Sumptuous Spring Dinner in the Volcano Vineyards Tasting Room:
Thursday, April 5, 2007 at 7 pm
We had originally planned to do this dinner with a certain catering company who did our fall dinner in the Tasting Room back in October, but when I called them last Friday to finalize the menu, I was informed by their voice mail that they’d gone out of business. Sooooo, I made some mad phone calls and Incredible Edibles came through. We have a great menu planned – take a peek:
FIRST COURSE
Mixed Greens w/ mandarin oranges, toasted almonds and avocado
Bonne Chance Sauvignon Blanc 2003 Redwood Valley, California
I love sauvignon blanc; its crispness and earthiness are like spring in a glass. Woohoo! Cheesy vernal simile out of the way! Bonne Chance makes this from organic grapes. The wine is lush, fruity and will compliment the sweetness of the oranges and sesame dressing, while balancing the richness of the avocado with its crisp acidity.
SECOND COURSE
Bacon Wrapped Shrimp Skewers and Black Forest Ham, Fontina & Asparagus Flat Bread Squares
Volcano Vineyards Syrah 2004 Rogue Valley
Our syrah (you know, the one that got the GOLD MEDAL at the San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition) shines when paired with smoky, salty and bitter foods (ham, bacon, and greens like asparagus). Refined and sensual, the syrah has firm tannins and dark plum overtones with a hint of raspberry and flowers throughout. There are many syrahs out there right now that are all fruit and no backbone, and when paired with food, they bury all the flavors. The Volcano Vineyards Syrah is subtle and complex and lower in alcohol than the current fashion, which makes it very food friendly.
THIRD COURSE
Herb Crusted Tri Tip with a Volcano Vineyards Merlot shallot sauce and served with horseradish smashed red potatoes
Volcano Vineyards Merlot 2004 Rogue Valley
Admit it – you secretly like merlot. And our merlot will convert your friends, even if they take their wine advice from the drunk, unpublished writer in “Sideways.” Besides, he's FICTIONAL, for Pete's sake. Anyhoo - Polished, with smooth, controlled tannins, our Volcano Vineyards Merlot shows layers of spice and black cherry, jammy with hints of cocoa. It pairs well with savory foods like mushrooms, cured ham, parmesan cheese, seaweed, asparagus, most fish and meat. In other words, foods rich in umami, the elusive “fifth taste.”
DESSERT
Key lime Tart
Harris Bridge Pinot Gris Dessert Wine 2005 Willamette Valley
Pinot Gris has hints of citrus which are accented when paired with the Key lime tart. Both dessert, and dessert wine, are balances of acidity and sweetness. Modeled after the German Eisweins (aka Ice Wine), the wines of Harris Bridge are crafted by allowing the grapes to reach the optimal balance of sugars with acidity, then the grapes are picked, frozen and pressed. The resulting wine is more concentrated and lush – and more versatile – than the typical, sweety-sweet dessert wine. And how cool is it that they are doing something different in the Willamette Valley?
We have a few spaces left - call the Tatsing Room today to reserve your spot!
541.617.1102
www.volcanovineyards.com
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Thursday, March 22, 2007
Viognier at Volcano Vineyards
Viognier Flight Thursday March 29: five viogniers, tasty appetizers, only $10
Viognier: our favorite Rhone white! Both Chardonnay and Viognier share tropical fruit flavors and a creamy mouth-feel. Even with little or no wood aging, Viognier can be as full-bodied as an oaky Chardonnay, but has much more distinctive fruit character. It also has a typically deep golden color, and usually shows rich and intense flavors of Orange blossom, violet, honey aromas, apricot, peach, mango papaya, kiwi flavors, anise, mint, hay, and tobacco. It’s a fun white you can pair with spicy or stongly-flavored foods: Thai, Mexican, Chinese cuisine, and our favorite match - blue cheese. Check out the five featured wines in our flight:
Abacela Winery Viognier 2005, Southern Oregon: Grapes are from both the Umpqua and the Applegate Valleys in southern Oregon. Whole cluster processing, fermentation in 100% stainless steel. These guys are detail oriented and methodical. Just check out Abacela’s website for the “weather” page – they monitor EVERYTHING – heat index, wind, sunrise, sunset, barometric pressure… which reminds me, did you know that 25% of all meteorologists in the US earned their bachelor degrees at Penn State? Amazing. But, I digress… Ah, let’s see, rose petal, honeysuckle and peach aromatics, mango and banana(!!!) finished off with a hint of wood. I picked up hints of coconut and pineapple on the nose (not quite a piña colada, but pleasantly reminiscent of it) with a light mouth-feel and a crisp finish.
