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Winemaker Russ Rosner and Alex Sokol Blosser are greasing their bicycle gears to get ready for the many treks they'll be making through the vineyard to sample grapes to make sure sugars levels and flavor are where they want them to be. Once they give the go-ahead, harvest will begin.
A Boy, His Big Green Eggs & Sokol Blosser Wine
Growing up on the East Coast salmon comes two ways - steaks or filets. Now, that I live in the Pacific Northwest, the Salmon Nation, I know there are many more choices than that! My local everyday supermarket will have at different times Copper River, Sockeye, Chinook, and Coho salmon depending on the time of year. You can buy the whole fish, a side, filets or steaks. In the four years that I have lived in the Pacific Northwest, I found that I love wild caught salmon from cold waters. I have also learned that I prefer to grill/smoke it as a whole piece rather than individual portions. The other thing I've learned from my time in Oregon Wine Country is that nothing goes better with salmon than Oregon Pinot Noir. Sokol Blosser’s elegant, age-worthy and food-friendly style paired particularly well with our wild salmon. Here’s how we cooked our wild, alder smoked Chinook salmon last night.
Preparation:
We bought a nice piece of wild caught Chinook (King) salmon. We removed the pin bones and lightly seasoned it with herbes d’ Provence, olive oil and Evolution Spice. Make sure you lightly season the fish; this will let the wonderful flavors of the salmon show through.
Grilling:
Our Big Green Egg, Mac, got the call to grill/smoke this wonderful piece of salmon.
• Set up the grill for direct cooking and heat it up to 300˚F.
• Remove and oil the grill grates.
• Add alder chips to the glowing coals in the grill. Alder wood was what the Native Americans of the Pacific Northwest chose cook their salmon. Alder wood adds a nice light smoke flavor to the fish.
• Put the oiled grill grate back on the grill.
• Place the salmon on the grill with the skin side up. Grill/smoke the fresh side of the fish for about 10 to 12 minutes.
• Carefully turn the fish over to the skin side and place on the grill on the edge of the fire ring. Not indirect, but not direct either. Cook for another 15 to 20 minutes or until the flesh flakes with a fork and is still moist inside. Do not overcook. At the Nagle’s this gives us a nicely cooked piece of salmon that is medium-rare.
• Just before you remove the salmon from the grill, squeeze a little lemon juice on the fish.
Wine:
Sokol Blosser Dundee Hills Pinot Noir 2005 was a terrific match for this alder smoked Chinook salmon. The wine has great mouth feel, texture and elegance. While the 2005 is drinking nicely now, I can only think of how it will develop with more time in the bottle. The question we all have to ask ourselves is how much do we buy to enjoy this summer? The second question is how much do we need to buy to enjoy over the next 5 summers? The Sokol Blosser 2005 will last more than 5 years, but not in the Nagle household. This stuff is too good!
Our Pinot Noir clusters are beginning to change color! This is an exciting time for us, as it is the first indicator that Harvest is drawing closer. "Veraison" is the winegrowing term for when the berry clusters turn color, berry by berry, until they are totally purple, telling us it's time to start sampling the grapes for sugar level and maturity.
Alex Sokol Blosser and Winemaker Russ Rosner are pumping air into their bicycle tires to get ready for the many treks they’ll make through the vineyard to sample grapes from each block to make sure sugars levels and flavor are just where they want them to be. Once they give the go-ahead to pick, Harvest will begin.
A Pinot Noir cluster from our North Concert Block is starting to turn purple.
After we make our crop estimates, we go through each row of Pinot Noir and drop any underripe fruit, making sure that each cluster left on the vine has the quality complex flavors that we want for our Pinot Noir wines.
Paparazzi spotted "wine celebutants" Evolution and Meditrina taking a much needed break from their Rat Pack, Wine X partying lifestyle. The brother and sister team made time to rest and relax on Oregon's Manzanita Coast. Rumor has it that they will be partying up and down the Coast for the rest of the Summer. Good times for all!
We had and amazing time on our first Summer Vineyard Hike this past Saturday. Though the weather started off questionably, it quickly proved to be the perfect day for a hike. The late night/early morning rain gave us just enough moisture to keep the dust down in the vineyard,which made for ideal conditions. The hikes have proven to be quite popular. We quickly sold out of both of them and have a waiting list for our final one.
