A spot-on article by Oregon Wine Press. Thank you, Stu Watson. You’ll have to enlarge to read, hold down apple key and + key for a mac, control key and + key for a PC.
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Out on the farm the other day I snapped a few pics; while Scott’s out hunchy-walking underneath the chest-high bird netting that now encloses the vineyard checking the grapes’ progress, I’m out with Sam, tooling around.
The moods and colors and textures of the land continually surprise me; every day something new. Looking at these I think about the structure(s — barn, winery, and house) we hope to one day build (gotta sell that wine), and how much there is to draw from for inspiration. The proposed agricultural structure from our Viennese architect friends (see Week 26 of The Little House on The Hilltop Project — scroll down for image) captures the essence of what we look for, the idea suggests an outcropping of the basalt that forms the foundation of the land upon which our hills sit, while at the same time feels as if it undulates under the influence of the sculpted hills that surround it.
As a detail person, I think about the patterns of life that flow through our property, beyond the obvious seasonal changes–the passing overhead of a red-tailed hawk, the agricultural rhythms that pulse through and around it, the flow of the wind, the paths of the resident coyote(s?) and other unseen critters, the bursts of spring and early summer color of the lupine in the uncultivated eyebrows, the spirits of people past and present that this magical land contains–and how these might be represented in the structures. There are so many patterns of life that exist, I imagine the possibilities as endless. Not to mention all these colors, textures, and lines.
A couple of weeks ago Scott bluntly said, “We need 40 days of good weather.” What he was referring to is what is alarming the bejeezus out of the industry at the moment: will this year’s crop have enough time to ripen? For us, we’re a good 3 weeks behind, due to the long, chilly Spring and lackluster months of Summer. And out at the farm on Friday Scott didn’t seem very upbeat about what he was seeing; things were still spotty. Although this coming week’s forecast from Weather Underground definitely gives this household a boost.
Go, little grapes, GO!
Tags: Weather Underground
We were out at the farm yesterday and as soon as I got out to open the deer gate was an overwhelming sweet smell of forest-fire smoke. Yesterday there was a fire raging in central Oregon, near Sisters to the south of us, 133 miles (214 km) away; a fire in Walla Walla to the east-northeast of us (160 miles/257 km) had grown in size, from 4,000 acres to 20,000 (1600 – 8093 hectares) from Friday; and the wild fires almost due west in Siberia were sweeping across the Russian Federation landscape (mileage could not be calculated on Google Maps) and supposedly their smoke reaching the States on the jet stream. I don’t know what’s happening in California, or if the Montana fires have been maintained, but as much smoke-scented air there was, from wherever it may have come, the day was thankfully under the conditions the most pristine I’ve seen it. Cloudy, but blue sky like from a 3D viewer. And wind. Lots of wind. 
Tags: fires, google maps, Siberia, Sisters Oregon, Walla Walla
And it just keeps coming! This one touches upon the stone swept into our vineyard land and surrounding area from the great Missoula Floods, those cataclysmic dispatches of water that thundered out of Montana, across Washington and through the Columbia Gorge into Oregon’s Willamette Valley, the last ones some 12-14,000 years ago. It was these that formed the landscape around us, as well as carved out the magnificently scenic Columbia River Gorge. We’ve got tons of this washed-in gravel on the site, dug through around 300 feet of it for our well before hitting basalt (what the volcanoes flowed in). It’s some wild, rugged land out there, I tell you.
Tags: basalt, Columbia River Gorge, Missoula Floods, Montana, vineyard, volcanoes, Washington, Willamette Valley
Figured it was time to show a little about what I’ve been either hinting at or outright saying about our little vineyard on the frontier. The video says we went yesterday, but we didn’t — it was last week. Just takes me some time to edit all my “uhs” and “ahs” and, of course, the blather. And so what if I whisper at the end something that indirectly gives nod to what I think about our wine. Someone’s gotta say it someday. And hopefully soon it won’t be just me.
And for another one day soon…I’ll give our whole sordid story in video form, since so many of you have been asking, but for now, enjoy the wide open spaces that surround our place.
Tags: vineyard
Yesterday was the 30th anniversary of the eruption of Mt. St. Helens. I was 11 at the time, so no, I don’t remember where I was when it blew. But I have heard accounts since moving here to Oregon in 1991–the hot, tarry ash that ruined umbrellas people here in Portland used for the fallout, as well as any other thing the heated material landed on; the ominous, dark cloud people saw and then wondering, “Is this the end?”–and I remember all the “authentic Mt. St. Helens ash” blown glass holiday ornaments that were still being sold years after the 1980 eruption, I myself buying one in the late ’80s for my then step-mother at a little gift shop on Lark Street in Albany, New York, where I attended University.
I’ve been up and around Mt. St. Helens mountain biking, and the landscape is surreal, even today. Lunar, lunar, lunar. One day I’ll make it to the the top of the old gal, but for now I think about the tremendous energy hovering still in our back yard, not just in Mt. St. Helens, but in Mt. Hood, too.
