Pepper Bridge Winery

Hello March... Hello 2008 Merlot

2010-03-09T12:22:00.000-08:00

A Great Day for a Great Merlot!

We are ready to bottle our 2008 Merlot, only nine months to go and then ... the unveiling :)

Today we were fortunate to be greeted with sunshine and not rain, a slight breeze will definitly keep the crew cool but with all their hard work they should stay toasty warm.

We have our pallets all lined up and ready to go. On a good day we can bottle up to 1,800 cases! But thats when everything is running perfectly, it happens- but not as often as one hopes!

It all begins here, in this fermenation tank. The vintage has already been blended and is awaiting the bottles.

Here is a preview of our new bottle for our new labels :) They are slightly less tapered allowing them to stack better.

Lets begin!! This pallet of bottles will be set on a table with a conveyer belt taking it through the machine in the truck to get its wonderful nectar, 08 Merlot, a label, and its capsul.

Once the bottles are finished they get a last inspection and placed in our six pack and rolled down to a pallet to be stacked and then stored; awaiting a loving cellar to call home someday!

Happy Friday

2010-01-29T14:56:00.000-08:00

Tim is learning the new blog system with Dana.

Thanks To Pepper Bridge

2010-01-18T09:46:00.000-08:00

For the last two years I have had the unique opportunity to work in the wine industry. I have been lucky to get to work for what I consider to be one of the very best wineries in the state of Washington. I have been fortunate enough to get to work with and for a talented and fun group of people. From the wine making team to the vineyard crew to the tasting room staff and the partners, I love everyone in the Pepper Bridge family. I have learned so much about wine in the last two years. Norm has taught me about the vineyards and grapes. Arturo has let me follow him around the vineyard, pestering him with questions and taking pictures. Tim and Horacio have both been willing to explain anything and everything that happens in the winery throughout the year. They have answered all my questions, even the stupid ones. Jean-François has taught me so much about the wine making process, about the vines, about tasting wines. I've also learned the other side of the wine industry, the selling side, having fun with Lisa, Dana, and Sharon. I also have to thank all the great guests and club members that I have had the chance to meet and become friends with. I have learned much about wine from all the great people that have visited Pepper Bridge over the last two years. It has been such a fun and rewarding experience. I am grateful that I was given the chance to be a part of such a great team. I will miss everyone.

Bottling Amavi

2010-01-07T14:27:00.000-08:00

All of the glass has arrived, we have corks and labels, this means it is time for bottling the wines of 2008! This week we will be bottling the 2008 vintage of Amavi Cellars, our sister winery. In preparation for bottling, our Assistant Winemaker, Tim Kerrigan is busy getting all of the wines into tanks. He pulls the wine out of barrel using a wand with a sight glass, being careful not to disturb the lees that have accumulated in the bottom of the barrel. The wine is then pumped into one of our large stainless steel, temperature controlled tanks. Next the wine will get filtered. We have a gentle pad filter that pulls out any remaining sediment so that the wine will be clear and polished. The wine will then rest in the tanks till our mobile bottling truck arrives. For Amavi Cellars, we have a Semillon that is blended with a little Sauvignon Blanc, and we have a Cab Franc Rose, always a staff favorite for the hot Walla Walla summers. Both of these wines are from the 2009 vintage of course, since these wines aren't aged in barrel as long as the reds, which typically spend 15 months in barrel. For the reds we have a Cabernet Sauvignon, and of course the flag ship is the Syrah. We do also have two special wines that Jean-François makes for Amavi Coin Club members only. Both of these wines are sourced from the Les Collines Vineyard, our youngest vineyard situated in the foothills of the Blue Mountains. Each year Jean-François bottles a small amount of 100% Les Collines Syrah and this year we will be offering a brand new wine to our club members called Ceres, a blend of 50% Cab and 50% Syrah from the Les Collines Vineyard. This new wine is a way to showcase the distinctive terrior of the Les Collines Vineyard. All in all the 2008 vintage is solid, with good fruit and acidity. After bottling, the 08 wines will rest for the next few months while they go through bottle shock. We will begin releasing these wines over Spring Release Weekend in May!

Printing New Labels

2009-12-27T10:39:00.000-08:00

Now that the 2009 vintage is finished and resting in barrel, it is time to prepare for bottling the wines from 2008. Every year at this time we print the labels for our new vintage. Our winemaker, Jean-François just returned from British Columbia where we have our labels printed. It is a very sophisticated and ecologically friendly printing process. Tapp Technologies uses a waterless offset printing press that adds colors to the blank paper one color at a time until the image is complete. The copper foil embellishment is than added and the labels are ready for us to use. Jean-François was visiting Tapp Technologies to observe the printing process and to do the final print check of the new Pepper Bridge label. We have made a label upgrade starting with the 2008 vintage. It isn't a huge label redesign, just a tweaking of the great label we already have. More than anything it is just a difference of font size for the vintage and varietal, making both easier to read. The new label also uses a little more copper foil which looks fabulous. This new label will be attached to a new bottle size as well. We have a new slightly taller, more elegant bottle for the 2008 vintage. We will be using our new labels and bottles when we bottle the 2008 Merlot and Seven Hills Vineyard in March. These wines will have their grand unveiling in the fall of 2010, so until then here is a sneak preview of our new label!

