Biodynamic farming:

Seufert Winery adds a biodynamic farmed vineyard to our line up in 2006. We’re excited to support sustainable agriculture and to make wine from these special grapes.

At its core, biodynamic farming seeks to increase farm self-sufficiency by reducing non-farm inputs. These non-farm inputs include such things as fertilizers, herbicides, insecticides, fungicides, etc. In this way, biodynamic farming resembles organic farming. However, biodynamic farming adds a dose of mysticism. Visit Wikipedia’s Biodynamic agriculture description to learn about the history and methods of biodynamic farming.

The Oregon Biodynamic Group describes the biodynamic farm as an organism:

“Using a systems ecological approach, biodynamics sees each farm as an organism, a self-contained entity with its own individuality. Thinking about the farm as an ecosystem leads to holistic management practices. These include integrating crops with livestock, recycling nutrients, maintaining soil, enhancing the health and wellbeing of crops and animals and even the farmer too. In this sense biodynamics shares concepts with permaculture -- humans have a role as the designer of the ecosystem. “

Source: Oregon Biodynamic Group, What is Biodynamics?

Wikipedia helps make the case for wine from biodynamic vineyards:

“Many grape growers claim to have tried biodynamic methods and found immediate improvements in the health of their vineyards, specifically speaking in the areas of biodiversity, soil fertility, crop nutrition, and pest, weed, and disease management. Winemakers claim to have noted stronger, clearer, more vibrant tastes, as well as wines that remain drinkable longer. Critics say that many of these improvements would have happened if organic farming was used, without the mysticism involved in biodynamics. Nonetheless, there is an upsurge of interest among grape growers worldwide and in the media, with a number of very high-end, high-profile commercial growers also converting to biodynamic practices.”

Source: Wikipedia, biodynamic wine

We look forward to working with these grapes and offering this wine to our customers.

Wine Tasting Events

Our calender is filling with fun events, including a truffle making class and a show of hand woven jackets, scarves and shawls by The Oregon Weaver. Check out our new Upcoming Events page for dates and details.

Oregon Vintage Festival at the Evergreen Aviation Museum, home of the Spruce Goose


We’re going to be at the inaugural Oregon Vintage Festival – where you can enjoy great art, food, music, and of course our wine!

The festival runs September 1-3, 2006, at the Evergreen Aviation Museum in McMinnville, Oregon. It’s about an hour’s drive southwest of Portland.

See the Evergreen Aviation Musuem website for more details on this event, and for more information about the aviation museum and their aircraft collection. In addition to Howard Hughes’ Spruce Goose, their collection includes: 1903 Wright flyer replica, Mustang, Spitfire, Corsair, B-17 Flying Fortress, SR-71 Blackbird, Ford Tri-Motor, Piper J-3 Cub, and a host of other planes.

Check out the Seufert Winery website for our upcoming events (coming soon).

Oregon Pinot noir fruit set


Most Oregon vineyards have an excellent fruit set this year. This reverses a light fruit set in 2004 and 2005, and is great news for Oregon wine lovers.

Many Oregon wine grape growers target harvesting 2 tons of Pinot noir from each planted acre. This is the quantity of grapes that most sites can fully ripen before the fall weather gets too cool and wet.

The previous 2 harvests saw many vineyards yield 1-1.5 tons per acre, with some vineyards below the 1 ton per acre mark. Since most vineyard expenses are the same regardless of the fruit volume harvested, low yields directly impact the cost per bottle of wine.

This, in turn, limits the amount of wine on the market and places upward pressure on retail prices. Therefore, low yields are a bad thing for everyone.

The generous fruit set this year means that growers can have more input into the final yield levels. Vineyard crews will be thinning grape clusters in the coming weeks, leaving around 125% - 150% of the desired final cluster count. These extra clusters are insurance against Mother Nature’s whim. Once we’re confident that the fruit is safe, we’ll go through and drop additional fruit to get each vine in balance.

Developing a new white wine – Woven White:



Oregon Pinot noir wins new fans everyday, partly due to how well the wine pairs with food.

Following a few steps behind is Oregon Pinot gris. It’s the popular white counterpart to Pinot noir, with most Oregon gris produced in a food-friendly style.

I believe, along with other Oregon winemakers, that the next wave of interest and popularity in Oregon wines will be in other white varieties. Chardonnay has stalwart supporters, and the current variety of production styles regularly converts customers. Pinot blanc is quietly emerging from the shadows, and dry Riesling is about to take off. Additionally, white blends like Sokol Blosser’s Evolution have proven very popular.

Given that context, Seufert Winery enters as a startup winery – trying to establish a brand identity and develop successful products. Pinot noir is a done deal… we’re committed to making stellar Pinot’s that exemplify the Willamette Valley AVA’s (unique wine growing regions).

The big question revolves around whites – do we make them, and if so, which varieties?

Personally, I enjoy white wines and I’m inclined to make them. At a minimum, I would like to make at least one white wine – a wine that is designed to go well with a wide variety of food. But which variety should we commit to?

To help answer that question, we recently conducted an informal tasting. We opened several bottles of finished wine, including Pinot gris, Pinot blanc, Riesling, and a couple of very different Chardonnays (one light and crisp; the other barrel fermented, full-bodied with oak).

The direct comparison was interesting. Each of these wines had unique and distinguishable characteristics, including tropical fruit flavors, floral aromas, minerals, acids, mouth feel, and length of finish.

Interestingly, the two Chardonnays formed bookends for the other wines… the barrel fermented version was the most complex and fullest-bodied wine, while the other chardonnay was the leanest and least complex of the entire group.

Next, we blended trials of these wines. Each blend contained anywhere from 0% to 50% of each of the individual wines. The purpose of this blending exercise was to get an overall sense of compatibility, and to determine which varieties added unique attributes. It will also help me determine how to make my wine; for example, do I want to include Chardonnay, and if so, in which style?

The exercise proved very useful. The discussion around the blends helped me set guidelines – which wines to include, and what approximate ratios. Obviously, this is a rough estimate. But it’s a starting point. Now I know what my fall winemaking program will look like. Once my wine is made, I can do real blending trials to determine the final ratios.

This was step one in the birth of a new wine – Seufert Winery “Woven White” wine.

This is an easy and informative exercise that you can replicate at home. Get a group of friends together and ask each person to bring a bottle from a pre-determined theme of your choice. Taste each wine individually, and talk about each wine. You don’t need to use scientific terms, just use plain English to describe what you perceive. Then use measuring cups to blend the wines in varying ratios. Pour the blends in extra glasses and label them according to their contents. Keep some of the original wine in each bottle so you can taste it again if desired. Then taste through each blend. Talk about how the wine is different once blended. Take notes to help keep it all straight. This is a great way to help you identify what you do and don’t like in wine.

If you’d rather not do this at home, Urban Wine Works in Portland offers a wine blending class where you take home a bottle of red wine based on your favorite blend.

http://www.urbanwineworks.com/classes.html#blend