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| HARVEST JOURNAL -2006 | |||
November 1, 2006 All good things must come to an end. The annual cycle is complete. Now comes rest. Rest for the plants, rest for the soil, rest for the workers and rest for the wine, until the springtime air begins to stir things to life again. The grapes have all been harvested. Our last fruit picked was 96-clone Chardonnay from the Durant Vineyard in Dundee on October 27 th . A beautiful golden hue to the berries with spots of sun-tanned brown. Delicious!
The tanks are almost all emptied. There are still some fermentations slowly bubbling away in the now colder temperatures of the cellar. Chardonnay barrels and Riesling tanks slowly fizz, releasing a nectar-like aroma into the air: peaches, pineapples, apples and sweet spices. These will continue at an intentionally slow pace until the late winter or early spring. They are fun to taste now though, kind of like being in a candy shop.
It has been only one month since we began harvest, although it feels like much longer than that. The team has worked very hard day and night without much rest and I am sure that they look forward to taking some days off and resting in the warmth of the indoors. But alas, it is not to be. The compost needs to be spread and tilled under before the winter frosts and our last Biodynamic sprays need to be applied to the soil, vine canes and leaves before they lose all of their foliage. New compost needs to be built for next year and new vineyard blocks need to be laid out for an early spring planting. I used to tell people that December and January were great months because we could rest, now I tell them that they are great months because the cycle starts again. Due to a larger harvested than was foreseen, I am waiting for a container of 140 new French oak barrels which are on a ship heading our way from Burgundy. We will be busy taking new wines to barrel until the middle of December now. The good news is that the wines merit the special attention. The 2006 Pinot Noirs will be aromatic, sleek and, if I may say..sexy. The wines have elegant structure and great fresh fruit appeal and will probably be for near to mid term drinking upon release. Could be a great year of approachable and delicious wines (while we wait for the monstrous 2005's to mellow.) Thank you for tuning in to see what happened day to day here at Bergstrom Winery. We have a lot of fun doing what we do and it is nice to share our experience with you the consumer, the critic, the aficionado or the curiously lost web surfer looking for directions to the Bergstrom Air Force Base in Texas. No matter how you found us on-line, I encourage you to come and visit us in person. Our tasting room is warm and friendly and we are always eager to share a cup of cheer with fellow Pinot Noir fans. Maybe you can tell us one of your stories.
Have a nice winter and we'll do it again next year! Cheers. Friday October 20, 2006 San Francisco Today I woke up to a much different skyline than the one I have seen over the several past busy weeks. One of my favorite skylines in the world..San Francisco. Sunrise over San Francisco 's Bay is second only to a sunrise in the vineyard on a cool fall day when the leaves have turned golden. The small islands, the still water reflecting the towering bridges and buildings and the little white sail boats bobbing about all seem to be in perfect unison, like out of a stylized painting of what you would hope for in a San Francisco sunrise. No, I haven't gone crazy and fled Oregon for some serene harvest-rehab center.Caroline and I are in San Francisco, joined by my sister Kim and my brother in law Alan for the Wine Spectator's California Wine Experience where we were invited to showcase our wines alongside a dazzling line-up of California, Oregon and Washington wineries. We are pouring the 2004 Shea Vineyard Pinot Noir and it is tasting pretty darn special right now. Pouring wine to hundreds of frenzied wine enthusiasts is always a pleasure and it is an honor for us to have been included in the list of notable wineries for this year's event. Probably the only good excuse to escape the winery for a few days in the middle of harvest is a working vacation like this one. The event spans three days and includes some great wine tastings, and meals. I highly recommend the Wine Experience to all of you. Last night alone I had the opportunity to try great wines from such names as: Cayuse, Kosta Browne, Siduri, Au Bon Climat, Aurojo, Dalla Valle, DuMol, Aubert, Kistler, Harlan, Shafer and more. Back at the winery, Jorge and the guys are working busily pressing our
last white grapes that are arriving from the vineyards and taking new
wines from tank to barrels (Playing winemaker over a cell phone is not
as much fun as one would envision.) The early harvested Pinot Noirs are
finishing up fermentation and my early word is that they are of high quality.
As we begin to fill the barrel cellar with wine, it is fun, if not premature,
to taste and try to see the future. These wines are extremely aromatic
wines with good deep red hues (some leaning towards purple) and fleshy
weight in the mouth. The tannins this year are ripe and soft and non-obtrusive.
