Harvest

But first, harvest!

It's the best time of year! The leaves will begin to turn soon. A cool breeze, more often than not, is breaking through the thick summer air. Spooky season is upon us. But first, harvest! This month, vineyards across the northern hemisphere will pull the grapes from their vines to make wine. Last week was our harvest at Dudley Farm in Mt. Juliet, a century farm run by Homer Dudley that stretches 150 acres down Bender's Ferry. It is a beautiful place. In the Spring and Summer there is a roadside stand where you can buy fresh produce. During a typical year we will grow about a dozen varieties of peppers, another dozen varieties of tomatoes, garlic, onions, corn, squash, asparagus, strawberries, potatoes, cucumbers, and more! 


I manage the small vineyard tucked in the southeast corner of the property. It is an acre of heaven on earth where we grow mostly Norton with a little bit of Chambourcin, two red native American hybrid varieties that you don't see too often on retail shelves. This month, along with the rest of the northern hemisphere, we harvested the grapes from the vines after a year of working to keep them safe and healthy. Here's what harvest looks like for us. 


Harvest isn't a set date. We have to hang on to the edge of our seats listening to mother nature for just the right moment. Rain and temperature are two of the most impactful things that we have to deal with. For weeks leading up to the end of the season we measure the brix of the grapes. Brix is a measurement of sugar content in juice. Knowing the sugar content of the juice can help us figure out if the grapes are ripe enough to pick and also how much alcohol we can expect to have in the wine, as it's the sugar that is converted into alcohol by the yeast during fermentation. If temperatures are warmer and the vines get more sun light than not, ripening can happen at a faster pace, thus moving the harvest date up. Likewise, if we get slammed with a bunch of rain leading up to harvest the grapes can become swollen and waterlogged bringing the brix down and possibly pushing harvest back. 


All of these things can be somewhat mediated by vineyard work like pruning and canopy management but you can only do so much to combat Mother Nature. Once the brix are around 24 and the weather forecast is promising, we jump on the opportunity. Luckily I have some incredible friends who come out to help harvest every year. Harvesting with friends is much of why it is my favorite day of the year. We meet at the farm at a bright and early 5:00 a.m. We want to arrive as early as possible to pick the grapes before the sun begins to bake them. When they are cut from the vines, they lose their life source and quickly begin to age. Wineries always want their grapes picked as quickly as possible at the coolest part of the day. 


I always come with a load of Shipley's donuts and coffee (best in town). We eat and drink the hot coffee while we gather up our tools and wait for everyone to arrive. Once in the vineyard I test the brix and pH (acidity) again for good measure and record keeping. We first take down the nets that were put up months before to keep out birds and critters that like to snack on the fruit. Once the nets are down we pick. Bucket after bucket is loaded into the Gator and trucked over to our crush and destem station (a couple fold out tables under a tree). There are few things more satisfying to me than snipping the clusters off of the vines after having watched them grow all year. Standing around the vines with my best friends talking and goofing off while cutting grapes in the crispness of the morning is time I wouldn't trade for anything. It's beautiful too. Early in the morning a layer of fog sits right over the vines helping also to keep the grapes cold. 


This year was extra special because we had our largest pull yet. Not only were the vines full of clusters, but the clusters were beautiful, full and free of any rot or insect intrusion. We have dozens of honey bee hives on the property so we keep the farm organic and free of insecticides or chemical sprays. This makes growing grapes a little tough when we get hit with so much fungus/mold/insect infestations in our humid southern climate. Sometimes we'll spray a little copper or sulfur but we lucked out this year by having an insect and funk free year. It was a miracle. The weather was close to perfect. I didn't spray once and didn't have to deal with any issues. It reminded me of the beauty of an ideal minimal intervention vineyard. Nature does all the work. 