Holiday Barrel 2009

2009-12-16T11:17:00.000-08:00

Holiday Barrel Weekend was a fabulous way to finish the 2009 year. We kicked off the celebration with our Bridge Club party on Friday. It was a night of food, wine, and visiting with friends, a thank you to all of our club members for their support during the past year. We opened some treats from the library, our vineyard designate blends, Pepper Bridge and Seven Hills from various past vintages. Its always nice to taste wines that aren't available. We were lucky enough to talk Chef Andrae Bopp into cooking up some excellent hors d'oeuvres to pair with the wines. Andrae is the Cellar Master for our neighbor, Dusted Valley Vintners, but he is also a fabulous chef that can be persuaded into catering on occasion. For entertainment we had the chance to enjoy The Mike Wagoner Band singing holiday tunes and some classic tracks. All and all a great party. We got lucky this year and had nice weather for the entire Barrel Weekend, no snow, no ice, no freezing fog. It made tasting around the valley much easier for all the visitors. Saturday we hosted guests in the winery and treated them to barrel samples of 2008 Reserve and 2008 Pepper Bridge Vineyard, both wines will not be bottled until next July and won't be released until 2011. Even so young, the wines were rich and fruity and delicious, so they will only get better over the next 2 years. The big news of the weekend was the unveiling of our 2007 Merlot. 2007 is shaping up to be one of the best vintages that we have had in Walla Walla to date. The growing season was just about perfect with a warm summer and a cool fall, with nighttime temperatures during harvest getting downright chilly. Warm days and cool nights at the end of the growing season set more color and aroma and acidity in the grapes. The resulting wines from 2007 are complex and full bodied, with lots of earth tones and great natural acidity. The 2007 Merlot is the first wine of the vintage to be released and it is fantastic. It is perhaps the most full bodied Merlot that Jean-François has made, perfect for cold winter nights. We thank all the guests that joined us for Holiday Barrel Weekend and we appreciate our Bridge Club members coming to visit. You made the weekend fun. Cheers!

Change of Seasons

2009-11-24T10:47:00.000-08:00

The seasons have changed here in Walla Walla. The 2009 harvest is over, the wine is finished and in barrel. The weather has turned windy and cold and of course the days are suddenly getting dark very early. We have had a nice dusting of snow in the Blue Mountains for the last couple of weeks, a sure sign that fall is turning into winter in a hurry here in the Walla Walla Valley. The change in the weather means lots of work for the vineyard crew. Every winter we run the risk of damaging cold temperatures. Most winters are mild in Walla Walla, but every so often we have extreme temperatures that can be way too cold for the grape vines. In 2004 we saw temperatures of 17 degrees below in the Pepper Bridge Vineyard. Temperatures that cold are too extreme for the varietals that we are growing, Cabernet and Merlot are particularly cold sensitive. As a result, we sustained substantial damage in the vineyard and in many sections, the vines had to be cut down to the ground. The vines will grow back after being cut to the ground but it means one year without fruit. So as an insurance policy against the cold, our crew is out in the vineyard burying canes. Each spring we allow two canes to grow at the base of our vines, they are suckers and normally would be clipped off. These canes grow along the ground all summer and now that it is fall, Arturo and crew are burying these canes under a blanket of dirt. Hopefully if we were to experience an extra cold winter that damaged the above ground growth, the canes that are buried would be protected from the cold. In the spring we would be able to cut down the dead growth, unbury the canes, trellis them and they will bear fruit. Of course all this work is done by hand, with the crew walking every row with shovels. With the weather turning quickly into winter, it is cold and windy work. But without their hard work we run the risk of going a season without fruit.

Fall Release

2009-11-09T19:51:00.000-08:00

This past weekend was the Fall Release here in Walla Walla. A weekend of new wines debuting all across the valley. Despite the forecast, we ended up having perfect fall weather, no rain, just sun and wind, typical Walla Walla. The nice days made getting out and tasting new wines even more enjoyable. At Pepper Bridge we released our 2006 Reserve. It is an excellent finale for the 06 vintage. Its full of dark red fruit with long tannins and lots of complexity, a very well balanced and elegant wine. Reserve is a fitting title with this wine, in my opinion it is the best wine from the 2006 vintage. We poured Reserve all weekend for old friends and new visitors and the response was fabulous. Everyone loved the new wine, along with the 06 Merlot and Cab of course. Hopefully we will have more occasions to pour the Reserve over the next few months. Certainly the staff will have no complaints in tasting more Reserve! The other big news of the weekend was the unveiling of the new barrel room for Amavi Cellars. Our sister winery is moving to the southern neighborhood and this weekend we welcomed visitors and tasters in the new barrel room. 2007 vintage was the focus of the Fall Release for Amavi, both 07 Syrah and Cab, and for the Coin Club members, the 2007 Les Collines Syrah. Saturday, the Amavi Coin Club had a party to celebrate the new site and the new wine club wine, Ceres. It is a blend of 50% Cabernet and 50% Syrah and all of the fruit comes from our Les Collines Vineyard. This wine has yet to be bottled but Ray Goff was on hand to pull barrel samples of this new wine for all to taste. A fun treat for all of the fans of Amavi wines. At the moment there is not much to see of the new tasting room, just a concrete wall, but hopefully we will be able to host Spring Release in the new building. Then visitors can get their Pepper Bridge/Amavi fix without having to drive across town. Both Pepper Bridge and Amavi want to thank all of our club members and visitors for the support and enthusiasm this weekend. We look forward to seeing everyone for Holiday Barrel in just a few short weeks when we will be tasting 2008 out of barrel!

Fermentation Underway

2009-10-13T08:43:00.000-07:00

All of the fruit is in for 2009! And pretty much not a moment too soon with the weather that we've been having. It's cold outside, too cold for the vines. This is deja vu of last year with an early, very hard frost that basically stops the vineyard cold, literally. With night time lows dipping down to 20 degrees the vines shut down, leaving the grapes with no more nutrients or water. So the grapes must be picked immediately. Luckily for us, we had only 3 tons of fruit left to pick before the hard frost on Saturday night. That last bit of Cab has been sorted and is in tank fermenting. Now that the outside work is finished, the work in the winery is in full swing and the winery is full of fermentation. All of the tanks are filled and every portable tank and bin is being used. The very last blocks of grapes have been inoculated with yeast and fermentation is under way. Now each day begins with punch downs. Punch downs are an integral part of the wine making process. During fermentation the skins and seeds float to the top of the tank forming a cap, while the juice settles to the bottom. All of the very best parts of wine, the flavor, aroma, color, and tannins reside in the cap. So during fermentation you want extract these elements, so the cap must be mixed back into the fermenting juice twice daily. The crew punches the cap down either with a pneumatic punch down tool for the big tanks or the old fashioned way for the small bins, first thing in the morning and last thing in the afternoon. Samples of the fermenting lots must also be taken daily so that Horacio can check the Brix level to monitor the fermentation. As long as everything is going smoothly with fermentation, the sugar level drops at a steady rate on a daily basis. Horacio also takes samples of the lots for Jean-François to taste. With all of the fermentation at the moment, Horacio is testing 40 different lots of wine. It is a lot of work but at least this part of harvest happens indoors, out of the cold and wet.