The word to best describe the vintage thus far is "delicious" (or "Yummy"
if you want the correct wine jargon.) Our last Pinot Noir (Maresh Vineyard) was picked last Friday and our last Chardonnay fruit arrived yesterday from Carabella Vineyard. We still have about 6 tons of Riesling hanging on the vine and I believe we will havest that this weekend. Overall quality has been great and quantities are still much higher than in the past three years. Wednesday October 11, 2006 Okay, so the harvest gods were not rooting for the Oregon Ducks as much as I was.big deal right? So I lost a bet and if you want to see me wearing Cal Bear gear around ..say.Thanksgiving Open House, I have a brother in law who went to Berkeley who will most assuredly make it happen. (Webmaster note: Josh forgot to add that his brother in law does a lot of the web editing on the side to help out.....please see graphic on right......) We are two days away from finishing the Pinot Noir harvest. The past days have been a tempest of fruit, pressure-washer mist, honey bees and yellow jackets and coffee/donuts/white burgundy/fill in the blank pleasure beverage/food. The winery is full to the gills. Does anyone out there have bathtub space to lease? Fruit is immaculate, ripe and tasty, tasty, tasty! The dehydration and dessication we were worried about turned out to be less of a worry and more of an ingredient. Fruit is turning up plumper than it looked in the field 5 days ago and flavors are fantastic. The early wines that we have barreled down are very pretty with amazing fresh berry aromas (vs. the pruny and tired aromas I was fearing once dehydration started in the fields.)
We have had to add acid and a small amount of water routinely as sugars are off the charts and PH's are a little higher than I would like to see in must readings. This, like 2003, will be the year of the winemaker. Those who are willing to help the wine do more than what the wine wants to naturally, will benefit this year.
First of all, no juice above 26 Brix can ferment to dryness and leave a balanced Pinot Noir. This year we are seeing Brix readings of 27-28 because of dehydration in the vineyard due to East winds and warm temperatures in late September and early October. This must be compensated for in the winery with a small amount of water added to the must to lower the sugars in the juice to a fermentable level for our yeasts. No..adding water to grape juice does not dilute the final product. Just think of it as making your Pinot Noir 14.5% alcohol vs. 18%. When water is added early enough in the cold-soak process, we are merely compensating for the dehydration which happened in the field and the wine will still be astonishingly ripe and rich (without the burning alcoholic finish that you love so much in late harvest Zinfandel.)
We will finish the Pinot Noir harvest on Friday. The past few days have seen the Hyland Vineyard, Temperance Hill Vineyard, Elton Vineyard, Cherry Grove Vineyard, Lea's Vineyard, Vigna Giovanni Vineyard and the last of the Bergstrom Vineyard come in. The Pinot Noirs from 2006 are showing ripe flavors with good color, beautiful aromatics and medium to high density (mouthfeel.) I think it is too soon to say how long they will age or if they will be for immediate consumption until malolactic fermentation is done in the spring but he overall quality is high. We have also seen Chardonnay from Eyrie, Anderson Family Vineyard, Elton Vineyard and Durant vineyard. The earliest Riesling has arrived from Vigna Giovanni and the juice itself throws off astounding aromas of apricots as if you were in the orchard from where they grew. This will be an amazing vintage for Oregon white wines..and you can quote me on that. The white wines will have amazing aromatics, good acidity and I think good density. Whether or not they will age is yet to be determined of course but I am very excited about the quality. Stay tuned to the next entry as we will finish the Pinot Noir harvest and get into Riesling territory. There are still over 200 tons of red wines cold-soaking in the winery waiting to start their fermentation which means lots of late nights, lots of decision making, lots of Martha's Tacos and white Burgundies/fill in the blank pleasure beverage (I don't know..maybe there are some people out there who don't drink white Burgundy.)
Thanks for reading. Saturday October 7, 2006 We are now into the third week of harvest and the pace is quickening. Over 160 tons of Pinot Noir have come through our doors and the busiest time of the year is beginning. Now, as fruit continues to come in, we are continuously punching down and pumping over over 40 tanks of fermenting fruit and cold soaks all the while monitoring twice daily the sugar content and temperatures of the fermentations. We have begun pressing out early harvested ferments and taking the new wine to barrel. Monitoring early white wine fermentations in barrel is crucial to ensure a slow and cool process which will create full bodied and balanced wines. As well, we are walking through vineyards where fruit is still hanging on the vines to see the ripening process first hand so that we can calculate the best day to harvest. The work-days start blending together and we need to look at the daily "to-do" board to remember what day it is. Work days are roughly 14-16 hours long and the work is now 7 days a week for the foreseeable future.
With only 30-40 tons of Pinot Noir left to harvest and 30-35 tons of Chardonnay and Riesling still hanging on the vines, we are nearing the end of the picking. As the picking and sorting processes end we can focus on the cold soaks and fermentations in-house. To adequately deal with a vintage like this, you need to be well prepared. Bergstrom Wines has had a large and dedicated crew working long hours to optimize the vintage. We have a full time sorting crew of 6 people, a full time punch-down crew of 4 men, two forklift/truck drivers, two interns, two ladies taking temperature and sugar measurements, 4-5 friends helping out and Jorge and myself to manage the operation. Daily we see 20-21 people in the winery which makes it seem like a beehive sometimes more than a winery.
