Bergevin Lane

Yum

2009-06-23T14:31:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I was checking out the new July 31, 2009 Wine Spectator and NO we are not in it (this time unfortunately) however I found the most amazing recipes! I was looking to make something which includes fish and wa-lah..the front cover was talking to me! Chef Laurent Tourondel, who worked in France and now is in the states created these recipes. He says his heart belongs to Burgundy however I think we need him to come see us in Walla Walla!

The recipes I made were the "Grilled Striped Bass With Fennel Salad and Grapefruit Emulsion" and the "Barbecued Fingerling Potato and Bacon Salad". Both amazing and to die for. We enjoyed our meal with our 2007 Viognier. It was a wonderful match and paired perfectly with the dinner...there was nothing left in the bottle...or on our plates, if that tells you anything!

So, if you're feeling adventurous give this a try, From start to table it took about 1 hour and 45 minutes. There were even some jobs for Jaden, our daughter, who loves to act as my sous chef. We lit the candles set the table and it was pure joy!

Just Tied the Knot!

2009-06-11T11:16:00.000-07:00

Our congratulations to friends and fellow Swirlies Lisa and George Jackson. They were here at the winery over Spring Release and they had asked me to send them a few wineries down in Sonoma to go visit. They were married on June 6th and they wanted to spend a day in wine country during their honeymoon. Yesterday I was plunking away at my keyboard and up pops a message from George and he was a happy camper! They were at Mazzocco winery and were picking up a little wine. He wanted to say hello, thanks for the recommendations and he had to give a shout out to his new bride, Lisa for sporting the Bergevin Lane Wine Diva gear! So, throughout the day I would get a fun quick note sometimes with a picture and was able to virtually wine explore with them!

George has such an infectious personality you can't help but get pumped up when he is excited about something. I was literally waiting for the little bing of my email to let me know his next note had arrived! They ended up visiting several folks and from the general direction of his comments I would say folks took really good care of them! They helped set up appointments and showed them a good time.

They also visited Unti, Mauriston, Passalacqua, and had lunch at Gustafson which is a newer winery, appointment only, recommended by our dear friend "E". She described this as a hidden gem.

George's last note was, "Whole Day was Lights Out!" How awesome is that!!! I hope someday we're described as a hidden gem. To our newlyweds the Jacksons...we LOVE you guys!!! Congratulations!

P.S. At the bottom of every email note George sends out is "Go Huskies!!!!" Well, I'm a Coug but it just goes to show that even Huskies can have fun wine tasting! (wink wink)

Why Blog?

2009-06-02T09:53:00.001-07:00

Sometimes you just have to let someone else do the talking and about a year ago we sat down with Amy Rootvik in my office and did an interview. Amy has a great personality and makes a person feel at ease. Amber and I always second guess ourselves after an interview and ask the questions? Did we really say that? Or *$#% why didn't we say this? Or, I didn't know the answer to that question, good thing you did! Amy took the information and turned it into some fun reading. I was interested and it gave me some perspective. We're always looking forward, moving 900 mph and trying to figure out the next "move" and this gave me time to look back and reflect. It made me really appreciate Steffan and Julie, not that we don't already, but it was cool to read that Amy enjoys them too! So if you're interested take a look!

Amy's Introduction

Amy Rootvik's Interview

Cheers!!!

Spring Release

2009-05-07T09:39:00.000-07:00

It was fun. We served great wine. We met fabulous people. Awesome!!!

Twittering

2009-05-07T09:30:00.000-07:00

If I can't seem to keep our blog post updated my question is should I twitter? I tend to be long winded so that would keep it short. I just watched a cool 2 minute YouTube tutorial on it and it seems easy but do people want to know what people are doing all day long. I'm so busy I can barely keep track of my life how do I keep track of everyone's lives as well? Maybe it's worth a shot. Then when I forget to twitter that I'm running to the bathroom and don't update my blog site for several weeks and then am late in responding to some one's email and miss several phone calls I can REALLY feel bad! Maybe there is too much connection. Whatever happened to actually taking a moment for a coffee date with a friend and having a face-to-face conversation? I like a supermarket real time twitter...you run into your buddy in the aisle..."hey what's up?" the pertinent things come out and you're off to grab your next item on your list. Maybe I'm old fashioned.

New Vintage

2009-03-10T13:01:00.000-07:00

We are going to bottle and the wines are tasting great! This morning I went out to try our 2008 Calico White, 2008 Viognier and our 2007 Calico Red. Yum.

All of the wines just went through filtration and are totally clean and clear. I was Kevin's assistant, Steffan was out of town, and I was escaping my computer and spreadsheets. The Viognier was fermented in barrel and aged on the lees. Thus there are many solids in the wine prior to filtration. We filter our white wine to help clear the wine and protect it from components that can restart malolactic fermentation in the bottle. As I was throwing the filtration pads away I was trying to figure out how to recycle the filtration pads because they smell so good. The texture on them made me think I could use them as stamps for textured cement, than I remembered that I do not have a cement company nor do I have any future plans to pour cement. I don't think reusing these pads will happen this time.

