Sokol Blosser Wine Blog

The Living Room at the W Hotel in Minneapolis, MN was a hot spot with the Sokol Blosser crowd last night! Alison Sokol Blosser received a warm welcome in the Minnesota area by over 75 Minneapolis Cellar Club members and customers, many of whom had been out to the Winery in Dundee, Oregon before. The Living Room staff members were friendly and accomodating, and a good time (and good wine!) was had by all. Cheers!

L to R: Priscilla Spray, Mike Braun, Sue Cook, Alison Sokol Blosser, Tom Cook and Karleen Braun.

A note from Alison:
"I take back the excitement I shared with everyone last night about my looking forward to today’s snow storm. It wasn’t as fun as I thought it would be. A couple appointments cancelled and then my wine dinner at Spill the Wine got cancelled as well. At one point earlier today the conditions were quite blizzard like. So, I’m sitting in my hotel room watching the snow fall and swirl outside. It is pretty but a bit messy. I guess Minneapolis is used to it though and the streets will be neat and tidy by tomorrow (I hope!)."

Posted by Kitri McGuire, Marketing Communications Manager at 04:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Well last evening was not one of my finest hours in the USA!

I worked busily away on all the compliance issues of the day... know that probably sounds boring to you all but the day was punctuated by playing with Alex Sokol Blosser’s dog Andre (he loves chasing his football, but is not so good at giving it back to you!), having lunch outside for the first time since summer and generally being thankful for the lovely environment I work in here at Sokol Blosser.

Happily driving home along highway 99W, I was turning a corner when all of a sudden I had no steering! Very scary, and then all the emergency warning lights came on and I knew I had to get my car off the highway quickly. Luckily I was close to King City and was able to drive into the parking area. I was unable to park on the correct angle which brought me to the attention of the local sheriff! I am presuming he thought I may have had a few too many of our lovely product before I drove home I was able to explain to him in my kiwi accent that my car needed to be towed and he then was very helpful. So AAA were called and within 15 minutes my little car was being dragged onto the back of an Anderson Towing truck and my friendly tow truck driver Daniel was taking us both to Metro Car Care to establish what the problem was.

What does this all have to do with wine you are probably thinking! Well when my good friend Janis picked me up from Metro Car Care I was driven home and had the most wonderful meal I have had in a long time. It was a simple Chicken Caesar Salad with homemade salad dressing. It was undoubtedly the best Caesar I have ever had!

Here is the recipe:

1 cup mayonnaise
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
2 cloves garlic crushed
¼ tsp salt
1/8 tsp pepper
½ cup parmesan cheese
1 tbsp milk

Mix all above ingredients together and toss in with cubed cooked chicken and some nice chilled romaine or iceberg lettuce. But the final ingredient to make this a perfect meal was my glass of Sokol Blosser Pinot Gris. The match was made in heaven – the slight lemony dressing flavor brought out that exact same flavor in our Pinot Gris! ENJOY!

So the moral of this story is that if you have good friends, good food and great wine the troubles of your day don’t matter!

Posted by Kim Robertson, Accounting at 10:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Things have been pretty busy around here as our Vineyard crew and Cellar guys prepare for the upcoming 2009 vineyard season and our next round of blending and bottling.

In the Vineyard, Luis Hernandez, our Vineyard Manager of over 20 years, and his crew have been pruning our entire estate vineyards and just finished with the last block of Pinot Noir yesterday. Today they are putting up a deer fence around our new Blackberry Block of Pinot Noir - our one year old Pinot Noir vines there are very tasty to the local wildlife. We are all looking forward to the arrival of Spring and budbreak!

In the Winery, our Winemaker Russ Rosner is prepping for his most stressful day of the year - Pinot blending. On Monday, he will taste through 170 barrels of Pinot Noir and establish which barrels will make up our 2007 Dundee Hills Pinot Noir, 2007 Estate Cuvée Pinot Noir, 2007 Goosepen Block Pinot Noir, 2007 Big Tree Block Pinot Noir, and our new single block, 2007 Peach Tree Block Pinot Noir. Bottling of those Pinots will begin at the end of March and they will be released in Fall 2009.

From the Sokol Blosser family to yours... cheers!

