persisted. Thankfully, rain began to fall on the 14th and it rained nearly every day for the next week or so. Marcus, our winemaker, and I sampled the vineyard on the 22nd and the flavors had finally come into better balance with the sugar levels. Our first pick was on Sunday the 24th of September, from some of our younger blocks whose fruit were ahead of the rest. Then the push was on because the forecast called for another extended period of 80 degree weather. We did not want the sugars any higher because this could make the finished wine too alcoholic. And as sugars rise, acids tend to fall and the wine gets out of whack. So the scramble was on to get all the nicely balanced fruit into the winery as soon as possible.

With the success in the vineyard, naturally there were some frustrations in the winery. Not only did we harvest the entire crop in only seven days, but with yields up, the arrival of bin after bin of crush-ready fruit created a special urgency and required long hours to get the grapes processed and into their fermenters. As far as problems go, an abundance of wonderful fruit was a good problem to have, but we were kept scrambling just to find enough fermentation capacity to hold it all.

After multiple days without much sleep, we have the grapes now moving through primary fermentation and everything smells lovely. We expect to press the juice off in mid-October. So before long, we’ll get to kick back and watch the wine age, which, after a year of hard work, sounds just awesome.

October 2006
Typical of Willamette Valley wine country, the rains arrived in the middle of September bringing with them both relief and worry. Rain was a blessing because it helped to plump up some of the grapes that were showing signs of dehydration. The rain also brought cooling temperatures that slowed sugar production and allowed the other flavor compounds a chance to catch up. But rain can also bring with it conditions that are ideal for the production of botrytis or bunch rot, which can ruin a crop in a hurry. So what is a poor vineyard manager to do about bunch rot? Sulfur sprays are no longer an option this close to harvest, since residual sulfur could interfere with fermentation. Instead, we are using a biologic inhibitor made partly from milk enzymes to keep botrytis at bay. Earlier we pulled leaves from around the fruit and dropped one of two clusters that were too close together, both of which techniques now help air flow. This reduces disease pressure. And any activity in the vineyard helps to keep those hungry and pesky birds away from the fruit as well.

In the winery, our winemaker, Marcus Goodfellow and I are getting things pretty well squared away. We’ve got all of the 2005 Bishop Creek wines bottled and moved out of the winery and we’re ready to bring in the fermenters, barrels and other pertinent winemaking equipment in preparation for the arrival of the fruit. We were quite happy with the results of the small lot fermentations we did last year, so we plan to continue processing our fruit in this manner. We’ll have as many as 12 individual fermenters going at the same time, so space and organization are key.

We are all anxiously awaiting the arrival of the fruit, but we must remain patient, the grapes will come when they are ready.

September 2006
We have come to the point where all our efforts in the vineyard thus far are beginning to pay off. I witnessed the first colored berry at the beginning of August. This brought a new sense of excitement to the work at hand. By September, veraison (color change) will have been completed and final preparations for harvest begin.

Managing harvest is a big job that requires lots of careful planning, and precise timing ... from collecting the bins that will hold the fruit we pick to servicing our tractors and farm equipment, hand picking barrels and organizing the winery in preparation for the arrival of our precious fruit. And let’s not forget the importance of putting a picking crew together. With the bounty of this year’s vintage, this is especially important, especially when all of the vineyards in the valley are clamoring for the same labor pool at the exact same time. Fortunately for us, our regular vineyard crew will handle most of the harvesting responsibilities, supplemented with lots of their friends who are happy to come out and make a couple of extra bucks during harvest.

Meanwhile in the vineyard, our canopy continues to grow in the more vigorous areas. This means we must periodically go through and hedge the vines, to allow the precious late season sunshine to reach the clusters, a crucial aid to their ripening. Also at this time of year, the lateral growth coming off the carefully positioned shoots begins to flower and produce a second set of grapes. It is important that we remove this green fruit, because it inhibits the plants’ ability to fully ripen the first set that we have worked so hard to cultivate. Finally, before harvest, we thin our crop to leave only the best clusters on the vine.

With all the hot, sunny weather we have had this summer, we expect Mother Nature still has some challenges in store for us, but with our preparations we’ll be ready for what so far looks to be another good Oregon vintage.

August 2006
We’re happy in the vineyard so far this year. Set appears to be good, with an average of 1.6 clusters per shoot. Many shoots are carrying three clusters and anywhere from 80-120 berries per cluster. Compared to last year’s meager yields when the norm was as few as 50-60 berries, this is a refreshing development. Disease pressure, up to this point, has been minimal and the weather has cooperated. The resulting health of the vines is very good, maybe a little too good, because everything is growing like crazy. We have gone through and positioned our shoots in the trellis, hedged them, and they just keep on pushing out new growth. It’s a full time job just to keep up with the vigor.

Part of managing our crop is to make sure we balance the health of the vine with the quality of the fruit that we produce. The basic formula for canopy management is that the height of the vine should not exceed the width of the space between the rows. With our tight five-foot spacing in the main blocks, this means our canopy should not exceed 5 feet in height, or else our grapes will have problems getting the sunlight they need in order to fully ripen. As a contrary consideration, however, for a vine to remain healthy, it should have 6-7 leaves to ripen each cluster. Our goal at Bishop Creek is to maintain 12-14 leaves per vine, which will ripen 2 clusters. Within the parameters of a five to six foot maximum height, appropriate shoot spacing, positioning and leaf pulling, we can effectively achieve this.