The estate vines have almost all been harvested. Thursday saw the entire de Lancellotti Vineyard (our Chehalem Mountains estate planted entirely to Pinot Noir on sandy sedimentary soils) come in as well as the 0.4 acre Bergstrom Winery Estate (our super high-density block of 115 and 667 Pinot Noir which sits just adjacent to our winery building). Both vineyards show enormous promise this year as sugars are off the charts but with balanced acidities, very ripe seeds and stems and delicious flavors. The Bergstrom Winery Estate is traditionally fermented in a French oak tank as a 100% whole cluster fermentation. The de Lancellotti vineyard is now mature enough so that we can ferment individual clones separately and in-fact create several fermentations from the same clonal blocks to experiment with the appropriate winemaking technique for each clone/rootstock configuration. Very exciting fruit from the estates this year and abundant quantities compared to previous years!
Almost 5 acres of Bergstrom Vineyard (our Dundee Hills estate planted entirely to Pinot Noir on red volcanic soils) still bears fruit. We plan to bring the rest of this fruit in on Monday and Tuesday of this upcoming week. The quality here is apparent and this is the latest we have harvested this 8-year old site in a dry and extended year such as this one. Sugars are soaring around 27 Brix with acids beginning to fall but the flavors which have developed are astonishing and I believe this will be a tremendous vintage for this vineyard.
The white grapes out in the field look to have tremendous quality! This will be an outstanding vintage for Oregon white wines, especially Chardonnays and Rieslings. Acids are still balanced with PH's around 3.1-3.25 and sugars are reasonable with Brix readings around 22-23. What is more important is that this long extended hang time has allowed for superior flavor development. This year we will bring in Chardonnay from some of Oregon's great vineyard sites: Eyrie Vineyard (42 year old own-rooted Draper clones in the Dundee Hills), Anderson Vineyard (10 year old own rooted Dijon 76 clone in the Dundee Hills), Carabella Vineyard (8-10 year old Dijon 76 clone vines on Nekkia soils on Parrett Mountain), Durant Vineyard (15+ year old Dijon 76 clones in the Dundee Hills), Lea's Vineyard (formerly Jacob Hart Vineyard with 15+ year old Wente clones on the Chehalem Mountain) and Wren Vineyard (10+ year old vines in the Coast range.)
Today I write my harvest journal from home where I am spending my first day off with my family. The crew is busy cleaning the winery and organizing for the next picking day tomorrow. During harvest I usually pick one or two strategic days to re-charge and see my family before jumping back into the fray. The strategy usually revolves around whether or not the Oregon Ducks are playing football or not. Happy Saturday and Go Ducks!
October 1 st , 2006 If you were to ask any winemaker to describe harvest in 10 words or less I'm sure that many would have trouble finding the best words to best recreate what happens during this time of the year. Words like Frenzy, chaotic, madness, stress, jubilation, celebration might float to the top of the list. The truth is that harvest is a ritual, a rite of passage and best described by the individual who endures and experiences it. It is a subjective journey which lasts 2 months (give or take) and is unique to each winery.
At Bergstrom Wines, Harvest is a family affair and a time to share with the best of friends and colleagues. We take the time to enjoy what is happening around us. Up on the top of Calkins Lane you can see the dust rising from the hazelnut orchards, the fruit trucks hurtling down the highways, the colors changing in the fields, forests and skies, the pumpkins ripening in the garden. It is truly the best time of the year for us.
Today marks the 6 th day of harvest and we are already 120 tons into it. The past day has seen more fruit than we know what to do with. The 2006 vintage can definitely be summed up as abundant. If we could ferment fruit in empty bathtubs...well, we wouldn't go that far but you get the point. The fruit is extremely ripe with brown seeds, gorgeous flavors and exotic statistics. Funny how Mother Nature compensates for short years.
Shea Vineyard is almost all in now, the 828 clone comes in tomorrow and is more than ready. The colors are dark, the berries are dimpled with dehydration and the flavors are extremely exotic. Very impressive stuff. Could be another fantastic year for Shea Vineyard.
Nysa Vineyard was harvested today and looks incredible. Acidities have stayed reasonable with high sugars and intense flavors. As well, 5.7 tons were harvested off of 4 acres which is higher than in past years (1.4 tons per acre vs. 0.4 tons per acre in past years.) Bergstrom Vineyard is still hanging with over 120+ days of hangtime since bloom with enormous potential. I am pushing the envelope on the weather with this site this year and will harvest it when the weather threatens to change for the worse. In years like these it is best to tempt fate with patience. We have seen Palmer Creek , Pelos Sandberg and Anderson Family Vineyard come in with fantastic flavors, numbers and appearance. Five tons of de Lancellotti vineyard was harvested this morning. The leaves are yellow and falling out of the fruiting zone. Remaining is the rest of Bergstrom Vineyard, de Lancellotti Vineyard, Only small amounts of white wine have started to appear at the winery but the bulk of the Chardonnay and Riesling will hang for 1-2 more weeks. Stay tuned.