Posted by Kitri McGuire, Marketing Communications Manager at 10:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Sokol Blosser Winery began bottling on February 11 with our 2008 Dundee Hills Pinot Gris. Check out our great crew topping each bottle with a 100% recycled paper "T-Cap", which protects the cork without using a foil capsule.

Posted by Kitri McGuire, Marketing Communications Manager at 10:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

(From our 2008 Sustainability Report)

An unprecedented amount of attention was given to the term sustainability in 2008. We saw mainstream companies begin to market their green efforts and there were more footprints left by our carbon than our shoes. But while we believe that all this attention for the environment is a good thing, it is also presents new challenges to us as well. How do we maintain the impact and validity of words like “sustainability” when hundreds if not thousands of companies are carving out their own definitions of it? Some do this out of an earnest desire to better explain and execute what is a complex ideal but others redefine the terms to better suit their needs. We continue to use The Natural Step to help direct and measure our setbacks and accomplishments. We feel that our setbacks are just as important as the latter because they remind us that sustainable business is not a project that you complete but rather a perspective that must be maintained.

To see the complete report go to: http://www.sokolblosser.com/PDFs/SB_Sustainability_08.pdf

Posted by Michael Brown, Direct Sales Manager at 11:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It was Friday around four when I heard someone say chocolate and wine - what a great idea! Michael and Rodolphe were treating the staff to a sneak preview of Sokol Blosser’s upcoming Valentine’s Day Pinot Noir and Chocolate event that’s going on this Saturday. We started out with our 2006 Estate Pinot Noir paired with 100% cocoa crumbles. Then we tried the 2006 Dundee Hills Pinot Noir with 75% cocoa shavings followed by my favorite Meditrina {5} paired with 50% cocoa sticks. To finish off the tasting we enjoyed a soft fluffy mini-cake paired with 2006 Estate White Riesling. If the event is anything like the sneak peek our staff experienced, you don’t want to miss out. This tasting is a real treat.

Our next stop was Argyle, where we enjoyed a variety of different wines and sparkling wine. My favorite was their Minus Five Dessert Wine. No surprise here, Lisa’s top pick was their sparkling Rose, which tasted great. The Blanc de Blanc and Brut were some other favorites from the group. You really can’t go wrong with any of their sparkling wine. For an interesting, spooky story make sure to ask about Argyle’s ghost.

Our final destination was Hunters Ridge Grill in Sherwood for our annual accounting dinner. Our accounting crew includes Lisa, our direct order and AP expert, Kiwi Kim our compliance/tax and AR guru, myself (Scott), I reconcile our general ledger and am learning our costing system, and our Controller Barbara, who keeps us all in line and also works on forecasts, budgeting and financial analysis. We also adopted Lauren for the evening. She is Alex and Alison’s assistant; she also makes sure our staff gets paid, and she does our HR.

Hunters Ridge Grill is a great restaurant that’s located just off Hwy 99. It has a nice atmosphere, friendly servers, tasty food, and a great wine selection. We started out with luscious green salads and creamy soups. For my main course I ordered the Flat Iron Steak that was resting on top of mushrooms and was topped with spinach and blue cheese. The bacon and potato cake was a great side that complemented the perfectly grilled steak. Lauren had a red trout fillet accompanied by fresh green beans and crawfish beignets. Barbara and Kim had the daily special, a delicious-looking fresh fish dinner. Lisa enjoyed the juicy fillet mignon. Everything smelled great and looked really tasty. Our 2002 Dundee Hills Pinot Noir was the perfect match for the occasion. I have to say that this was the best meal that I have had in a long time. Hunters Ridge went beyond our expectations and delivered us an outstanding dinner experience.

Oh so Eeexcellent!!!

Note from the accountant:
2 years and some change to write my first blog, hope it was worth the wait. Stay tuned - my next blog will hit the monitor screen in Spring 2009. Until then, let the numbers do the talking.

Posted by Scott Palmer, Accountant at 10:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Our Vineyard Manager of over 20 years, Luis Hernandez, and his crew are pruning their way down the hill and should be completed with our estate vineyards by the end of this week. They’ve been doing this for years and are quite efficient in cane selection and pulling brush. The sunny weather is nice but makes it harder to pull the brush off the canopy, since the branches are stiffened in the heat and less pliable. When the crew is done then there will be lots of trellising to do in the Blackberry, Old Vineyard, and 42-Row Blocks. Pruning is the beginning of the season for us in the vineyard - here’s to a nice growing season in 09!