Hard Work for Harvest

2009-09-30T17:34:00.000-07:00

We are at about the mid point for the 2009 Harvest here at Pepper Bridge and it has been a lot of hard work. It is easy to see hard work happening all around the winery, the sorting of grapes, the cleaning of bins, and of course the punch downs. What isn't so easy to see is all the hard work that goes into getting the grapes to the winery. This time of year our winemaker is up early in the morning, spending time in the vineyards checking on the grapes. As the grapes ripen, Jean-François methodically pulls samples and tastes the grapes from all of our blocks in both Pepper Bridge and Seven Hills Vineyards. It means lots of walking while it is barely light out, but is important work that helps him decide when to harvest particular lots of fruit. Jean-François will walk two rows of a given block, pulling grapes from both sides of the row until he has 100 berries. These sample berries will be taken back to the lab for analysis of their sugar level. While we typically harvest the red varietals at about 25 to 26 Brix, the sugar level is not the only thing that Jean-François considers when deciding whether to harvest. While pulling grapes for samples, he will also be tasting, checking on the flavor of the grapes. With all the sun and heat that we have had this summer in Walla Walla, we don't have to worry about the grapes not having enough sugar. The trick is picking the grapes when the flavors are at the best. Little fluctuations in temperature up or down can either accelerate the ripening, or slow down the process, allowing for more flavor development. So it is of the utmost importance for Jean-François to check on the vineyard daily, keep on top of the weather forecast, and staying patient. Once he decides that a block of grapes are at their best, he calls for the vineyard manager to pick. All of the grapes at Pepper Bridge are hand picked. The picking crews work in small teams, with each picker filling small plastic totes that will then be dumped into a picking bin that is pulled by a tractor. The pickers work amazingly fast, getting through about an acre an hour. For working so fast, they also pick very cleanly, with very few leaves or bad clusters ending up in the bins. Once the grapes have been picked, the bins are loaded onto trailers and trucked to the winery. All of this work happens before 9:00 so that there will be grapes ready and waiting for the wine team to sort and destem first thing in the morning.

Sustainability in the Vineyard

2009-09-26T11:19:00.000-07:00

There is alot of talk these days about sustainability, and the wine world is no exception. The sustainable farming of grapes is becoming an important issue for wineries and vineyard managers. Not only are consumers interested in sustainability, but the long term health of the industry depends upon responsible farming. Here in the Walla Walla Valley we have a sustainable trust for the vineyards called Vinea. This organization is committed to introducing and encouraging sustainable farming practices. Growers and producers are certified sustainable through IOBC and Pepper Bridge has also been certified Salmon Safe because of our protection of water quality. At present almost 80% of the vineyards in the Walla Walla AVA are participating in Vinea. So what does sustainability in the vineyard mean for Pepper Bridge? Farming sustainably means that we keep our attention on the health of the vines, the soil, the workers, as well as the health of the business. We want to grow the highest quality grapes in a manner that can be perpetuated over the long term. In order to produce high quality fruit, the vines themselves must be healthy. The health of the soil plays a key role in the health of the vine. We work with local composter Rick Trumbull of Sustainable Soil Solutions and Quality Compost, to return vital nutrients to the soils. Each year we spread tons of compost through both Pepper Bridge and Seven Hills Vineyards. During harvest, we save all the left over stems and pomace. It will be composted with a mix of logs, hay and straw, manure, and minerals such as phosphate and basalt dust, then returned to the vineyard. In addition, we drip a compost tea through the irrigation lines to add nutrients to the soil. The goal is to have healthy soils full of microbiological activity. If the soils are healthy, the grape vines themselves will be healthy, and therefore able to protect themselves from disease and pests. And of course, the end goal is to produce the best grapes possible so that we can then make the best wines possible. Restoring soil health is a long slow process. It is a commitment to the future of grape growing and wine making in the Walla Walla valley.

Harvest 2009!

2009-09-16T19:06:00.000-07:00

Harvest 2009 has begun as of today! The weather in Walla Walla has been warm the last few days, with the nights staying pretty warm as well, and the result is that the grapes are ready. As is tradition at Pepper Bridge, the staff toasted the 2009 vintage with glasses of Champagne for luck. We brought in about 10 tons of Merlot from our Seven Hills Vineyard this morning to kick off the harvest. The Merlot looks and tastes good so far, with very small berries and nice clusters. If the weather continues to stay warm, harvest could roll into full swing very quickly. Jean-François has been in the vineyards each morning this week at 6:00 a.m., checking the Brix level of the grapes. According to him, the sugar levels in all the grapes, including all the varietals that we use at Pepper Bridge, are getting close where he wants them. This means that the next couple of weeks could be a flurry of activity here at the winery, and the wine making team is all set to go. We have a new shaker-sorter table this year and it got its first use today. The table is used for quality control of the grapes. All of the grapes at Pepper Bridge are hand-picked, but we want to make sure that only the best grapes end up in the tank. We hand sort the grape clusters as they vibrate down the table before they are destemmed. Once the grapes have passed through the destemmer, they fall onto a second sorting table. This gives us one more opportunity to sort out unwanted grapes and stems. Today we also discovered that this new attachment also sorts out all of the bugs that happen to be in the grapes like lady bugs and bees. Definitely stuff that we don't want ending up in the tank with the grapes. It is an exciting new tool for the wine-making team and it should lead to even better Pepper Bridge wines.