Tertulia Cellars: 2005 Viognier - Columbia Valley, Washington: The name of this new Walla Walla winery means “a social gathering of friends.” The 2005 viognier is their first white release. It contains 22% rousanne, another Rhone varietal valued for its crisp acidity. The grapes were whole-cluster pressed - that is a gentler process that extracts flavor from the fruit of the grape, not the stems, seeds and skins as happens with traditional crushing. Fermentation occurred in 74% stainless steel and 26% neutral French oak, partial malolactic fermentation (the process that turns bitter malic acid into the softer lactic acid). Tertulia’s tasting notes indicate we should experience floral aromas, with pineapple, peach and apricot flavors, a smooth mouth-feel and balanced acidity. I got green apple and honey on the nose, tropical up-front fruit, a rich mouth-feel (from the ML, I would assume), melon, kiwi and pineapple flavors and a clean finish.
Roxyann Winery: 2005 Viognier - Rogue Valley, Oregon: Roxyann’s Winemaker, Gus Janeway, is our consulting winemaker. His guidance has been invaluable! Gus is generally considered to be a master of red wines, so let’s see how he does with a white. Roxyann’s tasting notes suggest a floral nose with pineapple, guava, and spiced lemon zest throughout. The promise is of a rich and luscious warm weather viognier. It has less of a traditional viognier nose: no floral aromas, but I got hints of honey and pink grapefruit, but I was definitely reminded of chardonnay. Crisp up front with a smooth finish, green apple and key lime flavors. A good option for a weightier white for the ABC-ers.
Cougar Crest Winery: 2005 Viognier – Walla Walla, Washington: Estate grown, 100% viognier Cougar Crest tells us to look for floral and citrus aromas on the nose, followed by pear, pineapple, grapefruit and melon with a honey finish. The Wine Spectator gave this an 88, stating that it feels - and I am not making this up - “raw, offering ear and green peach aromas.” I have no idea what an ear aroma might be, and I couldn’t detect anything I would call “ear aroma” so... Also very chardonnay-like in weight and mouth-feel.
Valley View Winery: 2005 Viognier – Southern Oregon: This winery was established in 1972, and they are known as “the Rogue Valley’s premiere winery.” Their Anna Maria wines are considered their “reserve” line – they only produce these wines when the vintage merits. This Viognier has a heavenly nose - flowers, tropical fruit, melon, with nicely balanced acidity. ‘The Oregonian’ declared, "It will be hard to find a better Viognier anywhere." I love it; I think its flavor profile is the most viognier-ish of the flight. Scott feels it is a bit thin. What do YOU think?
Join us next Thursday!
Viognier: our favorite Rhone white! Both Chardonnay and Viognier share tropical fruit flavors and a creamy mouth-feel. Even with little or no wood aging, Viognier can be as full-bodied as an oaky Chardonnay, but has much more distinctive fruit character. It also has a typically deep golden color, and usually shows rich and intense flavors of Orange blossom, violet, honey aromas, apricot, peach, mango papaya, kiwi flavors, anise, mint, hay, and tobacco. It’s a fun white you can pair with spicy or stongly-flavored foods: Thai, Mexican, Chinese cuisine, and our favorite match - blue cheese. Check out the five featured wines in our flight:
Abacela Winery Viognier 2005, Southern Oregon: Grapes are from both the Umpqua and the Applegate Valleys in southern Oregon. Whole cluster processing, fermentation in 100% stainless steel. These guys are detail oriented and methodical. Just check out Abacela’s website for the “weather” page – they monitor EVERYTHING – heat index, wind, sunrise, sunset, barometric pressure… which reminds me, did you know that 25% of all meteorologists in the US earned their bachelor degrees at Penn State? Amazing. But, I digress… Ah, let’s see, rose petal, honeysuckle and peach aromatics, mango and banana(!!!) finished off with a hint of wood. I picked up hints of coconut and pineapple on the nose (not quite a piña colada, but pleasantly reminiscent of it) with a light mouth-feel and a crisp finish.
Tertulia Cellars: 2005 Viognier - Columbia Valley, Washington: The name of this new Walla Walla winery means “a social gathering of friends.” The 2005 viognier is their first white release. It contains 22% rousanne, another Rhone varietal valued for its crisp acidity. The grapes were whole-cluster pressed - that is a gentler process that extracts flavor from the fruit of the grape, not the stems, seeds and skins as happens with traditional crushing. Fermentation occurred in 74% stainless steel and 26% neutral French oak, partial malolactic fermentation (the process that turns bitter malic acid into the softer lactic acid). Tertulia’s tasting notes indicate we should experience floral aromas, with pineapple, peach and apricot flavors, a smooth mouth-feel and balanced acidity. I got green apple and honey on the nose, tropical up-front fruit, a rich mouth-feel (from the ML, I would assume), melon, kiwi and pineapple flavors and a clean finish.