Posted by Alex Sokol Blosser at 08:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We've begun the final step in getting our wines ready to drink - bottling. Our mobile bottling line arrived yesterday and bottling of our 2008 Dundee Hills Cuvée Pinot Gris officially started today. Tomorrow we will bottle our 2008 Rosé of Pinot Noir and a fun new white for this year, 2008 Early Muscat. We will continue bottling through April.

Thanks to our winemaking team for all of their hard work!

Posted by Kitri McGuire, Marketing Communications Manager at 11:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Join Co-President Alex Sokol Blosser for a fun tasting of Sokol Blosser wines at the Double Helix Boutique at the Palazzo Hotel from 5pm-7pm on Thursday, February 19th!

Double Helix Boutique
The Shoppes at The Palazzo
3327 Las Vegas Blvd S
Las Vegas, NV 89109

Don't miss out on this great opportunity to sample Sokol Blosser wine favorites and meet second generation winegrower Alex Sokol Blosser. We'll see you there!

Posted by Kitri McGuire, Marketing Communications Manager at 11:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I kicked off my week long trip to S. California with a “cocktail” party at the trendy Ma’Kai Lounge in Santa Monica. It was wonderful to see so many club members and wine fans last Monday night at Ma’Kai. I served five SB wines paired with small plates artfully prepared by the Chef at Ma’Kai. For those who attended, you know how tasty the food was. Here are some pictures of club members and friends who braved LA traffic to join me that night.

Another highlight of my stay in LA was spending three nights at the new, “softly opened” Shangri-La Hotel right on the beach in Santa Monica (conveniently enough, just two blocks from Ma’Kai). My room was beautiful, and the best part was definitely the ocean view. Watching the sun set over the Pacific was truly breathtaking. Now, I say “softly opened” because the hotel is still under construction.

This picture shows the fabulous pool deck area with bar and cabana area that is still being completed. They will also have a restaurant. And, of course, you will be able to get a glass of Evolution by the pool when it opens or a bottle of Pinot in the fine restaurant (expected April-ish).

Posted by Alison Sokol Blosser at 08:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Check out Founder Susan Sokol Blosser's essay on Dundee, celebrating Oregon's 150th Birthday! Her story will be featured on the Oregon 150 website through February.

Dundee, Oregon, 2009: One Stoplight and Three Gourmet Restaurants

Posted by Kitri McGuire, Marketing Communications Manager at 03:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It’s only been four days since the Sokol Blosser team returned from Bend and I am already itching to return. What’s not to love about sunny blue skies in February and a town full of super friendly Oregonians?

Lee Medina and Jeff Knapp

This past week Sokol Blosser (myself, Jeff Knapp, Cellar Club Manager, and Lee Medina, Brand Ambasador and wine guru) rolled over the pass and into Bend to bring the winery to our Cellar Club members. It was our way to say “thank you” to our most valued supporters. We held the event at Typhoon Restaurant. NW locals will probably recognize Typhoon. They have locations in Portland, Gresham, Beaverton, Redmond, Seattle and Bend. They are long time supporters of Sokol Blosser and happen to make amazing Thai cuisine from only the freshest of seasonal ingredients that pair perfectly with our white blend, Evolution as well as our red blend, Meditrina. General manager Ben Forsythe and his staff put together and amazing spread of food and outstanding service. We had a great time catching up with Bend area club members, sampling both the Evolution, Meditrina and our 2006 Dundee Hills Pinot Noir.

Our friendly hosts at Typhoon!

While in town, we also had the pleasure of visiting some local accounts that were currently pouring our wines. Staccato Restaurant was one of the memorable stops. We especially enjoyed the Bruschetta: oven roasted Tuscan bread layered with prosciutto, Bartlett pears and cambazola with a bottle of our Dundee Hills Pinot Gris. I must recommend that you make it a point to get to Staccato to try this dish. It was one of the most memorably delicious things we’d had in a long time. We also headed over to Marz bistro and had a delightful mushroom mu shu.

The trip was a whirlwind. I wish we could have stayed and seen and visited even more, but the winery calls. Thanks Bend, for being so supportive of Sokol Blosser. We will be back to see you soon, but hopefully we will see some of you out this way between now and then!

Posted by Jeff Knapp, Cellar Club Manager at 03:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)