We had a great time at IPNC 2010 Thanks everyone for all the hard work! What a wonderful celebration of an amazing grape, the amazing places it comes from, and the amazing people who make it! (And drink it too!)

Assistant winemaker, Bill Hanson, chats with guest at the IPNC Grand Dinner Pinot and Pork during IPNC Grand DinnerSalmon BakeGuest dine and sip in the Oak Grove for the Salmon Bake

Pinot and Pork during IPNC Grand Dinner

Salmon Bake

Guest dine and sip in the Oak Grove for the Salmon Bake

We’re all familiar with the Shea name. Some of you have been drinking Panther Creek wine from this vineyard for years.  We’ve come to love and have high expectations for the magic bottles that carry this name.  Always recognizable, always distinct, Pinot Noir from Shea Vineyard gets to the heart of the unique and authentic quality of Oregon Pinot Noir.

Here’s a quick look at where these grapes come from before they arrive at Panther Creek’s crushpad.

Shea Vineyard was first planted to wine grapes in the late 1980s by Dick and Deirdre Shea and sits on sedimentary soil over fractured sandstone. Vine spacing is 5×7 yielding 1,245 plants per acre.   The vineyard is planted with Pommard, Wäidenswil, Dijon 114, 115, 777 clones and sits right in the Yamhill Carlton American Viticultural Area.  Grapes from Shea Vineyard are used to make some of Oregon’s best wines and we are honored to have a longstanding tradition of carrying the Shea name alongside our label.  If you are not familiar with wine from Shea Vineyard its time to get acquainted.

Dick Shea, Liz Chambers, Bill Hanson meet up for lunch in downtown McMinnville.

Here is a message from the people at Shea Vineyard on their approach to to farming:

“Our approach to growing wine grapes that express their terroir and our approach to being responsible stewards of the land are rooted in science. We use the results of scientific analysis as our guiding light. We have not concluded that all synthetic materials are by definition harmful. In this outlook we are joined by the USDA and sustainable farming organizations such as LIVE and Salmon Safe. This is in contrast to some well publicized approaches to growing that seem to us to be rooted in romanticism and nostalgia for farming in an earlier era.

We are pleased that we have recently been recognized for our efforts. Recently the US Department of Agriculture created the Conservation Security Program to recognize and support outstanding stewardship of agricultural lands. CSP identifies those “farmers and ranchers who are meeting the highest standards of conservation and environmental management”. In our Yamhill River basin over 500 farms pursued the program. 104 were accepted based on past and current practices. 32 of those were recognized as having practices at the highest level of stewardship. Shea Vineyard was one of the 32.”

Check out this furniture made by Joe! They are constructed from retired French oak wine barrels. The oak is seasoned for 30 months, made into a barrel and shipped to Oregon where it is used for 3-7 years to make Pinot Noir. On the back of the chairs you will find the year it was first put into wine making production and the coopers name.

The deep tones you see are those imparted by the pigment from the wine all other markings on the wood come from the hoops and daily life of the barrel around the winery.  Come by the winery to see these beautiful pieces in person! You can also visit http://www.barrelfurniturebyjoe.com for more info!

Join us on Twitter, Thursday, July 15th for a Twitter showdown. This online event is a celebration of the world’s most expressive yet persnickety wine grape combined with a COMPETITION between YOUR FAVORITE Pinot-producing regions!  If you’re not already using Twitter, sign up and tweet with us.  Use and follow #PinotNoir to join the fun and don’t forget to help promote your favorite Pinot Noir region, #WV – Willamette Valley, Oregon! For more information about this Twitter event visit http://pinotnoir.eventbrite.com/

Oprah Winfrey’s new television network (OWN), is seeking shows in various categories to air when the network goes live.  We’re very excited that one of the members of Oregon’s wine community is in the running in the cooking show category, and we need your support to help it get selected by the producers!

Northwest Bounty is Andrew Turner’s television project, and it’s a wine and food paring show focusing on Northwest wines and the products of our region.  Every episode showcases a different winery, followed by a trip to a local farmer’s market where Andrew gathers ingredients to create a dish around a featured wine. He then heads to the kitchen to cook the dish, where he explains why and how the flavors will show the wine in the best light. It’s truly a unique show that shines a spotlight on the beautiful region that we all call home. You can help make this vision a reality by clicking the link below and casting your vote for Northwest Bounty!

http://myown.oprah.com/audition/index.html?request=video_details&response_id=10656&promo_id=1

Good luck Andrew!

Green in the vineyard means more green in your wallet. Vista Hills combines with Pather Creek Cellars, White Rose Wines, Le Cadeau Vineyard and Arcane Cellars for a single day of spectacular case rates.

We’d like to invite you and your closest fellow wine enthusiasts out to the Treehouse Barrel Room where all five wineries will be hand pouring their work.  Tremendous discounts – up to wholesale for some – will apply to all bulk purchases.

It’s Spring cleaning at the Treehouse, our effort to cut you some slack in these tight times while clearing the way for new vintages.

Click on this link to get a ticket and bring it to Vista Hills Treehouse for entry:  http://ht.ly/1KJoB

See you in the cellar!

On Saturday, May 22nd from 3:30 to 4:30 The Joel Palmer House will focus on the 2005 Vintage from Shea Vineyard including wines from Panther Creek, Broadly, Elk Cove, Ken Wright, and Penner Ash.

Light hors d’oeuvres prepared by Chef Christopher Czarnecki will also be served. Tastings will be presented by Sommelier, Andrea Higgins Fulton. For more information and reservations call 503-864-2995 or visit www.joelpalmerhouse.com

Last week we bottled several of our delicious pinot noirs, which will soon be ready for your enjoyment. Here’s a quick video of how what the mechanics of the process looks like during the bottling of our 2008 Verde Vineyards Pinot Noir:

Last month Dick Shea was featured on Wine Library TV and sat down Gary V to taste a few Shea Vineyard wines. Dick mentioned Panther Creek Cellars’ 1994 Shea Pinot noir as the wine that put his vineyard on the map. We’re still going at it, and currently you can taste the 2006 Shea in our tasting room.

Last week we processed grapes from Shea’s 2009 harvest. The grapes taste great and, despite the below-average rainfall for the valley this year, the grapes are surprisingly plump without too much shriveling.

I caught up with Assistant Winemaker Bill Hanson to ask a few questions about the upcoming harvest.

Ryan Fish: When do you expect harvest to start?

Bill Hanson: If we had to guess we would say the fourth weekend of September. If we get a lot of heat then we’ll start the third week, but I don’t think that’s going to happen.

RF: Which vineyards come in first? Last?

BH: Shea, block 30, is consistently the first one. Temperance Hill Pinot noir and Elton Chardonnay usually come in last.

RF: The 2009 growing season had similar growing degree days as ’06 and ’03, but what was different?

BH: In 2003 the heat came late, along with a lot of hot wind. 2006 I don’t think was as hot, or at least didn’t have the heat spikes as we have in 2009. We’ve had a few pretty big spikes, but we’ve also had some nice rains this year, a half inch or so once a month. So the rain relieved the stress caused by the heat spikes.

RF: What’s different around the winery this year?

BH: We’ve got our two harvest interns returning and they’ll be veterans, and we might have one more intern this year than last. We have the same vineyards as last year. We’re experimenting with one new cooper, but nothing else really noteworthy.

RF: Will the wines be similar to other years?

BH: We really can’t say until the wine is made. We’ll take another year with the quality that we had last year, sure, but every year is different so we’ll just have to hope for the best.