Wednesday September 27 th , 2006 : Another blazing hot day around the winery. Is it really almost October? The temperatures neared 90 degrees today in the vineyards and on the crush pad. Fruit had to be processed quickly to avoid the hot afternoon temperatures. I keep thinking how this year is beginning to remind me more and more of 2003.
Heat and East winds over the past three or four days has dehydrated grape vines and fruit has gathered sugar at an alarming rate. Potential alcohols have moved from 12.5% on Sunday to 15%+ today! Acids are slowly precipitating but are still reasonable. The positive side is that flavor development is coming on strong and seeds are very brown in most vineyard sites meaning that the tannins should be ripe. Today was our third day harvesting fruit. On Monday we harvested part of the Bergstrom Vineyard. Tuesday saw the arrival of the first fruit from Shea Vineyard and block 2 and the front yard from the Bergstrom Vineyard. Today we harvested Bishop Creek (Yamhill-Carlton District), Black Hole Vineyard ( Parrett Mountain ) and Hidden Rocks Vineyard (Eola Hills.)
The fruit looks very nice coming in the door and little sorting has been needed save for the occasional leaf or sunburned berry. Our vineyards worked very hard early on eliminating any green or sunburned berries so that our sorters would have an easier job at the winery. It is always easier to eliminate flawed fruit in the vineyard than on the sorting table. Tonight the sorting ladies are preparing a traditional Mexican meal of Flautas and beans fried over chiles. Tomorrow we will not pick any fruit. It will be a day of organization and examination of the fruit which has already come in. The whole cluster tanks will start to ferment soon and we will start to punch them down by foot.
September 25, 2006 Today was the first day of picking for Bergstrom Wines...always a celebration. The beginning of harvest is a wonderful feeling of achievement and anticipation. The farming season is drawing to an end but the time for winemakers to shine is now. The crew assembled in the dark under the stars in the Bergstrom Vineyard this morning. The fruit bins were taken off of the flatbed truck and placed in Block 1, a south facing block of Dijon clones 777 and 114 on Riparia Gloire (always one of the ripest and first blocks to be picked and one of the blocks responsible for the "Whole Cluster Selection.")
The crew members slowly made their way through the block and filled roughly 18 bins, singing, laughing and celebrating the end of a year. The fruit was then whisked away to the winery for final inspection and de-stemming.
Sorting went into the afternoon hours. I chose to use 50% whole clusters with the Dijon 777 clone and I put the must into a 2-ton French Oak fermentor. The 114 was destemmed at a slightly higher rate of 90% and put into a stainless steel temperature controlled tank. This fruit will now soak on its skins to extract color and aromatic precursors for 3-10 days before being inoculated with a native yeast strain.
As usual the lunch was prepared by David Bergen of Tina's Restaurant in Dundee . David has been cooking for our harvests since 2003 and is a great component of our harvest celebration. Today we had Beef stew with carrots and skillet fried potatoes toppeed with sour cream and a Chile Verde with plenty of Tina's homemade bread to soak up the rich broth. It is important to stop during the day and rest and fill the belly with soul-food and breathe in the change happening around us. Fall is here and colors are appearing in the trees and in the vineyards and the sky is changing from a deep blue to a pale fading color. The temperature soared today to what felt like 90 degrees but probably measured out at 85-87F. The 10 day forecast is beautiful with clear skies and temperatures in the mid to upper 70's. So far this vintage is presenting itself to be a mixture of 2003 and 2001. Large crop with full cluster sizes like 2001 yet very ripe with high sugars and lower acids like 2003. The fruit we saw this morning was beautiful and the picking schedule is filling up quickly as fruit is ripening at a very fast pace now. 6 tons down...200+ to go.
Tuesday September 12 th 2006 , I think that all harvest journal entries have historically begun by stating; "Is it already September?" Well, yes, it is already September and this year has once again flown by and we are busily preparing the winery to receive our first fruit sometime late next week. The machinery is being cleaned and barrels are being carefully prepared as we rack our last 2005 Pinot Noirs from their French Oak to tanks for bottling before the end of the year. This place will soon be as busy as it has ever been.
It has been a hot and dry summer to say the least. We have already surpassed 2003 in heat units and have seen over 20+ days where temperatures soared over 90 degrees Fahrenheit. Flowering was efficient under ideal conditions in June so we are looking at one of the biggest crops since 2001. In some vineyards we have had to drop 84% of the crop just to arrive at a more reasonable 2.0 tons to the acre (rather than 12+ tons to the acre!) Ripening has been uneven in most vineyards forcing us to make several extra "green-thinning" passes to remove green clusters and in several cases, individual green berries from ripe clusters. This has been difficult, delicate and costly work but I feel that our countless hours in the vineyard this year will be rewarded with high quality Pinot Noir.