Barrels and More Barrels

2009-08-26T10:52:00.000-07:00

This week at Pepper Bridge we are in the midst of final preparations for harvest. We are just about 3 weeks away from bringing in fruit, depending on what mother nature has in store for us here in Walla Walla. We have been receiving new barrels on an almost daily basis. Our wine making team has been busy in the cave prepping barrels for the new vintage. Assistant Wine Maker, Tim Kerrigan has been receiving and unwrapping new oak barrels all week. All of our barrels are made in France and this year we have about 90 new barrels from 6 different coopers. Tim will be labeling and numbering all of the new barrels, adding them to the list of barrels that he will be filling soon with wine. There is a master plan for what wine goes in what barrels, so Tim keeps careful track of all the barrels. Cellar Master, Horacio Enriquez has been busy cleaning our used barrels, rinsing them with hot water and treating them with sulphur. About 50% of the 2009 vintage will be aged in used barrels. For us, a used barrel means that it has been used for one prior vintage. We age our wines in barrel anywhere from 18 to 24 months. So when we get a new barrel it will hold wine for about two years, when the wine is removed, that barrel is considered used. We will then use that barrel for one more vintage. After that, we will either sell the barrel to another winery or to locals that have creative uses for wine barrels, i.e. planters, furniture, wood for grilling. By the end of the week all the barrels should be clean, on racks, stacked, and ready to hold wine.

2008 Blend is in the Barrel

2009-08-16T13:36:00.001-07:00

We are getting so very close to the beginning of the 2009 Harvest here in the Walla Walla Valley! It is a very exciting time. Our managing partner, Norm McKibben, estimates that we are at 80% veraison in the vineyard. Arturo and the vineyard crew have begun putting up the netting to keep the birds from eating the ripe grapes. Just a few more weeks to go and the grapes will be ready for picking. This means that assistant winemaker, Tim Kerrigan and cellar master, Horacio Enriquez have been hard at work making room in the winery for the 2009 wines. We have two barrel rooms here at Pepper Bridge, one for the most recent vintage and one for last year's vintage. Since the 2007 vintage has been bottled, it is time to move the 2008 vintage to make room for 2009. This also means that it is time to assemble the final blend and rack the 2008 Cabernet Sauvignon. For the 2008 Cab there are two vineyards, Seven Hills and Pepper Bridge, there a 18 separate blocks of grapes, 5 different varietals, put into 105 barrels from 8 different coopers. It is a lot of wine to keep track of. Our wine maker, Jean-François, and Tim have spent the last year doing blending trials. That means tasting samples from all of the barrels and all of the varietals and building blends out of all the different components. It sounds like a dream come true I know but it is actually a very difficult job. It is much like building a recipe, adding a dash of Malbec to the Cabernet and seeing how it tastes, then maybe adding two dashes of Cabernet Franc and tasting again. Blending is really quite artful and displays a wine maker's palate as well as their organization. Don't forget that for the 08 Cab we had 105 barrels of wine, each with a different flavor profile. Once the final blend has been assembled, it is time to rack the wine. Racking is basically a filtering process. As the wine ages in barrel, sediments in the wine, called lees, will fall to the bottom. Tim uses a racking wand to pull the wine out of the barrel, being careful not to disturb the lees. When all the wine is out, they will clean all the sediment from the barrel with hot water and ozone and then put the wine back. Typically the wine will be racked twice to three times in its two years in barrel. This process removes most of the sediment from the wine. Now that the 08 Cab has been blended and racked, it is being moved to the second barrel room where it will rest until it is bottled next July. Taking the Cab's place in barrel room number one are daily deliveries of new French oak barrels that will be filled with 2009 wines!

2006 Seven Hills Vineyard Designate

2009-08-09T15:10:00.000-07:00

Cabernets and Merlots are the focal point here at Pepper Bridge, but we do make a couple of special gems that are Bordeaux blends. Our winemaker, Jean-François, makes two special wines for our wine club members that are vineyard designate blends. Depending on the year, our Cabs and Merlots are usually made up of a 50/50 blend of the two vineyards. Our two vineyards, Pepper Bridge and Seven Hills, are only about 10 miles apart but the differences are dramatic. Pepper Bridge Vineyard, which surrounds the winery is typically the more masculine, with bigger tannins and bolder fruit flavor. On the flip side, the Seven Hills Vineyard, on the Oregon side of the valley is the feminine, with more minerality, softer fruit, and an earthy quality that Jean-François likes to describe as dusty malt. The vineyard designate blends are a fun way to taste the vineyard differences. For the 2006 vintage, the Pepper Bridge Vineyard is a Merlot based blend, a first for Jean-François. It is a big wine and shows off the power of Walla Walla Merlot. The 06 Seven Hills Vineyard is a blend of 50% Cab, 40% Merlot, and 10% Cab Franc. 2006 vintage is the first time that Jean-François has had Cabernet Franc from the estate vineyard for the blend and you can smell and taste its influence on the wine. Loads of spice, currants, cherries, plums, with that earthy note that is so distinctly Seven Hills Vineyard. This wine is smooth and delicious and Wine & Spirits Magazine agrees. The August issue gives the 2006 Seven Hills Vineyard a 94. Of course the only catch is that we craft this wine for our Bridge Club members only. So if you want some of this wine you can join the club or bribe a club member friend to get some for you.

