Winter Chores
From John, February 13th, 2025It is a misconception that winter is a time of rest for the vigneron. Now that wines from the just-completed vintage are resting in their barrels, we turn our attention to the vineyard, to blending and to bottling.
The thousands of vines who have just given their all to the 2024 vintage are now ready to start their next cycle. Cold winter weather coaxes the sap in the vines to flow back toward heads, signaling dormancy. They are ready to be pruned. Pruning is a truly Zen-like experience as it is purely between you and the vine, a silent conversation with each vine about its potential for the coming year. Decisions are made about where to leave a spur that will produce a suitable fruiting cane for the following year. Fruiting canes are selected based on the vigor of the vine in the past year. When all of the cuts have been made, the brush is pulled from the trellis and tossed in the vine rows. The brush will later be pulled out of the vineyard and turned into chips which can be combined with pressings from the just-completed harvest to produce a kick-ass compost pile.
In the winery, some of the white wines which have only recently finished their fermentation are now readied for bottling which means cold stabilizing, adjusting acidity and filtering. In late January, the 2024 Giovanni Pinot blanc is bottled, and shortly behind it the magical Giuliano Italian blend is assembled. Red wines that have been sitting in barrique for nearly 18 months are now tasted and the first of that vintage assembled for bottling (the 2023 Willamette Valley Pinot noir). Other small lots of special wines are being tasted and readied for bottling, including the 2023 Friulano and the 2023 Supernatural of Pinot Grigio. As wines are bottled, they must be labeled and readied for distribution. This is a busy time in Portland and around the valley as we approach retail and restaurants with samples of our new
releases. It is always a fun time showing off the just-completed vintage as well as the first reds from the previous vintage!
Recent News & Rants
The 2025 Vintage
Fermentations are now mostly complete and the cellar is angling down to its winter
temperature, so now is the time to button up my cardigan and reflect on the vintage just completed.
The Broken Immigration System
Now that the harvest season is largely over in Oregon, ICE has started to raid the farming communities in the Willamette Valley, arresting literally tens to hundreds at a time. Without immigrant workers helping us, we have no chance of bringing in a harvest next year. So the question becomes “what can we do?”
There’s More... >Harvesting in the Midst of ICE Storms
In the midst of the ICE storm in Portland, we are fermenting our fruit from an exceptional vintage, hoping that what we will best remember from 2025
will not be the carnage wreaked upon our immigrant workers but rather 2025 as a truly magnificent vintage!