This year we will be working with several new vineyards: Durant Vineyard, Anderson Family Vineyard, Carabella Vineyard, Kalita Vineyard, Pelos Sandberg Vineyard, and Wool Blanket Vineyard (formerly Jacob Hart Vineyard.) These farmers and their management teams have been working diligently all year long to ensure the highest quality for Bergstrom Wines this fall and we are very excited to be working alongside them this year and into the future. As well, this year will also see familiar vineyards turn one year older. Our estate vineyards; Bergstrom Vineyard, de Lancellotti Vineyard and Bergstrom Winery Estate enter their 8 th and 6 th years respectively. Shea Vineyard, Nysa Vineyard, Hyland Vineyard, Cherry Grove Vineyard, La Collina Vineyard and Chehalem Mountain Vineyards all continue to produce strong wines of great character and have found a happy home at Bergstrom. I look forward to sharing our experiences with you this harvest. Harvest is always a busy and stressful time where workdays blend into each other and fatigue wine-stained hands feel heavier with each passing hour. But harvest is also a time of great joy and tradition where a long year in the vineyard is brought to fruition (pardon the pun.) Many of my great winemaking memories revolve around happenings during harvest. I hope to share some of those with you as we begin.
Final Entry, December 21, 2005 Wow! What a harvest, to say the least. What started out as a very challenging viticultural year, from start to finish with enormous mildew pressure and various weather circumstances, turned into an extended "waiting game" with mother nature. This is one of those harvests the Old School has been waiting/itching for. The cool climate of Oregon "shined" this year with rain, wind, fog and, fill in the blank, bad weather event. But I have a feeling that Oregon vintners rose to the occasion and the Pinot Noirs and white wines will be spectacular with amazing acidity, soft tannins and longevity to spare. This year we were fortunate to be able to work with some great vineyard sites and farmers. New to the lineup this year we had Maresh Vineyard, Wren Vineyard, Chehalem Mountain Vineyard, La Collina Vineyard, Cherry Grove Vineyard and Parish Hill Vineyard. The fruit from these sites did very well and will make for some interesting additions to the Bergstrom lineup. Of course we also saw some amazing fruit from the vineyards we have been working with for years: Palmer Creek Vineyard, Hyland Vineyard, Shea Vineyard, Broadley Vineyard, Bishop Creek Vineyard, Eyrie Vineyard, Wahle Vineyard, Vigna Giovanni and Five Mountains Vineyard. The Estate vineyards (Bergstrom and de Lancellotti) really rose to the occasion this year and we are now beginning to see these sites' true colors as they start to perform more and more like older vine vineyards. We also saw fruit from our new and third estate vineyard from just next to the winery building on Calkins Lane . This year I took great pleasure in trying all sorts of different fermentation styles and techniques. The great natural physiological ripeness meant that the chance for harsh tannins was minimal and skins were bleeding amazing color with little intervention. We fermented several lots of fruit in new French oak tanks which gave the wines a lush and broad mouth-feel with intense aromatics. We fermented several lots using large percentages of whole clusters (no de-stemming) which forged wines of wonderful old world flavor and spiciness. We relied on native yeast strains to guide the majority of our fermentations this year as we usually do, but we also selectively experimented with some Burgundian yeast strains. As I walk through the full barrel cellar now I can't help but be thankful for another year as Bergstrom Wines ' winemaker and vineyard manager. I am blessed to be able to work with my family, with great vineyard sites and farmers and with the forces of nature to craft these wines which will be enjoyed on dinner tables around the world. So let's take a sneak peek at what the wines are like from the 2005 Vintage: Bergstrom Vineyard : Amazingly soft and supple with great color intensity and aromatics. The acid profile on these wines is high but balanced and this should be a very nice vintage for this vineyard. Characteristic aromas of red fruits (cherries and raspberries) are starting to appear and the wines have very fine grained silky tannins already. Already showing very deep with layers of complexity. De Lancellotti Vineyard : Could be the best year yet from this young site! Great color from all four blocks and wonderful textures already with cool dark fruit profiles, nice high acidity and fine grained silky tannins. Still a youngster but I think there is solid potential here. Bergstrom Winery Estate : New wine from a new vineyard to be released sometime in 2007-2008. Fermented in a 100% whole cluster style in a French oak fermenting tank, this wine has enormous aromatics similar to a northern Rhone Syrah with black olive, pepper, big black fruits, dried herbs and minerals. Already this wine shows huge potential. Shea Vineyard : Big, big and big. Black color from all four lots with the Oak block showing it's characteristic dusty tannins, the 828 clone having great red fruit liqueur appeal and the Block 5 is, as always, big and soft with enormous fruit character. This should be a very impressive blend. Broadley Vineyard: Perhaps the darkest wine I have ever made. When I swirl the glass it stays stained purple for up to 2 minutes. Huge aromatics characteristic of Broadley: blackberry, raspberry, cherry and earth. Kind of unruly and youthful for now but shows a bright (I mean dark) future. Nysa: Classy stuff. Very nice Dundee Hills soils profile in the nose and mouth. Not as flamboyant as some of the others now as Malolactic fermentation has begun in this wine so the nose is muted but very elegant and shows great Pinot Noir style.