Veraison in the Vineyard

2009-08-04T14:47:00.000-07:00

We have had a long hot streak here in Walla Walla the past few weeks. Has it been 100 degrees and more since the middle of July. It can be a little warm for the human residents of the valley but the grapes love it. These warm days, and warm nights, have gotten the grapes moving. We got off to a late start this spring with bud break about 2 weeks behind schedule. This warm snap has seemingly gotten the vineyards back on schedule, possibly even a little ahead of schedule. Normally when temperatures spike over 100 the vines shut down and not much grape ripening occurs. For whatever reason this has not been the case with our recent weather. The grapes have been ripening right through the hot hot heat and veraison is upon us in the vineyard. Veraison is my favorite time in the vineyard. It is only just beginning in the Pepper Bridge Vineyard, with clusters having only a couple of berries changing colors. Once the color change is in full swing, the grapes clusters are beautiful. Each berry on a cluster can be a different color from green to dark purple and the colors change every day until suddenly everything is purple. Veraison is a very important time in the vineyard, we want the ripening to happen evenly and quickly. This heat has made for a more complicated job for the vineyard crew. They are thinning grape clusters at the moment, making sure that each plant is limited to a set number of clusters. All the extras, small, and incorrectly positioned clusters will be removed. With all this dry heat we have been irrigating the vineyard, but it is a juggle, too much water and the plants will waste energy growing more foliage, too little water and the plants can become over stressed, the grapes can get sunburned, and pests can take hold. This time of year you can see Rick Trumbull riding through the vineyard checking for trouble. He specializes in vineyard health, making sure that the vines are getting the right amount of water and nutrients, as well as looking out for problems like mildew and bugs. At the moment Rick is on the lookout for mites which can multiply quickly on vines that are stressed by the heat. It is a complicated time of year in the vineyard, with lots of important decisions and hard work for Jean-Francois and the vineyard crew, but is an exciting time. We are getting close to harvest 2009!

2009 Wine Bloggers Conference

2009-07-27T10:19:00.000-07:00

This past weekend I had the opportunity to attend the North American Wine Bloggers Conference in Sonoma. It is an annual meeting for members of the wine blogging community, wine industry, and wine media. It is chance for bloggers and members of the wine industry to meet, taste wine, and of course discuss the future of wine, wine media, and the internet. As wine consumers become tech savvy, wine bloggers have become an excellent new source for information and reviews. The internet and social networking are also providing great new ways for consumers to find out about, and be connected to great wines. Bloggers from all over the US, as well as one from New Zealand, converged in Santa Rosa to learn, and of course drink some wine. This year was graciously hosted by the wineries and grape growers of the Sonoma, Napa, Russian River, and Dry Creek Valleys. On Friday we had a chance to taste great wines from the region at multiple pourings with special tastings featuring Sonoma and Russian River Valleys, with many of the winemakers themselves doing the pouring. Very fun to taste wines that we don't really produce in Washington State, most notably Pinot Noirs and Zinfandels. Awards were also given to the best wine blogs for 2009. We were treated to a lovely day in Napa Valley on Saturday beginning at Culinary Institute of America at Greystone with speakers Barry Schuler of Meteor Vineyard and Jim Gordon of Wines and Vines Magazine. Next was a lunch and vineyard walk at Stag's Leap with vineyard manager Kirk Grace. This was followed by a tasting at Palmaz Vineyards featuring Viader, Madonna Estate, and of course Palmaz Cabernet. The winery is impressive. Not only do they have an amazing view of the valley but the entire production facility is built underground. Quintessa then hosted a grand tasting of an amazing lineup of producers from Napa Valley. It was a chance for all the conference goers to taste some of the best wines the Napa has to offer. There were lots of big Cabs of course, but there were interesting white wines, and bubbly, to taste as well which helped keep my palate from getting too burned out. I finished my day with a dinner at Domaine Chandon with the wines of O'Brien Estate, Louis M. Martini, Parry Cellars, Newton, and both bubbly and still wines from Chandon. Sunday was perhaps less wine filled but more educational with seminars about blogging, social networking, and the future of wine media and marketing. The end of the conference was punctuated by the announcement that Walla Walla will be the host for next years' event. Napa and Sonoma have certainly set the bar pretty high for us here in Washington to match their hospitality. Good thing we have such fabulous wines here in Walla Walla to share with the new generation of wine writers. We look forward to hosting everyone a year from now.

Summer in Walla Walla

2009-07-13T16:40:00.000-07:00

Summertime in the Walla Walla Valley is all about harvesting. We are a long way from harvesting any grapes, we won't begin until the middle of September, but there are many other crops that are being picked across Walla Walla. The rolling hills surrounding Walla Walla are tan this time of year from all the ripening wheat that they are preparing to harvest. Peas are the other major crop that the farmers rotate with wheat. The pea harvest is coming to a close but you will still see some of the giant pea harvesting machines creeping through fields on the outskirts of Walla Walla. Most of the peas are destined to end up frozen in a grocery store near you. In our neighborhood, the sweet smell of fresh cut alfalfa is heavy in the air. Of course July is mostly all about the Walla Walla sweets. From the end of June till the end of Summer, Walla Walla is full of onions. There are bags of onions available in every type of store and roadside stand. Every restaurant in town has onion focused menus and the locals race to see how many onions they can eat before the season is over. Of course there is a sweet onion festival going on this weekend. The only catch with the super sweet onions is that the season doesn't last long and the onions need to be eaten quickly because they don't store for long. This year seems to be a great year for local cherries. The Bings and Rainiers are giant and full of flavor and available all over town. The little town of Milton-Freewater to the south has a state of the art cherry sorting house that preps all the local fruit for shipping all over the US. There are lots of other fruits in the valley that are not grown in great quantities but are a treat for the locals like blueberries, raspberries, apricots, and strawberries. There probably won't be any peaches until August but when they are ripe nothing is more delicious. Here at Pepper Bridge the only harvesting going on is the picking of lavender. We have a large patch of lavender with many different colors and types and it is finally fully blooming. We don't pick the lavender for any use here at the winery but our visitors are welcome to take some with them. It looks beautiful and you can smell the lavender all the way down the driveway. Lavender loves the hot dry heat of Walla Walla, it is a close impersonation of the south of France after all. This time of year you see blooming lavender all across the valley. It smells like summer.

