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Our Winery is now full to the brim of empty glass bottles... soon to be filled with Evolution, Lucky Edition.
A peek into the mobile bottling line.
Coming soon to a store/restaurant near you!
A finished pallet... 1 pallet = 56 cases = 672 bottles = 3360 glasses of delicious Evolution, Lucky Edition!
Enjoy four delicious courses paired with Sokol Blosser wines for only $55 at Hunter's Ridge Grill in Sherwood, Oregon! Join Lee Medina at this local hotspot on Sunday, March 29th, where Chef Amy will create unique dishes with Northwest style and elegance. The evening begins at 6pm with passed hors d'oeuvres.
Seating is very limited. Please contact Hunter's Ridge Grill at 503.625.1912. We'll see you there!
We're excited - the our mobile bottling truck just arrived, and the first bottling of our Evolution, Lucky Edition (our 13th Edition, which we're calling "Lucky" to keep the superstitious among us happy!) will begin tomorrow.
This first bottling will be five days a week until April 2, and we'll bottle 18,000 cases of Evolution, Lucky Ed. and 8,000 cases of Meditrina {6}. Phew! Wish us luck!
In 2008, we used a lot of wind to make a lot of wine! According to Portland General Electric, our purchases of Clean Wind power throughout the year reduced the Winery's carbon footprint by 55,509 lbs of CO2.
That equates to 61,682 automobile miles NOT driven or 3,332 trees planted!
To learn more about sustainability at Sokol Blosser, please visit our Good to the Earth website page at www.sokolblosser.com/vineyard/good_to_the_earth.html. There you can learn more about our certified organic practices, our LEED Certified barrel cellar, our solar panel array or download our 2008 Sustainability Report. Cheers!
With it snowing in the vineyard today, I thought everyone might like to take a quick look back 3 months to when Sokol Blosser Winery saw two fantastic feet of snow in our vineyards. Check out these fabulous photos, taken by McMinnville photographer extraordinaire, Doreen L. Wynja. Cheers!
Our LEED Certified Barrel Cellar.
Some of our Müller-Thurgau vines with a barn backdrop.
Sokol Blosser Tasting Room.
More Müller vines with the red farmhouse in the background.
Our Walnut Block of Pinot Noir vines.
What pairs well with pork? Sokol Blosser Pinot Noir, of course! Sokol Blosser was happy to be part of Cochon 555 this past Sunday, pouring our 2006 Dundee Hills Pinot Noir and 2006 Estate Pinot Noir to go along with some fabulous pork dishes prepared by some of Portland’s top chefs. All the food was phenomenal, but my personal favorite dish was the truffled consommé royale from Paley’s Place – you can never go wrong with shaved black truffles. The event also had a demonstration of a whole hog being broken down, then the different cuts auctioned off. A couple of our Cellar Club members were lucky enough to go home with a gigantic pork loin and some cheek. Thanks to everyone who came out to the event and stopped our table to drink our wine and say hello!
It’s the second night of the Oregon Wine Symposium and over 800 wine enthusiasts have descended on the Eugene area. For over a week now I have been asking everyone I meet: “Have you heard of Bruno’s Chefs Kitchen?” From Eugene locals, wine writers and general foodies, no one had heard of this place. I was beginning to get nervous; I found reference to the restaurant through Yelp.com and had since became very excited and talked it up to my coworkers. Before getting to Eugene I feared we may not get a table, half an hour before dinner I feared the restaurant may not be real! How can no one have heard of this place? I’ll tell you….
Bruno’s Chef's Kitchen is one of the best little gems I have found in a long while. Talk about food and service just for the love of the craft. Off the beaten path in Eugene, Oregon lies a little oasis lacking in pretention but thick with exotic flavors and warm service. Tom “Bruno” and Bessie Bollag opened Chef’s Kitchen over 15 years ago as an easy place for people to get high quality food quickly and affordably. It has evolved into a fine dining establishment with a great deal of soul.
We started our meal with an appetizer of seared tuna sashimi and some barbequed baby back ribs. WOW, both were delicious with our Evolution and be careful of that wasabi! HELLO! Next we had a lovely hearts of palm salad with red peppers, kalamata olives and feta. It was at this point in the meal that we got up to visit another table of wine workers from Anne Amie Winery to share and sample the wines we both brought. When we returned to our table the entrees had arrived: a beef tenderloin that was so tender I could have eaten it with a spoon and a chicken schnitzel that had the perfect texture balancing between the crispy coating and the juicy insides. What a match our bottle of Meditrina was. To finish it off we had flan and a decadent cheesecake!
Thank you to Bruno and Bess for a wonderful dinner and if you are ever in Eugene, take our word for it - this place is real and worth every bit of effort it takes to find it!
As part of the Classic Wines Auction every year, the CWA team puts together two nights of wine dinners all across Portland. Alison Sokol Blosser and I were lucky enough to be chosen to attend the wine dinner at Mingo, a fabulous contemporary Italian restaurant in Beaverton off of Hall Blvd. Mingo has been a great supporter of Sokol Blosser, and we were honored to have our wines poured at the CWA dinner.
As soon as I walked in, I was greeted by a friendly and down to earth staff. Michael, a managing partner in the restaurant, welcomed me and Alison and the 3 couples who were joining us for the meal. We enjoyed several delicious courses, starting with stuffed mushroom caps and mussels paired with our Estate Rosé of Pinot Noir, then moving on to a delicious radicchio and fennel salad.
Next came my favorite course, carne cruda pizza with shaved Oregon white truffles paired with our Meditrina - what a wonderful match! The entree was very creative - pancetta wrapped monkfish over housemade gnocchi with white peppercorn sauce paired with our 2006 Dundee Hills Pinot Noir. WOW. We also had grilled duck breast over gnocchi with a Cabernet from Whitman Cellars that was a very good pairing, too.
Dessert was simple and elegant - thick slices of Rogue Creamery Oregonzola paired with our 2006 Estate White Riesling Dessert Wine. Fabulous!
I can't say enough about the quality of food at Mingo or the knowledgeable and friendly staff. If you haven't tried Mingo West, make the trip to Beaverton and try it out - you won't be disappointed.
As some of you might know, Sokol Blosser is actively involved in the Prescott Western Bluebird Recovery Project. Throughout our vineyards are bluebird nesting boxes that we watch carefully throughout the spring and summer (you can see some of the boxes on the driveway up to the Tasting Room). Our resident flock has grown to over 30 bluebirds - they must really love their vineyard view!
Here are the things we'll start looking for and doing as the bluebird nesting season begins:
• Ensure the nestbox is still in place.
• Check to see if the environment around the box has changed substantially, to make it unsuitable bluebird habitat, and consider relocating the box.
• Check the history of each box. If it has not hosted bluebirds for 3 seasons, it will be relocated or moved.
• Check the box to ensure it isn't going to leak, plug seams and consider replacing the roof if necessary. If the box has been wet during the last season, it needs to be turned away from prevailing SW winds/rain. Boxes do best facing E, N, or NE.
Welcome back, bluebirds! Sokol Blosser is looking forward to being your home for the next two seasons.
Mmm! Mealworms! My favorite.