Woody Harvest 2011

My "harvest has begun" blog quickly turned into a "harvest is finally winding down" blog with the craziness in the tasting room the past couple of weeks. But instead of giving an update and then waiting a week or two for the next, everything will come out at once. Here's the full rundown on harvest at Woodward Canyon! 

The 2011 harvest was definitely one of those hurry up and wait seasons. We were one of the first wineries in the valley, if not the first, to bring in fruit, our Estate sauvignon blanc, on September 15th.

Estate sauvignon blanc through the press

 Next in was our Estate chardonnay, harvested eleven days later, on September 26th.

Estate Chardonnay

Then our cellar crew played the waiting game until the reds and DuBrul Riesling were ready for harvest. DuBrul Riesling was harvested on October 13th and then crushed first thing the following morning. The first of the reds harvested was roughly two tons of syrah out of the Champoux Vineyard on October 14th.

Champoux Syrah

After that things picked up to a steady pace. 9.3 tons of Weinbau merlot came in on October 18th. 5.5 tons of Sagemoor cabernet and 8 tons of Woodward Canyon Estate cab franc was brought in on October 21st. And we brought in the last of our whites, a bit of Celilo chardonnay on October 22nd.

Celilo Vineyard Chardonnay

The cabernet grapes were the last of the grapes to ripen and be harvested. We brought in Champoux Vineyard cabernet sauvignon blocks 1 and 2 (typically designated for "Old Vines") on October 27th. Canoe Ridge (block 7 and 16) and Spring Creek cabernet came in October 28th. Champoux cabernet, blocks 4 and 2 lower, came in October 30th.

Champoux Vineyard Block 1

The last of the cabernet we brought in was from Les Collines and Hedges Vineyard on October 31st and November 1st and an additional 3 tons of Les Collines cabernet on November 4th.

All in all we ended up with right around 109 tons of fruit for the 2011 vintage. Both Rick and Kevin seem to be excited about the fruit we did get from this cooler, later vintage, and are excited about the wines we will see down the road.

"This vintage reminds me most of 1984 followed then by 1991 and 1993.  The wines are sure to be different but they will be good from good producers.  I believe I told someone else that the wines will be more like the wines we used to make 25 years ago; like left bank Bordeaux possibly"  - Rick Small

2009 Vintage Overview

We’re off to a new year and technically a new decade as well and I thought the best way to start 2010 would be to wrap up 2009. Not sure if everyone will agree with me but 2009 seemed to go by in a blur. We ended the year the same way we started it – cold in the valley with snow and ice covering the ground, though not as much as last winter. For a vintage that seemed to take forever to get going (I was still wondering where the sunshine and warm weather was in April and May) it ended up being a rather compressed vintage and warmer overall.



The first bud break in our Estate Vineyard in the Walla Walla Valley was towards the end of March which starts the process to try to assure that the best possible grapes are harvested. Shoot positioning, leaf stripping, lateral removal and finally cluster thinning are all part of that process. Because of the cooler, wetter spring veraison did not begin until mid July. However, a couple of really hot weeks towards the end of July and into August quickly made up for lost time.


We brought in our first fruit of the vintage, the sauvignon blanc and the chardonnay from the Estate Vineyard, at the end of August. Harvest was a bit compressed as well. Everything seemed to ripen at once which had vineyard crews scrambling to bring everything in at the same time. We have a good crew that finished in our vineyard early and then went with Rick to the Champoux Vineyard to pick our grapes from the Circle Block.

We brought in the last of the fruit the first part of October, which was just in time before the first freeze of the year swept through the valley. It was on the earlier side, the middle of October, and caught some wineries off guard. I hope those that still had fruit hanging were able to pick it shortly afterwards. Now everything is safely tucked in barrel and the wait is on.

Rick is already (or constantly, depending on how you view it) thinking about the vineyard and our next vintage. He is hoping to plant a new cover crop on the terraces next time there is snow on the ground. While he is not overly worried about damage in the vineyard due to the freeze, he won’t know for sure until he checks buds later this month.

Here’s a quick peek on what we’re looking at for the 2009 vintage.

• The cabernet franc from the Woody Vineyard (our Estate Vineyard) is coming along really nicely. It was cropped back to single cluster per shoot this year and should be a great backbone to the Estate Reserve (formally the Estate Red) program.
  
• The cabernet sauvignon from the old hillside out of the Estate Vineyard is also very promising. Almost 20 years old and planted in shallow soil this cabernet will most likely be used to enhance the Estate Reserve and Walla Walla Valley Cabernet programs.
  
• Kevin and Rick are considering a separate bottling of around 100 cases of the Woodward Canyon Estate Chardonnay. As they have tasted through the wines both are pleased with all our chardonnay and feel that a few special barrels can stand alone as an Estate bottling.