During late July, we begin to look for “lag phase” when the grape seeds begin to harden. This point of berry development gives us our first good crop estimate and helps develop our plan for fruit thinning, since berry weight typically doubles from this phase to harvest. We’ll be watching out for Veraison in the month of August. Veraison is the period of the beginning of berry ripening. The berries become soft and take on the color that is characteristic of their specific varieties, which in the case of Pinot noir is reddish purple. From the beginning of veraison to harvest, the berries will increase in volume, weight, and sugar content. So stay tuned, and we’ll keep you posted as the “fruits” of our labor evolve.

July 2006
This time of year everything is happening at once at Bishop Creek vineyard. The grass seems to be growing six inches a day, our “baby” vines are trained onto the trellis wire to form a fruiting cane, and in the main blocks of the vineyard, we began to see the first sign of bloom around June 9th. Bloom is a crucial time for the vines. The grape plants produce flowers, which are either fertilized by the plant’s own pollen, in which case berries are formed, or the flowers remain unfertilized and eventually fall off, a process called shatter. The extent of pollination of the grape plant flowers determines both the quality and the quantity of the grape crop. “Set” is a term that describes this stage or transition from flower to berry. The norm is that 30% of the flowers form berries, but that can vary from zero to 60 or 70%.

Grape berries usually contain four seeds and the more seeds in each grape the bigger the grape, and the more balanced the fruit quality. If the vines are in good health and the weather cooperates, we should expect to have a good set, a normal to above normal percentage of flowers turning into berries. If the weather is too cool, bloom can drag on for as long as three weeks, and set can be poor or even abnormal. Coulure refers to a situation where there are few berries per bunch. Millerandage refers to a condition in which many berries have no seeds, yet remain in the bunch together with normal sized grapes. This can lead ultimately to uneven ripening both on the cluster and in the vineyard as a whole. Set can also occur at slightly different times for different parts of the vineyard. If a large percentage of the grapes are not equally ripe at harvest, this can detract from the quality of the wine. Rain and hail also pose potential threats to the crop. If hard enough, the flower clusters get knocked right off the vine, which doesn’t do anybody any good.

Once the grapes are through set, we’ll begin to deal with other vineyard phobias and focus on canopy management. This involves hedging (trimming the tops of the rows so that the vines don’t shade each other), pulling leaves from the canopy to allow more sun to reach the grape clusters for better ripening, and thinning, to assist airflow through the canopy. Good airflow is important to prevent powdery mildew and other fungal diseases.

But our fruit set is really the most critical thing, crop-wise and quality-wise. So I guess you could say that with a good set, we’ll be almost all set this year.

June 2006

			Early May 2006 growing season at the Bishop Creek Vineyard

April and May have been amazingly “normal” for the Willamette Valley. We did encounter a little frost, which did some minor damage to our grapevines in the lower sections of the vineyard. But daytime temperatures have been mild, rainfall moderate and bud break came when it should have, on April 12th. We also seemed to have kept the rust and other mites at bay. At least the “short shoot syndrome” that was thought to be mite-caused and plagued many vineyards last year, including ours, is not apparent this season. Between stints in the vineyard, we got our 2005 Pinot gris bottled and it will be ready to drink anytime after its release on Memorial Day weekend.

With June upon us, there is another flurry of activity in the vineyard. Last year’s baby vines are beginning to exit their cozy grow tubes. These are two foot long, translucent plastic cylinders that protect the young plants from damage and act like mini-greenhouses in terms of warmth and moisture. This year we’ll train them onto the lowest “fruiting” wire of the trellis, so that next year they’ll have nice hearty trunks, the foundation of any healthy mature grape plant. Our work for the floor of the vineyard has also been pre-determined. Last fall we planted clover throughout the vineyard, and now it is knee high with beautiful crimson flowers. It’s time to mow and cultivate it under, so that the grapevines can utilize the nitrogen rich nutrients the clover provides.

With shoot growth over a foot high, we can already see flowers beginning to form. If the weather continues to cooperate, and we don’t get any untimely bad weather during bloom, we can expect plenty of clusters hanging in the vineyard this year. If Mother Nature is disinclined to cooperate, there could be hail, heavy winds or rains, all of which could injure the delicate flowers or interfere with pollination or “set.” By counting the flower clusters on a random sample of vines, we can actually do a preliminary yield estimate. Then, assuming reasonably good set, this count will allow us to forecast how much fruit we’ll have and we’ll begin to think about how much to allow the vines to carry to achieve perfect ripeness and balance. In a test section, we are also experimenting with an extra “kicker” cane, which was left in addition to the two normal canes during pruning. With poor set, or other problems that might affect yield, this kicker cane will provide insurance clusters. On the other hand, if everything goes well, we’ll simply cut the kicker off shortly after bloom. But we are interested to see whether this additional drain on a vine’s resources detracts from the remaining fruit in any way.

This is a beautiful time of year in the vineyard, with warm sunny days, wild irises in bloom, rich green grape leaves unfolding, and a complex variety of insects coming to life. It can be easy to miss it all when focusing on the work at hand. So when we have a pause in our cultivating or spraying or prognosticating, we do try to stop and smell the flowers.

May 2006
Spring is finally upon us here at Bishop Creek. This is an exciting time for us both in the vineyard and the winery.