The first filtration pass cleaned up quite a bit of lees and had some paste that remained on the pads. I got some on my hand and was told to taste it...and I did. It was slightly acidic with Viognier floral components. Kind of interesting. Andrae Bopp, executive chef and assistant winemaker for DVV, was walking by and he was the one who said, "try it". THEN he said trying too much of this could give you the "scoots". I instantly thought that was a fine idea. Eat a little filtration paste, lose weight. This is an especially good idea considering how much darn food I've eaten lately. As always, I digress.

The pads are made from the pulp of cellulose fibers.

Definition of Cellulose: Cellulose is a long chain of linked sugar molecules that gives wood its remarkable strength. It is the main component of plant cell walls, and the basic building block for many textiles and for paper. Cotton is the purest natural form of cellulose. In the laboratory, ashless filter paper is a source of nearly pure cellulose.

O.k...I know you're thinking I'm brilliant...right? I did not write that last paragraph but I wanted to give you the definition because I instantly thought of fat and sugar. I needed to clear things up. See...filtration talk even filters the brain.

So, post filtration the wines will likely go through a little shock, the filtration can strip some of the aromatics and flavor but don't you go worrying your sweet little self about this, because they come back. Not to the "unfiltered - a.k.a. barrel sample stage" but to the wonderful aromatic and taste attributes that are present in these wines.

With that being said, I'm excited for our white wines and I can't wait to get them in the bottle.

The 2007 Calico Red is great. I know you're probably thinking I always say this but I truly mean it! I can't wait for you to try it! Fun blend, great vineyards....Meow. I'll fill you in more in the Calico as it gets closer to release!

Until the next post...

It's almost bottling time

2009-03-10T11:44:00.001-07:00

Lucky me. I know I've been complaining about the weather but here are some amazing highlights!

Arizona - I was there 10 days in February. Met the most amazing people, saw lots of cactus, ate too much good food and drank really good wine. I have to say I was thrilled to be part of an amazing wine dinner at the Dove Mountain Grill with Master Sommelier, Laura Williamson, Executive Chef, Bruce Yim, and their amazing team. We had great friends attending including my dad and bonus mom and 22 of their friends plus new folks I had not yet met. What a great evening! The food and wine pairings were spectacular. I had the opportunity to stay with my dad and bonus mom for one night, who wants to stay in a hotel? They had heated their pool to 90 plus degrees. It felt like a hot tub. It was a good thing.

I mooched off of my bonus sister, her husband and daughter and got to stay in a wonderful home in Scottsdale. They are located next to everything so life was good. I'd come home and there would be food ready to go and the coffee would be brewing in the morning! Not too bad!

Next up Portland. Amber and I went to Portland for Taste Walla Walla and an auction wine dinner for the Classic Wine Auction. Can I say spoiled and more fun? We stayed with my Aunt and Uncle...I'm seeing a theme here...if you have wine to share folks want you to stay with them. Maybe it's my irresistible begging?! Hmmmm Again, a great Taste Event, wonderful people then my cousins made homemade pizza. Outrageous with fennel, olive oil, artichoke hearts, garlic (I'm missing something) but fantastic. Had that with a wonderful salad and a little vino. Yet, another good day. Next day lunch at Carafe! Talk about good food and great people. Had lunch with friends and family, met new folks and fell in love with Carafe all over again. That night was our auction dinner at Five Spice in Lake Oswego. I can't even begin to start. Our good friends showed up then four more friends surprised us and showed up and that was it...fun on! We met the owner and winemaker from Brook's Winery in Oregon, great folks with great wine, and 10 more couples who there there supporting the event. The chefs nailed the food pairings. You could taste the thoughtfulness that went into each course. FANTASTIC.

Couple of action items or thoughts that resulted from this dinner:

1) We need a guest Swirlie Post - so for you swirlies out there...send me your thoughts, notes or bottle shots and I'll happily include your note.
2) One of our friends truly dislikes cilantro and the question all evening was, "does this dish include cilantro?" I'm happy to report that there was no cilantro served. Our friend "M" renamed the restaurant "Four Spice" to exclude cilantro. That caused one of many roars of laughter from the West end of the table to occur that evening.
3) I need to update the blog more often.
4) We all need to see last weeks, "The Bachelor".
5) I believe that the best evening comes from great food, great wine and great people...the crazy people sitting on the West end of table believe if you have great food and great wine who cares about the people? (stinkers)
6) We had two people who are party people sitting at our table. (Party people in their minds if you ask me.) They supported this claim by saying they are party people however they are still catching up on their sleep from all the missed sleep in their 80's due to partying. They both went to Chico State. I'll let you sort this one out.
7) Blogs really aren't self serving
8) You can be happy doing anything if you are doing what you love
9) Has anyone read "2012 for dummies"? We all decided to hold off on Christmas shopping in 2012 and if this passes without the world coming to an end we were told by our friends on the east side of the table that Macy's has great last minute shopping.

