Thomas glided into the kitchen lead by his nose, and eyes growing wider with each advancing step asked, “What are you making?”

“Shall I see what I can forage from the garden?” Thomas asked, and was already out through the door before I could respond.

30 minutes, a sunburst squash, one handful of fresh savory and thyme, two zucchini, and some leftover veggie stock later, and we had ourselves a nice end-of-summer stew close to completed. As we rummaged around the kitchen looking for that one missing ingredient that would transform our stew into something special, we found ourselves involved in a conversation that I frequently try to incite when Thomas is around. “What can I learn today about winemaking that I don’t know yet?”

“Reduction, great idea!”

My exclamation was met with a glare from Thomas implying that no good can possibly come from even a little bit of reduction.

“This is going to make a great sauce!”   

Thomas reached for the ’07 Rosé and I grabbed some ‘07 Amrita and we washed our lunches down sip by sip. For a casual lunch made of leftovers and garden-fresh veggies, this was an incredibly satisfying lunch. It also became very clear that we could have served any of our white wines with this summery stew. Our ‘07 Müller Thurgau and ‘07 Pinot Gris were equally great matches, each enhancing the dish in their own way. 

The crisp, clean, summer wines made such a simple meal into something special. It was easy and fun to throw everything together, and was a good reminder of why I like working here.

We can’t share our lunch with everyone but we can make it easier to see how great these wines are with your own summer fare. From now through Labor Day we will be selling 4 packs of Pinot Gris, Amrita, Müller Thurgau, and our Pinot Noir Rosé for just $50.

The forecast calls for warm weather this Labor Day Weekend, and we have chilled wines ready for you, just bring your picnic and we’ll see you in the tasting room or out on the terrace.

The Splendid Table is a one-hour program on American Public Media that celebrates culinary, culture, and lifestyle giving public radio listeners a fresh take on their love of food and drink.  A few weeks ago host Lynne Rossetto Kasper (pictured left), producer Sally Swift and a group of excited foodies came to tour the Willamette Valley and enjoy the bounty of our region. 

The tour kicked off with a wine tasting on the roof of the Ecotrust building in Portland on one of the hottest days of the summer (yesterday and today being the hottest). 

With the Oregon Wine Board (OWB) as their guide, the guests sampled wines from A to Z/Rex Hill, Anne Amie, Brick House, Broadley Vineyards, Raptor Ridge and Soter Vineyards.

Above Thomas and I try to to keep stay cool while pouring our 2007 Cuvée A Amrita, 2007 Cuvée A Rosé and 2005 Willamette Valley Pinot Noir.  Pictured below is Thomas alongside the lovely and talented Stephany Boettner of OWB.

I'd like to start this with an apology.  I am about to embark upon a description without any photos.  I am an extremely visual person, so this is by no means a small apology.  But, think of this as a story.  A story about friends.  About coming together.  About an impromptu dinner.  Aren't they often the best?  It is also a story about summer and the bounties of fresh produce on hand.

About a week ago I was lucky enough to have David Nemarnik of Alloro Vineyards join Ksandek and me for an informal "dinner".  It was more a collision of schedules than a dinner; by no means planned, but hunger took over, we all threw in what we had and a superb, yet simple dinner emerged.

If you aren't familiar with Alloro Vineyards, you might want to search them out.  David's property is amazing and he is genuinely one of the most open, compassionate people I have met in the wine industry.  We get a few tons of Pinot noir from him because I love the fruit so much.  In a year like 2007, David's fruit came to us ripe and jammy.  That was no small task.

Alloro.  A

Ksandek had some artisanal cheese he'd picked up at the store and Taleggio, my absolute favorite.  It is so oozy and to me smells of the seashore. Mmmmmmmm.  Such a great cheese.  I had made homemade chevre from raw goat's milk.  It really is about as easy as curdling milk- a skill I have mastered.  I am so surprised more people don't make it.  Someone ran and picked some fresh figs off David's trees which are literally dripping with ripe figs this time of year.  Have you ever noticed how much a fig looks as if it were a drop of something sweet and ripe, heavy and waiting to fall from the tree?

Goat cheese was smeared on figs.  Taleggio was paired with a crusty, chewy, sourdough.  Olives and marinated vegetables materialized.  Fresh green beans from the garden were gathered, eggs were cracked, olive oil sizzled, and moments later an omelet with Cambazola crumbles came steaming from the skillet.  David carved a Capocollo he had made himself.  I opened a bag of Bing cherries I had dried the week before. All this was all piled on a barrel head that Ksandek had made into a serving platter.

