New web site

Just wanted to let everyone know that we finally have a web site, www.sevenbridgeswinery.com

I'll probably be moving over the content of this blog over there, or may be simply pushing content from facebook/blog/forum (yet to be developed) everywhere.

It's getting exciting that we nearly have something to sell. It seems like both the middle of the road and the beginning of the road at the same time. I mean, we've been making wine, it seems, forever. We really started planning the winery in spring of 2007. We looked for space and decided on using my basement, which was unfinished (and by unfinished, I mean a hillside of dirt underneath our house). So, the summer of 2007 was spent digging out 55,000 lbs of clay, in 5-gallon buckets, from under our house to expand our basement. We then put back 28,000 pounds of concrete in the form of thick walls and floors. By the time the shell was complete (letting along the fact that we at that time had no water, sewer, or electric) it was into fall of 2007, and we hadn't gotten any of our licenses yet, because we had to have a finished place to make wine to get a license.

So, in 2007 we made another year of hobby wine in my garage, and also discovered that there was no way we were going to fit into our basement, it was simply too small for the amount of wine we wanted to produce. Plan B - locate a facility to make our wine.

In 2008 we looked in earnest, checking with some of the AP (Alternating Proprietorship) facilities out there to see if there was room for us. An AP is the formal way where many winemakers get together and share a common facility, where each winery makes its own wine, but in different areas of the AP. Each person has access to the crusher/destemmer and other equipment on a given day, and everyone uses their own barrels. Although some of the APs we visited had room for us, none of them were convenient. The closest one was many miles from our house. On to Plan C.

Finally, in spring of 2008, our friend Dan bought a building that had a "perfect" place for us - notwithstanding the fact that it was in a basement (which is very inconvenient for getting thousands of pounds of grapes into and finished product out of). We spent the summer making it into a facility that would work for us, applied for our licenses, and waited. We were in a race against time because we were afraid that some of the early-ripening fruit, merlot, would be ready before our license was granted. Strangely, our federal license came through rather quickly, but our state license was held up by the city's requirement that a "warning" notice be placed on the door of the site where alcohol is to be produced, to give the public a "comment period" where neighbors could object. Fortunately, none of our neighbors objected (one even wrote a "yes, we want them here" note), but there was simply no way for the comment period to be shortened - we had to wait the full 30 days.

Our merlot landed about 20 days into the 30 day period. Crap. We were under contract to buy 4000 lbs of merlot and had no use for it. If you leave it on the vine, it rots, and we were prohibited, by state law, from making it into alcohol. We researched quite a bit and found that we could put it in "cold storage," at 35 degrees to buy us a few days. We picked up the fruit, put dry ice in the bins to protect it from rot (and to start cooling it down) and drove it directly into the cold storage facility. Each day was torture. I checked email and phone every day for the license and figured that our fruit was rotting, slowly, at the cold storage facility. Everyone at the city and state was nice about the process, trying to help me along, but there is really no way to rush a mandatory waiting period.

Finally, on October 9, 2008, our license was granted. I picked up the phone, called Jill and Bob, and literally, we began crushing fruit the same day. To our suprise the fruit looked almost perfect, there had been very little change to it from the date we put it in storage. On the next day we drove to Walla-Walla and picked up our next set, which was also ready by then, and the winery, legally, was off and running.

Sometimes I've wondered if anyone ever would have known had we simply crushed the fruit and began making wine without a license. There's really no way they could have, although I suppose the state was free to inspect the facility whever it wanted to (and still can). Then it occured to me that I derive a great deal of satisfaction that I'm in partnership with 2 other people who all wanted to do things the "right" way, and wait for the license even though everything else was ready to go.

Ok, this post has gone on a wild tangent. Let me end with this. It's been a long journey to get here, I'm completely happy with who I'm in partnership with and the quality wine that we are all committed to make.

I can't wait for everyone to taste it.

Cin-Cin.

Radio Interview

I realize it's been forever since updating the blog, but it's because we've moved to "faster" media - primarily Facebook and Twitter.

Facebook: - search for "Seven Bridges Wines"
Twitter: - follow "7BridgesWines"

Also, Bob and I were guests on an internet radio show called "Savor Portland," talking about the beginnings of the winery and making quality wine. The show is available as a free download at:
http://www.savorpdx.com/. We are Episode "10." The direct link to the .mp3 file is here ---> http://savor.pdxaudioarchive.com/savor010.mp3 (you probably want to right click and "Save as" this file, as it's pretty big, otherwise it downloads and plays in your browser).

We bottled 60 cases of our Malbec blend and it is currently sitting in the winery waiting for the labels to be printed, as well as waiting for "bottle shock" to wear off. Bottle shock occurs when wine is initially bottled or sometimes when it is physically bounced around a lot, like during shipping. It's not a completely understood phenomenon (I suppose that's what makes it a phenomenon), but seems to be related to perceptible chemical changes in the wine that correct themselves about 30-45 days after the bottling.

We hope to be selling the Malbec plus futures of the rest of our 2008 in early summer.