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Why We Make Wine
It’s a story that has been 20+ years in the making, maybe even longer. I mean, after all, Scott is the son of farmer of a farmer, and now here he is, a farmer himself, with a son.
If you’re interested in the whole story, it’s right here.
Tags: wine
1000 ships? I doubt it. Although at times I do feel this wine thing has NOT been of my own accord…[cue nervous laughter].
Let’s see, however, what this face of mine DOES launch. It’s something I quietly started a couple of weeks ago, but what the hell. There’s no better time than the present to send ‘er out to sea.
Enjoy.
Tags: Oregon, wine, wine startup
Woke up this morning to the Times Square bomb scare. How thankful I am for the people there, of NY, of this country that a terrible tragedy was avoided. I was just thinking of bombs and explosives yesterday. We had just finished The Hurt Locker, and well, if you’ve seen it, or have first-hand experiences with such madness, how can it not leave a mark on you?
Out walking Jack we were in our usual park, one in north Portland I don’t think many people care much about. It’s almost always empty, save for errant underwear or condom wrappers or fried chicken bones. But it is a beautiful park, tall, majestic cedars, soft, full grass, forget-me-nots dotting out in the sun-kissed areas. This park backs up to an armory, kept separate by a chain fence with barbed wire at the top. Samuel likes to go close to it and look at the desert transport vehicles lined up next to olive drab trucks and other machinery uncategorizable to a civilian eye.
So there I was, out running around with Jack, and I came across a golf ball just lying there. I’ve stopped picking up errant objects out of fear, I hate to say, from all the news of middle east bombs disguised as toys from years back. Even though if I were to pick it up, I would most likely not lose my hand or arm or life doing so. But I think about it, and more importantly, I think about others who face real crap like that every day. And how much we take for granted. And then I think about my own whining, “Oh, this small house! Oh, all the naysayers! Oh, all sacrifices for this vineyard and wine!” Oh, woe is me, little, poor Stephanie. Tcha. I gotta shut up and buck up. I’ll try. I really will.
Tags: Portland, The Hurt Locker, Times Square bomb scare, vineyard, wine
Sorry, everyone, for you not hearing a PEEP from me/us in the last few weeks. I did something dumb, which I thought at the time was GOOD, which was, to take on a freelance project for a wonderful designer friend of mine. See, I still struggle with this new(er) identity of “I’m in the wine business,” and so should spend my time working on sharing more about us in this blog. I still feel the tug of my “previous life,” which was as a brand writer, and boy was it a helluva lot easier then, having a Creative Director directing you in all your (or my) writing work…anyway…it was a 2000 word article meant for a global innovation group publication of a design intelligence company out of the UK whose focus is on retail and hospitality. My piece is about branded spaces and the power of story. Here’s the first paragraph:
Tags: brand writer, branded spaces, design intelligence, spatial narrative, The Uncultivated Life, wine, wine business
Was reading a Curious George story from the late 1950s to our young son the other day. In one of the scenes is an image of a reporter carrying one of those old-time cameras, the boxy ones with the big flash on top, looked like she was looking down on it to take the picture instead of holding it to her eye. You know what I’m talking about? Anyway, I soon put our little guy to napping and came downstairs thinking of that camera, about how in many of my favorite children’s books I share with Sam there are a good many dated items like the telephone in the big green room, or this box camera, or horse-drawn wagons, etc; in essence, objects from the past that my son might never come to know because they are no longer relevant to our cultural landscape.
Alone with my cup of coffee, Scott across the table finishing up Hugh Johnson, A Life Uncorked (look for a book report soon – I’ll try to get Scott to expand on his thoughts for this one), I began to think about something I had read recently in the March WS, about an idea from the past that I wonder if more and more people might never come to know, or even worse, to dismiss: the farm-to-wine connection.