In the vineyard, we first see the signs of bud break. Buds begin as nodes on the cane. They swell, go through a “wooly” stage, and start to change color, from brown to green. Bud break is when the leaves first start to unfold from the buds and erupt from the cane. After months of bone chilling rain, snow, and bitter cold east winds, things warm up and the vineyard begins to come alive. After pruning, cover crop planting, gopher removal, deer fence construction and lots of fine Bishop Creek Pinot Noir to keep us warm, we are ready for the new growing season.

Now we have to consider our strategy for canopy management. Shoot density becomes one of our primary concerns. Generally speaking, we want 3 to 5 shoots per foot of trellis wire. This allows us to fill the trellis with foliage without overstressing the vine. If we leave too many shoots, they will be short and spindly, without the vigor to ripen grapes. We will also be left without any good options for a fruiting cane next year when it comes time to prune. Conversely, if we leave too few shoots, we’ll end up with very long, thick shoots and very little fruit. And big beefy shoots are not good options for next year’s fruiting canes. They tend to have wide spaces between nodes and it’s difficult if not impossible to achieve the ideal of 3 to 5 buds per foot of wire.

Spring is also an exciting time in the winery. This is the time of year when white wines from the fall harvest are typically ready. Our Pinot Gris is racked, sulfured, filtered and prepared for bottling. If we are lucky, the wine will have just enough time in the bottle for a Memorial Day release. We are very happy with the quality of the 2005 Bishop Creek Pinot Gris. Stainless steel fermented, it is a crisp, dry style with plenty of well-balanced acidity, and lots of Bishop Creek character. Marcus Goodfellow, our winemaker, feels this is by far our best quality Pinot Gris to date, and I would have to agree. The 2005 Pinot Noir is also coming along nicely. The grapes were fermented in small lots, separately by block, and then pressed directly into barrel. Each barrel reflects the part of the vineyard that the grapes came from. The 2005 vintage has loads of concentration and we are very impatient to see the finished product. It will be a while though. Marcus will soon be racking the wine into clean barrels and putting it up for further aging, an important part of what makes any Pinot Noir so special.

As we look forward to flowering and pollination in June, let’s all keep our fingers crossed and hope that Mother Nature deals us a winning hand.

April 2006
April is the month when the soil in the vineyard becomes more noticeably firm. This allows us to once again enter the vineyard with the intent of managing the vineyard floor. We are concerned about two things: cover crop and weed control. A cover crop is essentially native plants and other grasses that are important in winter to prevent erosion. A cover crop serves a purpose in the spring and summer as well. Any plants that grow in the rows or between the rows within the vineyard compete with the vines. In vineyards that traditionally have canopies that grow very rapidly, a cover crop can serve as an excellent tool for controlling vigor. At Bishop Creek, where we have shallow mineral rich soils that don’t have a lot of capacity to hold moisture, our strategy is to grow a cover crop in every other row, so that we can find that happy medium between controlling vigor, and allowing the grapevines to gather the moisture that they need to grow fruit in the warmer, drier months of the year.

Particularly vulnerable to this competition from other plants are young vines. Controlling growth of weeds and grasses is essential to promoting growth in the first 3 to 5 years of a vine’s life. Since we don’t use herbicides, row cultivating and hoeing by hand are the methods that we use in taking care that our “baby” vines do well in the crucial early years.

Some cover crops can also serve as “green manure.” This past fall we planted Crimson clover in a couple of pockets of the vineyard that seemed like they could use a little boost. Crimson clover is very high in nitrogen, which plants love. We will be able to turn this cover crop over to add nitrogen to the soil in a way that is sustainable, effective and environmentally sound.

Finally, April is a month of excitement and apprehension, knowing that spring has begun, that the buds are beginning to “break” or sprout, and another growing season is upon us.

March 2006
February and March are important times in the vineyard. When we have finished with pruning the vines, we tie the canes, i.e., the two selected remaining old shoots, flat along the lowest trellis wire. This allows all of the new plant growth this season to be trained upwards. This VSP, or vertical shoot positioning, method also allows grape clusters to be separate from much of the canopy of vine leaves. This means better ventilation around the grapes, which reduces pressure from powdery mildew and facilitates fruit ripening and picking later on.

This time of year is also when we begin to formulate our strategy for pest management. Bishop Creek is LIVE certified (Low Input Viticulture & Enology, Inc.). Under this program of sustainable agriculture, we must spray only compounds which are safe for the environment, when combating mildew and other fungal problems in the vineyard. It also means that we partially control animal pests by making our vineyard a more hospitable environment for their common predators. For example, there are mites that feed on the vine shoots, and there are mites that feed on other mites. By applying certain sprays to the vines, we can simultaneously put pressure on the mites that feed on the vines while ensuring healthy populations of the predatory mites that feed on others. To deal with voles and gophers, both of which like to chew on vines, we expose their burrows, making the pesky creatures more vulnerable to hawks, coyotes and other natural predators, and more likely to move elsewhere.

Right now the vines are still dormant. Soon they will start “bleeding,” when the roots begin to take up water and some is forced from the pruning cuts, and then bud break occurs. But what we do now in the vineyard has a significant effect on the quantity and, more importantly, on the quality of the fruit we harvest this fall.

