Don’t pop your cork!

On Sunday, we took the boys up to Hood River to see Thomas the Tank Engine and thought we’d make a few days of it before we went to our summer hours in the Tasting Room (which start this Wednesday, by the way – noon to close daily, except Tuesdays which remain by appointment only). Our plan was to spend Monday and Tuesday visiting the Columbia Gorge wineries. There are some great ones: Pheasant Valley, Syncline, Cathedral Ridge, and the Pines to name but a few. And I was going to blog about it here. However, after settling into our hotel room, the boys were CRAZY and we ended up deciding to leave (before we were asked to) and drove home instead. Two years old plus four years old plus ice cream plus confined hotel room equals nightmare.

So, instead, let’s talk about warm summer days and wine. Last week, a gal brought back a bottle of our syrah she had purchased the day before. The cork has been pushed out and I said, “Looks like you maybe left this in your car overnight…?” And she said, “Yeah, I did!” Well… wine is alive and very delicate and does not like temperature fluctuations. If it gets to hot, it will pop its cork…literally. This is also why we won’t ship wine during the summer.

We also suggest that once you open a bottle, try to finish it within the next 36 to 48 hours or so. While leaving a bottle un-gassed over night it a quick way to see if it has aging potential, any longer than that, it will start to oxidize. If you smell the wine and can detect aromas of rust or metal, the wine is dying. My parents are notorious for opening a bottle of wine, having a glass each, then putting the bottle back in the cupboard for a week or more. The next time they want a glass, the wine is undrinkable. Wine is, after all, fruit. And like most fruit, it won’t last forever once exposed to oxygen. So, drink up! (But, responsibly, of course).

We are tossing around the idea of doing half bottles, although it will probably have to wait until our production increases significantly. Doing a short run of labels for the smaller bottles would cost a fortune. Here’s to the day we can take advantage of economies of scale!

Oh, Those Tasting Fees

We had a woman in the Tasting Room who angrily threw three dollars at us, enraged that she had to pay to sample our wine. As she stomped out before getting the explanation, I thought maybe this would help clarify things:

#1: The history of complimentary tastes. Wineries initially used complimentary tastes to draw people out to their winery sites – generally miles and miles outside of cities, meaning folks had the winery as their primary destination – guests were “pre-screened,” as it were. The majority of wine regions that don’t need the allure of free wine to attract customers now charge tasting fees. Again, this is a way to ferret out folks with genuine interest in wine from folks looking for a free buzz. So, the first reason we charge for tastings is this: we are not out in a remote winery location. Our Tasting Room is in Downtown Bend.

#2: We are located in Downtown Bend. Our Tasting Room is surrounded by bars and restaurants. In fact, there is a bar right next door. If you had your business right next to a bar, would you give away any alcohol product for free? We get a lot of walk-by traffic, people who notice our signs and mosey on in to see what’s up. And like it or not, folks, most of the industry is heading towards tasting fees.

#3: The OLCC. Our Tasting Room is kid friendly – we welcome families with kids, have toys and chairs for kids, and advertise that fact. The OLCC (Oregon Liquor Control Commission) asks that in return we have certain controls in place to ensure minors are not served alcohol, and one of their requests was “no free tastes.” Do I even need to continue?

#4: We credit back the tasting fee towards the purchase of that bottle of wine. Seems more than fair to us – many wineries won’t even do that, reasoning that the taste is a product (and it is) and you paid to purchase that product.

#5: We almost ALWAYS have additional wines open that we will include in a flight at no extra charge. Unless a visitor is being a butthead, in which case they get nothing. Haha!

#6: We are not a multi-national corporation that can afford to spend millions of dollars promoting their product. The winery is me and Scott. We are very, very small. We didn’t have any money when we started and now we have even less. If someone wants cookie cutter, economies-of-scale, corporate Mega-Mart wine, then we are probably not for them anyway.

#7: Our Tasting Room is a bargain. In contrast to the Mega-Mart wines, the wines we pour in addition to ours are also premium and ultra-premium wines. See similar wines on a restaurant wine list and the glass price will hover close to $20. We are offering folks the opportunity to sample $25, $30 and even some $50 wines for only a few dollars.

#8: Tastes add up. If you are enjoying a full flight – even our shortest flight - you will end up consuming almost the equivalent of a full glass of wine.

Obtaining Closure

The Bend Bulletin did a feature story last fall on wine closures – cork vs synthetic vs screw top, etc. They did not consult us before publishing (shocking, I know) and that’s too bad because it is a topic Scott and I have spent many hours researching and discussing. Yes, we are loads of fun at dinner parties.