October 31 st 2005 Halloween already. Usually as I carve pumpkins with my son, the winery is clean and quiet with a cellar full of new wine. This year however, proving to be one of the longest harvests in recent memory, the winery is still full of fermenting tanks and even cold soaks which have not yet begun to ferment yet. There are empty barrels everywhere waiting to be filled. Our last Pinot Noir was Maresh and Temperance Hill Vineyards, on the 21st of October. The last white wines to be harvested were Wren Chardonnay and Cherry Grove Riesling on the 22 nd of October (2 weeks later than in 2004!) The last vineyards to give up their fruit to the winery were showing signs that the year was quickly drawing to an end and that winter is definitely on its way. Fruit fell from the stem with a light touch of the hand and every part of the grapevine which is usually green (stem, seed and branch) have long been brown and lignified. Botrytis and other molds were now growing in places where we did not want them to grow. Yet flavors, colors and technological numbers (Brix, PH and TA) were all staying balanced and attractive. Now that the sorting table and destemmer have been sanitized and put to rest for the year, the press is now busy every day and stained a dark purple. Fermentations are finishing up and the new wine is being bled off of the skins and stems into new awaiting French oak barrels in our new barrel cellar. These new wines are showing great promise for the future. So far, we have pressed off all of the Shea Vineyard, Bergstrom Vineyard, most of de Lancellotti, Broadley and Parish Hill. We still have several Palmer Creek , Hyland, Vigna Giovanni and Nysa tanks to go. The next 10 days will see the completion of most fermentations and the barrel cellar will be filled. Meanwhile, the white wines are slowly bubbling away. It has been a cool enough vintage that I have let the white wines ferment outdoors. The cold nights and cool days will ensure a long and complex fermentation for all of these wines. We should see the Chardonnays finish fermentation first in the next couple of weeks and then the Pinot Gris and Riesling which won't finish their fermentations until January or February! Yesterday, our harvest intern, Matt Evans from Gibbston Valley in Central Otago New Zealand , left for home, after two and a half long months of working at Bergstrom. This is the second year that Matt has worked for us as our assistant winemaker at harvest time and he has really been a key part of our family operation. Thanks Matt! If any of you readers get a chance to visit the Central Otago region of New Zealand , make sure that you swing by Gibbston Valley and say hi, they are making some real world-class wines there. The next harvest journal will be the final entry for the year. I will list the wines which were made and give initial tasting notes and my thoughts on where they will end up one year from now. It has been a great year but a long and challenging one. We can't thank enough all of the men and women who help to manage our vineyards and vineyard contracts. It was a difficult year in the vineyards and the hard work paid off. Also, friends and clients who helped out throughout the harvest with sorting help, punchdown talent, and of course food and company. Cheers. Monday October 17, 2005
The spirit of this industry is strong and harvest time always reinforces our love for each other and for what it is that we do.
Back to the winery. Last night we harvested Nysa Vineyard Pinot Noir, La Collina Pinot Noir and Vigna Giovanni Pinot Noir, Pinot Gris and Riesling. The fruit from each site was beautiful and fully intact with little traces of damage from the weather. The juices were concentrated and the flavors were impressive. These should make nice wines! The Riesling had a very nice percentage (10-15%) of noble rot which should bring the sugar levels up some and add some nice texture to this vintage.
Cheers!
October 15, 2005 Today is Saturday and the rain is once again falling hard and slightly sideways as there is a strong wind accompanying it. The past few days have been busy with harvesting and processing fruit and the weather was almost cooperative. On Wednesday we brought in the last fruit from the Bergstrom Vineyard in Dundee ; the Wadenswil and Dijon 115 blocks. The fruit was small and concentrated with an almost negligible percentage of botrytis and little bird damage (which for this time of year is great news!) Earlier on in the year I might have added more whole clusters into these fermentations but now with the risk of bunch rot inside the clusters and molds on the rachis of the cluster, we will carefully sort and de-stem 100% of this fruit.
We also harvested the Eyrie Chardonnay on Friday. These old vines planted in 1966 by David and Diana Lett had very low yields this year and we were thankful to have received 1.5 tons of good looking fruit. Our good friend Jason Lett even hand delivered them in his pick up truck two bins at a time (his harvest truck broke down.) The Chardonnay is whole cluster pressed for 3 hours with no tossing of the skins and stems. It is then racked to tank where it will settle cold for 48 hours before being racked into stainless and oak barrels for fermentation with 5 different yeast types. On Friday we harvested the Cherry Grove Vineyard which is a new vineyard we are working with near Forest Grove, Bishop Creek and Canary Hill. The fruit that is arriving is showing some wear and tear from such an extended hang time but the flavors are great, the skins and seeds have ripe tannins and the berries are leaching out dark color almost immediately.