Mt. Hood stands only 30-some miles as the crow flies to the WSW of our vineyard, and I have to admit, I worry. There are fumaroles pumping sulfuric gases out towards the summit of Mt. Hood, nauseating the hiker on the way to the top; not a lovely experience when you’ve been hiking all night, and then in the early dawn you get that up your nose. So Mt. Hood is another one that can go. It’s not the pyroclastic flows I’m worried about, it’s the ash and fallout — with the right wind, our vineyard, and 1000s of acres around it could become, well, toast. Or at least ruined. Which is still toast to me.
So for now, we’ll just enjoy that view from our hilltop, and hope for no wind that day. Right.
Peep my next video post for a peek at Mt. Hood in relation to our vineyard site, if you want.
Tags: Albany, authentic Mt. St. Helens ash, mountain biking, Mt. Hood, Mt. St. Helens, New York, Oregon, pyroclastic flow
For me, if I don’t hear a meadowlark out at the vineyard, it’s not complete. I don’t know why that song has come to signify the “being” of me there, but it has. Thankfully I hear one every time. And then I wonder, is it the same one? Do we have a resident meadowlark like our resident kestrels?
We were at the farm just the other day, Wednesday. Scott was showing around a city-slicker NYC friend, to whom I had loaned a fleece and hat because she had left NY in balmy weather, only to find a spring Oregon chill. Sam and I were checking for owl poop, I mean, pellets, under the owl houses that stand some 10? 12? feet above the trellis poles, attached to them by long screws and bolts. Sam carefully grabbing onto the vines as he hauled his growing little legs over the lower wire. Scott noticed and called out, “Make sure he doesn’t knock off any buds,” which I was already doing, of course, imagining where next year’s fruit canes might come from.
We headed toward the boxy house, white markings along its face, dropped by birds surveying from its roof. I really wanted to find a pellet. Wanted to find the little mass and pull it open with a vine’s cut spear that still dotted the rows from this year’s pruning, and see the bones and detritus that it might contain, stuff you learn in 10th grade biology, or from your crazy bird-mother… But there were none to be found. Only a quick rustling of feathers as we approached, and then a blur of wings as it left its hole. Was it an owl? (It would have to be a small one.) Was it a kestrel taking over a larger home? (The kestrel homes are more an rectangular upright, this was a horizontal positioning.) I don’t which bird it was, but I only knew it was there, and it left in a hurry, with Sam trying his best to keep upright, his face all rosy from the cold, and wind, stepping over the wire, and not far away atop another pole, the meadowlark let loose.
Tags: biology, kestrels, meadowlark, Oregon, vineyard
Looking at my daily dose of wine news yesterday, I came across the most beautiful picture of a medieval castle, its timeless quality framed by a pine forest behind and an enchanting vineyard out front. How it sat there, majestic in its quiet (Samuel had just gone down for a nap and “quiet” was my word of the moment). My first thought was “Oh, how I miss Italy,” where I imagined this castle was. “Wouldn’t a dose of sunshine—or limoncello— in that land of rustic comfort and fine leather hit the spot right about now?” (it was 10 AM, PST, the rain coming down on a grey January morn, as I sat with my own rustic Oregon comfort, coffee). Then I saw the story’s headline, Wine Tales of The Decade.
“Maybe another Italian scandal,” I thought, thinking of the Brunello troubles. “Or MAYBE,” and this is what I secretly hoped it was, “that old buck of a Prime Minister has a new 18-year old wine heiress-mistress?” and with that thought in mind I settled in to read the juicy news.
Well. I was had.
Tags: Antiques Roadshow, authentic, Bavaria, Braveheart, Brunello, California wine country, castle, County Meath, Germany, gigantism, Ireland, James Conaway, limoncello, McMansion, medieval architecture, medieval castle, Napa Valley, Oregon, provenance, Vanishing America, vineyard, wine, wine news
Hooray! The Dalles has been named a “True Western Town” in True West Magazine’s top 10 list of, you guessed it, “True Western Towns” for 2010.
I’ve always had the feeling, from the first time we showed up and actually spent some time in The Dalles looking for vineyard ground—instead of simply rumbling by on 84 as I imagine most do, because honestly, from a car window, The Dalles kind of shows its ass to the world and who would want to stop? The auto repair and RV spots, the strip malls and former old rundown Aluminum factory site now razed to a bunch of bare earth and that’s probably enough—that it was, at its soul, a quiet, Western town. And it is: at its center you’ll find restored, 19th century Victorians; one-way down-town streets lined with high-windowed brick buildings; farm rigs and big hats going by; cowboy boots and western wear; plus all what the article in True West speaks of. And all against the backdrop of enormous, grassy hills that echo Connemara to me—or pictures I’ve seen of New Zealand—on the Washington side, and heights of basalt outcroppings with scrub oak and sage on the Oregon side; the Western character is hard to miss. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: basalt, Big West, Cascade Range, Columbia Gorge, Columbia River, frontier, Hood River, kestre, kestrels, Leone western, Lewis Mumford, Mt. Hood, Portland, sense of place, The Dalles, vineyard, Western town
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