Holiday at the Vineyard

Dear Friends,

In the 23 years of growing winegrapes, I have never seen such warm, dry weather preceding and during harvest. We have been blessed with a string of high quality vintages!

National awareness of Oregon wine quality has generated demand for our wines such that we have been receiving orders in excess of our available inventories. We placed all our distributors (including the Tasting Room) on allocation to fairly apportion our available inventory. The crop yield this harvest exceeded averages, so we have an opportunity to meet much of this demand although it will be several years before we can build up the inventory levels to match the record 2005 calendar year sales. Our new plantings will mature beginning 2008-2009, allowing for substantial future growth.

Demand for our wines is fueled by key national write-ups. For example, our Vintage Pinot Noir was recommended by Jamie Pressly, co-star of “My Name Is Earl”, in the December issue of InStyle magazine. It was named a "Best Pick" by nationally acclaimed author Kevin Zraly in his book, “The American Wine Guide”. Our Pinot was also named among the top 25 on American restaurant wine lists by Wine & Spirits magazine. Author Leslie Sbrocco recommended our Whole Cluster Pinot Noir for Thanksgiving in her new book, “Simple and Savvy Wine Guide”. Our '05 Pinot Gris was named as one of the 100 Top Wine Values in the World by Wine Spectator magazine in their October issue.

Jon Mason, our Retail Manager, has many new releases and some rare Library wines from which you can choose for your holiday meals and gift giving. A couple of my favorites are the '98 Estate Pinot (aged to near perfection) and the newly released '03 Estate Dijon Clone Chardonnay - one of the best Chards we have ever made

Please try to make it to the winery this holiday season. We will have the winery all decorated and are offering some fun experiences for your family, visiting relatives and friends. Acclaimed Chef, Carrie Wong, will be here for our Thanksgiving Open House with her Extreme Chocolate truffles. Have you ever tried a smoked Maracaibo truffle with red Hawaiian sea salt alongside our Pinot Noir Port? Incredible!

Don't forget you will receive 10 cents for every wine bottle and $1 for wine shipper you return to the winery as our way of encouraging recycling.

Your support of our winery has given us the strength to represent you well in our community helping others. We had the best year so far and helped raise over $58,000 for the local food bank with our "Chefs’ Night Out" and continue our participation with SOLV and other important charitable organizations.

Many businesses are following our lead with the use of biofuel. Our free biofuel for employees to commute to work garnered national media coverage proving we can take individual and collective action to improve the environment and reduce dependence on foreign, non-renewal fuel sources.

I hope this note finds your families in good health and spirit. I am very grateful for your support and the hard work accomplished by our employees.

Happy Holidays,

Jim Bernau
Founder/President

From the Tasting Room - Open Bottles

How long will a bottle of wine last after it is opened?

In our house an opened bottle seldom lasts more than 24 hours. In the Willamette Valley Vineyards Tasting Room we date every bottle as we open it. After three days we discard the wine; there is a noticeable reduction of flavor and bouquet.

At home an open bottle of wine will be fine for up to 4 days, be it red or white. Port wine, according to our Winemaker Forrest Klaffke, will be fine for up to a month. In my home I have kept open port wines for a year and have found them to still be delightful.

Air is the enemy of wine. More air is introduced into the bottle each time another glass is poured, speeding the oxidation process for the remaining wine. There are several tricks I have learned over the years to help reduce spoilage.

Keep a few empty half bottles—the 375 ml splits—on hand. If you do not plan to consume the entire bottle in one sitting, pour half the wine into the smaller split and recork it. This will minimize the amount of air in the smaller bottle and prolong the life of the remaining wine.

Flood the partially filled bottle with an inert gas such as nitrogen or CO2. This heavy gas creates a barrier between the wine’s surface and the air in the bottle. Hand vacuum pumps can remove some of the air from a bottle, too, but the pumps have limited effectiveness since all air is never removed.

When we bottle wine at Willamette Valley Vineyards, each bottle is first filled with an inert gas and then the bottle is immediately filled with wine and corked. Some of the inert gas remains in the bottle between the wine surface and the cork to insure the flavor and freshness of the wine.

You may reuse the same cork to reseal the bottle if the original cork is not damaged. Or you can get the fancy stoppers. Or you can invest in a few of the $1 rubber stoppers from the Willamette Valley Vineyards Tasting Room. The end goal is to minimize the amount of air that comes in contact with the wine.