With this I'll end and then get to the serious stuff...upcoming wine!

P.S. we have started working out.

Weather Obsessed!

2009-03-10T11:34:00.000-07:00

O.k. before I get into my new blog rant...more weather updates...check out these pictures around the winery! The first photo was taken two days ago and it looked like J.R. Tolkien's, "The Lord of the Rings"...if I hadn't been paying closer attention I'd think the dark side had taken over and Frodo was about to destroy the ring.

Julie a.k.a. "office princess" posed for me during our hail storm yesterday. She said I owed her big time for making her stand in the hail! I can't believe this weather!

I am so ready for warmth. Last night I bundled up in lots of flannel, a bathrobe and slippers...now that's painting a sexy picture isn't it. You know what? Who cares? It was so cold it was all about the warmth baby! Sexy "ain't comin' back" until the sun starts to shine on a regular basis.

Christmas in the winery?

2009-02-26T15:31:00.000-08:00

O.k. I hope the guys turned off the heaters!

(you can click on the picture to see the snowflakes)

Snow, snow, go away!

Christmas in February?

2009-02-26T14:54:00.000-08:00

Snow Flurries outside. Yuck.

(You can click on the photo to see the snow flurry.)

We Heart Catie!

2009-01-29T08:38:00.000-08:00

Maybe it's not cool to point out someone who wrote something cool about us but it was the shot in the arm we needed! Hey, we're only human and good news is always welcome around here. We always ponder what else should we do, what more can we do to get our name out there? Contrary to popular belief about folks in the wine world we work with a relatively moderate budget. So we have to be pretty creative with our marketing dollars. We wish we had a marketing crystal ball. We have an amazing winemaker on board, Steffan, and he has an amazing right hand man, Kevin who has an amazing left hand (???) hmmm maybe it's another right hand man, Sam! We have a great tasting room "princess", Julie and the only folks that really cause any hitches in our giddy-up are Amber and me! That's our job!!! :-) It's been cold, somewhat gloomy, we're working on budget numbers (yuck)and listening to the news and I was starting to feel a little gloomy yesterday. THEN this morning I noticed a nice little pop-up message that said there is a blog you should read.

Guess what comes next? I came to work, the sun is shining, let me repeat, the sun is actually shining! I almost lost my eyesight due to the brightness that I am not used to :-) which actually is a good thing. I sat down held my breath and I opened Catie's blog. With each word I sat a little straighter in my chair, felt my smile start to widen, and even felt a little extra spring in my step. Then I brought Steffan in and mentioned that "the guys", he and my dad Gary, got a well deserved shout out too!

Catie thanks for adding even more Walla Walla sunshine to our day! Catie's site "Through the Walla Walla Grapevine" made it to the top 100 wine blogs at #32. You go girl! "and keep doin' what you do" See Catie's Blog

Our Traveling Companion

2009-01-22T11:51:00.000-08:00

Dear Blog Leader,
Guess who's baaaaaack. O.k., you have to have read my earlier post from this morning to understand what this is about but Amber reminded me that we really wanted to put a picture of yet another bottle of our wine that is better traveled than we are! Our 2003 Intuition spent Christmas Day in Botswana, Africa on the fingers of the Okavango Delta. After receiving this picture from Emilio, thank you Emilio, I needed to do a little geographical research to see just exactly where our (rather, Emilio's) Intuition spent its last day. Emilio did share that the folks there were impressed with the wine. He also was also lucky enough to visit the wine country in Stellenbosch, Paarl and Franschoek.

For those of you who are geographically savvy please bear with me. One quick disclaimer...this paragraph and the next one are kind of (pretty much) plagiarized...I really could not say it better. Botswana is a landlocked country located in Southern Africa. It has land borders with Zimbabwe in the northeast, South Africa in the south and southeast and with Namibia to the west. In Northern Botswana, the Okavango River flows in from Namibia, and soaks into the sands to form the Okavango Delta, easily accessed via Maun.

The Okavango is a labyrinth of lagoons, lakes and hidden channels covering an area of over 17,000 square km and the largest inland delta in the world. Trapped in the parched Kalahari sands it is a magnet for the wildlife who depend on the permanent waters of this unique feature.

O.k. I'm back, Emilio also captured this beautiful photo of a Jaguar that I had to include. I really want to pet it and rub it and kiss it! Too beautiful. (yes I know he or she would likely mar me but still...so beautiful.)

All of us here appreciate the wonderful bottle shots and our friends who share our wine with folks all over the world. Wine truly has no borders and we would add it makes friends with anyone open to giving it a try! Cheers Emilio!

