Check out the video satellite image of Eastern Pacific water vapor

I forgot to attach this link to the wider-view Southern Pacific sat shot

First looks at the satellite weather

It's that time of the year again. Once again, I'll be obsessing over the satellite weather images. To the left is the water vapor image from NOAA's geostationary satellite that sits over the Western Pacific.

Note the streak of clear sky that runs from mid-Pacific off the coast of Mexico up to the Oregon/California coastal border. The terminus point on the coast is where an annual high pressure system sits all summer long, routing the jet stream North toward British Columbia. While this high stays in place, Western Oregon stays mostly warm and dry. The danger point for us is when, sometime during October each year, this high pressure system breaks down. At that point, the jet stream slips down and points every major Pacific storm right at the Willamette Valley.

So between now and our last picking date, I'll be watching for signs that our nice high pressure system is breaking up. When I see that happening, I'll start making calls to growers to set any pick dates I don't already have in place, because once the jet stream slips South, the sun and warmth are pretty much gone.

Boedecker Cellars Walk Through Stanton Vineyard Aug 20 '09

Stanton Vineyard

This is our only vineyard down near Eugene, and it's also the only site with sandstone substrate below the surface soil. The vineyard's pretty young, but even last year we could see some marked differences in fruit profile from here.

Please bear with the sound levels on this video. I now know that the mic on my Flip is somewhat directional. Charlie Stanton's audio is a bit lost. I'll make some time to get commentary from him in the future, as he'll be joining us for a week or so in the winery this fall.

Boedecker Cellars Walk Through Carlton Hill Vineyard Aug 17 '09

Another late post. This is a short video of my last visit to Carlton Hill Vineyard, located just outside of the town of Carlton itself. I have a few short bits of conversation with vineyard owner David Polite, but they don't do him justice. He's one of the most entertaining growers I have; hopefully, I'll have more time chatting with him on future videos.

Carlton Hill Vineyard has a gentle, East-facing slope that ensures great exposure and warmth in the morning hours and some protection from the extreme afternoon heat. Because of its exposure, this is usually the first site we pick each year.

Belated vineyard posts from Aug 16/17

I am sooooo late posting these. I took a quick run through three of our vineyards on August 16th and 17th. Everything's progressing nicely, although seeing these places made me realize that I only have a few more weeks to prep for harvest. Stop by the tasting room now if you want to see me...


Holmes Gap

This is my first trip of the year down to Holmes Gap vineyard (just North of Rickreall). Owner Jack LaRue was just putting on the last spray of the season as I drove up, so I don't have any conversations with him on this video. Next time Jack.

Stoller

Back to Stoller for another quick visit after the first round of cluster thinning. Even at one cluster per shoot, we're still at ~ 3.5 tons/acre, too high to guarantee optimal flavor development. We're taking a second thinning pass through the vineyard later this week to get the crop load down to closer to 2.5 tons/acre. I'm very excited about this fruit, as it's some of the most delicious wine in barrel from 2008.

Hirschy
A first walk-through of Hirschy Vineyard. This is a new vineyard owned by our friends John and Linda Hirschy. This is going to be a SPECTACULAR site! Check out the color in these clusters. John's place is a good 3-5 days ahead of everyone else at this point, ensuring that his will be the first Pinot Noir into the winery this fall.

Carlton Hill Vineyard Aug 17'09

We started buying fruit from David Polite in 2006. The bulk of the fruit from this vineyard goes into David's own Carlton Hill Wine Company. We usually get enough fruit for one fermenter, and it's quickly becoming one of our favorites each year. One reason Athena and I both love it is because we can usually do partial whole-cluster fermentation with the fruit from Carlton Hill. It's an early ripening site, so the stems are usually lignified enough (brown and crunchy, not green and stemmy) to allow us to bypass the destemmer.