October 10, 2005
In the vineyards, the soils are wet and the cover crops which were carefully drilled into the rows last month are starting to emerge; sweet peas, rye, fescues, and other legumes will grow during the winter months to control erosion and will be tilled under in the spring, giving the soil lots of rich organic matter to fuel its microbiological population which help feed our vines. The leaves of the vines are now turning brilliant colors; reds, oranges and bright yellows. It is apparent this time of year where the wet spots in vineyards are because the canopy is still bright green and full of leaves whereas the thinner soiled vineyard blocks, which lack water, have almost lost all of their leaves in the fruiting zone. The birds are swarming through the vine rows filling their bellies with precious wine-grapes before their long journey south. In the winery it smells like sweet fermentation (the closest I can come to defining the smell of fermentation is: a big warm jelly doughnut or fresh baked pie laced with the sting of carbon dioxide gas.) We have taken our whole-cluster fermentations to barrel already and we will be preparing several more barrels today and tomorrow, as we get ready to press out several more tanks from our initial picking two weeks ago. Over the last week we have harvested the last fruit from Shea Vineyard (Block 5 and the 828 clone block.), Black Hole Vineyard, Ayoub Vineyard, Hidden RocksElton Vineyard, Ortman Vineyard and today we are bringing in two tons of Pinot Noir from Meredith Mitchell. Even after sitting through one and one half inches of rain and several days of cloudy and cold weather, the grapes are full of great flavors with nice acids and ripe skins and seeds. The new wines are surprisingly dark and rich with enormous flavors. The wines are high in natural acidity and lower in alcohol than previous years and show wonderful potential. As the fruit hangs longer, acids will begin to fall to levels which may need additions of tartaric acid to correct PH's and keep fermentations sound. I have not seen a vineyard yet needing a sugar addition (chaptalization,) which is often common in cool and challenging vintages, and we have not had to bleed any of the cold soaks due to over-bloated berries. In summation: so far, so good. This week will see the final fruit from the Bergstrom Vineyard, de Lancellotti Vineyard, Eyrie Vineyard Chardonnay, Canary Hill, Durant Vineyard, Cherry Hill and others before we start on the Old vines from Hyland, Maresh and Nysa and the majority of the Pinot Gris and Riesling the week after that.
October 1st , 2005 The clear skies and mild weather have left for now. The sky is gray and dark and the rain is falling steadily. It has rained over 1.5 inches in the past 24 hours which is a new record for Oregon , not seen since the 1940's. The forecast is for more of the same over the next three days and then a lightening in the front which has temporarily stopped harvest.
Over the past three days we have harvested close to 30 tons of fruit, mostly young vines, which were ready to harvest and some vineyards which had sustained injury due to high mildew pressure during the course of the growing season and would not fare well during the rainy days to come. We still have the majority of our fruit hanging on the vine. Flavors still need time. This year seems to be marked by lower than normal PH's , which indicates unripe acids, while sugars are slowly but surely creeping up. Flavor is king though, and it is taking a long time to develop. The grapevines in several vineyards are shutting down and losing their leaves or starting to turn brilliant fall colors. Older vines are still slowly working and sport woody canes and rich green foliage. The fruit in most vineyards is a brilliant and picturesque blue/purple. We started the 2005 harvest with the Oak block and block 9 of the Shea
Vineyard followed by our 115 clone block at Broadley Vineyard. Both sites
looked and tasted ripe and are now cold soaking in tanks, slowly bleeding
out ripe color. The second day of harvest we brought in the 4-acre block
as well as the high-density blocks and Pommard block of the Bergstrom
Vineyard. This year the stems look ripe and seeds are not giving us astringency
when cracked, so we are doing several whole cluster-fermentations in our
new wooden fermentation tanks to optimize the aromatic and textural appeal
of the vintage.
September 22, 2005
Last year at this very time we were charging into the fields to pick after having diligently waited through two and a half weeks of straight rain and cool temperatures. Those wines are now resting in bottles or in tanks waiting for the later bottling in November. 2004 was a challenging year in every aspect but, as predicted, the wines are showing great character and definition and promise. We are proud of these wines. Hard to believe that it is already time for the 2005 harvest. This year has been a blessed year for our family. A new Bergstrom son was born, our great aunt Mathilda who sponsored our father to come to the new world from Sweden turns 100 years old, construction is finishing on our new barrel storage building and tasting room and yes, we have worked hard and patiently in the fields to bring forward another great year of wine to our friends.