Dear Blog Leader...whoever you are!

2009-01-22T09:22:00.000-08:00

My first order of business in the New Year is to say to all you bloggers out there (to borrow a phrase from Bobby Flay) keep doin' what you do best! My hat (if I wore one) would be off to you for your perseverance and enthusiasm for keeping your posts current. Here is my confession, Dear Blog Leader, my last post was November 2008...I will try my hardest to keep my blog current so that our friends will not have to keep reading the same old information!

O.k...down to business...
What's going on...Oh, oops one more thing, Dear Blog Leader...Amber and I did not wish Julie, our office Princess, Happy Birthday ON her birthday which was in December. In our defense she was on VACATION however that doesn't totally excuse us. We did make it up to her by pretending we forgot then giving her (unwrapped) because we were so proud of ourselves and because it was sent to the winery, a beautiful Pandora charm for the lovely charm bracelet her husband gave to her for Christmas. We believe we have been forgiven.

Oh...Dear Blog Leader...two more things...I ignored the world for about a week as I read through the 4 book Twilight series. Can you say "addicted!?" I also fell in love with "The Bucket List" movie. I've had many friends tell me I'm a little slow on the uptake because they saw this movie "way back when" (here's what I hear in my head, blah blah blah) and because Ellen DeGeneres, on her show, always talks about it...well, darn it! In my friend's eyes, and now possibly yours, I'm obviously not current on my movies so however belated I am I really LOVE this movie. It made me sit down and think, and then walk around and think and then think again as I'm typing right now. It really illustrates the amazing relationship two people can have going through the same intense life experience. I really felt for Morgan Freeman's wife in the movie and on the same note, understood he needed to go through this experience. That's all I'm going to say just in case any of you out there have yet to see the movie...Wow are you behind the time with your movies! :-)

O.k. now, really down to business...

At the winery - the boys are racking our white wines and they are, to borrow a phrase from Rachel Ray, "yumm-o!" Already nice balance, great acidity...keeps your mouth totally happy. To borrow yet another phrase, "that's a good thing." Steffan is in a fun state of mind, this is the part where he is intense, still fun, but truly focused on putting together the best blend or varietal he possibly can. What I admire about Steffan is that he is an artist yet he's not selfish about his wine making. So, some purists out there may say that is not being true to himself however, he is truly spending time learning and thinking about our wine consumer's palate. How can he best reflect the wines from our region, make a wine he is proud to call his own and that reflects the style we have with our wines at Bergevin Lane. We respect him for that and love his work.

Hmmmmm, I have happy fingers...dear Blog Leader, I guess I do miss this blogging thing, I can't keep up with my thoughts as I try to fill everyone in on what's going on at the winery...I'm wondering if a blog can be too long, or if I should save some for later...oh well, I'll keep on typing!

Events: Annette is off to Arizona for Taste Washington Phoenix the third week of February. In addition Annette (that's me - this third person thing is weird) will be doing a tasting at Flemming's on Feb. 15th, the TASTE on Feb. 17th and a wine dinner in Tucson at the new Ritz Carlton on the 18th. Somewhere in there Annette, HA starting to like this third person thing, will be trying to lay by a pool. My only fear is that the glare from her (my) skin may blind someone.

O.k...I'm so done with the third person thing...you are now stuck with "me" again.

Steffan, the same week, will be off to Texas for Taste Washington Austin. Yee Haw, Amber says he will totally enjoy working in that market. I think he enjoys checking out different states in the U.S. Kevin, Steffan's right hand man, is getting ready to have a new baby girl. He is very excited and we love the fact that it's scheduled...wouldn't want this to interfere with our Calico Bottling...O.k., o.k....I'm totally teasing, just in case you thought I was serious....well, we would miss Kevin for the bottling, however we all believe BABY FIRST!

We have a new wonderful guy named Sam. We have all decided that he is the best fit ever with our team. He can put up with all the girls in the office, and the boys in the production area, always has a smile on his face and rocks out with his iPod Touch. Did I mention he always has a smile on his face. Who else can claim that? Whatta guy.

The winery looks like a hurricane blew through it...that is because we have two different wineries with supplies for bottling in here. We are racking our initial Calico White blend and taking the wine off of the fermentation lees so that we can go clean to bottle. We'll leave our Viognier in barrels a little bit longer. We are also working on our wine club shipments for our beloved CLUB SWIRL! This is the time of year where Amber, bless her heart, works her tail off and we love her for it. She also frantically runs from her office to the tasting room and mumbles under her breath about how busy she is and how relaxed we look. I usually engage at this point, shame on me, and make her come look at my awful spreadsheets that I'm staring at. At the end of the day and after a nice glass of wine we forget how crazy the day is and remember how much we love the fruits of our labor!

