Today’s post for Wine Wednesday is all about the Stoller Family Estate Vineyards. I had the good fortune to visit this vineyard two summers ago as part of the Society of Wine Educators conference in August. As you might know from reading my blog, I fell in love with Oregon as a state and the wines in general. I have written a lot about their Chardonnay wines but the Pinot Noirs captivated me as well. I think I was more surprised by the Chardonnay which I hadn’t expected to like as much as I did while the Pinot Noir came with very high expectations.

My first job in the United States after 15 years in Italy was as a wine salesperson in New York. I didn’t last too long on the street but I was introduced for the first time to Oregon Pinot Noir. We sold one from a company…

Last week I wrote about using corks or screw caps as closures and which one was more environmentally sound. This week, my Monday musing is about buying very heavy wine bottles for making one’s own wine or buying wines that are sold in very heavy bottles.

When I made wine this year, I used bottles I had bought years ago. Some were very heavy and others less so. Like many people, I had fallen into the trap that heavy bottles made a more appealing wine package. In the years since I bought those bottles, my views have changed. I now am against very heavy bottles. I’m not talking about larger formats but normal 750s. I’ve seen and experienced many of these types of wines. I have often tasted wine from a very heavy bottle that looked quite attractive but  is often too hard to pour elegantly.  I also find it…

The wines from Portland were a real revelation to me this summer when I visited Portland for the Society of Wine Educators conference. I thought many that I tried were really worthy of note. I also took a number of seminars on the wines during the conference. I learned a lot about how things were in the past and what to look for in the future. One grape that everyone kept mentioning was Chardonnay. Apparently, the original clones that they used for the Chardonnay wines were not the ones that were appropriate for the terroir in Oregon. One of the wineries whose Chardonnay I really liked was from Trisaetum. The winery with this very complicated to pronounce name was started by Andrea and James Frey in 2003. It is a conjunction of their children, Tristen and Tatum’s names. The winery is located in the Ribbon Ridge AVA and…

When I traveled to Portland, Oregon last summer for the Society of Wine Educators conference, I was sure to find loads of Pinot Noir that I found interesting and even some Pinot Gris. What I hadn’t expected was how much of the Chardonnay I would like. Today’s Wine Wednesday is about one of those wines made with Chardonnay that I found surprising and delicious from the Eyrie Vineyards winery. This winery was founded by the pioneer of the Oregon wine industry, David Lett.

In February 1965, some 53 years ago, Lett rented a temporary nursery plot near Corvallis, and planted the 3000 vinifera grape cuttings he gathered from UC Davis. These were the first plantings of Pinot noir and Chardonnay in the Willamette Valley.

After much exploration, Lett decided that Dundee Hills had the right combination of soils and climate for his grapes with the correct exposition and altitude…