minerality

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Last week we tasted our very first bottled wine we made from our vineyard. What follows are some particulars regarding it.

The goal for our Riesling is to make it bone dry. No residual sugar. We planted Riesling because that is Scott’s favorite white wine. We have 4 rows’ worth on the south side, and around 3 acres on the north, for around 3.5 acres in total. Since our budget has only allowed us to trellis the south side, it is from here, some of the steepest ground on our site, where we take our harvest to date.

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Alone on a western, windy hill, sitting bold among the old wheat fields, a small, determined vineyard grows, and an uncultivated life unfolds. The story of The Grande Dalles vineyard and its wine, The Uncultivated Life is our tale as newcomers in rugged wheat country starting from scratch to pound out a dream of farming and wine outside The Dalles, Oregon.

If you’re looking for a wine story with grit, look no farther. The trouble is, at this time it’s hard to tell which has been grittier: the story with all its ups and downs; the emotional toll of sticking with it and our ideas, particularly despite the gobs of naysayers who want to so quickly snuff our flame; or the ground rock in our vineyard.

So far, unlike the landscape that surrounds our vines, the story hasn’t been pretty. Rather, it’s been one of greed and deceit, of betrayal and misfortune, of sacrifice and struggle and NOT what I thought I was signing up for four loooong years back. “It’s not what I signed up for either,” chimes in Scott tersely. Honestly, neither of us expected it to be, well, like this (it’s just that Scott can handle it better). Read the rest of this entry »

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