I think that's it...actually I'm tired of typing (Dear Blog Leader...do bloggers admit this?) so will write more later...there are 10,000 other things I must be missing....oops must add that we are going to Portland the first week in March for Taste Walla Walla Portland! Amber and I will pour for this event at the Portland Art Museum and follow this up the next night with a wine dinner at the FiveSpice Bistro, on behalf of the Classic Wine Auction, benefiting the Metropolitan Family Service, New Avenues for Youth, Friends of Children - Portland, Trillium Family Services and the YWCA Clark County. We are excited to be paired with Brooks Winery of Oregon.

We have been talking a lot about the economy and the uncertainties facing us now and in the future. With this in mind, we would like to wish you all peace in your heart, perseverance to plow through the tough times, a big shoulder to lean on, the clarity to celebrate challenges conquered and at the end of a tough day, loved ones and a good glass of wine to make it all feel better!

Select Wines by Design

2008-11-04T09:23:00.000-08:00

I was poking around the internet and saw a fun interview Amber did with Tim of Select Wines by Design. Since she doesn't write for our blog (yet), I thought I'd share her interview. I think I'll get Amber to write a blog note for our website...wish me luck.

Click on the link below to read her interview.

Amber's Interview

Memories

2008-10-29T12:20:00.000-07:00

We celebrated a late birthday for my dad last week and went over to his house for dinner. The dinner was wonderful. My brother Robert brought sauteed Pheasant for an appetizer plus we had some great cheese and bread. Next we moved to the main course which was the most perfectly roasted beef tenderloin I have had in quite some time with garlic-cheese-mashed potatoes and a salad with candied walnuts, fruit and amazing greens. I was responsible for dessert so, having worked all day I decided to take the easy road and went over to the Patisserie. They have wonderful dessert options and you really can never go wrong! So, did my family get my home made touch? nope...but they got a wonderful ending to a fabulous dinner.

The point of my story was not to talk about the dinner itself but some of the wine we drank with dinner. We had a 2005 Cayuse Camespelo, 1996 Chateau Montelena Cabernet Sauvignon and a 1992 Dunn Vineyards Howell Mountain Cabernet Sauvignon. When I ran over to the newly opened bottle of the Dunn, I poured myself a rather large glass then proceeded to sink my nose into the glass. I was immediately overcome with this totally nostalgic feeling and I laughed to myself. Here are my crazy thoughts...most people smell something and it reminds them of an event in their past...maybe a campfire outside, or perfume or a smell that reminds them of visiting their grandparents. Some people hear a song and remember an old friend or something they were doing in an earlier part of their life. I haven't really had a nostalgic feeling in a long time, or at least that I can remember, and all of a sudden I was overtaken with a feeling of my young adulthood. O.k., more specifically my early 20's. It came with the smell of the Dunn Howell Mountain Cabernet...the deep cherry, the earth and intensity that filled my nose shot me back to the late 80's when my dad would share a glass with me. I remember this being the first wine I loved. I have 10 billion great memories of the Dunn Cabernet because it is the wine my dad would take out when I would come home for special occasions. I think he did this because he knew I loved it...(I think he did too). So, dad...(and Randy Dunn) thanks for the memories!

Wine to Barrel

2008-10-03T13:41:00.000-07:00

Our first red wine of the year has been pressed to barrel. It's Merlot from Stone Tree. Beautiful color and concentration. We filled four barrels with free run juice (no squeezy, squeezy) just pure juice that gently drains into a highly sanitized holding tank that is then gently pumped into an empty barrel. Somewhere in all the gentleness a hose must have tried to jump ship because Steffan is about 75% purple. He has wine "legs" on his legs...actually little rivers of purple stains that flowed down his leg. His sweatshirt and shorts that were once gray have a nice hue of purple on them as well. I congratulated him then said, "good job, only 98.5% more wine to barrel down until you're done!"

Harvest is here!

2008-09-25T13:23:00.000-07:00

Oooooh, don't you wish you could smell the amazing aroma of vinifera grapes fermenting? I inhale as deeply as I can each morning when I walk into the winery.

It's September 25th and we have so far brought in Merlot and Syrah. Today we will receive our first Viognier fruit.

Today I tank tested the Merlot with Steffan and it is already showing amazing fruit flavors and an elegance with structure and intensity. We have one lot of Merlot almost dry and the remaining Merlot still has some time to go through primary fermentation.

I drove last Friday to pick up Merlot from the Wahluke Slope and the first picture shows just about all you see on the way there. The 2nd photo is from Stone Tree Vineyards. The last photo is me driving our bad boy dodge with about 6 tons of fruit. The games have begun!

