Memorial Day Weekend

ed. nb: Several posts got lost in "draft" land and didn't autopublish. Though written previously and no longer timely its still nice to see what we've been up to!

Did you stop by and see us for Memorial Day Weekend? I know I had the chance to chat with several of you out there, and it was certainly nice to meet you!


We had a lot of fun pouring a sampling of our wines -- from Rex Hill stainless steel Chardonnay to Francis Tannahill Syrah. With four brands we have the opportunity to play with a lot of different grapes and styles, which means we make some killer wines.


Perhaps the most fun came from the looks on some of your faces when our winemaker Michael Davies came wandering through wearing a mullet wig.


I actually had a very sweet woman confide in me that she thought I ought to suggest he get a hair cut.

Hopefully you had a chance to stop by and meet some of us, taste some of our wines!

What a week! -- LocalHarvest's Veggie Ball

Whew, it's been a busy week for the folks here at A to Z! We've been out and about all over the state for winemaker dinners, guest pouring events, and even a charity ball! A Veggie Ball, to be more precise...

Rachel, {whose several-acre garden/orchard out in the coast range is a thing of rare beauty}, anchored our participation in LocalHarvest's Veggie Ball this past weekend, and sent me the following missive....

On May 17th, I headed into the NW Industrial area to pour for the second annual Veggie Ball, a benefit for Growing Gardens. Despite the 90+ degree weather and the fact that the event was in an old train depot with no cooling system and lots of skylights (*gasp, drip, sigh*), everyone was in good spirits and lots of great folks turned out to raise money for this worthy cause.

Growing Gardens creates community garden space from industrial wasteland, organizes fruit and vegetable gardens for inner-city kids who have never so much as eaten (much less grown) a fresh radish before, and builds raised gardens for low income disabled individuals and families. I brought the A to Z Night and Day big red blend and the Rex Hill Chardonnay to share with the crowd. The Night and Day was a hit as always, and the Chardonnay was the wine of the night. A nice cool glass of delicious un-oaked Dijon clone Chardonnay was just the right thing on such a sultry evening. Despite the heat, the quince blossoms from my yard held up beautifully and highlighted my fresh sunburn quite nicely for the event. I'm sure people were whispering to one another: "Head towards the pink glow for the best wine here".

NPR senior correspondent Ketzel Levine emceed the event all the way through the veggie costume contest (let me tell you, people take that competition SERIOUSLY), the live auction, and the award ceremony. Add to that the great wine and delicious bites from some of Portland's top restaurants, the most amazing auctioneer I have ever heard in action, and the chance to dance along with local band Steppin' Out, and a great time was had by all. Fingers crossed there will be some pics of that costume contest up on Growing Gardens' website soon! I was too busy pouring samples and chatting with attendees to take any pics of my own. Check out www.growing-gardens.org for info about this great cause and their work.

Cheers,
Rachel

Scott Huler examines Wine Glasses

I don't know how many of you listen to NPR but most Sunday evenings you can find me puttering about the kitchen listening to Lynne Rossetto Kasper and The Splendid Table. There's Jane & Michael Stern's featured Road Food segment, something seasonal, a couple of interviews, callers, and almost always a wine segment. In fact, Lynne's regular contributor Josh Wesson was one of the first to jump on our rosé bandwagon, though he got the varietal wrong.

Last night's segment included a touching piece about the joys of a life full of broken wine glasses. You'll need Real Audio Player to hear it.

Enjoy!

Pecha Kucha III

Pecha Kucha Night Volume III is this Tuesday May 13, taking place at 34 NW 8th Avenue, on the corner space of NW 8th and Couch.

Doors will open at 7:30, and the event begins at 20:20. Entry is free and open to the public with a suggested sliding scale donation at the door. Pecha Kucha, (which is Japanese for ‘the sound of conversation’), was devised by Tokyo based architects Astrid Klein and Mark Dytham of Klein Dytham architecture and has spread to numerous cities throughout the world, including Berlin, Bangkok, Los Angeles, Prague, and New York, to name but a few. It is a cross-disciplinary event that creates a forum for young designers, architects and artists to meet, network, and to show and discuss their work in public.

Presenters are allowed 20 images, shown for 20 seconds each - giving 6 minutes & 40 seconds per presentation. This allows the audience to experience a diverse group of speakers in a relatively short space of time. The theme of Pecha Kucha Night Vol III is Projection.

After the presentations, the evening will continue with drinks (A to Z!) and music.

I'll be helping to pour, hope I see you there!

Wednesdays are for The Pour

If you're at all interested in food and wine you're probably familiar with the writing of the New York Times chief wine critic Eric Asimov, his column, and his corresponding blog The Pour. (If you're not, well, go, enjoy!)

This week's column is on the somewhat sticky topic of wine quality and the perception of quality -- at least in part. As most of us in the biz know, there are a lot of different factors that go into your enjoyment of what's in the glass and only a fraction of them have anything to do with what's in the glass! Everyone's palate is different and how you perceive the wine will vary by the time of day, your mood, if you're consuming anything else with it, if you're comfortable in your surroundings -- and, sadly as it turns out, how much you spent on it.

Dishearteningly for a company that makes it their mission to make stunning wines at stunningly good prices, the more you spend on a bottle of wine the higher quality you're likely to think it is.

"...why does anyone bother buying $55 cabernet? One answer is provided by a second experiment, in which presumably sober researchers at the California Institute of Technology and the Stanford Business School demonstrated that the more expensive consumers think a wine is, the more pleasure they are apt to take in it.

The researchers scanned the brains of 21 volunteer wine novices as they administered tiny tastes of wine, measuring sensations in the medial orbitofrontal cortex, the part of the brain where flavor responses apparently register. The subjects were told only the price of the wines. Without their knowledge, they tasted one wine twice, and were given two different prices for that wine. Invariably they preferred the one they thought was more expensive. "

That's not going to stop us, however. No, fear not! We will continue to make wines that will make you do a double take on the sticker price. In fact, what the heck? We'll do one better. This month in the tasting room come in for 31% off of a case of our scrumptious 2005 Night and Day and 44% off of a case of our 2006 Rosé. What do you have to say about that?

See you soon!

Tuesday funnies

One of our favorite web comics in the office is Toothpaste For Dinner. Today's comic seemed pretty apt...




Happy Tuesday, y'all!

new things

Like pinot noir buds, and cameras with nice resolution...

Taste of the Nation

Monday the 28th marked the 21st year for Portland Taste of the Nation. Taste of the Nation (TOTN) is, to quote, "the nation's premier culinary event to end childhood hunger." Both Rex Hill and A to Z have proudly participated by donating wine and time each year since its inception (or theirs!).


This year we were represented by Rachel Langmaid, Katie Wilson, Greg Bauer, Stefan Hansen, and myself, Camas Goble.


After much debate we decided to pour A to Z's 2007 Rose and 2005 Night & Day, and Rex Hill's 2006 Pinot Noir and stainless steel Chardonnay.


We were lucky enough to be backed right up against Higgins, which meant we were amply set for cured meats and pickled veggies, though for the first time this year we had a enough people to get out and mingle a bit.


The event was a tremendous success as far as we were concerned! We caught up with a number of you that we see only once or twice a year, had a chance to catch up with some colleagues, and even got a chance to sample some of the amazing food.

Hope we see you next year!