September 25,2010 was our 1st annual Dahlias and Bernard~Machado event. The weather proved to be a beautiful fall day and everyone involved enjoyed themselves. Briar Rose Creamery from Dundee, Oregon was present to sample
their local flavored goat cheese. And we paired that with dahlia flower tubers, thinly sliced. You can eat the entire dahlia plant! The tuber tastes like a cross between ginger, jicama, and turnip. It was surprisingly
refreshing!

The best feature of our gathering was involving a local children’s charity, Juliette’s House, which offers services to children and families in Yamhill County needing assistance in child abuse situations. WineWorks donated all the tasting fees collected that day to the organization. It was great to have Development Director Francine Fiore onsite to speak with our guests and spread awareness of their organization. Some of the tasters that day generously donated extra monies to the charity. 

The WineWorks OREGON tasting room staff: Amy Brewer, Melissa Collins, and Stephanie Ranche

Bernard~Machado is the pinot noir created from the oldest vineyard that the WineWorks Oregon family farms. This vineyard sits above Rex Hill in Newberg’s Chehalam Mountains AVA. Winemaker John Davidson was available to answer questions and poured past vintages of Bernard~Machado, 2000 to 2006. It was a rare treat to be able to do this exclusive flight of pinot noirs. The dahlia flower is in the center of this tuscan style label and was the inspiration for
the dahlia event.

I am looking forward to this event growing and evolving, symbolizing harvest, old world pinot, and community support.

  Cheers! ~Jennifer Kadell

Tasting Room Manager Jennifer Kadell and winemaker John Davidson

As we approach “lag phase”, our vineyard management team at St. Joseph Orchard is estimating an “average” crop for the 2010 harvest.  Although we are experiencing a significantly cooler growing season, ‘my carrot’, as I patiently wait out the annual climate/ripeness drama that all great wine growing regions experience, is that wines from 1999 were /are STELLAR.  Concentrated/balanced… The 1999 Bernard~Machado La Cantera Vineyard is perhaps the vineyard’s best expression ever…Pure Pinot Perfection!

I’ll provide updates as they unfold.

I pass on a story from Wine and War in which the authors describe efforts of French wine growers to preserve and protect their industry and inventories through WWII.  In the spring of 1940, as the German army moved west through Belgium, Andre Terrail, owner of restaurant La Tour d’Argent and his son Claude had to decide how to best protect their 100,000 bottle inventory.  In short order they decided to ‘wall it in’ and hopefully hide the cellar from the invaders but soon realized it was not possible.  They chose instead, 20,000 of the “Best” to hide.  Wines from the 1867 vintage were Terrail’s pride and joy and were included and moved to another location in the cellar and ‘bricked-in’.  The wine went undiscovered throughout the war. Imagine enjoying a 70+ year old wine from your cellar!!!!

This was the state of haute wine culture at that time.  Today 80 percent of wine is consumed within 48 hours of purchase.  The times they are a changing…homage to Bob Dylan.

John Davidson

This is my very first blog and I would like to take the time to introduce myself and also the things we do at Walnut City WineWorks (WineWorks Oregon).

My name is Miguel Lopez and I am the winemaker for Walnut City WineWorks and also assist our custom crush clients (Bernard Machado, Carlton Hill, Robinson Estate and Z’IVO) in making their wines. We primarily focus on Pinot Noir grown on our clients own vineyard sites and also dabble in white varietals such as Pinot Gris, Viognier, Chardonnay and some white blends.

We are located in an old retro-fitted building that started out as a Walnut processing facility. McMinnville was once known as Walnut City. Our vineyards are roughly within a 25 mile radius from the winery. We not only make wine for our custom crush clients but also help them in managing their vineyard sites as well. We have seen a lot and will continue to see more.

I am first generation Mexican-American and was born in Hillsboro, Oregon to Matilde and Santiago Lopez. I am their only son (as far as I know) and have 2 sisters. My parents moved us to McMinnville in 1993 and I have essentially grown up in the area along with the Oregon Wine Industry.

My folks went to work for Beaux Freres winery in 1991 in the vineyards and joined St. Joseph Orchard Inc. fulltime in 1996.

Along the way, I got to help in laying out and planting vineyards, learned to prune, tie canes, remove suckers, raise catch wires, shoot position, hedge, leaf pull along the fruit zone, drop green fruit, harvest, move trucks, sharpen tools……. I got to do a lot!!!!

I attended Chemeketa Community College, where I earned an Associates of Applied Science in winemaking this past winter. I speak both English and Spanish (my Spanish is getting rough because I speak English all the time).

I caught “The Wine Bug” in 2001 when I went to work for Z’IVO wines at a different winery during the harvest. For the first time in my life I got to see what all the fuss was about making wine in Oregon. My very first job was punch downs (taking a long plunger like tool and pushing grape skins back under the fermenting juice) and man did I love it. I was hooked!!!

The following year I went to work for Walnut City WineWorks, that is located across the street from McMinnville High School, which I was attending at the time. My commute was really good. I got out of class and threw on my winery cloths and went to work. That year I learned about Brix and temperature readings and got very familiar with cleaning a lot of equipment regularly.

I have earned a Winemaking Degree from Chemeketa Community College and have also worked a vintage in Marlborough, New Zealand. I am finding my way among so many great winemakers in Oregon and making friends with a lot of them.

I hope to have much more to write about as we get comfortable with our Blog and also answer questions to the best of my ability for you.

Cheers!

Miguel Lopez

I have been the Tasting Room Manager and Event Coordinator at WineWorks OR for the last 6 years. It is amazing to me all the things you can learn at a job in that amount of time, but most importantly the knowledge that I have gained about wines has just made my passion grow for it more. Being within a small company, all employees have to adapt to wearing different hats. And with this more experiences are had…

A few weeks ago when Oregon decided to have its sporadic hail and rain storms in between beautiful sunny days, our tasting room crew trekked out to the vineyard with rubber boots in hand. Bud break is one of my most favorite growing cycles in the vineyard. It doesn’t seem real that the old gnarly vine could have the brightest apple green shoot sprouting from it. And some of our vineyards aren’t very old, just 10 years young. I honestly can’t imagine what it would look like to see the century-old vines in France. The Fox Ridge Vineyard, located within the city limits of McMinnville, OR, is where most of the fruit comes from in our 2008 Walnut City WineWorks Pinot Noir.  And when I walk through the vineyard rows, I think about how this vineyard produces such bright cherry spicy fruit. The perfect wine to pour in your glass accompanying your veggie pizza drizzled with balsamic vinegar on a Tuesday night.

Housed in a former walnut-processing building, WineWorks Oregon is more than your average winemaking facility. With five labels under one roof, visitors experience a varied selection of wines at one sitting.

Founded in 1999 by John Davidson and John Gilpin, Walnut City WineWorks celebrates not only a twenty-year partnership but a mutual love of the vine as well. Beginning with fruit that they grew, Davidson and Gilpin envisioned a place where the wines produced would highlight the characters of the vineyard, yet remain free of pretension. Using the motto “growing great wines from the ground up”, the partners, along with an excellent winemaking team lead by Miguel Lopez, have achieved this goal.