The Accidental Work Out

2008-09-25T12:16:00.000-07:00

Last week I spent a little time in the fun city of Denver, Colorado. Talk about beautiful weather including sunny skies and temperatures in the mid to upper 70's. I did not have a car so was kind of forced to walk everywhere. In Walla Walla that doesn't always work as well because we are a little more suburban and things are not typically within "walking distance". In all reality, some things are within walking distance but our minds are programmed to hop in the car and take a drive. With fuel prices soaring we are trying to do our part to reduce our carbon foot print so with that being said I walked all over downtown Denver. I even accidentally walked 6 blocks to go work out. I was staying at the Curtis Hotel, a fun, new hotel that did not have their work out area up and running. The hotel supposedly has an in house cardio area, but I walked all over trying to find it and in my mind almost completed my workout. Then I walked to the front desk to ask where this cardio room was and they handed me a pass to the Colorado Athletic Club. So, pass in hand, no money, no credit cards or change of clothes I headed out onto the sidewalk and walked almost 7 blocks south to the club. I walked in (kind of winded) and headed towards the gym. I then walked all over the club trying to find towels thus obtaining yet another workout. After 30 minutes on the elliptical and then another 30 minutes with the weights I was ready to go. Not having a change of clothes I walked into the women's locker room and blow dried my shirt. Yep, a few folks wondered what I was doing but I was determined not to walk back to the hotel looking like a wreck.

Back to biz...I met some great folks while I was in Denver and was lucky enough to get to hang out with "D-Frol" of L'Ecole. We had fun checking out the restaurants and then I had fun picking her super intelligent, and super experienced brain on the ways of the wine world. I shared information as much as possible but when some one's being doing this longer than you've been around it's a little tough. Our schedules were completely the same and what we found out is that we have a lot in common. I'd like to list one big thing we share in common called "anal retentiveness". D-Frol, you know it's true so don't get mad! :-) It's super cool and fun to know that other folks have a need for organization as well. I didn't even need to look inside her much nicer looking folder than my worn Manila folder, I could tell you exactly what was in her file. She had all the same print-outs and trip preparedness going on that I did.

So here are a few differences from our trip. She had an amazingly successful Taste Washington Denver trade show. Perfect spot in the room and had tons of traffic to her table. I, on the other hand, was shoved in the furthest back corner of the room, blocked by another distributor directing traffic to their client wineries and then to add insult to injury our name was left out of the tasting booklet. I was amazed, shocked and embarrassed. So, I touted Bergevin Lane as the "best kept secret". I'm kind of wondering if it's still a secret that we were even there. The folks who did come to my table really enjoyed the wines and I was very proud because they were showing fantastic. I poured our 2005 Calico Red, 2005 Cabernet Sauvignon and our 2005Syrah. It was a red head day!

The next day was very fun because I did a ride-along with Elizabeth from our sales team in Denver. This is called a market visit. We were in the car from 9am until 6pm. There goes the carbon footprint but as far as we went we would've been walking for a week. We met a great group of folks and they were very receptive to Washington Wine. Here's how this stuff happens. Our distributor makes the appointments and then are kind enough to drive us around and work with us for however many days we're in the market. They devote about 98% of their day to working on our product. We drive to restaurant or retail accounts and meet the wine buyers. I would say that 95% of wine buyers are super fun, interesting people who have a passion for food, wine and the fun things in life. We sit down with the wine buyers and pull out our products. We then, wine by wine, taste through the wines. I sit excited and nervous and wait in anticipation for their response. These folks know how to taste wine so I don't tell them what they are tasting, I will share vineyards, blends and barrel treatments. Our sales rep in the meantime is hoping that because we've come all this way from the winery that we can add some additional excitement to the product. They are typically on some sort of commission so I feel obliged to help make things happen. We had a relatively good day but I learned that we still have a ways to go to get our name recognized. Not sure if it's just us or if there are so many brands out in the market that it's hard to keep track of all the wineries. The wines showed very well and we got some pretty good commitments. I would say it was a successful day. Now back to D-Frol, she went out in the market and got glass pours. For restaurant account placements that is when you do a happy dance.

Amber or I will keep traveling back to Colorado and rest assured there will be a day when Amber or I will be doing that same glass pour happy dance! You go D-Frol!!!

P.S. After D-Frol's market success she had a great dinner that evening and ordered an in-room movie (which cost almost as much as the room). I on the other hand walked, yet again, to pick up take-out food and watched cable T.V.'s "The Biggest Loser" oh, and ate a suger daddy. In house movies are a special treat for "closers!"

The Big Catch

2008-09-12T09:59:00.000-07:00

I haven't written any updates to the blog lately because we've been in kind of an in between time period. We just went to Seattle for a wonderful trade tasting, we've been at home getting ready for harvest and sitting staring and waiting for all of our tomatoes to ripen. Very Very busy! :-)

Yesterday I had a wonderful opportunity to "go fishin" with one of our Swirlies and it was fantastic! My legs are aching today from walking up the stream and making my way through rapids and over slimy slippery rocks. It was a beautiful afternoon outside of Walla Walla and I couldn't have asked for a better evening.