• The cabernet from Champoux Vineyard Circle Block and Sagemoor Vineyard Block 3 is looking great. The fruit from those two blocks is what we normally used as the anchor for the “Old Vines” Cabernet program.


• Rick and Kevin are also excited about what we have in barrel from Champoux Vineyard Block 2.

There’s still a lot of time before the 2009 vintage is in the bottle but it looks like it’s shaping up to be another fine vintage for us. I’m keeping my fingers crossed.

In the meantime I’m enjoying the current releases we have available at the winery. Check out our website for a list of the wines and order online. Also, last week while doing inventory we came across a number of cases of the 2006 “Artist Series” Cabernet in magnum form. If you missed out on purchasing some of the 750s now is your chance to get some of this vintage before we completely sell out of it. We do have plenty of the 2007 "Artist Series" Cabernet available and it's pouring beautifully! And if you have older vintages of the "Artist Series" Cabernet and "Old Vines" Cabernet and aren't sure about opening them, don't forget to check out our drink/hold page on the website. It will give you an idea on when the best time to open them would be.

Sounds like we just had some people come into the tasting room. I’m going to stick my head out and say hello. If you come through the valley this year, stop in and say hi and I’ll pour you some wine. Happy New Year everyone! Hope your new year’s resolution somehow include drinking some amazing wine this year.

Cheers!

Shari

Harvest 2009

So harvest is well under way for us here at Woodward Canyon. The end of August saw us bring in all of the sauvignon blanc and chardonnay from our Estate Vineyard. Since then we’ve moved right along, bringing in almost all of the merlot, some of the cabernet franc and the grenache, and then the American clone of the barbera, all from the Estate Vineyard. We also source from a number of different vineyards throught Washington State. Yesterday we brought in merlot from Weinbau and today it was syrah from Champoux. So far everything looks good and the boys are excited.

With the start of harvest around the winery comes the start of “crush lunch” for the cellar boys. Rick and Darcey have made it a point to feed the guys every day, and since none of us are huge fans of deli sandwiches we get to experiment a bit with food. Rafa (our cellar master) and Manuel and Kiko (our cellar guys) are huge assets to this winery and a large part of our success. Rick and Kevin get the credit for making the wines and then those of us who sell the wines gets some recognition as well, but those three receive none of it. And really, they should probably get a lot of it. They do the every day things around the winery to make everyone’s life a bit easier. They do everything from pruning and picking in the vineyard to sorting grapes when they come in to cleaning the tasting room and moving wine for us. We're pretty lucky. I don’t know if we could ask for three harder working guys.

Every year, around this time, we also receive an intern from the Purpan School in France. We have been very lucky in the past having hosted some great students. This year is no different. Colin, pictured in blue, will be with us until the last of October. He's a fantastic worker and a really nice guy.

Speaking of lunch, last Tuesday we hosted a pizza lunch for the buyers from W2U out at the winery. We ended up making about 20 pizzas for 45 people, which included the wine buyers, local winemakers and drivers. Thomas and I got to put the pizzas together while Rick cooked them, before he took off to drop bins at Sagemoor. I also found a new favorite pizza – red sauce, fresh basil, sautéed onions, yellow peppers, artichokes, ground sausage and bleu cheese. Delicious!

Woodward Canyon's Vineyard Tour

Can you believe it’s August already? And, can you believe that we are going on almost 10 straight days of pushing into triple digits on the thermostat? I remember, what seems like only a month ago, sitting around thinking Mother Nature had forgotten us and dreaming about sunny weather. I’m not complaining though, I’d much rather have 100 degree weather than the rain and snow that seemed to drag much farther into the spring than I would have liked. The one day I wouldn’t have minded the weather being a little cooler was last Tuesday.

On Tuesday, Rick took the tasting room staff on a tour of some of Woodward Canyon’s primary vineyards. At 7:00 AM, with coffee in hand, we headed out for the Charbonneau Vineyard, which is located just East of the Snake River and about 12 miles East of Pasco, Washington. Started in 1981, it is roughly 40-acres of cabernet sauvignon, merlot, cabernet franc, riesling, chardonnay, semillon and sauvignon blanc. We source cabernet sauvignon and merlot, from blocks that were planted in 1981, that we blend together to make our Charbonneau Red (sorry, currently sold out) during select years.

Leaving Charbonneau Vineyard, we drove around Pasco heading for Sagemoor Vineyard. Sagemoor was founded in 1968 by Alec Bayless and is one of the oldest producing vineyards in the state. It is just North of Pasco and overlooking the Columbia River. We source a large amount of our “Old Vines” (sold out of our current vintage, older vintages available in magnums) and “Artist Series” fruit from Sagemoor. We made a quick stop to look at the grape clusters and the vines, where on some of our older blocks, Blocks 3 and 9, planted in 1972, the trunks looked more like little trees than vines. I was pleasantly surprised to see the first signs of veraison (where the grapes turn from green to purple) on some of the clusters in Block 3, which is primarily used for “Old Vines” Cabernet.

