Newsletter Archives

Wine Industry

Annoyances. (Fall '07) If this newsletter doesn’t stimulate you or make you chuckle or make you a tad angry, you may be dead. At least it should annoy you. If not yet annoyed, pick from the following tidbits and eek out a small rant.

A Sense of Place: Emerging Pinot Noir AVAs of Oregon. (Fall '05) The quality of Pinot noir and the other cool climate varieties we grow are influenced by growing climate, vintage, microclimate/AVA, and winemaking style.

A Sense of Place: Six Proposed AVAs. (Fall '05) ... grapegrowers and wineries in Oregon's Northern Willamette Valley defined what they saw as "family" homelands and submitted petitions to the TTB to further define the large Willamette Valley AVA with six more-specific AVAs.

Cork: going from stopper to show-stopper. (Fall '00) Ever had a corked wine? Some people know what a corked bottle is, some don't, but everyone's had one.

Direct Shipping. (Fall '05) I was pleased to attend the US Supreme Court hearing on December 7th (2005), when the Granholm v. Heald direct wine shipment case was heard. The incisive, extremely articulate, erudite, and common sense—no BS—questioning the court did to both parties to the suit was impressive.

Distributors Who Do it Right! (Spring '01) For every Manhattan liquor store cooking a bottle of fine wine in an August store window ... there are great examples of people who are sensitive to wine's delicate nature.

Future Tense: A Space-Time Continuum (Spring '07) OK, let the past alone. No matter how smart it was to begin the Oregon wine industry the way we did, where's it going?

The Napa Declaration, or Declaration of Place. (Fall '05) ... Therefore, be it resolved that we, as representatives of some of the world’s leading wine regions, join together in supporting efforts to maintain and respect the integrity of these place names, which are fundamental tools for consumer identification of great winegrowing regions and the wines they produce.

Pioneers of Chehalem. Although the wine business is relatively new to the Chehalem Ridge, alcohol isn't. Here's a fascinating glimpse of local history.

The Politics of Protecting Small Farms. (Spring '05) Wine growing and the small, value-added farm family to which it belongs, are at risk.

Respecting Place Names, or May I interest you in a fine Oregon Pinot noir from China? (Fall '05) There is value in the name itself, since it conveys an identity of uniqueness, quality and a prior positive experience.

Riesling: Kinda Crazy. (Summer '03) Call me crazy-looking at white wines when there's pinot noir fever in Oregon-grafting and planting riesling when everyone else is pulling it out-planning to increase fine dry riesling production five-fold over the next five years.

Satyricon. (Fall '07) The public media and trade presses have been awash in recent wine-related breakthroughs about which you might be interested, since they promise to change the wine industry radically over the next decade. We’ve recapped the tastiest bits of news below, and, as in all things at Chehalem, there is a nugget of truth or principle imbedded here within a hard-surfaced rant or cotton-candy billow of frivolity.

Seeking Closure. (Fall '04) Screwcaps happen when the cork industry is satisfied with just screwing around.

Ted Katz. Ever wonder about the origin of Chehalem's extraordinary wine labels? Meet the artist, whose work, like our wines, is "on the edge and dancing."

Twenty Years On / Milestones: Measuring Progress or Marking Time? (Fall '06) It should have been scary, but it wasn't. With a four-year marriage, children just three and newly born, and a good-paying technical job demanding time day and night, we decided that to seek utter fulfillment buying a vineyard in 1980 was not too much.

Visitations. (Summer '99) A delegation from the "Masters of Wine," the most prestigious organization in wine appreciation, paid us a visit in May, 1999.

War on Terroir. (Spring '02) With the continuing emphasis on "terroir" and technical viticultural investigation, work on several fronts promises to give winemakers and consumers detail they haven’t had before.