With about a dozen of us we can normally pick the entire vineyard in a few hours. After the grapes are picked we all gather around the tables and begin to destem the grapes. We try not to crush too much because we don't want the juice to have too much skin contact (Norton skins can contribute some off putting aromas). As we pick the grapes off the stems we pick through the must (the slurry of grapes, juice, seeds, some stems that will later be pressed) to pick out MOG (material other than grape) like spiders, so many spiders, leaves, bird poop, etc. We put the must in large containers and then transfer it back to my place where we grill burgers and press the juice off the must! This time around the table destemming is my favorite. This year, with such a large harvest, we stood around that table talking and destemming for close to 5 hours. The sun rises slowly behind us over the beautiful hills on the farm. The 150 year old barn (where I proposed to my wife) sits there at the bottom of the hill watching us. The cows start to come out, hawks fly over, the enormous trees, even older than the farm, give us shade. Like I said, heaven on earth. Homer, owner and master gardener at Dudley farm, stops by to give my friends a hard time for letting me suck them into waking up so early, ha. He gives us his thanks, which is crazy, because he deserves all the thanks for letting us run amok on his farm without supervision, ha. He's an amazing man and farmer who I was lucky to meet 10 years ago. I can honestly say he and his farm changed my life. 


Back at my place we dump the must into a wooden basket press and turn the crank. Because of the short skin contact time we consider this a rosé of Norton. It's nice to sit out on the back porch, eat a burger, and press the wine while sitting out, tired from a long days work. We opened the last bottle of our 2019 vintage to celebrate. It was possibly the best bottle we had from it. A beautiful color and still amazing carbonation. Fingers crossed we can recreate it. 


After pressing all the juice into glass carboys we moved them down to my basement and let them cold soak over night.The next morning I pitched the yeast and watched as fermentation began. The wine is still bubbling away in my basement. I am watching closely and plan to bottle the wine before fermentation is finished to trap some of those bubbles in the bottle to create a Pet-Nat. All the pressed grape skins will go in to buckets and go through a separate open top fermentation to give us a different style of wine, a darker still wine, but the sparkling rosé is our focus. 


Harvest is all about a job well done. It's the culmination of a year's worth of work and more so, the grand finale of one of the most miraculous shows. There are few things I find more amazing than watching a vine go dormant, bud, bush out, grow vines 40 feet in length, then suddenly pop out fruit that we can eat and drink to sustain ourselves and enjoy, shed it leaves, and then repeat the cycle again. Incredible. I already can't wait 'til next year. Luckily we'll have a lot of wine to drink before then.  Check out our new STAFF WINE PICKS!


The Wine Press

Austria! (Part 2)

By Preston Hunt, Wine Buyer • November 15, 2024
Austria Part 2 - Wachau, Kamptal, and Röschitz (White Wine Country)

Austria! (Part 1)

By Preston Hunt, Wine Buyer • November 13, 2024
Austria (Part 1) - Vienna and VieVinum We went for wine, but schnitzel, that thinly hammered piece of pork the size of a dinner plate deep fried to crispy golden perfection, was secretly the thing I was most looking forward to. It’s funny going half way around the world to eat a dish that is so reminiscent of the southern staples I grew up on and of which my home is also famous for. But there I was, sitting on a plane, hype to soon slice into the crispy piece of meat.

Preston Reviews Willamette Valley! (Part 6 - Tasting Guide)

By Preston Hunt • November 15, 2023
We drank a good amount of wine on the trip. Here’s the list of the wines we drank in a formal setting (that means we swish and spit). It does not include all the wines we actually drank at dinner or the incredible wine bars we visited like Division Wine Co. in Portland. Comprehensive list of wines tasted and my tasting notes (alphabetical by winery) I included relevant and/or interesting bits of information like retail price, clone, source, aging if unusual or obvious, some blurbs about the year, reasons for producing at all, etc. I mark only my favorites with “Good”, “Good+”, “Good++”, and “Great!”. These scores are as much preference as they are comments on the quality of the wine. We really didn’t have a bad or poorly made wine the entire trip. You’ll see only 7 wines designated “Great”, 10 wines designated “Good++”, 8 wines designated “Good+”, 14 wines designated “Good”, and 60 wines that weren’t quite worth calling a favorite although most were still delicious. Note: I know the prices can be painful. I take price into account when noting how much I like it. Also, If I do not mention a clone or specific place it is simply because it isn’t necessarily notable, or it’s a blend of clones and places. I tried to keep notes short, so you’ll actually take a look ha. Let me know if you’d like me to try to acquire any of these for you. Also keep an eye out for fun patterns, like how wines change over small verticals or how similar wines from the same vineyards are, even if they’re made by different wineries.

More Pics from the Willamette Valley Trip (Part 5)

By Preston Hunt • November 15, 2023
There were so many other incredible stops on our trip. Click a picture to learn more.