I bring this up again now because Wine Business Monthly – one of the leading US wine industry trade mags, has just published its 2007 closure survey report. And for the second year in a row, we are quoted. Once it publishes on line I’ll get the link to the article here. The thrust of the piece is that cork still dominates, but screw tops are gaining acceptance from consumers, and new closure types are on the horizon.

For our premiere vintages we opted for natural cork for a variety of reason – consumer perception being one, and lack of studies on long term aging with alternative closures, another. We chose a cork supplier (Rich Xiberta) who controls the full cycle of the cork closure production, from tree selection through final shipment to us. The high incidence of cork taint comes from corks produced without proper quality controls. For our less expensive red blend we chose a synthetic cork, primarily for cost reasons. The corks we use are $.55 each – the synthetic closures are a fraction of that. Since the red blend is meant to be consumed now, long term aging didn’t factor in our decision. For our less expensive wines, we will most likely switch to the screw top closures. Again, costs are an issue, and frankly the screw tops are easier for the consumer (no cork screw needed, a good thing if all your openers are now in the possession of airport security). I do admit the crack of a screw top on opening is not nearly as romantic as the pop of a cork.

We have also decided to switch to the glass stoppers for our top tier wines beginning with the 2006 vintage. These closures are stunning – keepsakes, almost. And recyclable! Sineann uses these closures on its reds - come in to the Tasting Room and we will be happy show you.

Meza and Vino and Volcano Vineyards

May 31, 2007 at 7 pm - Traditional Lebanese Meza prepared by Chef Ramsey of Barking Squirrel Catering
THIS EVENT IS SOLD OUT, but you can still add your name to the waiting list. Only $50/person, all-inclusive.
541.617.1102

FIRST COURSE - Lemon, Garlic and Tahini Hummus, Hummus with Buffalo, Baba Ghanouj
Tyee Pinot Blanc -Willamette Valley, Oregon
Pinot Blanc is a high acidity wine, making it very food friendly, especially when paired with the creamy, rich flavors and textures of hummus and baba ghanouj. Its musky aromas and flavors of apple, almond, melon and spice will complement the lemon, garlic, buffalo and eggplant beautifully. Winemaker Barney Watson is one of Scott's mentors - a great guy who makes remarkable wine.

SECOND COURSE - Tabbouli Salad and Fattoush Salad (Lebanese Bread Salad)
Amity Vineyards Riesling 2004 - Willamette Valley, Oregon
This is a dry Riesling from Amity Vineyards, again, a wine with well-balanced acidity, plus clean, up-front fruit that can handle strong spices.

THIRD COURSE - Sumac Lemon Garlic Chicken Kebab and Shaniko Lamb Basha
Volcano Vineyards Syrah 2004- Rogue Valley, Oregon
Our syrah – which was designed to be food-friendly - works perfectly with salty and bitter food, which allow the fruit flavors of blueberry and plum shine through. Lamb is the ideal meat pairing with the syrah as is the lemon and garlic flavors with the chicken dish.

DESSERT - Apricot Baklava with Rosewater Syrup
La Rocca Late Harvest Zinfandel 2002 - Sierra Foothills, California
The apricots lend a nice acidity to balance out the sweetness in the zinfandel. La Rocca wines are organic and made without added sulfites.

Hope to see you there!
www.volcanovineyards.com

Volcano Vineyards Vintage Updates

Vintage 2005: The 2005s are in the bottle, we’re just waiting on final label approval from the Feds. Both merlot and syrah are tasting great. The merlot is another triumph from Aguila Vineyard in Talent, although for 2005 Scott decided to blend in about 8% cabernet franc. Right now that change is most evident in the nose, which has a distinct hint of cassis, blackberry and violet.

As many of you know, the Aguila Vineyard syrah never fully ripened in 2005. While our original plan was to have two distinct syrah styles for vintage 2005, we’ll only have the Lakeside Vineyard Syrah. Those grapes are a Hermitage Clone, and the site is much more vigorous than Aguila. Right now it is much bigger than the 2004, less earthy, distinct raspberry on the nose, bold fruit throughout and starting to show the classic syrah white pepper on the finish.

Release dates will probably be late summer. After two years of no increase, prices are going up for vintage 2005 – but you can pre-order Vintage 2005 wine now at Vintage 2004 prices. Use our secure on-line store, pop into the Tasting Room or call us toll free at 866.844.9487.

