Cole Danehower Oregon Wine Report


Oregon Washington Wine

Avalon Recommends:

Order the
Oregon Wine Report
Cole Danehower, publisher

This is the best guide, bar none, to Oregon's wines. Insightful articles, interesting reviews, in depth interviews- you'll find them all here. Worth every penny if you're interested in Oregon wine.

$45.00 -----
one year subscription

The OWR is published
six times a year

When you subscribe to a year of an Avalon Wine Club, you receive a subscription to OWR!

READ CURRENT NEWSLETTER

10% off case orders
of wine (12 bottles)

Join Our
AVALON WINE CLUB

Need Wine?

Call us at
541-752-7418
we love to talk
with our customers about
NW wines!

Store manager Ann Crowley-
10-6PM M-Sat

Cole Danehower on
Oregon Wine

Avalon Recommends:
Order the
Oregon Wine Report
Cole Danehower, publisher

This is the best guide, bar none, to Oregon's wines. Insightful articles, interesting reviews, in depth interviews- you'll find them all here. Worth every penny if you're interested in Oregon wine.

For Touring Oregon, Try

Andy Perdue
on
Northwest Wine

Andy is editor of
Wine Press NW

Check it out!

Rabbit Corkscrew
$59.95
and free shipping

October 2001

Harvest Update:
Broadley Vineyards

by Cole Danehower

All photographs
Copyright 2001, Oregon Wine Report

Full, ripe clusters of blue-black berries hung silently from the vines of Broadley Vineyards in Monroe, Oregon, as I stood looking out over the southern Willamette Valley. It was ideal picking weather. Earlier in the week Broadley had begun their 2001 harvest by bringing in purchased fruit from nearby Alpine Vineyards. Now they were ready to pick their estate grapes. I was there to help.

Craig Broadley and Morgan Broadley are happy to get harvest underway.

Monroe may not be considered the hub of Willamette Valley Pinot noir country, but the Broadleys have demonstrated that this warm area can produce distinctive and superb wines. Their flagship Pinot, Claudia's Choice, is consistently excellent, and their Reserve bottling is among the best values in Oregon Pinot noir. And, the fact that the winery is entirely a family run, hand-operated endeavor increases the charm and appeal of their wines. Helping out with crush at the Broadley's is about as close to a Burgundy-style harvest that you can get in this country!

Harvest here is a few days before most of the northern Willamette Valley-it is warmer weather and the grapes ripen a tad earlier. We began on Wednesday with the temperature at 83 and the skies sparkling blue. Early in the morning, while there is still a touch of chill in the air, yellow bins are spread out at the ends of the rows to be picked, and rapidly filled with cut clusters.

Freshly harvested grapes in the early morning sun at Broadley Vineyards.

Warmed by the advancing sun, biting into the clusters reveals sweet and tasty juice. Spreading the pips across the back of your hand, you can see the brown tinge of lignification, one of the indications of fully ripe fruit---along with Craig and Morgan's approval of the berries' taste. Crush a few more grapes onto a handheld hydrometer to get the brix reading, then taste a few more clusters from a different row . . . Good!. The grapes are ready.

Once filled, the bins are loaded into one of the two Broadley trucks and driven the short distance to the winery in "downtown" Monroe (there is not that much town to Monroe, so most everything there is downtown). If everything is ready, processing begins as soon as the grapes arrive. But if processing of previous loads is in progress, the newly arrived pickings go into a cold room where they are chilled while they wait to help prevent rot and premature fermentation.

At Broadley, they earn their wine: the important stuff is done by hand . . . and foot.

We lift each bin off the truck, move it to a pallet, and bin-by-bin, bucket brigade style, move the grapes up and into the destemmer. The destemmed fruit is shoveled into wooden or steel fermenters where it is left to begin fermenting using indigenous yeast. At least twice a day, the cap (all the seeds and skins that rise to the top of the fermenter) needs to be punched down in order to get an even fermentation. This is accomplished by climbing to the top of the tank and literally stomping down on the cap to break it and turn it back down into the juice.

This is not as fun as it sounds! In the 3-ton wooden fermenters, you have to balance on the thin tank edge (I had to use the aid of a "sissy bar" of wood across the open top) and stomp down hard on the remarkably firm cap-all while holding on tight to ensure you don't sink down below the surface of the purple goo! The edges of the tank are cool at first, with the harder to reach center having a foot-pleasing warmth of early fermentation. When you are done punching down the cap, though, the temperature at the top is more even, and lots of juice from below has risen to cover the pips and skins.

Claudia Broadley-of Claudia's Choice fame.

The first week of Broadley's harvest was exceptionally smooth. The grapes looked great, the weather was warm, and though there was a hint of light showers in the coming week, the picking pace was steady and productive. Fellow volunteer Jay McDonald, of The Tasting Room in Carlton, and I were treated to Claudia's home cooking, and-naturally-lunches featuring last year's Broadley wines.

The raw materials that go into fine wine: fine Pinot noir grapes.

In the coming weeks, Broadley will press and move to barrel their 2001 vintage. How good will it be? Too early to tell. But I remember seeing Craig Broadley, when he didn't know I was behind him, turn on the spigot to one of the 3-ton wooden fermenters, and take a taste of the brand new juice. I heard him say, just under his breath, "good . . . really good!"

Next week: we'll check in with Beaux Freres and see how their harvest is coming.

October Column

Sept 29
Harvest Update

Celebrate!

It's Cole's 1st Anniversary as a columnist on Avalon Wine!