February 2006
As Pasteur once said, “Wine is sunlight held together by water.” Think of a grapevine as a sun parasite. The vine grows until it reaches the top of a tree or bush and then spreads out to “steal” the sun from its host. Vines are competitive. If they don’t grow fast enough to compete for nutrients and sunlight, they aren’t able to survive. This creates a challenge for the winegrower. Vines must be restrained and guided, so the energy they get from the sun is channeled to the vine and its parts in the perfect way.

This is why pruning is perhaps the single most important thing that takes place in the vineyard. The main reason for pruning is balance. Balanced pruning is simply the exercise of shaping the vine in such a way that the winegrower can balance quality grape production with plant vigor, canopy development and overall vine capacity. Every January, the winegrower takes note of the amount of new growth that occurred between the time of last year’s pruning and the end of harvest. Last year’s growth (the shoots) become this year’s base (the canes) for new growth. Pruning is the art of looking both into the past and into the future of a grape vine.

A grape vine can only produce so much new wood in a vintage and still ripen grapes. The goal is to leave just the right amount of cane on the wire to produce the desired amount of fruit for the vine to ripen. If the cane is too long, or has too many “buds,” the vine produces too many shoots. Each shoot has the ability to produce and sustain at least one cluster of grapes. If there are too many shoots on the cane, then the plant expends too much energy on the development of wood (or shoots) to fully ripen the grapes. On the other hand, if the winegrower leaves too few buds, and something happens later in the growing season to reduce the fruit crop, then the clusters that remain may not develop well either and, in addition, the vineyard will not produce all it is capable of economically. At Bishop Creek we try to balance the vine in such a way that we can get the maximum amount of intensity of fruit that our grape vines can sustain. We may have to sacrifice a bit of yield in order to achieve this, but we believe that it’s worth it to be able to produce wines of the highest quality.

January 2006
As the leaves fall in the vineyard, and the plants start shutting down for their dormant winter snooze, our attention is refocused into the winery to determine just how well the harvested grapes are translating into wine. This year, we used all small batch fermentation. Lots from different parts of the vineyard, each consisting of about one ton of grapes, were separately guided through primary fermentation in small bins, before the resulting wine was transferred into barrel. Like everything else in winemaking, there are many opinions and theories about what happens during primary fermentation and what should happen and how it can be made to happen, all directed to producing the best possible wine. But this year, as is often the case, the weather outside the winery was perhaps the most significant influence to dictate the way things unfolded inside. The cooler fall seemed to help the grapes prolong a cold soak in their juices for 6 or 7 days before the native yeasts began their critical activity of turning sugars into alcohol. This slightly longer soak should make for nicer fruit flavors in the finished wine. Once primary fermentation begins in earnest, the winemaker’s concern is that fermentation temperatures that are too high will drive certain desirable flavor esters off the wine. This year, either the cooler weather, or the nature of the native yeasts that took hold, or the nice balance between sugars (brix) and acid (measured by ph) in the harvested fruit, or a combination of all those factors, made for cooler fermentations, so much so that getting the process warm enough to finish was the anxiety that developed. Apparently bunching all the bins together and then simply patiently waiting was enough, and Bishop Creek Pinot noir that is very promising in its fruit concentrations, texture and structure is now working its way through the next evolutionary phase in barrel. As fickle as Pinot noir sometimes is as a fruit, it can be equally vexing as wine. As long as we guide things forward with a gentle hand, we should continue to gain more confidence the vintage will turn out to be one well worth trying.

December 2005
As the Grateful Dead say, “What a long, strange trip it’s been…” As we celebrated the fifth anniversary of our Portland tasting room (Urban Wineworks), our new winemaker, Marcus Goodfellow, and our Vineyard Manager, Jeremy Saville, were wrapping up the 15th vintage from our Bishop Creek vineyard, and putting into barrel what we really expect will be our best wine ever. In the early days, we were thrilled to sell the little fruit we produced to a winery in, of all places, Wisconsin. This year, we held our breath as Mother Nature did our crop thinning for us, provided rain and cooler weather at times that seemed inappropriate let alone downright inconvenient, and, in the end, delivered up a crop that has turned into wine with a range of flavors, bright acidity, and a distinctive Bishop Creek note.

“Who knows where the time goes?”…is a line from another song, from singer Judy Collins perhaps. After 15 years, the time (and money) went into the vineyard first and foremost, into learning from some pretty stupid mistakes, and into trying to stay on top of a myriad of details that never seem to get the proper attention. And now knowing what we didn’t before, we realize that making wine is a process. There is such an unusually long time between the first bud in the spring and the last sip of wine made from that vintage, that parts of that process seem almost unfamiliar when encountered again. The most detailed of notes do not completely prepare you for the next year, since the parameters, either the weather, or the world economy, have shifted and confront you with a totally new set of variables. And maybe that is as it should be, since the better wines are always those that are more complex. The difficult vintages are those that always produce more “interesting” wines. And this vintage holds such promise because it was such a typical Oregon year, one in which particularly the Pinot noir grape might be expected to give its truest expression. But you’ll have to wait just a little longer to try it.

November 2005
Compared to hurricanes and earthquakes, the lurking catastrophes facing an Oregon winegrower this year seemed pretty tame. But they were all vexing and worrisome nonetheless.

For starters, a hoard of rodents descended on the Willamette Valley. Little field mice, or voles, multiplied dramatically and munched on all manner of crops and grapevines. The objectionable critters turned to chewing on vine trunks when other food and water became scarce in late summer, often killing the vines.