Chehalem and The Willamette Valley’s 3rd Champion Pinot Gris (Part 4)

By Preston Hunt • November 15, 2023
Stoller was the final stop on our trip. They were one of the wineries that were kind enough to put us up for the night in one of their guest houses, which made us feel like royalty. It was an incredible way to end an incredible trip. Chehalem is a sister winery of Stoller that focuses on single vineyard pinots. We rolled up to the incredible Stoller property, honestly, pretty exhausted from a long week. The sun was soon to set as we sat out back on the patio. The view of the property from our table was quite expansive, as you can see in the pics below, and the setting sun lit it beautifully. We drank some wonderful pinot gris over the course of the week, notably at King Estate where we came to find out the grape’s aging potential, and here at Stoller where the Chehalem PG sings of flowering fruit trees. Pinot gris is the third, and final, variety I must mention. There is actually more pinot gris planted in the Willamette Valley than there is chardonnay but that is soon to change as more and more people are tearing up gris to plant chard. Pinot gris is the same thing as pinot grigio to be clear. Some will argue its difference but most of those are differences in production styles and terroir. It is the same exact grape genetically. This PG was sourced from the wineries namesake, the Chehalem Mountains, a small range and AVA that is in the middle of the valley. This small range would have been one of the only islands in Lake Allison after those Missoula floods, making its peak perfect for grape growing. Chehalem Pinot Gris is fermented in stainless steel. It smells and tastes of white flowers and candied peaches and apricots and lemon. It is crisp and delicious. It’s a great example of pinot gris from Oregon. Drink now. Drink cold.  Stoller was the perfect finish to a perfect trip. The wines were amazing and our accommodations ideal. We sat outside late into the night looking at the stars and drinking wine. The girls saw a handful of shooting stars, but as my luck would have it, I did not. That is, until we were headed inside. Right out of the corner of my eye one streaked across the sky. It was as if the valley was tipping its hat to me in farewell.

Cristom and Single Vineyard Pinot Noir (Part 3)

By Preston Hunt • November 14, 2023
Cristom was our second stop on the trip and one of our favorites of the week. I was so excited to not only see the winery and vineyards but to revisit the wines as these aren’t wines I get to drink often. I love Cristom. This winery was my first real exposure to high quality Willamette Valley pinot noir. They really opened my eyes to the beauty of pinot from Oregon and the practices that it takes to create them. Like I mentioned, most wineries we visited are biodynamic, Cristom included. Mitch was our host. He immediately threw us in the truck and sped up the hill pointing sites out along the way, mostly biodynamic ones. We sped by their compost piles, the horn pits, the stag’s bladders filled with yarrow flowers hanging from trees, and wild flower fields. Once we got on top of the ridge we were taken by the view. The vineyards of Cristom sit perfectly in front of the Van Duzer Corridor and thus are swept with a constant breeze. This is the Van Duzer Corridor , the only gap in the Coastal Mountain range that allows that Pacific ocean breeze to sweep through and into the valley helping regulate temperatures and keep things cool. This view from the top of Cristom was incredible. You can see straight ahead where the mountains dip down, and then just to the right and out of sight, they reach back up. It is a perfectly shaped gap in the range that is crucial in creating a climate suited for these vines. Wineries that are smack dab in the middle of it, like Cristom, benefit the most. Location location location. Cristom is all about place . They bottle pinot noirs that have been sourced from single vineyards, each showing a different terroir and micro climate. It is hard to believe, because they are all pinot noirs and all the single vineyards are right next to each other, but these wines all tasted so different. It was fantastic to taste them side by side. There is a great map of the estate on the back of every bottle. Check it out. You can read my tasting notes of each wine below. As you can see by my wine list and tasting notes at the bottom, Cristom is focused almost entirely on pinot noir. They make some amazing chardonnays and pinot gris and even some viognier and syrah (a real treat), but single vineyard pinot noir is what they do best. They aren’t cheap, but you should definitely keep them in mind for a special occasion. I usually keep two at a time at the store. I currently have Eileen and Louise on the shelf. You can read about them at the end of this letter. When your focus each year is making the same 5 wines from the same 5 vineyards you learn so much about those places. Cristom knows their single vineyards so well and the way they express themselves. They know the best ways to tend to those places to display their specific terroir through the wines they produce. Their single vineyards- Eileen, Marjorie, Jessie, Louise, Paul Gerrie all slightly face different directions at slightly different altitudes, with slightly different soil compositions. Even though they all are planted with pinot noir the wines that are produced from them taste completely different. That is both the magic of Cristom, but also the magic of pinot noir, a grape that is easily influenced by its terroir and the things that are done to it in the winery. I suggest you start with their Willamette Valley bottling, meaning the fruit was pulled from more than one sight but all within the Willamette Valley. Most of the fruit in this bottle came from their single vineyards so the quality is there, it just doesn’t speak of place like the single vineyards do. The rest of the fruit in this wine comes from a few of their neighbors in the Eola-Amity Hills. Bang for your buck this bottle is hard to beat. It is a wonderful expression of pinot noir that is super quality for under $40. This Willamette Valley bottle was hand harvested from sites on volcanic soils in the Eola-Amity Hills AVA. It was fermented about half whole cluster (that is with stems) and aged for 10 months in French oak, 22% of which was new oak. It tastes of red cherries, bramble, blackberry leaves, some earth and dried herbs and baking spices. The whole clusters can be tasted in some of those earthy notes and tannin structure. This wine is food wine. Pair with a whole baked chicken with herbs, charcuterie, pizza, or a mushroom dish. Drink now. Drink cellar temp (cool to the touch but not cold).