Roxyann Winery: 2005 Viognier - Rogue Valley, Oregon: Roxyann’s Winemaker, Gus Janeway, is our consulting winemaker. His guidance has been invaluable! Gus is generally considered to be a master of red wines, so let’s see how he does with a white. Roxyann’s tasting notes suggest a floral nose with pineapple, guava, and spiced lemon zest throughout. The promise is of a rich and luscious warm weather viognier. It has less of a traditional viognier nose: no floral aromas, but I got hints of honey and pink grapefruit, but I was definitely reminded of chardonnay. Crisp up front with a smooth finish, green apple and key lime flavors. A good option for a weightier white for the ABC-ers.
Cougar Crest Winery: 2005 Viognier – Walla Walla, Washington: Estate grown, 100% viognier Cougar Crest tells us to look for floral and citrus aromas on the nose, followed by pear, pineapple, grapefruit and melon with a honey finish. The Wine Spectator gave this an 88, stating that it feels - and I am not making this up - “raw, offering ear and green peach aromas.” I have no idea what an ear aroma might be, and I couldn’t detect anything I would call “ear aroma” so... Also very chardonnay-like in weight and mouth-feel.
Valley View Winery: 2005 Viognier – Southern Oregon: This winery was established in 1972, and they are known as “the Rogue Valley’s premiere winery.” Their Anna Maria wines are considered their “reserve” line – they only produce these wines when the vintage merits. This Viognier has a heavenly nose - flowers, tropical fruit, melon, with nicely balanced acidity. ‘The Oregonian’ declared, "It will be hard to find a better Viognier anywhere." I love it; I think its flavor profile is the most viognier-ish of the flight. Scott feels it is a bit thin. What do YOU think?
Join us next Thursday!
Saturday, March 17, 2007
Volcano Vineyards Premiere Blog
This is something Scott and I have been meaning to do for months. So here it is. We'll focus on what's happening not only in the Volcano Vineyards Tasting Room, but our wine production, events we're doing (and have done) and adventures in small business ownership, and wine industry stuff.
The most common questions we get: "What do you mean, calling yourselves a 'micro-winery'?" Simple answer to that - a "small" winery is one producing under 50,000 cases of wine per year. For vintage 2006, our production in just under 1,000 cases. If that doesn't qualify us as "micro," I don't know what would. Secondly, our business model is similar to the one used by Jim Koch when he first created his Samuel Adams Boston Lager commercially - he made the beer at a brewery in Pittsburgh, PA. They had excess capacity; he wanted to make beer without having to folk over millions to build a production facility. For now, we produce our wines at Foothill Winery in Medford, Oregon. Once our production gets high enough, we are planning on opening a facility right here in Bend. Wish we could do it now, but we are too small and too poor!
Our Tasting Room is located at 930 NW Brooks Street in downtown Bend - we are between The Pine Tavern and Hans back patio. Upcoming events:
Thursday, March 22 6:30 pm: Live music from The Quons
Thursday, March 29 4 pm to close: Viognier Tasting Flight - five Pacific Northwest Viogniers and tasty appetizers, only $10/person
Thursday, April 5 7 pm: Four course wine dinner $45/person
Thursday, April 26 6:30 pm: Live Jazz
Thursday, May 17 6:30 pm: Live music from KouseFly
Visit our website for more info: www.volcanovineyards.com or call: 541.617.1102
Thanks!
Liz
The most common questions we get: "What do you mean, calling yourselves a 'micro-winery'?" Simple answer to that - a "small" winery is one producing under 50,000 cases of wine per year. For vintage 2006, our production in just under 1,000 cases. If that doesn't qualify us as "micro," I don't know what would. Secondly, our business model is similar to the one used by Jim Koch when he first created his Samuel Adams Boston Lager commercially - he made the beer at a brewery in Pittsburgh, PA. They had excess capacity; he wanted to make beer without having to folk over millions to build a production facility. For now, we produce our wines at Foothill Winery in Medford, Oregon. Once our production gets high enough, we are planning on opening a facility right here in Bend. Wish we could do it now, but we are too small and too poor!
Our Tasting Room is located at 930 NW Brooks Street in downtown Bend - we are between The Pine Tavern and Hans back patio. Upcoming events:
Thursday, March 22 6:30 pm: Live music from The Quons
Thursday, March 29 4 pm to close: Viognier Tasting Flight - five Pacific Northwest Viogniers and tasty appetizers, only $10/person
Thursday, April 5 7 pm: Four course wine dinner $45/person
Thursday, April 26 6:30 pm: Live Jazz
Thursday, May 17 6:30 pm: Live music from KouseFly
Visit our website for more info: www.volcanovineyards.com or call: 541.617.1102
Thanks!
Liz
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