CONTENTS
Letter from owner Dick Erath - "Destination Dundee"
Report from winemaker Gary Horner - "Current Events in the Cellar"
What's Fermenting - Events and happenings at Erath Vineyards
The Cachet On Us - Recent awards, reviews and press
Cellar Society - The Willamette Valley's premiere wine club
The White-Hot Shopping Cart - What's new in the tasting room and gift shop

DESTINATION DUNDEE

Owner, Dick Erath

Life is good on Prince Hill, the place my wife, Joan, and I call home, situated about 600 feet up in the Dundee Hills. It's also the site where I planted Pinot noir vines back in 1983, a place with mature vines, red jory soils and a due-south exposure.

If there's ever a perfect time to visit Dundee, though we tend to think it's pretty spectacular year-round, summertime is it. Despite the lingering rains in June, the sun seems to find its way back out in July, critical to the development of fruit. By August, and through mid-September, veraison takes over, the berries begin to ripen, developing their variety-specific color. It's an exciting time to see the beauty of the lush, vibrant, ripe vines mature before harvest.

People travel from all over the globe to visit our Tasting Room, and we get most of the foot traffic in the summer months. The weather is temperate, views are clear and impressive, and the cool-climate white wines couldn't taste more refreshing! We still hear winery visitors buzzing about a certain movie that not only influenced a surge in national Pinot sales, but fueled vineyard tourism in Pinot-growing regions. Many of us Pinot producers are still riding the wave brought on by Sideways. Prior to the movie's influence, sales of Erath's vintage Pinot noir had already been up. So much so, we are getting ready to release our 2004 Oregon Pinot noir in a matter of days. As I write this, the winery is busy (and loud!) with about 50% or the vintage Pinot left to bottle.

So, Pinot sales are up. People are planning their vacations around wine country. Travel writers are featuring places like the Dundee Hills as prime culinary-wine tourism destinations, including the June 15 issue of Wine Spectator's cover article on "Wine Country Travel: Where to Find Fine Food and Lodging to Match Local Wines". The northern Willamette Valley is described as "expanding it's culinary breadth and approaching its inspiration - France's Burgundy." And, with the arrival this year of a high-end boutique inn in Dundee, The Black Walnut Inn, the region has come into its own as a fine-wine destination. Spectator goes on to say "Dundee (population 2,800) is the logical base from which to tour...". Dundee basically dominated the rest of the article dedicated to Oregon wine travel.

Realizing the opportunity to show our growing number of visitors all that the Dundee Hills has to offer, we are excited to host the Willamette Valley's very first Chef Series, Wine Country Cooking in the Dundee Hills. I’m really looking forward to sharing the stage with the four world-renowned chefs we’ve selected for our inaugural series, all from wine country regions around the globe. It will be a spectacular series, set amidst the elegant, breath-taking Black Walnut Inn, conveniently located across the street from our winery.

We hope you can make it out for a dinner in the series, and we look forward to hosting you whenever you plan to visit the Dundee Hills.

Thank you for the opportunity to serve our wines wherever you are - in our Tasting Room, out to dinner, or at home!

Cheers!


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CURRENT EVENTS IN THE CELLAR

Gary Horner, Winemaker

It is finally summer and you may be wondering what is happening in the winery this time of year.  Maybe you don’t wonder about this kind of thing, who knows.  Just in case you are the slightest bit interested, or perhaps you're absolutely dying to know,  I will attempt to satisfy your curiosity!

Let’s take up where we left off with the last newsletter.  Micro-ox was bubbling away, life was good, though a bit chilly in the cellar, and daylight hours were short.

There came a point when I judged that Micro-ox had done its job.  By the way, that is a pretty subjective determination.  What I do is taste the wines frequently, then experiment with turning the oxygen off and observing how the wine responds.  If all goes well during the lack of oxygen, the wine will continue to show the outstanding fruit and texture it developed during Micro-ox.  If the wine needs more oxygen, then after a period of time with the oxygen being off, the wine will turn hard and sometimes develop odd aromas.  The oxygen then goes back on at varying doses and the process repeats itself for as long as it takes.  In reference to the subjective nature of the process, I can say that the seat of my pants is well worn when done.