So, do you want the fish tale or the real story!? I had MANY fish on my line but was only able to land this bad boy shown. He was a fighter and my rod almost snapped! (HA) but after HOURS of struggle I landed him. Truth, I had a good tug, got lucky and within about 20 seconds had the little dude in my hand.

Now fisherman Bruce...a whole basement dedicated to the art of fly fishing complete with an equipment storage area, outfitting area, a library of fly fishing books and a wall of fly materials. Who said guys can't sew? He was working on each fly and had the most detailed, involved knots, including fur, fuzzy string, clipping, really no cussing to speak of and in the end this beautiful little fly was created on a hook with no barbs that made my life fabulous and frustrated in one fell swoop.

So, back to the river, we hiked, fished, looked for the next great pool and continued on all afternoon. We fished until we couldn't see our fly and decided to call it a wrap. I hadn't thought about wine for 4 1/2 hours, I hadn't thought about food or anything...just my cast, keeping my right index finger on the line, watching the drift and waiting for "THE BITE!"

We walked back to the car and it took at least 30 minutes. I realized just how lost I got in fly fishing. Then my legs realized how lost I got in fly fishing too. Thank heavens for an almost full moon. We literally walked down the river by the light of the silvery moon (pun intended). So, to each of you out there looking for an adventure...my suggestion fly fishing. It's sustainable, it's great exercise for the mind and body and it's definitely good for the soul!

(The 2nd picture shows a profile of a fly fisher woman, notice the belt around the waders to accentuate the waist...the cute little footies that slip into borrowed boots that have felt on the bottom. What I felt was a glaring omission on my part was that I was missing my fly vest and hat!...well, maybe next time.)

...several hours later

2008-08-06T13:45:00.000-07:00

...Hawkeye still on patrol, the winery is safe.

There's a new dog in the house!

2008-08-06T11:33:00.001-07:00

We have a new member of our family! We were adopted by Hawkeye, a thirteen month red bone hound. He was bred for hunting but made a personal choice that he is a pacifist and decided that guarding the winery is the life for him! Chase our vineyard boy, guards Hawkeye at night and herds him around the yard and Callie, our Calico Cat makes sure both the boys are well behaved!

Hawkeye woke up for about 10 minutes this morning to go oversee Steffan and Kevin working on some filtration out in the production area. He decided all was going well and went back to his guard position. He may wonder out to the tasting room if you come in to taste wines so please say hello. If Amber comes out he may not follow and you will hear her comment about it (with a disgusted tone - at which point you may hear me chuckle in the back office) however if I come out, most likely a little red guy with short hair and a furrowed brow will follow. He couldn't be much sweeter and we're lucky he found us!...I keep humming, "and they called it puppy love!"

Hawkeye has total confidence in our tasting room area as he spent this last weekend with both Amber and me as we entertained new and old friends. The wines are all tasting great. We're excited as some 2006 wine will soon be making its way to the tasting bar as well as some new 2005 vintages. The Rose' and Viognier are almost sold out as well as the Intuition and Princess Syrah.

P.S. We just bottled our 2006 Syrah, Cabernet Sauvignon, Barrel Select Syrah and the Intuition. Just when we think we have our ducks in a row for bottling the bottling gods throw something else at us. We'll we learned yet a few more bottling lessons but the wine got to bottle, the sun came up the next day and all was well in our Bergevin Lane universe. We'll share the lessons learned in another bottling post!

Cool Pics!

2008-07-28T14:16:00.000-07:00

So our friends sent us a picture of their latest vacation and guess who got to go with?...give up? Nope, not Amber....take another guess...nope, not Annette...that's right we stayed home and our wine got to go. Why does it get to have all the fun?! The 2007 Calico White and our 2007 Rose' went to Northern Wisconsin. Looks like fun was had by all! Thanks Schurtz family!

XOXO, Annette & Amber

Look out Calico... Duke is in the House!

2008-07-17T09:32:00.000-07:00

Well a couple of fun pics from friends this past week. First and foremost we may have a new contender for our Calico label. Duke shows off his profile and believes his svelte figure will make him our new "label boy" for future bottlings! Then he turns around an well you can see for yourself...

On another note, some very good friends went camping and they took along one of our good friends, the 2002 Calico Red. They made the Calico it's own little hammock and everything. Check out the view! Well, the Calico lives better than we do. P.S. I made them swear it was not up there for target practice. They said they would NEVER waste a good bottle of wine on that!

Library Wines

2008-06-25T12:23:00.000-07:00

We have always "saved" wine for our library and not having owned a winery before were never sure how much to save or what we should save. So, we saved everything. Well, now six years later we are learning what we should keep and how much we should keep.