Bottling 2007 Vintage

2009-07-06T11:56:00.000-07:00

It has been a flurry of bottling activity here at Pepper Bridge. We just finished bottling the last of the 2007 vintage which includes the Cabernet, the Pepper Bridge Vineyard designate, and a little bit of Reserve (Yeah!). These wines will now rest in bottle for their grand unveiling a year from now. It is such a long time to wait but it is going to be worth it. The word on the street is that 2007 is really something special. The growing season was just what Jean-François is looking for, plenty of sun and heat in the summer and a long harvest with warm sunny days and very cool nights. When we get cool nights during harvest here in Walla Walla the grapes retain more natural acidity and develop more flavors and aromas. For Pepper Bridge, the resulting wines for 2007 are delicious, full of dark fruit and earth with lots of complexity. Maybe this is the best vintage to date for Walla Walla? So bottling this exciting wine is in and of itself an event, but add to it all the excitement of bottling with a brand new bottling truck. This was the debut of the brand new mobile bottling line, Bugle Bottling. This is a cooperative venture between Pepper Bridge and AbejaWineries and the Artifex custom crush facility. It has been a long time in the planning and the building and now the truck is operational and bottling wine. It is a pretty slick operation to see in action. Most of the wineries in Walla Walla depend on mobile bottling lines but this new truck is pretty high tech, lots of sensors and automation. On a personal level, I am very excited about the automated capsuling machine that eliminates my job on the bottling truck. I am sure that the computer controlled machine will do a far better job than me and will never get bored of capsuling for 8 hours straight. Special thanks to Dana Lane for the fabulous photos!

Bloom Time

2009-06-21T10:58:00.000-07:00

It is getting on towards the end of June and the vineyards are done blooming. I get to see Pepper Bridge Vineyard on a pretty regular basis, basically everyday, so it is fun to see how the bloom moves along. Each varietal blooms at a different pace, and different areas of the vineyard move along quicker than others. Most notably, the sections of vineyard adjacent to the asphalt driveway are the quickest to bud out and the quickest to bloom. So it is easy to see all of the various stages of bloom all at the same time within the vineyard just by walking a little bit. The blooms themselves are not very impressive. Even when fully flowering the blooms are easy to miss, they look a bit more like white hairs than flowers. Grape vines are pretty amazing plants in that they don't need any assistance from insects because they are self pollinating. Once the flowers are pollinated the grapes set and little bb sized fruit starts to grow. The blooms are all finished in Pepper Bridge Vineyard and the fruit is set. It appears that the fruit has set pretty evenly given that we had a bit of damage from cold weather in the winter. Jean-François is looking forward to a nice yield this fall. In July the vineyard crew will go through and start the process of thinning out the clusters, grapes that did not set properly, and clusters that are in the wrong spots on the vine. So for now the grapes will be left alone to grow. The crew will be out in the vineyard doing some lateral thinning of leaves to give the clusters more room, air, and sunlight to get growing. We just need some more warm sunny days to get things going.

Malbec Tasting

2009-06-16T08:51:00.000-07:00

Malbec was the subject of our most recent tasting with the Pepper Bridge/Amavi staff. Malbec has become such a hot grape here in Walla Walla, it seems like everybody is making one these days. Jean-François always makes a little bit of Malbec for blending into both the Merlot and Cab, 10 barrels in 2008 . But I do believe that it will be impossible to talk him into bottling a 100% Malbec. One on the best reasons being that at the moment there is a whopping 6 acres of Malbec planted in the Pepper Bridge Vineyard, and we only get 1 of those acres. If Jean-François were to bottle Malbec all by itself he wouldn't have enough left for blending and it seems to be one of his secret weapons, great color, great fruit, and earthiness. So we compared a classic French Malbec from Cahors, an Argentinian bottle, a local Walla Walla Malbec, and a barrel sample of 2008 Pepper Bridge Malbec. All of these wines were delicious and good representations of the varietal. The French bottle from Chateau Haut-Monplaisir was full of dark fruit and earth, very French. We tasted a bottle from 2003 and I think that it surprised everyone with how fresh and young it was. Achaval-Ferrer was our Argentinian bottle. Very fruity and food friendly and a total bargain at $17.99. From Walla Walla we tasted the 2006 Seven Hills Winery Malbec. It is a very nice bottle of wine and I think that it is a good representation of the varietal. Their fruit comes from vineyards that are adjacent to the Seven Hills Vineyard, about 10 miles from the Pepper Bridge Vineyard, the source for our Malbec grapes. The Pepper Bridge Malbec, even coming out of the barrel in an unfinished state, was fruity and floral with lots of earth and fantastic color. I would say that it seemed to fall in between France and Argentina style wise. Not as earthy and rustic as the French, and not quite as fruity and juicy as the Argentinian. Really I guess that means that Malbec does pretty well here in Walla Walla. The only unfortunate part being that the only way to taste Pepper Bridge Malbec is 3-5% at a time.