We all met at 10am and set out for a 2.5 mile hike from the bottom to the top of our Certified Organic Vineyards. Along the way we stopped for wine amongst the vines, information on farming, winemaking and geology. Cellar Club members brought friends, family and their four legged friends.
The first stop we tasted our 2007 Sokol Blosser Pinot Gris. (Which was heavenly.) We then headed up to Red Ridge Farms where we tasted their delicious olive oil and toured their almost completed, olive oil press and event space. (If you have not been up to Red Ridge Farms, you must make a stop the next time you are out in the Dundee Hills. They have a beautiful nursery with sweeping views of the Red Hills.)
Next, we headed back down for a glass of our 2005 Dundee Hills Pinot Noir, followed shortly by a picnic buffet amongst the vines where we tasted our Evolution, Meditrina and 2007 Rose of Pinot Noir.
By the end of the day, we had made some great new friends, caught up with some old ones and left with large smiles on all of our faces. Thanks to all of you who made our first hike so special. For those who did not make it in to these hikes, don’t fret, we will most certainly be doing this again soon.
-Hiker Knapp
A Boy, His Big Green Eggs & Sokol Blosser Wines
When you stroll up to the butcher counter and you are trying to decide on which steak to buy, the choices at times can be difficult. You know your wife loves the tenderness of filet and you love the texture and flavor of the NY strip. Well, there are two cuts of steak that can make both people happy, the T-bone and the porterhouse. These bone-in meats have the NY strip on one side of the bone and the filet on the other side. What’s the difference between the T-bone and the porterhouse you ask? Well, simply put, the porterhouse tends to have a larger portion filet than the T-bone. A great, grilled steak and a happy wife, the makings of a very enjoyable evening!
Preparation:
Season your T-bone with fresh cracked pepper, rosemary and olive oil. Cover and refrigerator over night. Remove from the refrigerator 15 minutes before grilling and season with sea or kosher salt.
Salad:
Caramelize some onions with herbs de Provence, add pitted olives and hold warm until the steak is resting off the grill. Just before serving the steak add baby arugula to the onion and olive mixture. Season with salt and pepper, drizzle with olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Mix together until arugula starts to wilt. This takes less than a minute. Divide the arugula salad on the dinner plates and top with blue cheese (we used Rogue Creamery Blue Cheese from Southern Oregon). While my first choice is fresh and local, Maytag Blue from Ohio or Colston Basset Stilton from England would do very nicely. Blue cheese not your thing? Try it with your local goat cheese, or Coach Farms in Hudson Valley, or Humboldt Fog from the Bay area.
Grilling:
Our Big Green Egg, Medford, grilled this well seasoned T-bone for about 3 minutes a side a 650˚F+. I grilled the steak without the rosemary on the meat for the first side. After I turned and flipped the meat and added the rosemary sprigs on top of the meat while the second side cooked.. We removed the T-Bone when the meat was medium-rare. We let the meat rest for a couple of minutes, then removed the meat from the bone. We sliced the filet into strips and fanned it out on the dinner plates. We then did the same with the NY Strip.
Wine:
Tonight it was my wife’s choice. Did she choose the Shafer Hillside Select, the Pio Cesare Barolo or our beloved Meditrina? No, tonight her choice was the Sokol Blosser 12 Row Pinot Noir 2003. For those of you who have had the rare pleasure of enjoying Pinot Noir from this 1 acre site, 12 rows, 60 vines per row, a little gem in the middle of our vineyard; it is a treat to say the least. During harvest 2003, Mother Nature gave us one of the warmest growing seasons of recent history. It took this usually expressive part of our vineyard and as Emeril would say, kicked it up a notch. Our winemaking team took the power and ripeness of this vintage and blended its strengths with the finesse and elegance that is Sokol Blosser Pinot Noir. I think of Sokol Blosser Pinot Noir as elegant, age-worthy and food friendly. The 2003 Sokol Blosser Pinot Noirs, especially the 12 Row, I think of a blend of power, restraint and finesse. This pumped up Sokol Blosser Pinot Noir from 2003 is a great steak Pinot Noir! Get some while the last bottles still exist. Call Rodolphe in the Tasting Room at 503.864.2282 x 10, he may have a few bottles stashed away.