Within minutes plates were loaded, rose' was gone and Amrita was cracked open.  Amrita, with its chameleon-like quality matched so well with the rich flavors of summer.  It stood up to the green beans and blue cheese.  It carved through the richness of the Capocollo; it accentuated the figs and fresh chevre.  It is a great supporting actor to the flavors of summer. 

Much of what we ate was made by us.  Many of the things on our plates came from within a few miles, if not right on the property. Summer- when sunsets seem to linger on the horizon for hours. A time when inviting the outdoors indoors is encouraged. Throw open the windows. Invite a few friends over. Improvise a dinner with what you have on hand. Talk and laugh until you are too tired to do so any longer. Soon it will be autumn.

Alloro. A

Amrita. A

A toast to summer from your friends at

Anne Amie.

Cheers,

Thomas

Last month Troy MacLarty of Lovely Hula Hands was our guest chef for an intimate Pre-IPNC dinner at the winery.  It was a beautiful wine country evening filled with good friends, great wines and exquisite cuisine.  We were honored to have our winemaker friends and colleagues from California there as well: Leslie Mead from Talley Vineyards and Michael Richmond from Bouchaine Vineyards shared their wine and wisdom with all of us.

Thanks to Leslie, Michael, Troy & Sarah and all of you who joined us for this lovely evening.

A few weeks back our amazing West Los Angeles Henry Wine Group sales team lead by Regional Manager Jenna Chevigny visited us for an afternoon at the winery.  Pictured above is winemaker Thomas Houseman with the dream team after tasting through the 2007 pinot noir barrels. 

This week has been devoted to blending the 2007 Pinot noir.  It is the culmination of weeks of sitting and tasting blend after blend, refining and tweaking as we went along.  In early June Tammie, Andy, and I sat down in front of hundreds of bottles of wine, blindly sampling each for basic flavors.  What was its structure?  What was the intensity of fruit?  Of tannins?  Were the flavors leaning towards the red cherry , strawberry spectrum or did they gravitate to blackberry bramble and black currant?  From that initial breakdown I sat down and made some rough blend decisions.  We composited trials, and once again sat and tasted.  Tammie, Andy and I then revisited blends tasting against newer versions over and over (and over) until we came up with what you see being racked into tank in the photos.

The wines this year are beautiful, structured and concentrated with silky tannins and a wonderful aging potential.  In addition to our Willamette Valley Pinot noir and the Cuvee A Pinot noir we will be racking a hundred cases of Prisme', our "reserve" blend and another hundred cases of an Anne Amie Estate single vineyard to neutral barrels for another six months of barrel aging.  The Prisme is sinewy and full of wild game and spice flavors- loaded with bacon fat and pie cherry.  It is earthy and complex, while maintaining a feminine quality that defines Prisme.  The Anne Amie Estate single vineyard bottling is jammy, rich and packed with brambles without being cloying or tannic, just concentrated and bound with rich, seductive fruit.

All our 2007 wines are a stylistic departure from past wines.  Look for lower alcohols and a more refined structure that makes the wines pair seamlessly with food and gives a greater potential for aging.  The barrel influence has also been tamed.

We are done blending.  Thank you to the tireless efforts of Tammie, Andy, Enrique, and Raul.  Also, thank you to the crew of 2007.  The vintage tossed us curve balls all Fall and we knocked them out of the park!  The work and dedication by everyone that had a hand in these wines shows.  As you look at the photos of blending, take the time to look back through the blog pages.  You can tab through harvest and witness the many people who have put their stamp on this vintage.

Wine is a beverage.  I understand that.  But, unlike soda, there is no recipe.  There are no cans of "Wine Spectator 90+ Point Pinot noir Concentrate".  We cannot just add water and bottle up a vintage.  This year's wines all started early last Spring with a bud swelling with potential.  It is culminating soon with the arrival of glass and packaging and Pinot noir flowing into bottles.  Barrels have now been emptied and are awaiting for the bounty of 2008.

Now I know that many of you do not share my disdain for corks in wine, and the resulting detectable and, even more disturbing, the sub-threshold levels of cork taint.  In the vein of democracy, I kneel to Kim, the goddess of marketing, and put an equal amount of the Winemakers Pinot noir in both screwcap and under cork closures.  It is a classic exercise in compromise.  Now, if we could only get our representatives in Washington to do the same...
Anyhow, there is no guarantee that wines in cork-closed bottles are not tainted with TCA, or as we know it in the cellar- 2,4,6-trichloroanisole. I am going to steal yet another definition from the web, this time from Wikipedia.  Here is their explanation of TCA and cork taint, which, though less entertaining than my take is much more succinct: 

CORK TAINT can most accurately be described as "moldy" or "musty" or "earthy" or sometimes "medicinal" smell that masks or dominates the fruit aroma of wine and reduces the overall wine quality. The source may be one or more particular chemical compounds formed by a reaction between molds and chemicals.