Busy Summer at PB

2009-06-10T09:13:00.000-07:00

Wow this summer is action packed for Pepper Bridge. There are wine events and pourings every week for the next few months and Pepper Bridge staff will be all over Washington State and beyond. This weekend is the Seattle Awards' Grand Awards Tasting. The 2006 Merlot received a double gold, the highest rating, so we will be featured at this pouring along with the other award winners. It should be quite an event featuring some of the very best wines in Washington State all in the posh Rainier Club. Our winemaker, Jean-François, is in Hawaii this weekend for the Kapalua Wine & Food Festival on Maui. He will be pouring Pepper Bridge wines and participating in a seminar featuring the geology, and of course the wines of the Walla Walla Valley. Friday, June 19th we will be pairing up with Abeja and Longshadows for a winemaker dinner for the 2009 Wine Country Celebration. Dinner at Longshadows with all that great wine plus Norm McKibben? How could you go wrong? Our tasting room manager Lisa will be on hand for the Taste Washington Spokaneon the 21st of June. More than 100 wineries all under one roof, the Davenport Hotel roof, to be exact. If you are in Spokane it would be an excellent way to spend Father's Day. July kicks off with a winemaker dinner here in Walla Walla at T. Maccarone's Restaurant on July 2nd. Chef Jacob Crenshaw will be pairing a delicious five course meal with both Pepper Bridge and Amavi wines. Next, Jean-François dashes off to Bozeman, Montana for the Museum of the Rockies Wine Classic on the 11th of July. It is an excellent event that benefits the museum and features great wines from around the Pacific Northwest. Maybe there will be a little fly-fishing that weekend as well. Both Pepper Bridge and Amavi will be participating in the International Wine & Heart Health Summit on July 15th-18th here in Walla Walla. In addition to tasting great Washington wines the conference will be exploring the links between wine and health, aka drink more wine be healthier/happier. You can find out more info at winesummit@comcast.net . July wraps up with a winemaker weekend at the Marcus Whitman Hotel. Pepper Bridge and Abeja will be pairing up for a dinner on Saturday the 26th plus a reception on Friday and tastings on Saturday afternoon. Definitely a dynamic duo. So that is it so far for June and July. August updates a little later.

The Vineyard is Growing

2009-06-06T10:54:00.000-07:00

Now that it is June here in Walla Walla, summer seems to have finally arrived. We have had a few weeks now of warm weather and the vineyard is loving it. Lots of sun shine and temperatures in the upper 80s has really kicked the vineyard into high gear. It seems like this time of year you can watch the vines growing. By the time we leave the winery in the evening the shoots seem to have grown 3 inches since the morning. All of this quick growth means lots of work for the vineyard crew. This is the time of year for shoot thinning. Even after all of the pruning from the early spring the vines still have a tendency to put out too much growth. The target amount of growth for each vine is two canes per spur on the cordon, so the vineyard crew is out pulling off the extra shoots. They have to work quickly but they do have to be careful with which shoots they remove. They have to keep an eye on which canes are bearing fruit and which canes they will want to use next year, all while trying to work quickly because the vineyard is continuing to grow and there is a fair amount of acreage that needs thinning. It always really impresses me that the vineyard crew can work so fast and be so meticulous at the same time. I know that I wouldn't be able to keep up with them.

Amavi is Moving to the Neighborhood

2009-05-24T13:15:00.000-07:00

There has been a flurry of activity along Pepper Bridge Road the last few weeks. Earth movers and road graders have been busy building a drive way and a site for a barrel room. Pepper Bridge's sister winery, Amavi Cellars, is moving to the neighborhood! Amavi has outgrown its current tasting room on 13th St. in Walla Walla. The new location is going to be bigger and of course better. Not only is Amavi going to have a lovely site amongst the grapevines in the Pepper Bridge Vineyard, they are going to have a fabulous view of Pepper Bridge Winery. Well I guess that they will have a nice view of the Blue Mountains too. I know that Patty, Eric, and George will all miss the lovely view of Mill Creek and of course the concrete company that they currently get to enjoy, but I am sure that they will become accustomed to the new location. It is pretty rough working with a view of vineyards, mountains, apples, alfalfa, and blue sky, not to mention all of the wildlife and birds that we have in the neighborhood. I am sure that they will learn to adjust eventually. At Pepper Bridge we are excited because we will finally be able to spy on one another. We have yet to decide whether we will use flags or smoke signals for communication, perhaps we will fall back to e-mail. Either way it is going to be very fun to have Amavi just across the way. Now visitors to Pepper Bridge won't have such a long drive to go and taste the other wines made by Jean-Francois. It is always nice to welcome one more great winery to a neighborhood full of great wines. Thank you Dana Lane for all the excellent photos. Cheers

Released

2009-05-09T10:32:00.000-07:00

Spring Release has been released. We started off the celebration with our Bridge Club party, this year being a luau. The weather was absolutely perfect for being outside and playing petanque. The big winners from this year's tournament were Rob and Laurie Sargent. Congratulations on winning the large formats! Between all the food and great wine and sun a fun time was had by all. Saturday was the grand debut for our 2006 Cabernet Sauvignon and the release went smashingly. The Cab is rich and velvety, full of dark fruit with good acidity. For being a baby it is surprisingly ready to drink. For our club members we released the 2006 Pepper Bridge Vineyard, one of the vineyard designate wines that Jean-Francois makes for club members only. For the first time ever the blend is Merlot based and it sure is big and structured for being 60% Merlot. We also poured the 06 Merlot for our many visitors over the weekend. The Merlot has opened up nicely since its release in December and it is drinking excellently. As of now all of the 2006 vintage has been released and it is now time to start consuming it. As a side note we have received a score of 94 points from Wine and Spirits Magazine on the 2006 Seven Hills Vineyard, the wine club release from December. This wine is very smooth and elegant and I do belive that you can taste the Cab Franc in this blend. Thanks to all of the Bridge Club members for a great party and to all the visitors who tasted over the weekend. Also I need to thank Jeff Meyer for all the great photos.

Bud Break in Time for Spring Release

2009-04-27T13:15:00.000-07:00

Well the vineyard is officially reawakening from the winter. The stretch of warm days that we had here in Walla Walla a week ago seems to have done the trick, bud break has begun in the Pepper Bridge Vineyard. The little baby leaves have just barely begun to unfold but it is still very exciting because this is the beginning of the 2009 vintage! Of course after all of the sunny warm days that got the plants going, we have since cooled off a bit. We are dipping back into some cold nights and windy days but it is still a beautiful spring here in the valley. The warm weather seems to have gotten more than just the vineyard going. The apple orchard that borders Pepper Bridge is in bloom. The dogwood trees and lilacs in Walla Walla are just getting started and local asparagus is appearing on restaurant menus. In my opinion, spring is definitely the most beautiful time of year in Walla Walla. How perfect for everyone coming to Spring Release Weekend. Not only is it going to be a great wine weekend but a scenic weekend with a forecast for sunny and warm weather. We are very excited to be releasing our 2006 Cabernet Sauvignon. The wines from 2006 are lush and rich and the Cabernet is not exception. Jean-Francois is very excited about the 2006 vintage because it is the first time that he has had Cabernet Franc from the vineyards to add to the blend. The 2006 Cabernet is a first for Pepper Bridge in that it is made up of all five of the traditional Bordeaux blending varietals, Cab, Merlot, Malbec, Cab Franc, and Petit Verdot. We will be tasting the 06 Cab along side the 06 Merlot for the Spring Release. They are both delicious as usual. It should be quite a party.

