Dear Sokol Blosser Wine Drinkers,
Well that just happened! 2024 is winding down and hope blooms eternal for 2025 to be a year we can all enjoy. This newsletter starts with a re-cap of the 2024 harvest and ends with the worst thing you can do with a bottle of our Pinot Noir.
Our fearless Winemaker (Robin Howell) entered her 2nd harvest at the helm with our first full crew in as long as I can remember. Usually, we have a harvest intern drop out right before harvest, so we are always scrapping by for winery labor. Not this year! Quinn, Becca, Maddie, Sophie, Bree, Chris, and Will were all present and helped Robin and our cellar crew (Alyssa, Michael, Mario and Kat) to bring in the harvest. What a harvest it was. You know, we always joke that every harvest is the “Harvest of the Century,” to put a good spin on it no matter what happens. Well, 2024 could actually be that year. No joke and this is not spin. If we go back through the decades we get the following:
2014- Hotter than hell vintage which ended up producing a decent Pinot Noir. Grade C+
2004- Another hot vintage that surprised everyone with how well it aged. Grade B-
1994- Possibly the best vintage of the 90s for Pinot Noir. Grade A
1984- One of the worst vintages ever. Up there with 2020. It started to rain halfway through harvest and never stopped. No kidding. A total rain out. A great year for music though……Grade F
1974- Our first harvest but since we did not have a winery we sold the grapes to Dick Erath and he made wine from it. My birth year, and I hear from the old timers it was not bad. Grade B-
So could 2024 be the year Pinot Noir from the Willamette Valley is so compelling, that the world drops everything to get a taste?????
With the holidays coming up we have some amazing gift packs that you all should be aware of. Click on this link to check out the catalog. Also, we will be pouring and doing some holiday events and you can find us here.
To finish off, I will relate a tale of woe about trying to make a Pinot Noir Holiday Nog. It started off with the best intentions: to create a warm, holiday spiced beverage with our Pinot Noir. I am not sure what recipe I used but it ended up being complete weasel piss (that is a technical term for bad wine). So don’t try it, and just buy some egg nog and add to Brandy to it and be done with it. Drink Pinot Noir on its own!
Happy Holidays everyone!!! See you in 2025!
Peace,
Alex