Next on the tour was the Champoux Vineyard in the Horse Heaven AVA outside of Alderdale, Washington. The original, older blocks of Champoux were planted in 1972, making them some of the older vines in Washington. Rick, a partner in the Champoux Vineyard along with Quilceda Creek, Andrew Will, Badger Mountain/Powers and Vineyard Manager Paul Champoux, started using fruit from the Champoux Vineyard, known then as Mercer Ranch Vineyard, in 1977 for his own personal wine. Today, we pull fruit from Block 1 and 2 and from Circle Block for the “Old Vines” and from Block 3 and Baby ‘Poux for the “Artist Series”. My favorite part of Champoux was the Circle Block, named for the method of irrigation for that one particular block. It is a form of overhead irrigation with a central pivot that rotates over the crop to irrigate.

Then it was an hour and a half drive to White Salmon for lunch before heading up to the Celilo Vineyard. Celilo was probably the most impressive vineyard on the tour because of the view. Looking out East was a spectacular view of the Columbia River Gorge and to the West, on a clear day, you can see all the way to Mount Hood. Unfortunately for us, it was a bit hazy and the view to Mount Hood wasn’t as clear as it normally is. The vines, themselves, were much taller than the other vineyards we had visited, having been trained that way using the Scott Henry trellising system. Scott Henry, from Henry Estate Winery, designed this method to help encourage his vines to ripen more fruit rather than more shoots and leaves. Rick has been using Celilo fruit for close to 20 years, sometimes bottling a single vineyard designated chardonnay but more often blending it with fruit from our Woodward Canyon Estate Vineyard to produce the Washington State Chardonnay. Celilo, which is normally much cooler than our Estate Vineyard and sees more rainfall annually, produces fruit with higher acidity that blends well with our Estate fruit to produce a wine that is beautifully balanced.

Leaving Celilo, we then trekked the three hours back to Woodward Canyon. I have a new found respect for Rick and Kevin who take turns making that drive to check on the vineyards numerous times throughout the year. Stopping at all the vineyards made for a long day, and we didn’t even have to do any grape sampling. But it was fun to get out of the tasting room for the day and to actually see the vineyards that we talk about all the time and use in our wines. I now have a much better understanding of where our wines come from before I ever lay eyes on them. And a quick thanks to Bob Pruett, our weekend tasting room associate, for all the great pictures throughout the tour!

Cheers,

Shari

Taste Washington

Hello again! I’m back in the office, rested and rejuvenated after a quick trip over to Seattle for Taste Washington. Mine was much shorter than everyone else from Woodward Canyon but I enjoyed myself immensely. It was really nice to get away from Walla Walla for however short it was. Rick and Darcey left Thursday so they could attend the Washington Wine Restaurant Awards & Tasting Friday night and Rick could attend and lead some of the seminars on Saturday. Thomas flew in Saturday morning after making stops in San Francisco and Chicago. And then first thing Monday morning he was off again, this time to New York. WOW! What a rough life he must lead. I’ve always wondered what life would be like, always on the road. I ended up catching a plane at the Walla Walla Airport at 6:50 in the morning. Let me tell you something, a 4:30 wake up call so you can make a 6:50 flight is not something I enjoy doing. Maybe I don’t envy Thomas’s job as much as I thought, after all.

Seattle was gorgeous! It was bright and sunny and unlike most of the rainy days I've spent there. It was almost difficult being indoors all afternoon. Almost, but not quite, I enjoyed myself at Taste way to much to think about it. There were more people than I could count but it was fun meeting everyone and talking about the wines. And with over 200 wineries and 60 restaurants, there was no way to get around to all of them. I made a point to taste a couple different cabs which were composed entirely of Champoux Vineyard fruit. I thought it would be interesting to see how they compared and were different from our “Old Vines” Cabernet. I love how each wine was similar in some ways but also very different in others. I guess that is what makes wine so fascinating.

Both of our labels, Nelms Road and Woodward Canyon, were included at Taste. We poured the ’07 Nelms Cabernet and ’07 Nelms Merlot and then the ’07 Washington State Chardonnay and the ’06 “Artist Series” Cabernet for Woodward Canyon. The wines were showing really well and people seemed to enjoy them. We, of course, poured out of the “Artist Series” and came close to pouring out of everything else. It was a great event with great response from the consumers.