At Bishop Creek, we were spared a massive infestation of mice, but that just seemed to encourage the bird populations. There was some sort of disharmonic convergence of wild fowl when a rainy weather system pushed through the area during the first week in October. The front delayed picking of most of our crop and that just allowed more and more of our migrating feathered friends an opportunity to sample the wonderfully ripe and tasty fruit.

The other aspect of wet weather was the concern it raised that Botrytis cinerea (aka bunch or noble rot) would develop on the grape clusters. In some cases, notably for Sauternes and Hungarian Tokai, the Botrytis fungus can produce concentrated and complex flavors which are prized. However, Oregon growers of Pinot noir and Pinot gris carefully watch their crop right through harvest to avoid tainting their wines with the malady.

If all that wasn’t enough to develop gray hair and furrowed brow, we managed to obsess about whether the picking crew would show up on the appointed day, the newly ordered, small batch fermenters would arrive from the factory on time, and the new barrels would be delivered. No wonder harvest brought a sense of relief as well as accomplishment, when at last the time to pick came.

October 2005
The quiet repose of the vineyard, which basked in the intense heat of August, is now interrupted by cloud formations that are beginning to travel infre-quently through the area, spitting a bit of rain here and there. A winegrower’s obsession of protecting his crop from powdery mildew has been replaced by concern of the possibility of botrytis, or botrytis bunch rot, a fungal disease which can develop on grapes in humid weather. With an eye on the weather, the hope is that one more spray will keep the fungi at bay. And so, just as the grapes have completed their color change, the winegrower also starts to change into winemaker: beginning to check picking supplies, arrange for picking crews, and picking random samples of grapes to test for flavors and sugar development.

By earlier reckoning, harvest will be in the first or second week of October this year, but as those itinerant cloud patterns become more prevalent, the timing of harvest turns from a theoretic calculation into a betting game in which the stakes can be high. Wait long enough, and the winemaker is rewarded with flavor development in the grapes that make his job of producing a fine wine something of a cake walk. Wait too long, and, in addition to the hazardous and sloppy consequence of getting the grapes from vineyard to winery in the cold rain, the grape plant penalizes the winemaker by taking up water, diluting the sugars and flavor, and making itself the ever more likely victim of disease.

In the winery, the rush is on to get wine bottled to free up space and barrels for the coming vintage. In our case, we have elected to wait to bottle our 2004 Pinot Noir until after harvest, both to allow the wine more time to evolve and to simplify our move to a new facility, host winery ADEA Wine Company near Gaston. As the closest winery to our vineyard, the location ensures the least trauma to our grapes due to transport, and should allow our new vineyard manager/assistant winemaker, Jeremy Saville, and his counterpart, winemaker Marcus Goodfellow, to work their magic on our fruit in a larger and perhaps more functional place. In any case, they will be experimenting this year with small lot fermentation, and we are anxiously anticipating the harvest and winemaking process to follow.

September 2005
Usually, when these articles are hard to write, it’s because I can’t think of a topic. However, this one will be the most difficult of all even though the topic is obvious.

I have decided to step away from the day-to-day operation of the vineyard and winemaking at Bishop Creek so that I can step into the role of winemaker and winegrower at my family’s Eyrie Vineyards.

The wine world being the hidebound and traditional place it is, I’m sure most people probably expect this kind of transition to occur from one generation to the next.

I never took that for granted myself. My father has very much blazed his own trail and in that I have tried to emulate him.

However, David has made it clear that he wants to change his priorities. After 40 years of very hard work (highlights of which include planting the first Pinot Noir in the Willamette Valley, introducing America to Pinot Gris, and putting Oregon Pinot Noir on the international map in the early ‘80s) my father has decided that spending time with his granddaughters and challenging the Pacific in his Maine lobsterboat trump the joy of producing another vintage of wine.

This year, he’s asked me if I’d like to take it from here.

And how do I feel about this? Honored, thoroughly challenged, and eager to get started. David’s shoes are big ones to fill. The vineyards will continue to produce truly profound wines, if I can exercise the same wisdom and restraint that my father has.

My excitement about stepping into the Winegrower role at Eyrie is tinged with regret when I think about what I’ll leave behind at Bishop Creek. As much as I have cussed this quirky little vineyard, I have come to be truly impressed with its wines. Bishop Creek establishes a dialog with the winemaker. The wines it makes can range from delicate and nuanced to thunderously powerful, while never losing the distinctive bouquet of fruit and spice that announces it is a Bishop Creek Pinot Noir, or the honeysuckle of the Bishop Creek Pinot Gris.

More than the vines, I will miss the team of people involved with Bishop Creek. I am sure that a more honest, more dedicated, and less pretentious group of people is not to be found in the wine industry. It has been a blast working with them to bring the best of wines to the palates and tables of our customers.

However, one step at a time. They’re not rid of me yet. Assistant winegrower Jeremy Saville will be assuming more duties as I step back, but I will continue to help in the vineyard and with the winemaking. So for me, though this is my final article for the newsletter, this is not goodbye or farewell – it’s more like “see you around!”

August 2005
I’m calling it a “vine health year.” The reliable periodic rains we’ve had since March have led to huge vigor in the vineyard. For the baby plants we put in last year, this is great. They’re climbing out of their tubes and lushly green.

