine, but it is possible to overdo it.[/quote]

Hi Chris, I'm not comfortable with French TA nnique wines, so I must try some wine from Oregan to taste what you are talking about. Many of the vines have multiple names; Shiraz/Syrah, some have a dozen similar names; see Wikipedia on wines with multiple names. I've enjoyed wine for decades but more frequently since retirement. So far it's been reasonably close to home. Maybe wine tasting across The States? And then there's a problem with my wife's Russian heritage ... vodka tasting across the East ....

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[ds968]

Ahhh, wine and cheese.. indeed a match made in heaven ! I consume cheese as if it’ll soon disappear from the face of the earth... copious amounts daily ! Expensive habit , but worth every penny .

I will drink some of the more robust Pinots here and there , but nothing like a hearty California cab , or meritage , GSM, or zin, to feed my soul .. and the aforementioned cheese . Some prosciutto, or jamon serrano to accompany that also, and I’m in heaven !

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[Roboman]

Good to see you're on line ds, like I said I'm a veggie, so it's good to sense your passion for wine and cheese. It is also interesting to find what we don't like .... most Spanish cheese to us is fatty and tastes of meat. Rioja and Emporda are good strong reds .... but do t seem to wash away that fatty taste

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