Sokol Blosser Wine Blog

I recently traveled to the Chicago area to make the "Windy City" a safer place for Sokol Blosser wines. Chicago is a great town normally and an awesome town when the White Sox win the World Series. After 88 years the Sox did it!

Now, I am not a White Sox fan (A Philly Boy through and through), but what a celebration! I was at Ditka’s Restaurant and everyone was cheering for the Sox to win the 14-inning battle, even the Cubs fans! There I am cheering on Chicago, enjoying a glass of Evolution (Ms. Ditka’s favorite) and having too much fun! This is a "work night" I will not soon forget.

P.S. If any of the Sokol Blossers read this, I really was working hard. I was spending money in an account that has been pouring Evolution for more than 3 years. I hope I can work this hard every night!

Posted by Scott Nagle, National Brand Manager at 11:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today was the last day of harvest. Great timing too, as it was a beautiful, sunny day and about 63 degrees. Too bad we couldn't have had this weather a couple weeks ago.

2005 will go down in history as being a very small harvest. We brought in just 83 tons of Pinot Noir, which is 36% less than last year's harvest. But, the fruit looks good and we're optimistic about the 2005 vintage!

Here's a picture of Alex taking the last load of pomace(primarily stems) down to our compost piles.

Congratulations on another great harvest!

Posted by Alison Sokol Blosser at 12:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

What a day it was! I picked my first grapes!

The full time staff here at Sokol Blosser decided to pick a few rows in the Old Vineyard Block - the oldest vines on our property and the first planted by Bill and Susan Sokol Blosser in 1971.

Yumm - what good juice!

Posted by Scott Nagle, National Brand Manager at 11:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Our crew has been working a lot of hours lately to bring in and process all our fruit at the optimal time. My brother, Alex, works harvest, and his adorable twin boys (my nephews) often come up to check on the progress.

Well, on Saturday, our cousin, Joni Sokol, caught Nikolas doing a little more than just checking on the progress - he was trying to help!

One day, Nikolas, you'll be able to drive that tractor just like your dad!

Posted by Alison Sokol Blosser at 12:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Since ancient Roman times, October 11th has officially been celebrated as Meditrinalia Day. Given that we are trying to restore the Roman goddess of wine and health, Meditrina, to her rightful place in history, we planned a big party in her honor (and to celebrate the second release of our Meditrina wine) on Saturday, October 8th.

To get people in the spirit, we held a toga contest (great idea, Patty!). We gave five people white sheets and let them get creative. We asked them to keep it PG-13... and they almost did.

The were two winners, Bryan and Jen, two unrelated Meditrina and togo fanatics. Kudos go to them for letting their hair down and showing us how the Romans really do it.

Another key component to a successful Meditrinalia Day was the presence of Karen LaBonte and Mark Bernetich (Hayden's Lakefront Grill in Tualatin). Karen prepared some delicious Mediterranean appetizers and brought her beautifully- and painstakingly-restored 1947 GMC truck. Can we take a spin in that through the vineyard? Just kidding!

May the roman goddess of wine and health, Meditrina, bless you all with plenty of both!

Posted by Alison Sokol Blosser at 12:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Compost — that magic elixir that builds soil, healthy grapevines, and fabulous fruit. At Sokol Blosser, we’ve learned to make our own. We’re making it now. Here’s the recipe:

First we assemble the ingredients: 10 tons of organic cow manure from a local dairy; 100 bales of organic straw, and all the grape pomace (stems and seeds) from our harvest.

Then our crew alternates layers of straw, manure, and pomace, starting and ending with straw. The piles are about 100 feet long and 6 feet high. We let them sit for 12 months and then spread the resulting rich, humusy compost in the vineyards and build the next year’s piles.

Posted by Susan Sokol Blosser at 11:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

To celebrate the beginning of Fall, my husband and I decided it couldn’t be better timing for our 2nd Annual Wine Party. We invited a limited amount of our close friends and family and came up with some fun hors d oeuvres to pass around through the night. The purpose of this party is not only to visit with friends, but to deplete some of our wine inventory. Because we have been buying wine for more than 5 years now, we have quite a collection and have decided that our party’s will be a good way to taste several wines in one night without having to throw unused wines away.

Among our list of wines for the evening, we had some Australian wines, red blends, California Cab’s and of course, Oregon Pinot Noir. Working at a winery makes it very easy to accumulate every vintage that is released, so I was excited to break in to some library Sokol Blosser Pinot. We opened a bottle of 1998 Willamette Valley Pinot Noir, which was a favorite of many and gone within a few minutes. Very fruit forward, a little herbal, earthy flavors and a nice smooth finish.

If you are wanting to do a wine tasting party of your own, having a group of 10-15 is nice because it is small enough to mingle and easy on the chef. We started out a little quiet, so I had some “Wine Word Scramble� and “True or False Wine Facts� for people to figure out. It was a great way for people to see how much they know about wine and we gave out small prizes to the winners and ‘losers’. (We figured they need something too.)

Posted by Patty Meuchel, Tasting Room Manager at 11:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We brought in about half our estate Pinot Noir last week before the rain really started.

Since the forecast is for 2 weeks of cool unstable weather, ending with more rain, we will bring in as much as we can during the dry times.

Overall the grapes look good and are holding up well considering the punishment they are taking from the wet weather. If we thought it would be sunny next week, we would wait, but with no sun in sight, we are going ahead, as are most of our vineyard neighbors.

Undesirable weather - it’s all part of farming. Always something unexpected which keeps us on our toes, makes harvest such a stressful (and exciting) time, and makes our fruit so valuable.

Posted by Susan Sokol Blosser at 11:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)