Unfortunately, so are the mature vines. Some vines would have had seven and eight foot canes, if we hadn’t trimmed them back. There are a lot of secondary shoots too, coming out of the main canes – many more than normal. Whereas in the last few years we would see secondaries in a few canes in the most vigorous parts of the vineyard, this year they are widespread.

When winegrowers see a lot of vegetal vigor they get concerned about so-called “green” flavors. If the vines were allowed to grow without trimming the tips, this would definitely be a problem. However, trimming the canes redirects the energy of the vine.

Correctly trimming the canes, called “hedging,” marshals and focuses the energy of the vine into the fruit. Good hedging ironically includes leaving the secondary shoots, as the leaves on secondary shoots are among the most efficient at ripening the fruit. Research at OSU and elsewhere has shown that cutting off the secondary shoots actually decreases ripeness in the grapes and the amount of stored reserves in the trunk for the next year’s growth.

This year, like 2004, set has been light, with each cluster holding on to only 50 or 60 berries out of the couple hundred flowers it held at bloom. Canes are holding only one or two clusters each; third clusters are very rare this year.

What does this mean for the vintage to come? Well, because of the rains the vines now have ample photosynthetic power to ripen grapes, and relatively few grapes to ripen. It’s like a lightweight car with a powerful engine: we could see some very “high-performance” wines come out of this year. If the cool temperatures continue, and the weather can dry out, I predict good tannins and acidity coupled with ripeness and excellent flavor retention – another great vintage for Oregon.

July 2005
In the Vineyard:
When will we pick?
2003 – 117 days first flower to first pick
2004 – 118 days first flower to first pick

As of June 13, 2005, we are still awaiting flowering in the grapes. I know we’re not far off – the blackberries began their bloom on June 6. Typically our grapes bloom about 10 days behind the blackberries, so I am anticipating smelling the first grape flowers by the end of the week.

That would set our harvest to begin somewhere around the first week of October – if we don’t have unusually hot or cold weather in the interim. And that never happens in Oregon.

In the Winery:
With things more or less under control in the vineyard, the winemaker’s fancy turns to thoughts of oak. It’s time to order new barrels, and to sniff around in the cellars of the most fastidious local wineries for a few clean, sound used barrels too.

The wine barrel is in fact very old technology, originating with Celtic tribes living in the wild forests of France and Germany. Julius Caesar first recorded the use of barrels by Gaulish Celts in 50 BC. The Romans eventually adopted the barrel as the container of choice for transporting wine, replacing the amphora, a pottery vessel.

Structurally ingenious, the wooden barrel is held together solely by tension. The boards that make up a barrel, called staves, are shaped into chamfered oblongs by the barrel maker. The curve of the individual staves, when bent together over a fire of wood chips, creates the barrel’s shape. Hoops are pounded down around the outside of the barrel, holding the staves in position around the ends (or “heads”) of the barrel. The hoops alone will not hold a barrel together – the barrel must be filled with liquid in order to be sound. The wine inside the barrel swells the grain of the wood, forcing the joints between the staves together so tightly that no wine leaks out.

So, over the next few months, I will be spending a little time away from the vineyard browsing glossy brochures written in hyperbolic French, and in some of Oregon’s nicer cellars, peering into barrels with a flashlight, and using the most sensitive test of all, my nose, to find just the right barrels for the 2005 vintage. On these forays, I am sometimes offered a glass of wine too. Nice work if you can get it!

June 2005
In the vineyard, in June, everything has to be done at once – soil worked, grass mowed, clusters counted, yearling vines watered. The growth of young vines must be trained straight and the growth of old ones marshalled into a tight hedge. The vines bloom, and we cross our fingers against hail or rain sweeping off the fragile flowers.

June is the month of the summer solstice – when daylight lingers longest at the fringes of the day. It is one of the two great pivot-points of the vineyard year, which orbits elliptical from summer solstice and bloom, to autumn equinox and the harvest of the grapes, to renew again with the winter solstice and pruning time.

Though the season is exhilarating, it is easy to forget in the effort to keep pace. But the verdure and ardor of the month are always at the edge of perception, and sometimes simple things will bring them to the fore.

This time last year, I was swinging a mattock, clearing some sod from a worksite. There was a rhythm in this work: thunk – pry – lift – swing – thunk – all timed metronomic against the breath. Stood, straightened. Breathed.

The transparent smell of grape flowers was in the air. A wind rustled in the fresh grass and the rushes rattled the grape leaves.

With a mysterious agenda (involving the cant of the wind and the angle of the sun and the scent of a far off patch of clover) a Mason bee made a perfect orbit around my head and zoomed away as if shot from a bow. Insect curiosity? A bee’s secret.

But something about that quick visit knit it all together for me. In a brief moment, light and sound and sweat, the orbit of the sun and the circuit of the bee, all raveled together. For a second I stood at the center of ripple. And then I raised my mattock

May 2005

Usually, I’m sick of rain by this time of year. The tractor stays parked in the barn while the grass climbs skyward at an alarming rate. In cool weather, the buds stay parked on the vine – as of mid-April, most of Bishop Creek’s Pinot Noir was in the early rosette stage that marks budburst, and the Pinot Gris was still tightly furled.

But this year, instead of cussing the weather, I welcome it. Uncomfortable as the sensation is, I enjoy every one of the drops of rain that dribble down my neck when I look up these days.

We have been headed toward a monumental drought – one of the worst since 1895. The only year in the Northwest region to have received less rain than the Feb ’04 –’05 period was 1920. The steady rain we’ve had more recently may help relieve the pending drought.