Infected wines are said to be "corked" or "corky" and the contaminant often referred to as "cork taint", although there are many other possible sources besides corks for its presence in wine. 

Molds may be originally present in raw cork bark or in wood used for barrels or barrel racks, tanks, scaffolding, walls, stairs, pallets, cardboard boxes, or other many other types of winery equipment or facilities. TCA can also can infect cork or wood that         is in storage.

Regardless of the source or chemical  identity,  Cork Taint can impart a very unpleasant smell that, depending upon its severity,  tends to dominate all other aroma characteristics of any wine it contaminates.  The least offensive and most subtle sign of TCA is wine that has very little aroma at all. The Australian Wine Research Institute conducted experiments in early 2003, that  demonstrated even a very low level of contamination, as little as one  or two nanograms per litre, suppresses positive fruit aroma character in wine by as much as 50%. 

I am now going to step away from my soap box... 

Needless to say, it takes very little of the compound to ruin a perfectly good Pinot noir.  Thus, we go to amazing extremes to insure that when you pick up a bottle of Anne Amie Pinot noir, we have done everything in our power to insure the corks we buy are as "clean" as possible.  One of the major steps in this screening process is a "cork soak" where we sensorially inspect lots of cork from our suppliers.  The attached video shows the cork soak screening.  In this particular screening, out of ten bales of corks randomly pulled from different suppliers, only three were clean.  Those  clean cork bales were selected for the 2007 Willamette Valley (Winemakers) Pinot noir.  So, for those of you, like Kim, that absolutely MUST hear the pop of a cork when you enjoy your wine, rest assured that the care we put into our wines goes well beyond that.  It's in the packaging as well. 

Cheers, 

Thomas 

One might assume from reading our blog that winemaking is about:

1.  Making beer.

2.  Hosting schmantzy dinners and eating great food.

3. Making some wine to justify #1 and #2.

Let's just say, I get your point of view, but who wants to read about cleaning tanks and laboriously going through taste trials for blends.  To that end,  the next two posts are devoted to the science of winemaking.  Travelogue 2007, Umpqua loop, is almost over.  The reason for this trip is the Steamboat Pinot noir Conference.  The following is a quote (stolen) directly from their website:

The Steamboat Conference is a Pinot Noir producers' seminar. The main purposes are to critically taste Pinots and openly discussing growing and making wine from that variety. It is not a consumer event.

The Steamboat Conference started in 1980 as a means of “Improving the Breed”. Like the wine, the Conference continues to evolve. Today its purposes are the following:

1. To bring Pinot noir producers together to blind taste unfinished Pinots from around the globe, New World and Old.
2. To openly exchange information and share experiences regarding the growing of Pinot noir and the styles and techniques of Pinot noir winemaking.
3. To accomplish the above in an informal, relaxed atmosphere that allows for recreation and sharing of wine with friends in a beautiful setting on the North Umpqua River.

For me it is an opportunity to gather in an open environment and discuss Pinot noir with my peers from around the world.  Problems are solved.  Others are presented.  It is open, intense, grueling, inspiring, revealing, and a whole host of other adjectives.  Days are long.  Free time is precious.  Meals are wonderful.   It is in a sense, "geek camp" for Pinot noir winemakers.

Days start early.  Pinot noir is evaluated in blind panels from 8:30-  2ish every day.  There are a few hours of time to explore the Umpqua river and the adjoining trails in the afternoon.  Experiment tasting starts at 5ish and by 7 the formal dinners start.  There is no cell  phone reception. No television. The nearest metropolis is an hour away.  It is an Island of Pinot in Southern Oregon for 4 days.  You have to love your fellow winemakers or the days are really long. 

There is very little respite.I don't want to paint the Conference with too broad a brush.  I went running each morning before breakfast along the Umpqua River.  I wish I had photos of Heather Mackley from Elk Cove and Annie Shull from Raptor Ridge running alongside the Umpqua with Cedars towering overhead and sword ferns leaning into the meandering trail.  What a way to start the day!  Or, I could  have had my camera when the Campbell and Ponzi kids were using me as a crawdad harvester.  We had nets and snorkels, and slithered over algae-covered boulders, catching enough for the kids to boil and eat!  There are no pictures of my bike ride with the Bouchaine crew and Mike Richmond carrying his bike down to the 13-13 swimming hole, a truly amazing swimming spot. Most importantly, there is Lee and his pool of hundreds of steelhead on Steamboat Creek.  He watches over the fish, protecting them from poachers,  while they congregate in Big Bend Pool waiting for temperature changes that send them farther upstream to spawn.