Hirschy Vineyard visit Aug 17th

Hirschy vineyard is a new site to us this year. John and Linda Hirschy have planted a fantastic new site just North of the town of Carlton. I freaked out a little bit when I saw so much color here on Aug 17th. This will definitely be the first fruit we pick this season!

Anderson Family Vineyard walk 8/12

August 12th walkthrough at Anderson Family Vineyard (Dundee Hills) with vineyard owner/manager Cliff Anderson. We get both Chardonnay and Pinot Noir from Anderson Family Vineyard. It's a unique site - depending on the vintage, the Pinot from this site flexes between our Stewart and Athena bottlings. We also usually bottle an Anderson Family Vineyard designate wine from this vineyard each year.

Boedecker Cellars Summer Whites Tasting Notes

Joint Tasting notes from Saturday, Aug 15

This is a joint compilation of notes Stewart captured while everyone talked in the tasting room.

Tasters: Gwen Goodrich, Joel Strimling, Athena Pappas, Stewart Boedecker

2007 Boedecker Cellars Purity Chardonnay

- Lemon zest and tropical fruits on the attack

- Nice weight on mid-palate

- Dark nuttiness on finish, along with notes of hazelnut/peanut skin

- Lean framework with acidity to carry heavy fish dishes or mushrooms

** Favorite between the two Chardonnays

2008 Boedecker Cellars Purity Chardonay

- Key lime cream pie, marshmallows & citron

- Notes of cotton candy in middle with a touch of perceived sweetness

- Fat on the finish, with roundness that persists

- Great match for Thai food, Kung Pao Chicken, or paella

2007 Boedecker Cellars Old Vine Pinot Gris

- Creamy butterscotch, Werther's candy (nice one Joel)
- Toasted nuts and lemon pith on top of stone fruits
- Very, very weighty for a Pinot Gris (we think this is why Paul Gregutt liked it)

2008 Boedecker Cellars Old Vine Pinot Gris

- In your face fantastic aromatics! Everyone kept adding to descriptors: stone fruit, apricot, honeydew, casava, peaches, yellow pluoct, white flowers

- On the palate, fruit/flower/honey, "vanilla bean in a dirt clod" depth, sweetness carrying fantastic apricot/peach flavors.
- This is possibly the best Pinot Gris I've ever tasted (Stewart)

Boedecker Cellars visit to Anderson Family Vineyard

Short trip through Anderson Family Vineyard, source of both Chardonnay and Pinot Noir and another beautiful place in the world.

Boedecker Cellars White Wines in the Tasting Room this weekend

Summer's a time for white wines, and we're celebrating by focusing an entire weekend on the Boedecker Cellars whites in the Tasting Room.

We'll post some tasting notes later this afternoon, but be sure not to miss the 2008 Old Vine Pinot Gris. We're just releasing it now and it is killer! -- Ethereal aromatics and the most fantastic texture of any white wine we've ever released!!

Vineyard Visits: Momtazi, Stoller, Cherry Grove

Here are my first experiments with using my new Flip Video camera to document the developmnt in the vineyards. I need to work on my steady-cam stills (scenes are a bit Cloverfield-esque) and naration, but I'm still pretty excited about what I'll be able to do throughout harvest this year.

For the first post, I captured bits of my walk-throughs of Momtazi, Stoller, and Cherry Grove vineyards. I hope you enjoy. I'm going to try to give a fairly continuous stream of updates through the end of harvest this year.
-sb

The June and July heat pushed the vines forward by 3-4 weeks, and now most of Oregon is actually running a little ahead of schedule for the year. If the warmth persists, we'll pick our first Pinot by mid-Sept.

All the vineyards look fantastic. Canopy health has never been so even across the entire valley, and fruit set is very even. Berry sizes are quite uniform, and clusters are quite sizable. We've already been dropping a good amount of fruit across all sites, and we'll continue with that as August progresses.

Momtazi Vineyard - McMinnville AVA

Stoller Vineyard - Dundee Hills AVA

Cherry Grove Vineyard - Willamette Valley, just outside of Gaston, OR