Tags: A Life Uncorked, Burgundy, Curious George, Finger Lakes, Hugh Johnson, James Molesworth, single vineyard wine, vineyard, wine
While watching the Academy Awards the other night I started thinking (what an incredibly boring show, even with Alec and Steve, so what else to do?): How are films made? Besides the obvious of a great script and dialogue and scenery and costumes, lighting, etc., and of course the greatly talented actors and directors who bring it all to light, at the end, it all gets pieced together after numerous takes. Get the line wrong? Take 2. Get it wrong again? Take 3. And so on, and so on, take after take until it’s just right. Then, it’s edited down, soundtrack and whatever else applied, and there you go. Oh, if it could be so in the wine industry.
Tags: Academy Awards, vineyard, wine, wine industry
HIGHLIGHTS: Architects Meet Us On the Hilltop. Building-Wise, What Do We Really Need Now? Fan Keeps Up Much Needed Urging. Moving Along: To Do List.
COUNTDOWN: 35 WEEKS
Now that eight weeks of The Little House On the Hilltop (TLHOTH) project have come and gone, let me share what’s happened since the last post:
Tags: Digital Media Design and Fabrication, Mt. Hood, The Dalles, vines, vineyard, Wasco County, wine
All the Difference posts are about those people (and ideas) who dared to step off the busy highway and to follow one less worn for wear. Away from the crowds, these individuals walk to their own beat, with unexpected and singular results that may not always be for everyone, but that, my guess, was never the point.
****
It was 1835. With little more than 50 years past the boot given to the British in our War of Independence, and only 20 years out of boot #2 from the War of 1812, a young America heard a newborn’s cry. Running with the unrestrained speed of a people newly cut loose, the fledgling country already was at a number of crossroads from all its people and ideas on the move. Abolitionists, Expansionists, Industrialists, Feminists, Capitalists, Unionists. Iron horses would soon replace the flesh and bones type, and water and its heated sibling, steam, would forever change the nation through cogs and gears, tracks and wheels. World blights and the eternal dream of a better life would provide cheap labor and transform a young nation from a backwoods land to a backwoods land with potential. It was a time when people’s optimism was as immense as the land they sought to tame. And their challenge and rejection of the legitimacy of another voice speaking for them left them ripe for their own. They would find it in this baby born in a small town on the fringe of the American frontier: Samuel Clemens.
Tags: Elmira, Gallo, Mark Twain, pinot noir, publishing, Samuel Clemens, wine, wine world
Reading a fairly recent WS blog by James Laube about winemakers with style reminded me of what Scott has been saying since ’45:
“I don’t make wine for anyone except me.”
“Wait. Woah. Hold on, Hoss,”
I’d say to him.
“How the hell are we supposed to sell wine you only make for yourself?!”
Even before planting the vineyard we had talked about not catering to the critic’s palate, and for sure not rushing after or trying to predict the wine flavour of the day. That wasn’t the point of any of this. But to hear Scott put it out there on the table so, well, matter-of-factly (or egoistically, depending on how one feels AT THE TIME), I was taken aback, made a little nervous.
Tags: James Laube, palate, sea turtles, vineyard, wine, winemakers
To give myself a little break from all this writing, I asked Scott to write a little “report” on Liquid Memory, a fairly controversial book by Jonathan Nossiter (see 11/17/09 The Pour Posting). I haven’t read it myself yet, but my guess is, I’ll just love it, as I found Mondovino, Nossiter’s film, a wonderful glimpse into the international world of wine. Mondovino felt like a parody on the industry, and while I just giggled through many parts, or shook my head in disbelief at the obnoxious egos flying around the world, you can imagine it was not well-received in the industry. The same way a Michael Moore film is met by the industry he exposes. So I’m very curious about Liquid Memory.
Well, I guess I forgot to ask Scott to state his opinion of the book, because what we have here is a bare bones synopsis (now I know why he got his PhD in chemistry and not philosophy: less writing). So to give more insight into what Scott thinks of Nossiter, I’ve included his two comments to The Pour’s 11/17 posting. One more than the other is somewhat out of context on its own, but if you’re interested, you can go and read the whole string, which I hope you do.
Tags: biodynamic, globalizing economies, homogeneity, individual, Jonathan Nossiter, Liquid Memory, Michael Moore, Mondovino, Nossiter, palates, wine, wine quality, winemaking
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