I have included some photos of Steamboat.  Some of the technical tastings.  Some of the convivial nature.  I am already planing for next year, the 30th anniversary of such an important gathering of talent  and sharing of knowledge.

Vive la Steamboat and  a

special thanks to Pat and the amazing staff at the Steamboat Inn  for letting us take over their place each year!  They ply us with great food and cater to us with nerves of steel.

Next stop, IPNC.

On the drive to the Steamboat Pinot noir Conference there was finally time to visit Terry and Sue Brandborg at their winery in Elkton.  The Brandborgs have participated in winemaker's dinners and events here at the winery since I've  been here.  I run into them at OPC and IPNC and Steamboat.  We have shared wine together.  They have tasted from my barrels and shared their thoughts.  It was about time I made it down to see their winery!

The added bonus was that the boys from Bravo bottling were going to be at the winery preparing to bottle some wine for Terry and Sue.  The extra added bonus was that friends of the Brandborgs were visiting- musician friends!  The phrase "perfect storm"  comes to mind.  Sue gave us a tour of their property overlooking the elk river far below.  Their estate vineyards creep up to 1100 feet making them extremely cool and wet, with the coast just miles away.

But, this blog post is not about vineyards or elevation.  It is about friends coming together to share food and music and wine.  Terry went all out cooking up another "perfect storm" in the kitchen.  As a boy at the shore of the Chesapeake I dragged home oysters by the bushel for my poor parents to clean and cook.  So, when the BBQ oysters showed up I was in heaven.  I think I can eat my share of oysters, although I am just an amateur compared to the likes of the Bravo bottling guys.  The evening moved on with Caesar salad and pesto and singing and s'mores.  There was even a campfire in the courtyard in front of the winery.

Old wines were brought out.  Charbono was drunk.  Songs were sung (I hope I did not offend Terry's friend when I asked him for a mandolin version of Gilligan's Island!)  Hospitality was generous.  The best part was that the very next morning at some ungodly hour the Brandborgs and the Bravo boys were busy bottling.  I know, because I heard the commotion from the safety of my bed.  I have to say that was a first.  Bottling is a dreaded event and to get up  and have multi-grain pancakes while others toiled on the bottling line was a sensation that bordered on Schadenfreude.  My pancakes were a guilty pleasure!  Damn you conscience!

Thank you Terry and Sue for your wonderful wines and extremely warm hospitality.

Next stop, Steamboat.

On the road again.....

It has been very busy here at the winery in the past few weeks.  Last week alone I had two wine dinners to attend in addition to the Steamboat Pinot noir Conference and IPNC.  So, I apologize right now for the barrage of blog posts that I will be getting out in the next week to catch everyone up on the daily goings on her at Anne Amie.

I think the appropriate place to start most stories is at the beginning, so I am backtracking back to July 16.  It was a glorious day in the Gorge, the kind that lures people away from Portland with dreams of settling down in Hood River and possibly taking up windsurfing or kite boarding.   In fact, the Gorge Games were taking place at the time of the wine dinner.  I have included some photos that show little specks out on the Columbia River.  Those specks are people zipping across the river at warp speed propelled by a steady wind. Really crazy people if you ask me...

Back at the hotel I had some time to walk around the grounds before the dinner.  I sat on a boulder alongside the stream that winds its way through the property before plunging down a cliff  and disappearing into the river below.  I enjoyed the decompression time almost as much as the dinner that followed. 

I have to say, I have been involved in numerous wine dinners throughout my career, ranging from informal to Emeril formal (for those of you that frequent the blog you might remember seeing me in a tux!)  Anyhow, I must say that when I glanced at the menu that Stacy Keleher, the Director of Fine Dining and Wine at the Columbia Gorge Hotel, sent me beforehand I thought it looked rather ambitious.  Well, I was shown how great a food and wine pairing can be.  The dinner was in a word- amazing!

I don't throw that word around much.  But, the food and the wines did exactly what they were meant to do- support and enhance one another.  The courses were distinct.  The flavors were clear and bright.  The presentation was artistic and the service cordial without being stuffy.  In that framework the Anne Amie wines shone.  The crisp acidity and clean clear flavors of the wines

paired so well with the textures and flavors of the meal that I can taste the nectarines in the Muller Thurgau today and the Rhubarb in the Midnight Saignee Rose'.  The cherry confit has become a descriptor for the 2005 Winemakers Selection Pinot noir.  

I'm ready for another winemaker's dinner at the Columbia Gorge Hotel.

I'll be back!

Thomas-