Bryn Mawr, Where Chardonnay Reigns (Part 2)

By Preston Hunt • November 14, 2023
The views!! The best views we had the entire trip. Bryn Mawr hangs on the edge of a mountain that overlooks the entire valley, and David Lauer is king of that mountain and was our host for this short but significant stop. David is the VP of Sales and Marketing and son of owners, Jon and Kathy, who purchased the property in 2009. We met last year when he visited Nashville to show his wines around town. That was my first time tasting the wines, but definitely not my last. Following that meeting I put all 3 of the wines available to me on the shelf. David sold me on the wines, the story, and the mentality of Bryn Mawr. When we decided to go to the Willamette Valley and started planning, I knew I had to make it by Bryn Mawr. David was a fantastic host, but we barely caught each other. He was headed out of the state for a wine dinner and we had a full day booked with only about an hour and a half to spare. But we put it to good use. After a walk around the winery, totally full and being prepped for harvest, we settled out back on the porch to taste through some wines while staring out at that amazing view. They are so high up, in fact, that you can see 110 miles from right to left and nearly 40 miles straight ahead. There is a spectacular view of the Van Duzer corridor (something I’ll talk about later) and a cool breeze that never stops. So cool that they can often harvest 2-3 weeks later than the rest of the valley. Bryn Mawr loves chardonnay. One of David’s main points was that chard reigns at Bryn Mawr and, he strongly believes, will reign over the entire valley in the near future (something that would have sounded ludacrious even 3 years ago). But, he wasn’t the only one. We heard over and over again, from winemaker after winemaker, that chardonnay isn’t only on the up but the future. Bryn Mawr is ahead of the game, even going as far as to pull up some of their pinot vines to plant chardonnay, something that many would still call crazy. Bryn Mawr chardonnays aren’t only their best sellers but their most critically acclaimed. They are chardonnays you will love. Light on the oak, bright and crisp but deep in flavor. One of the big revelations of the week was chardonnay, when we realized by the end of the trip they had been some of our favorite wines. It has been a long time coming, David told us. For years Willamette Valley producers tried to mimic either the buttery ripe styles of Napa or the crispy styles of Chablis or nuanced styles of Burgundy. It is only in recent years that producers in Oregon have started to find their own style, and it isn’t one taken from these other regions. It is one of their own, one that sits somewhere in the in between. And it is amazing! This was my first full push into Oregon chardonnay, one I am super happy about and one I’ll preach hard going forward. David wasn’t just focused on chardonnay, but anything against the grain. He preached, “Everyone here makes amazing pinot noir, why not make something different? How else will we stand out? Rachel (Rachel Rose - Winemaker and Vineyard Manager) has taken this and run with it.” He embodied this idea of difference and I love that. He poured for us an estate Tempranillo and, the star of the show, an estate Dolcetto. He dove into a story about pouring the Dolcetto for some Italian men that ranted and raved, and how Dolcetto fits so well into the climate and terroir of the Eola-Amity Hills but nobody would ever think to plant it or risk wasting good land on it, and his vision for varieties like these to grow in Oregon. The Dolcetto was amazing. We brought a bottle of it home. Overall this was one of our favorite stops and the Bryn Mawr WV chardonnay ($25) is currently one of my favorites. It is typical of Willamette Valley Chardonnay in that it has a balance that California and Burgundy have gotten away from. It touches oak, but mostly neutral oak. It is fermented in sandstone and used oaked and aged in those same vessels sur lie for 11 months before bottling. It is crisp and dry and tastes of lemon, pear, some ginger and spice. Drink now. Drink cold. I can’t wait to get back and spend more time at Bryn Mawr. One of the most memorable wines we drank the entire trip was the Bryn Mawr Estate Pinot Noir 2020, which was a wildfire year when most producers chose not to make wine. But Bryn Mawr made wine. See below to find out why. It is more of that authentic difference that I love about this place. (You can find more notes like this in the Tasting Guide (Part 6). Bryn Mawr Estate Pinot Noir 2020 Fire year. Most people we talked to didn’t make any wine in 2020 or only white because the white grapes were pulled before the smoke moved in. But Bryn Mawr made their wine and David's excuse was amazing. He spoke to fires being a part of the region’s story now, like it or not. Wine people talk constantly about wine telling the story of time and place, “unless it's a story of a time or place we don’t like,” David cracked. Their 2020 wines tell the transparent story. They evoke a memory, one of pain yes, but a memory of a specific time and place. How cool is that?! There was smoke on the nose, but not much on the palate. It is juicy and spicy. They didn’t simply make the wine like normal but crafted them with the knowledge that smoke would be a major flavor in the wine. They used less oak, a fast ferment, lab yeast, and tried to keep it as juicy as possible. It isn’t even close to the best wine we had but it might be the coolest and most authentic, and to me that counts for a lot. I also think it will come to serve them in the future with more and more possibilities for fires. Practice makes perfect, they say. ($40)