Tasting 2005 Reserves

2009-04-19T15:16:00.000-07:00

One of the many fun perks that comes with working at Pepper Bridge is all the great wine that we get to taste. We get to sample all of the fantastic wines that Jean-Francois makes, of course, but we do get the opportunity to taste wines from other producers and other regions too. The PB staff recently had a tasting of 2005 Reserves from various producers in the area. 2005 was such a great vintage for Walla Walla and Washington in general, lots of wineries decided to make special blends. Pepper Bridge produced a Reserve in 2005 as well, only the second time that Jean-Francois has made a Reserve. So we tasted the Pepper Bridge Reserve along side the Reserves from Abeja, Leonetti, Five Star Cellars, Canoe Ridge Vineyard, and Boudreaux Cellars. It was a very interesting comparison of wines that have alot in common while still being very different from each other. All of the wines are Cabernet Sauvignon based blends with Merlot, Malbec, Petite Verdot, and Cab Franc making appearances. The Abeja and Boudreaux being the monsters with 100% Cab. Pepper Bridge, Leonetti, and Five Star are 100% Walla Walla Valley fruit while Abeja and Canoe Ridge are 100% Columbia Valley, and Boudreaux is a mix of both. Of course I am not going to spill the beans on who was the big winner, that is a staff secret. I think that it is safe to say that our staff does have a bias for Walla Walla fruit, but that is probably due to our volume of consumption. I will say that all the wines were delicious even though most of them are built to age and are still very tight. It would be loads of fun to taste these wines again in 5 years and see what has happened. I will schedule it on our company calendar for April of 2014.

Spring!?!

2009-04-13T15:53:00.000-07:00

It is now about half way through April and is it spring? It has been trying to be spring here in Walla Walla for the last two months but it has not had much luck. The vineyard is pruned and ready to start growing, it has just been waiting for some warm weather. The vineyard crew has been hard at work since January pruning the vines and preparing for the 2009 growing season. All their cold, early morning work is finished and so we are just waiting for the vines to come alive. There is the littlest bit of white fuzz on the buds here at Pepper Bridge Vineyard, and I did notice a few vines weeping on the driveway the other day, both of these being signs that bud break is on its way. It will be very interesting to see what happens when we do get bud break. We had a chilly couple of days in December when we dipped a little below 0, which is not great for the vineyard. We were lucky that the cold came with a blanket of snow which may have insulated the vines a bit. Sections of the Pepper Bridge Vineyard may have experienced some bud damage none-the-less. So this year the vineyard crew left more buds on each cane just in case some of the buds are damaged. The only catch being that if there isn't damage then Arturo and Gustavo will have a busy time thinning out all the extra growth. Each year has its own variables in the vineyard, but that is what keeps things exciting right? We will keep our fingers crossed that it will be another excellent summer here in the Walla Walla Valley. If we can just get a few more warm days we can commence with the 2009 vintage!

Bottling 2007 Merlot

2009-04-05T00:27:00.000-07:00

After a very gray, long winter, spring seems to have finally arrived in Walla Walla! And what announces the arrival of spring in Walla Walla more than seeing the bottling truck pulled up to Pepper Bridge? Every spring, like the return of robins or the blooming of daffodils, it is time to bottle wine in Walla Walla. After spending the last 18 months resting in barrel, the 2007 Merlot is in the bottle and ready to go. Well, not really ready to go. It will have to stay put in bottle for another 6 months before we have a chance to start drinking it. We will have to be patient, but it is going to be difficult. I have been hearing rumors about the 2007 vintage since 2007, whispers and hints that it is the best vintage yet. When Jean-Francois tells you that a wine is going to be great it is best to take his word for it. Still, as a non-winemaker it is exceedingly difficult to gauge how a wine is going to taste when it is brand new and two years away from being a finished product. I do much better at tasting the finished product, and let me tell you the finished 2007 Merlot is delicious. For the most part I don't care for tasting wine as it is being bottled. When the wine passes through tanks and hoses and into the bottling truck and into a bottle, and then you taste it right away, for me it tastes an awful lot like all of the above, tanks, hoses, bottling truck. I prefer to wait until the wine as had a chance to chill out and recover from bottling before I taste it. However, the 2007 Merlot tasted amazing even through the bottling. It is rich and earthy and complex. I can't wait to taste it again. I thought that 2005 was my favorite Merlot but I think it has been dethroned by the 2007. The only trouble being that we have another 6 months to wait till we get to start drinking it. Patience...

Goodbye Tim Hello Sarah

2009-03-30T14:20:00.000-07:00

Pepper Bridge has a new blogger, me, Sarah. As much as we all love Tim and his blogging, he is the assistant wine maker after all, and therefore he is a very busy guy. Since he is occupied making great wine we will forgive him for not blogging since last spring release. More than likely spring of 2008 was the last time that he was sitting at his desk typing on the computer. As much as he enjoyed keeping the publicinformed of all of the goings on at Pepper Bridge, he does have a lot wine to keep an eye on. As of now I will be blogging so the pressure is off Tim and he can focus on the important stuff, making wine. Tim will still be present in spirit in the blog since he is my main source for answers to all wine related questions. I will continue to pick Tim's brain and update the public about exciting things happening in the winery. I work in the tasting room so I will also be keeping you informed as to all things new with our wines, our wine club, and any special events that may be occurring. Stay tuned...