The Walla Walla Valley Wine Alliance hosted a special “Get a Taste” of Vintage Walla Walla during a 4 hour block once the Grand Tasting started. It was an appointment-only session on some of the older wines in the valley. Rick joined six other winemakers from Walla Walla, and poured our 1998 “Artist Series” Cabernet, to help showcase what Vintage Weekend is all about. I didn’t get to taste any of the wines there but we had opened a bottle of the ’98 a couple of weeks ago and the winery and it was still pouring beautifully. Lots of tobacco and earthy nuances with some black fruit on the palate, this wine still had some cellar life on it.

We poured through just about everything and headed off to Seastar in Seattle for dinner that night. If you haven’t been to this restaurant before you should definitely visit on your next trip. We had an amazing dinner. We started off the night with a couple bottles of champagne paired with fresh oysters shooters right out of the sea. Then we moved on to our white for the evening with fresh seared ahi, calamari poppers and crab cakes. Then it was a pinot noir from Burgundy which I paired with my halibut provencal and spring style asparagus. We finished off the evening with crème brulee, white chocolate coconut cream pie and passion fruit panna cotta with tropical fruit. All the desserts were amazing, though I’m gonna have to admit that the crème brulee was my favorite. Once again, I’m so glad that everyone at Woodward Canyon is as much of a foodie as I am. I am so lucky to be working at a place where us employee are treated so well and we are constantly surrounded by great food and amazing wines!

If you're in Walla Walla today come see Marlene at the Woodward Canyon table at Feast Walla Walla between one and four. We'll be pouring our '05 White Riesling, our '07 Estate Barbera and our '07 Walla Walla Valley Cabernet. If you can’t make it to Feast, swing by the tasting room and we’ll share some wines with you out here!

For those of you who will be in town the first weekend of May come visit us for Spring Release Weekend, May 1st through the 3rd. We will be pouring some of our favorites. And we might even have a trick or two up our sleeves. Hope to see you all through the tasting room at some point during the spring / summer!

Salut!

Shari / Woodward Canyon Winery

Perks of the Job!

I have this really good friend who I’ve known for years. We both went to high school together and then we followed each other to college as well. We even went so far as to having our college graduation party together because we had so many of the same friends and our families knew each other well. Over the years I’ve become friends with his wife, who I also went to high school with, and have fallen in love with their two boys. So I always try to do something special for his birthday. Last year, I did a mini vertical of Walla Walla cabernets from 2000-2004. Not something I would recommend for three people, but it was a lot of fun and the wines were amazing. So this year I decided that I needed to do something even more special. After racking my brain I came across a 1998 “Old Vines” Cabernet from Woodward Canyon and decided that was just what I was looking for.

So the three of us made plans to get together over a nice dinner and crack open the bottle. It was fantastic! We paired the wine with a steak and potato dinner just like mom used to make. In the mouth, the wine was rich and still very powerful, with flavors of muted toasted oak and vanilla as well as raspberry, blackberry and a hint of the terroir that is typical of the Champoux Vineyard. It was well balanced and for being 10 years old it still had years of cellar time on it. The steak was hearty enough that the wine didn’t overpower it, leading to a wonderful pairing. We savored every last drop in the bottle and then wished we had three more to open.


The grapes were harvested entirely from Champoux Vineyard, planted in the 1970’s, above the Columbia River in southeastern Washington. The very warm growing season of 1998 gave incredibly ripe fruit with great richness and concentration. Champoux Vineyard consists of 170 acres of mixed varietals - cabernet sauvignon, lemburger, cabernet franc, syrah, merlot, riesling, muscat, and chardonnay. We, along with Quilceda Creek, Andrew Will, and Badger Mountain/Powers, are all partner wineries in the Champoux Vineyards along with Vineyard Manager, Paul Champoux. We primarily use Champoux fruit for our "Old Vines" Cabernet. The cabernet vines were planted in 1972, making them one of the oldest cabernet blocks in the state. The fruit produces extremely elegant and bright red cherry flavors which was evident in the 1998 vintage.

Then I gave him his “present” of the 2002 Woodward Canyon Estate Red to cellar for later. If you have not had a glass or bottle of the Estate Red you don’t know what you’re missing! This is definitely one of my favorite wines we produce here and the 2002 Estate Red is one of my favorite wines from the valley that vintage. It is a Bordeaux style blend entirely from our Estate Vineyard. This merlot, cabernet sauvignon, cabernet franc and petit verdot blend has a soft generous texture that transitions to a supple, balanced mouth feel with a long and layered finish. This is a wine that can lay down, with proper cellaring, for 10+ years. And even though we are out of the 2002 vintage we still have plenty of the 2003 and 2005 available, both of which are excellent.

Needless to say he was pretty excited about the wines. It was a pretty special night that I will remember for a long time. I wouldn’t give or open a bottle like that for just anyone.

So happy drinking everyone! I hope you are all enjoying something special at this moment. If you are on facebook please friend us and keep up on what's going on out at the winery. And next time you are in the valley come see me in the tasting room!

Cheers!

Shari / Woodward Canyon Winery