Frugal MacDoogal Wine Team Visits Willamette Valley (Part 1)

By Preston Hunt • November 14, 2023
In September I went on, possibly, my favorite wine trip ever, and I’ve had the privilege of taking some incredible wine trips all around the world. The trip was so amazing I hope you’ll excuse the length of this post and settle in with a coffee, or better yet, a glass of pinot noir and read from top to bottom. There’s a lot to take from the Willamette Valley- a lot to learn about the current state of pinot noir and chardonnay and a lot to learn about the direction in which pinot and chard are going. I think the Willamette Valley will be at the center of all the change, the movements, and the growing popularity of pinot and, just as notably, the exciting rebirth of American chardonnay. I was lucky enough to get to go out for a week with two of my favorite people and spend time jumping from winery to winery learning the ins and outs of Oregon wine country. We lucked out with perfect weather and arrived at the most beautiful time of year when grapes hung full and ready on the vines, one week before harvest. The wines were amazing, the views spectacular, and our hosts were so generous. The food was incredible, the little towns were perfectly quaint, the coast was jaw-droppingly epic, and our Airbnb in Newberg was dope. It was a relaxing week compared to wine trips I’ve taken in the past. We flew out on the 1st, visited 12 wineries over the following 6 days, spent one day and night in Portland, and landed back in Nashville late on the 9th. Our appointments were perfectly spread out, as were the wineries- beautiful drives from each to the next. It reminded me more of Champagne than Napa, vineyards more spread out and strategic than crammed on top of one another. The valley is still made up of small farm towns and that culture hasn’t yet been, and hopefully never will be, stripped. Luckily for us, and them, tourists don’t yet outnumber locals. It wasn’t only an informative learning experience and successful business trip, it was a much needed week of R&R before OND (October, November, December) our industry’s busiest time of year. It was such a great trip that it was hard to come back to Nashville. If you’ve never been, you must add it to your list. It was my first time and I am already planning to return.

A pilgrimage to the heart of Champagne!

By Preston Hunt • September 13, 2023
An homage to craftsmanship and a celebration of the exquisite art of winemaking

Two weeks in Spain, one year to ship, finally the payoff!

By Preston Hunt, Wine Manager • May 10, 2023
We hope you'll enjoy this blog post, taken from the monthly Preston's Picks Wine Club content that accompanies each group of wines received by Club Members.
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