Vines are, all in all, pretty drought tolerant, especially those on their own roots. Vine roots drink deep, and vines can often tap sources of water that more shallow rooted crops cannot. However, the phylloxera-resistant rootstock that most vines are planted on nowadays are not as drought-tolerant as ungrafted vines, and deep roots notwithstanding, vines on rootstock prefer reliable soil water. This is because the vines used as rootstock are of American, not European, descent. In America, native grape species tended to grow near streams, and so most are not very good at handling a lack of water. When a European vine is grafted on top, the American roots can’t always supply the scion plant.

The necessity to plant on rootstock brought drip irrigation to Oregon vineyards. In a drought year it is painful to watch unirrigated vines suffer. Leaves yellow and fall off, fruit shrivels even as it ripens. Yields drop because the water in the berries evaporates through the skin faster that the roots can replace it.

Dehydration can lead to hugely concentrated wines. However, even with irrigation, it seems like wines from drought years don’t have the staying power of wetter years. I recently had a 1976 and a 1977 Cabernet from the same Washington vineyard. The ’76 (a more or less average year for rainfall) was velvety and luscious. The ‘77 (an extreme drought year) was still green and rough, but the flavors had faded. The wine had fallen apart before it had ever matured.

Vines require water to make balanced wines. And it is balanced wines which age the longest. A few more inches of rain before bloom and I’ll be ecstatic – even if my neck gets wet. The wines will be the better for it.

April 2005
In the 1990s out-of-state sources (Burgundy, California, and Minnesota) invested millions of dollars in three wineries in the Dundee Hills — that doesn’t count the investments made in their vineyards. And last year, as part of a 100 million dollar investment spread over three states, Oregon saw the California Public Retirement System developing hundreds of acres of new Oregon vineyards. And more big investments are in the works.

Compare this with the financial bootstrapping that characterized Oregon’s wine industry in the ‘60s and ‘70s. Early wineries got started in everything from converted warehouses to home basements. Fermenters were improvised from stainless steel milk tanks and cherry picking bins. Bean growers sold the Pinot guys their old posts to set up their vineyards. With these simple tools, Oregon wine growers created wines which have captured the world’s attention and have made Oregon the premier locale for Pinot Noir, Pinot Gris, and other varietals in the New World.

But in spite of the fireworks created by a few scattered large investments and marquee vineyards, Oregon’s Pinot growers have largely maintained the same small artisanal approach with which Oregon was founded. A large winery by Oregon standards is one that produces 10,000 cases of wine, or about 4,000 gallons. Oregon’s entire production in 2004 was made from 20,000 tons of grapes. For comparison, this is less than 1% of California’s winegrape production.

Small artisan wineries continue to thrive in Oregon. I am helping put together a wine festival that focuses on wineries in Oregon that produce 1,000 cases or less. After we started calling around, chasing leads and using word of mouth, we found over 150 micro-wineries scattered around the state. The winemakers’ profiles vary, from vineyard managers like me who want to bring their crop all the way to bottle, to wine stewards deepening their experience, to well-heeled retirees living out a dream.

The first annual Portland Indie Wine Festival will take place at Urban Wineworks and surrounding sites on Saturday the 7th and Sunday the 8th of May, 2005. We’re going to be able to make a case for the artisan winemaker: that artisan scale producers make great wine, and that Oregon is nurturing the best small wineries in the U.S.

Has Oregon sold out? Anything but.

March 2005
I started managing Bishop Creek Vineyards in late 2002, largely based on the recommendation of Rob Stuart. As the former winemaker for Erath Vineyards (a longtime grape-buying client), Rob has been making wine from Bishop Creek fruit since the 1994 vintage, and has the most experience and faith in Bishop Creek's ability to make great wine. When I asked Rob about Bishop Creek, he was entirely enthusiastic. Hearing him extol the virtues of the site was all it took to convince me to take the job as manager.

  Since then, Rob has continued to freely lend his knowledge of the vineyard to help me out. Starting in 2003, he has paid the vineyard two more compliments. He has used custom-grown Pinot Noir to make a Bishop Creek-designated Reserve wine under his R. Stuart and Co. label. And, most importantly, he has been Bishop Creek Cellars' winemaker, creating two stunning vintages in a row at his facility in McMinnville.

When I drop our fruit off at Rob's door at harvest time, I always know that it is going into good hands. However, I'm also a little sorry to see it go. It's a little like dropping your child off at the door of the ideal boarding school. While you know that the child will be enriched from the experience and successful as a result, you also miss watching her grow up.

Well, for better or for worse, I will now have the ability to watch our grapes grow up into wine. Rob has stepped aside and is going to let me try to fill his shoes as Bishop Creek Cellar's winemaker in 2005.

While I look forward to the challenge, I am grateful that Rob will continue to be a source of wisdom about Bishop Creek wines and fruit. And, since I will also continue as Bishop Creek's vineyard manager, I am also proud to say that Rob will continue to use Bishop Creek fruit in his Reserve wine.

I look forward to deepening my knowledge of Bishop Creek Vineyard by making its wine. And I feel very fortunate to have a resource like Rob to go to when I have questions. I thank Rob for all he has done, and continues to do, for Bishop Creek, and I look forward to working with him in the years to come.