What came next was to uniformly blend the multiple individual lots of wine that comprise the 2004 Oregon  Pinot noir blend.  This is no small task considering that this year the total blend was 93,000 gallons (39,000 cases), and that our blending tanks range from 2,400 to 6,000 gallons in size.  Once the blend has been put together, I take a final look at the wine’s health.  What I mean by that is I observe once more for the presence of any spoilage microbes or suspended particles that may ultimately result in the wine not showing its best.  If there are any potentially damaging microbes (which rarely happens at this winery) the wine is filtered to remove them. If there are enough suspended solids (very common in a natural beverage) that detract from the wine's true softness and roundness, then I will filter those wines also. Let me say this about filtration: there is a great deal of misinformation regarding filtration out there being spread by wine writers, and dare I say winemakers, both of whom should know better.  The dogma has basically been that non-filtered wines are better than filtered wines.  Quite frankly, if these two groups took the time to become truly educated on the subject, then we all would be a lot better off.  Do not be fooled by the bottle of wine that says on the label ‘Unfiltered’ as though that magically makes it worth more money or demand a higher level of respect.  Filtration is a tool.  It can be like handing razorblades to a Chimpanzee (a bloody mess) on one hand, or a Steinway to Van Cliburn (music to one’s ears) on the other hand.  Don’t get me started!

The next step is bottling.  As I write this we are in the middle of bottling the 2004 Oregon Pinot noir.  The sound that penetrates every wall of the winery during the course of bottling is the constant clinking of bottles and the rhythmic blast of nitrogen blowing the room air out of the empty bottles and replacing it with inert non-reactive nitrogen.  ‘PSSSST’, PSSSST’, ‘PSSSST’ is the sound of the gas burst every second of every hour for eight hours a day.  A short while of this noise drives a person batty, or in my case, more batty.  The purpose of all this ‘gas passing’ is to minimize the uptake of excess oxygen at bottling which could prematurely age the wine in the bottle.  It is all about retaining freshness in our Oregon Pinot noir!  Next, bottles get filled by a 16 spout filler, then pass on to get capped and labeled, then are placed by hand into custom printed cardboard cases.  The cases are glued shut then stacked onto wooden pallets for storage and shipment to our various markets.  Our $250,000 part Italian/part Australian bottling line is state of the art.  Jerry Olsen, Cellarmaster, is the person in the ‘zone’ with this very complicated series of machines.  Our cellar crew, Dana Booth and Tony Bonofiglio, together with a 9 member crew made up of talented individuals from our vineyard staff work in harmony to bottle close to 1,600 twelve-bottle-cases per day.  As for me I just sit around eating bon-bons.  Yeah, right.

Before I go I would like to introduce a soon-to-be-new member of the winemaking team.  Her name is Brandi Greene and she is our staff Enologist.  Brandi will have primary responsibility for managing the lab and educating our staff.  Brandi is a recent graduate of Oregon State University Food Science and Technology program with an emphasis on enology.

Until next time.
Gary Horner,Winemaker

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WHAT’S FERMENTING
Events & Happenings at Erath Vineyards

Beginning this summer, some of the most respected names in the international culinary world will roll through the Red Hills of Dundee and into the kitchen of the Black Walnut Inn with Dick Erath, as Erath Vineyards offers the Willamette Valley’s first guest chef dinner series – Wine Country Cooking.

Each month, between July and October, Dundee’s new, spectacular Black Walnut Inn will co-host Erath Vineyards and one chef from a world-famous winegrowing region in an interactive wine dinner. Celebrated chefs representing New Zealand, Sonoma, Oregon and Washington will partner with Dick Erath to present the beautiful, fresh cooking found in these wine regions.

The guest chef line-up includes:

Thursday, July 28 – Alister Brown, Logan Brown – Wellington, New Zealand
Alister, the head Guest Chef at this year's International Pinot Noir Celebration in Oregon, will commence his culinary talents at the Black Walnut Inn before cooking for several hundred IPNC guests...

Thursday, August 11 – Michael Voltaggio, Dry Creek Kitchen – Sonoma, California
Michael's brother, Bryan Voltaggio, Executive Chef at Charlie Palmer's Steak House in Washington, DC will be assisting his younger brother in the kitchen...

Thursday, September 15 – Adam Sappington, Wildwood – Willamette Valley, Oregon
At Wildwood, you get the best the Pacific Northwest has to offer! The complexity of Adam's dishes comes from the depth of flavor in the ingredients, most found only miles from the restaurant.

Thursday, October 13 – Tamara Murphy, Brasa – Seattle, Washington
Look for Tamara competing in the kitchen in an upcoming episode of Iron Chef America, this fall on the Food Network.

Erath's Wine Country Cooking in the Dundee Hills event will feature live, Latin-fusion guitar music by EOS.

Begin with an optional walk in the vines with Dick Erath at 5:00 p.m., and a Champagne toast to start the wine dinner at 6:00 p.m.

Seating is limited and the cost per event is $125 per person. Make your reservation in advance by calling Erath Vineyards at 503.538.3318, or toll free at 1.800.539.9463.

Artist Series at Erath Vineyards
Local Artists are featured in our Tasting Room on various Saturdays from 12:00 noon until 4:00 p.m. to showcase and sell their work.  Come out and meet the artists, enjoy and contemplate fine art, all the while tasting our beautifully crafted wines.