Last week we did our first official library tasting. I guess in my little dream world I was anticipating a very formal setting, who knows maybe candlelight, table cloths, pewter spit buckets, beautiful crystal, an aura of elegance and then "the taste". In my imaginary world I envisioned the first taste from our library wine...the slow motion of the glass filled with liquid magic swirling as it slowly moved towards the nose, the exaggerated inhale and then the much anticipated moment..."the taste, the swirl, the swishing sound of liquid and the spit". I envisioned silence and then the lips parting in a smug smile. This would be followed by loud cheering in the background and harp music playing from the heavens, confetti dropping from the ceiling and the unstoppable flashing of cameras as the paparazzi was capturing the moment. Wow, wish I was there...

Meanwhile back in reality world, Steffan and I set up the wines, with our Riedel glassware, our plastic spit buckets and I think I had on crop pants, a t-shirt and my tennis shoes. We sat at my 6 foot plastic table with our spiral bound notebook paper and started to taste. The room was comfortably lit, (to see the color of the wine) a comfortable temperature, and a comfortableness with the tasters. We looked at the wine and set off to work. We tasted, said wow a few times and honestly had one whoa! After the tasting we let the wine sit overnight to taste again the next day.

Here's what we discovered...If it's not nailed down and the wine tastes good don't tell Amber and Julie because they will sell it! If it's an older wine don't hold back so many cases (in our case - until we learn the age-ability of our various wines)... Our 2004 Viognier is a little past its prime - drink immediately, our 2005 Viognier is tasting fantastic right now! These Viogniers are from different vineyards, different years, and have different flavor profiles. The 2002 Vintage is at a drink now stage. Our 2003 has a drink now for our Calico Red and our Cabernet Sauvignon, the Syrah is tasting really good and in the next year or so we'd recommend drinking that. We believe the 2003 Intuition can hang in there 1 - 3 years.

It was a fun two days worth of work. The anxiety has subsided, the fanfare has died down and we're plugging right along!

Brrrrrrrr...is it really June?

2008-06-06T11:11:00.000-07:00

Here's the 4-1-1 at the winery

Steffan - purple teeth

Amber - purple fingers

Julie - purple princess

Annette - purple rain, purple rain...

Steffan - purple teeth: What does this all mean? Steffan has been analyzing, tasting, tasting, tasting, spitting, analyzing, tasting, and blending his little heart out working on our 2006 Reserve Bottlings. We have had a blast tasting through some amazing Washington State Syrah while we work on our 2006 Barrel Select Syrah. It's a tough task as you probably know but someone has to do it. While I get to sit in and reap all the benefits of his selection efforts he has literally agonized over each selection, each particular barrel and how much of each specific lot to put into the final blend. I smile, walk into his tasting area and sit down and sample. Then I knowingly add my feedback and he smiles, shakes his head agrees or tells me I'm off my rocker! ;-) The good news is that although he's the expert, what has happened is that all of the sampling, barrel sampling and knowledge of the vineyards has given me the capability of understanding what components we're looking for with our wine. So many thanks to Steffan for sharing the wealth of his knowledge and sharing with Amber and I so that we continue to evolve as wine lovers too!

Amber's purple fingers...she's working on our "Killer B" wine club package...it's a lot of effort but wow, how exciting to have the most amazing wine club members ever! We love our Swirlies!!! It has been fun to listen to Amber work with our friends, old and new, who wander into the tasting room. She has been up front working on the computer so has had a chance to get out of her office and work with folks behind the bar. Kind of brings an old western tune to mind..."she's back in the saddle again..."

Julie - purple princess...Julie is managing all of our back office stuff...keeping us organized, working on the Killer B wine club package and holding down the fort. In addition, she lovingly helps many of our tasting room customers!!! Julie is the best person to work with because she has the capacity to understand our insanity and bring us in off of the ledge when we get crazy. She's fun to share recipes with and has an amazing sense of humor. Oh yeah, she's even good at what she does at work! What a bonus.

Annette - Purple Rain... Due to the awful weather (I promise not to complain when it is 100 degrees, I promise not to complain when it's 100 degrees) I have been reduced to having my brainstorms in the rainstorms! I am having a blast doing a little bit of everything such as tasting events, blending, helping out everyone at the winery...maybe I'm not a purple rain maybe I'm just the purple helper because my responsibilities seem to cross with everyone. Yep, scratch purple rain because although I've had many brainstorms...I think I'm the purple helper. I feel like I'm doing a little bit of everything...not sure if I'm doing anything well but I love variety.

Speaking of helping, we've had such great people helping and supporting us along the way, including our vineyard managers, our fellow winery owners, our great distributors and fantastic customers that we're very excited to be doing what we're doing. Life is about doing what you enjoy and even though this business is super competitive, super costly (when you're doing things on a smaller scale) and very regulated...Amber and I can truly say we love what we do!

Here's wishing each of you the ability to follow your dreams and the ambition to fulfill your heart's desires!