Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

What do winter cold snaps do to the vineyard?

With climate progressively changing, one phenomena that is starting to occur fairly regularly is an occasional bout of intense winter cold weather. In January 2024, temperatures descended to as low as 4F in high altitude vineyards. Read on to learn how grapevines respond to this stress.

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The Amazing 2021 Vintage

Every so often a vintage of exceptional quality and potential comes along to capture our
attention. 2021 wines, now available in the marketplace, come from just that kind of vintage!

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The 2023 Harvest

After a brilliant growing season with moderate temperatures, our 2023 wine is fermenting happily in barrels, amphorae and stainless steel tanks!

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The Hazards of Irrigation

Recent studies show that Oregon in is experiencing significant groundwater depletion. So what are we to do?

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An 18-year vertical of Abbey Ridge Pinot noir…..

Since our early days, each year we have put aside a small number of Abbey Ridge bottles and stored in them in our underground cave with the purpose of tasting them at a later date. This January we excavated 18 magnums of Abbey Ridge Pinot noir spanning the years 1993 to 2010. On June 5th the wines were unveiled to a small gathering of wine experts. Please read on to see my tasting notes from this remarkable event.

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The Incredibly Intense Wines from 2021

Most of us in the Oregon Wine Industry remember the summer of 2021 by one seemingly catastrophic event in June: the “Heat Dome”. But strangely enough, its timing set us up for an epic vintage!

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The Challenging 2022 Vintage

Because of a freakish snowstorm coupled with freezing fog in mid-April, Clos Electrique and Abbey Ridge Vineyards lost a substantial amount of their 2022 crop. Please read on to hear how we handled this challenging and unique vintage.

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The Big Freeze

April 2022 donned as a typical classic Oregon spring with lots of wet weather and moderate temperatures pushing the buds on the vines to expand and open.  And then out of nowhere came a blast of frigid Arctic air in mid-April that settled on us for several days plunging the temperature into the mid-20’s. When it was done, about 70% of the crop in Clos Electrique were almost completely wiped out.

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We’ve teamed up with Energy Trust!

This spring, we received an email offering us a free energy study through Energy Trust’s Production Efficiency program. Thanks to Energy trust, we now have a new heating and cooling system that is saving energy, pruning our utility bills and keeping our warehouse cool! Please read Energy Trust’s blog (on the following page) to hear the whole story.

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Our strategy for producing beautiful 2020 wines

In early September of 2020 the Willamette Valley and surrounding environment were hit with extremely warm and windy conditions along with lightening strikes fueling the largest set of forest fires in the state’s history. And yet in spite of the smoke, all of our wines from 2020 are beautiful.

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