Volcano Vineyards website: http://www.volcanovineyards.com/

Vintage 2006: It’s racking and blending time. Racking is a siphoning process that removes the sediment which accumulates during barrel aging. It is also the perfect time to consider any blending. This last week Scott was in Medford doing blending trials and he decided to keep the Ft. Miller syrah as a single vineyards designated wine, while the Serenade Vineyard and Lakeside Vineyard syrahs will be blended together. Serenade Vineyard is similar to Aguila in that it sits at an elevation (2100 feet), but the vines face west, get sun all day and are treated to a cool breeze that keeps the temperatures from getting too hot. So, the grapes have good acidity but slightly higher sugars than the Aguila grapes. This syrah will be complex with characteristics of both warm weather syrahs and cool weather syrahs. The syrah grapes from all three vineyards were co-fermented with viognier. I’m not going to torture you with the viognier speech again, but if you need a refresher, you can find it in the archives of our blog.

The producers of Rogue Valley wines get together every year for a blind tastings of their barrel samples. This year, our 2006 merlot and syrahs were at the top of the heap. We are predicting the 2006 wines to be our breakout vintage.

The “Virtual” Winery vs The “Micro” Winery

Bend’s newest glossy mag has just published its first issue and we have a nice mention in it. They spelled our last name incorrectly and referred to us as a “virtual” winery, but you know what they say: All publicity is good publicity. So, we appreciate the nod.

But I do want to clear up this “virtual” vs “micro” winery topic. As both business models become more common throughout the wine industry, the distinction is becoming more defined and apparent.

The VIRTUAL Winery: Can be operated by someone living thousands of miles from the production site. They write the checks to a production facility which then handles the entire process – from sourcing grapes through the finished wine in the bottle. The owner can sometimes watch the progress of their wine via the web, and they can even visit on-site and participate in their wine production. Day to day involvement is absolutely unnecessary. In fact, any involvement beyond sending money is unnecessary. The Virtual Winery owner can be as involved or as detached as he or she wants to be.

The MICRO Winery: Run in basically the same way as a 100,000 case per year winery, except production facilities are contracted rather than owned. Producers may grow their own grapes, or source their own. We spent years finding and securing long term contracts with the best growers. Producers of Micro-Wineries have all the final wine-making decisions – yeasts, barrel program composition, blending, bottling issues – the whole shebang. Consultants may be used – just like the giant multi-national producers. But the responsibility for the full-cycle – from grape to wine in the bottle – rests solely with the producer.

You may have read recently that there is only one winery in Central Oregon. That is not true. There is one commercial wine production facility. Volcano Vineyards® is a licensed Oregon winery and the address on our license reads “Bend, Oregon.”

Sometimes it seems as though we are being penalized for not having the millions of dollars it takes to open our own winery facility. Well, we’re working on it. In the meantime, with debt up to our eyeballs, we have focused on the grapes that are producing wines that are winning awards across the U.S. including a gold medal for our 2004 syrah from the largest domestic wine competition in the country (the San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition). So, have patience with us. We will have our very own production facility some day. And we seem to be off to a good start. But doing the production facility the right way – to allow us to produce wines of superior quality - will take time and funding. If we decided to do a commercial wine production facility on the cheap, we could have chosen to simply buy bulk wine, get it to Bend on a tanker truck, blend, then bottle it – a perfectly legitimate business model, but not the path we’ve taken.

I hope this clears things up and gives everyone a better idea of what we are doing.

I'm serious - it's not Sirius!

It used to be jazz and cocktails but somewhere along the way it evolved into jazz and wine. Was it that cocktails fell out of favor on the coasts? That can’t be it – during the swing craze in the 90’s martinis again became the drink of choice (in a wine glass, a la Herb Caen). My theory is the two drink minimum. When faced with a choice, which gives you more bang for your buck? Watered-down well booze or a giant glass of jug wine? No contest, really.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m a big fan of large format wines – the stuff in a box is great when you aren’t going to pay attention to what you’re tasting. Those wines are gateway wines – they lead to sauvignon blanc, then butter-bomb chardonnay, then merlot, followed by cab sauv… the next thing you know you’re dropping 125 bucks for a bottle of Pinot noir. (I am apparently stalled between the merlot and Pinot phase, having not yet experienced the elusive Pinot epiphany.)

Whatever the cause, jazz and wine are now linked and it is a union that works. Come experience it for yourself in the Tasting Room this Thursday night from 6-8 p.m. Tenor saxophonist Duncan McNeill and keyboardist Scott Hersh will play a mix of standards dating from the 30s to the 80s (yes, we’re starting off easy with the standards).

No cover. Great wine. Amazing music.

Hope to see you there.
Volcano Vineyards
930 NW Brooks Street
Downtown Bend, OR 97701
541.617.1102
www.volcanovineyards.com