It is now September and we are experiencing lovely cool days with high temperatures in the mid 70's and cool nights with lows in the mid 40's to low 50's. The grapes are beautiful in almost every vineyard we work with. The color is vibrant and the acidity is still very strong and holding. Sugars are reasonable at 20-23 Brix and are very slowly rising. This will be a great year for flavor (if the weather will hold of course!)
Cheers!
Josh Bergstrom |
10/31/2005 - Rain
10/17/2005 - Partly Cloudy
10/15/2005 - Slight Rain
10/10/2005 - Partly Cloudy
10/1/2005 - Rain
9/22/2005 - Sunny
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BERGSTRÖM WINES LLC |
www.bergstromwines.com |
Unlike
other vineyards, Bergstrom Wines does not pay our crew by the bucket 
Today
we are harvesting the mighty Hyland Vineyard. These old vines have always
made up the strength and power of the Cumberland Reserve. The thick Pinot
Noir skins on this site allow a longer hang time and later harvest to
ensure optimal physiological ripeness. We willharvest roughly 12 tons
from Hyland today including Jimi Brooks' fruit from Yard 5 Wadenswil clone
and Yard 2 Coury clone. Jimi and I both shared an affinity for the Pinot
Noir from this wonderful old vineyard site and it is a pleasure and an
honor for me to be able to help tend to his wines to help keep the Brooks
label alive in his absence, as many of his friends are helping to do in
other wineries around the Willamette Valley. 
The
last entry I made, I talked briefly about food. Harvest wouldn't be harvest,
and wine wouldn't quite be wine, if it weren't for good food. Around the
world as the grapes are being picked and fermentations are starting and
new wine is going into barrels, harvest crews are all rejoicing with food.
Maybe good food during the workday helps inspire great winemaking. Maybe
it just keeps us warm and awake. Whatever the case, we have enjoyed wonderful
nourishment this harvest season whether it be fresh chanterelles in a
creamy risotto, herbed lamb on the barbecue, fresh steamed King Crab,
Foie Gras and various terrines of pate, stews, soups and native salmon..all
of a sudden I am very hungry. Our executive chef for the season has been
David Bergen of Tina's Restaurant in Dundee . David and Tina share our
love of winemaking and food pairing and have thoughtfully and caringly
nourished our crew with fine meals over the duration. Thanks guys. 
Tomorrow
we will harvest the last fruit from the de Lancellotti Vineyard and all
of the Pinot Gris from the Wahle vineyard. Then we will take Wednesday
and Thursday to concentrate on pressing out some Pinot Noir fermentations
which are finishing up before we harvest our last grapes on Friday and
Saturday, almost two weeks later than last year. 
On
Thursday we harvested the first fruit from the de Lancellotti Vineyard
and all of the fruit from Palmer Creek . The Palmer Creek fruit is grown
by Janet and Larry Richards down in the northern part of the Eola Hills
and is always gorgeous Pinot Noir which has made up a great percentage
of our Willamette Valley Pinot Noir and Cumberland Reserve Pinot Noir
over the past few years. The de Lancellotti fruit looked to be in 
Today
is Saturday and we are not harvesting fruit because of the rain. Sunday
through next Wednesday is forecasted to be very beautiful and dry so we
will resume picking tomorrow and finish up most everything by Wednesday
of next week. We still have Hyland, Nysa, Maresh and Temperance Hill Pinot
Noir to come and Wahle, Vigna Giovanni, Chehalem Mountains , Cherry Grove
and Five Mountains Pinot Gris and Riesling as well as the Wren Chardonnay.
For now though, we are going to spend the day cleaning up the winery,
racking new wines to barrel and feasting! Our good friend Michael Denton
from Merenda Restaurant in Bend Oregon is bringing us fresh king crab,
shrimp bisque, crab cakes, crusty bread and Champagne for lunch. After
all, all work and no play.. 
After
several days of rain, fog and cool weather, the sun has peeked through
the clouds and we are starting to harvest fruit again. The forecast calls
for a week of fair conditions with little rain and more sun than we have
seen in a while. The weather forecast cannot be trusted from here on out.
We will probably not see the kind of warm and intense sunshine which will
create a rise in sugars and a decrease in acids but the fruit will have
a chance to dry out from the rain and build some more flavor and complexity.
Normally in October we have reasonably nice harvest conditions until about
Halloween and then the chance of sunshine diminishes greatly and the temperatures
drop considerably. So now our harvest window is limited to the next three
weeks. We have approximately 50 tons of fruit inside of the winery and
roughly 100 tons to go. It is going to be a busy few weeks to come. 
We
will begin to harvest the younger vineyard sites next week and will move
into October for the estate vineyards, the older vine Pinot Noirs and
the white wines. I hope that you will join us as we document another fun
and exciting, hopefully informative, year of making wine at Bergstrom.
We wish all of our friends and associates who make wine around the world
our very best this harvest. Stay safe and work hard. 