February 2004
This time of year in the vineyard we try not to freeze our buds off – both our’s and the grapevines’. Winter freeze injury is usually not an issue in the Valley, but after our meager Pinot Gris yields in 2004, and some alarming winter weather forecasts, we are not taking any chances.

This year, we will be continuing to train our Pinot Gris in the classic Guyot system of two fruiting canes tied to a wire above the trunk. Shoots burst from the buds of the fruiting canes in the spring and eventually fill the trellis with leaves and clusters for the coming harvest. In addition, we’ll leave a short “spur” with a couple of buds on it growing right at the top of the trunk. The shoots from this spur will give us our fruiting canes for vintage 2006.

We prune in three stages. First we go through and make “big cuts,” cutting away last year’s fruiting canes, leaving a couple of well-placed canes for this year’s fruiting canes, and trimming a spur.

Next we “pull brush.” Donning heavy gloves and safety glasses, we go down the rows and pull last year’s canes out of the trellis of wires. The canes get piled between the rows, either to be chopped up with the flail mower or raked out and burned.

The last step is “tie-down.” The two fruiting canes are cut to length, wrapped 1 1/2 times around the lowest trellis wire, and secured to the wire with a piece of paper covered wire. Tie-down is the last step, and our deadline is to get it finished by the time the buds soften in March.

This year, as insurance against freeze injury to the buds, we will wait until tie-down to trim our spurs to two buds. If we get a severe freeze that knocks out some of the buds on the fruiting canes we’ve selected, then we’ll have the option of laying down the third cane to offset the lost buds.

However, in our area severe freezes are rare (our last good freeze was in 1998) and the Pinot family is tough, even when freezes are late. Unless we get weather well below 0°F, at tie-down we will trim the third cane back to two buds and use it as a spur. This will leave us with the balanced canopy, sustainable yields, and the clean, high-quality fruit we have come to depend on from the Bishop Creek Vineyard.

January 2005
With 2004 now offcially at an end, all I can say is that it was a roller coaster ride. Winter was harsh at first, with ice covering the ground through the first two weeks of the year. A balmy spring brought vigorous early growth, but early June rains interfered with flowering. A warm summer accelerated ripening until veraison (when the grapes turn color) at the end of August.

Then the rains came back. From the vines’ perspective, this was a fine thing: water is the main ingredient of the sugars a plant needs to grow and to ripen fruit. At veraison the vines rapidly accelerate the rate that they transfer sugar into the grapes. They thirst for water, and we got exactly the kind of gentle rain the plants were looking for.

What it also meant was the damp, fragile berries were now at increased risk for bunch rot. This year we helped manage that by increasing airflow with a second leaf removal in the fruiting areas of the plant, increasing attention to shoot position, and making sure that the clusters didn’t touch posts or neighboring clusters. By surrounding each cluster with freely moving air, they were able to stay dry and clean.

Our worst pests this year were migratory birds moving south from Alaska. They ate half of an already light Pinot Gris crop; in 2004 we will be lucky to produce 125 cases of Pinot Gris. What little Pinot Gris we have is luscious.

Perhaps because of the timing of the rains, our different clones and locations ripened fruit at almost the same time. In 2003, we started on September 29th and took more than two weeks to pick everything. In 2004, we started at the same time, but picked the whole vineyard in six days. For those
who like numbers, here are averages:

The numbers are backed up with truly ripe flavors. The wine is now in barrel, and I think it will be exceptional. The Oregon 2003s are powerhouse wines, but the 2004s promise to be sleek and elegant. Uncorking the 2004s promises to be one of the highlights of 2005. Much of the credit for the quality of our 2004 must go to our vineyard crew, Juan, Isabel, and Rigoberto Prieto-Arano. Their attention to detail shifted a vintage that could have been so-so into one that promises to be superb. Best wishes to all of you for a happy and prosperous New Year!

December 2004
There is no substitute for the vineyard worker, guided by the plants he or she is tending, working silently in the leaves. But there’s a truth to modern winegrowing, as in making other beautiful things: we have adopted machines to help. Machines can produce a numb uniformity, or they can free us to pay attention to essentials. But machines have requirements of their own.

Our new tractor, for example. We rely on its power and stability in our vineyards’ abrupt topographies. But we’ve also come to love it. There must be some kind of natural law that the best way to develop an emotional connection to a mere machine is to clean it. Juan and I did the 500 hour service on it just before picking. We started by pulling away the complicated curvatures of its outer carapace. Underneath are the gravitas of the cast iron engine and its satellites – hydraulic flters (two), oil flter (one), fuel flters (two), and air flters (two).

Drain oils, clean flters. Motor oil perfect black. Hydraulic oil capturing light, with a pearl sheen of metal, shed from new gears. Buckets of clean oil back into the case, honey bright. Let breathe the radiator with a gentle cleaning. Let the battery cells have just enough water and no further. Grease the pivots and stretch the tracks, but not too tight.

Each machine has its own cycle of renewal, after 100 hours of use or 8. Of our fve senses, four are engaged when working on a machine. We feel for the proper resilience of a rubber belt, listen for the chirp of a dry bearing, smell the oil for the char of overheating, look for anything wrong.

The only sense that isn’t used when we’re working on our machines is taste. That comes later, in the glass. Growing wine is such a challenge, and a joy. It’s a dance of details. If the work of the hand and the work of the machine observe all those details, then the wine will be good, and the favor will please.