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Big Big Trucks
are rattling past my House
And they are full of big white boxes full of grapes
Rumble Rumble- the sound of harvest under way

9-28-03

I live out in wine country, just down a dusty gravel road from two Willamette Valley vineyards. When the trucks start rattling past, I know that harvest is in full swing.

I work on my computer upstairs, looking out the window to the gravel road that winds higher and higher towards the fields. Usually, the road is empty all day- there's the mail man, maybe the UPS truck, maybe a kid on a motorcycle revving up the slope. And then, as summer ends, everything changes.

First I start seeing the pickups and SUV's of the winemakers, traveling out to the vineyards to carefully inspect the grapes for ripeness. Then a week or so later, the buses of vineyard workers wake me at near dawn, heading up the hill to begin harvest.

The usual quiet late afternoons out here are interrupted by great rumbling noises as trucks barrel past, loaded with grapes, fruit of the harvest, on their way to wineries up and down the valley. I wonder about their fate- will they turn into a big Pinot noir, a lovely Pinot gris? Was that Syrah that just rattled past?

Mystic Wines' Rick Mafit likes The Dalles

Rick Mafit of Mystic Wines makes some big red wines that local customers snatch up from Avalon's store shelves. We have not written much about Mystic here on the web site, as Rick has not made much wine to sell. Recently, his production expanded a little, and the wines are so popular at the store, it seems important to let you know about his Big Reds. We looked him up.

Rick made wines in Sonoma CA for many years before moving to Oregon. He has many years of experience producing rich, full-bodied Reds, Cabernet, Merlot, Zinfandel, Syrah. In Oregon, he makes those varietals, and a small amount of Pinot noir from Temperance Hill vineyard grapes.

Rick may have a secret to his success- a vineyard source (The Dalles) that is just beginning to be recognized as something special.

Rick says that the wineries obtaining fruit from vineyards in The Dalles have had great success- wineries include Sineann, Daedalus, Natalies Estate, Edgefield, and Penner Ash, who get Syrah from the area. Rick's Mystic Syrah comes from the Smith Cerne Vineyard south of The Dalles. It's an older vineyard of 12 year old vines, whose Sauvignon Blanc and Riesling are used by Rex Hill for their wines. Originally a cherry orchard, the vineyard is on the rolling canyon floor, in a cold air pocket that provides a big temperature differential between night and day. The vineyard ranges up the canyon slope at an almost vertical angle, and gets lots of sun.

The Smith Cerne Vineyard's Syrah is gaining a reputation for flavors of white pepper and gaminess, qualities that may come from the quite cold nights. The grapes maintain good acidity even thought the days are quite hot. Mike takes about 5 acres of Syrah from the vineyard.

Rick says his Mystic Wines Merlot grapes come from the Hillside Vineyard, gaining renown as the source for some of Sineann's wines. The vineyard is very very vertical, and gets sunlight from early morning to dusk. While Peter Rossback crops his block of the vineyard to very low weight per acre for his Sineann Merlot, Mike gets 2.5 tons per acre.

Mike says he tries for a "rounder", more traditional, softer Merlot. He also makes a Reserve Merlot, blended from a few special barrels of the Hillside fruit he harvests. Interestingly, he says that the barrels he selects for the Reserve Merlot are usually the "press" wine- that is, the wine that has to be pressed out of the grapes after the "free run" has been collected.

"Free run" juice is the juice that falls off the grapes without pressing, just from the weight of the grapes in the tank. He says that the "press" juice has extra tannins and structure that translate into a Reserve class bottling. Rick describes the Reserve Merlot as a big "Extracted" wine that can be drunk now or laid down.

I asked Rick how he defines the word "extracted" as applied to wine. I have a general idea that it refers to wines that are very full-bodied, but I wanted to know how a winemaker would describe it.

Rick says: "Extracted means getting everything out of the grape and not leaving anything behind. It means not pressing too early, not leaving the grapes too long or too short a time in the fermentor. It means monitoring cold soak time and avoiding oxidation."

McDuffee Vineyard is gaining a reputation for excellent Cabernet Sauvignon grapes, and that is where Rick gets his. The vineyard was planted in 1983, and the vines are self-rooted. The vineyard gets sun all day and produces small and intensely flavored bunches of grapes. Flavors of black fruit, black berry, licorice, cassis, and blueberry are typical, with darker, intense flavors dominating.

McDuffee Vineyard was right on the firebreak of the Dalles fire of 2001, and the grapes from that vintage have a distinct smoky flavor. The grapes have been blended into different wines with different flavor results. Rick's Cabernet Sauvignon 2001 has a slight hint of the forest fire, but it might be mistaken for char in the barrel. Owen Roe's Sinister Hand Grenache Syrah blend has a hint of forest fire in it also... I'll have to ask David O'Reilly if some of the fruit from Sinister Hand came from the McDuffee firebreak!

Mystic's Zinfandel, made from grapes from the Hillside Vineyard, has been a big surprise from The Dalles. Mike says that Zinfandel does not grow well in the Willamette Valley, and even in Southern Oregon, the grapes have a tendency to rot on the vine. The clusters are huge and thin skinned, and just don't do well without lots of very hot sunshine.

Mike has found ripeness and intensity of flavor from Zinfandel grapes from the Hillside Vineyard that he has not found outside of California, where he made Zinfandel for many harvests. The hot hot days in The Dalles provide ripeness, but the cold nights provide a quality that is not easy to find- the cold nights maintain acidity, leading to better balanced wines that show complexity along with lushness. Owen Roe also makes outstanding Zinfandel from Hillside Vineyard fruit.

Next......Washington Report-"Columbia Cascades" - the Next hot Vineyard Region?--------page 1 | 2