Good things come in threes.  That’s why we’re giving you three things to look forward to as we continue planning the Portland Indie Wine & Food Festival.  It’s May 14, 2011, so save the date!

1) 2011 is the year for an Indie Review.  What does that mean? Indie alums are taking center stage and pouring their wines at the May 14^th Grand Tasting event.  Cool, right?

2)  You’ll still see new faces, too. We’re partnering with Northwest Palate to produce a smaller scale wine competition for 2011.

3) Bison Building is back.  We loved last year’s 13,000 sq. ft. industrial space and we’ll be taking it over again May 14 and 15.  And for those of you who came to the festival last year – not to worry.  Road construction is fini!

Rolling out more details in the next 48 hours, so I advise you to stay tuned…

Yes, it’s true.  In addition to running Watershed, Lisa also runs the coolest wine event in town.  Lisa founded the festival in 2004 to celebrate Oregon’s incredible independent craft winemakers – many of these guys do not have tasting rooms and all make fewer than 2500 cases of wine per year.  The Indie Wine Festival is modeled after the Sundance Film Festival (it’s the only juried wine festival out there) and is set up like a farmer’s market (you can buy direct from the winemakers while you have your fill of bites from PDX’s top chefs).  This is one ticket you won’t regret buying, so if you haven’t already, get to it!  The festival is THIS Saturday at the Bison Building.  Buy tickets here.

Last Friday, The Oregonian’s Sara Perry caught up with Lisa to chat Indie wine.  Check it out here and see below.

Indie winemakers to move inside city limits! This fall, Boedecker Cellars and Grochau Cellars will team up and open a shared winery and tasting room, called the Portland Wine Project, in Northwest Portland’s industrial district. Check out Mike Thelin’s article in Portland Monthly’s August issue.

Portland Wine Project in Portland Monthly's August issue

For those familiar with the Portland Indie Wine Festival, you know about the fantastic wineries we host at our annual event. What you may not know is that we purchase a secret stash of each year’s festival picks and tuck them away in our storage compartment at Portland Wine Storage.

About 6 months ago, our Indie locker officially burst at the seams and we quickly moved all our bottles into one of Portland Wine Storage’s first class 5 ft x10 ft x 8 ft spaces. After 4 years of collecting wine, you can imagine the number of boxes currently populating the cellar floor – lets just say it’s over 600.

It’s time for a renovation!

With the Indie Wine Festival’s 5th Anniversary in sight, the time has come for the impressive Indie wines to have an equally impressive home. We want to transform our rectangular space into a modern experiential tasting room where clients, sponsors, winemakers and fellow Indie friends can come enjoy the collection.

Maybe we’re picky, but who knew how hard it would be to find the perfect wine racking system? So far, our favorite designs are outrageously expensive for our sundance-style festival, so we’re on the lookout for an innovative contractor who can make it work on a budget. Modern yet classic, clean but interesting, modular and strong – these are some of our starting points. Check out some of our favorite designs so far:

Malaga Racking System – great design but impractical for our wine library.

The Bordex Bottle Rack – beautiful display case.

Pilare Wine Bottle Storage – in this design, less is more.

If you have any suggestions on how to transform our cellar space into the perfect Indie wine experience, feel free to give us your insight. Who knows, you might be among the first to experience our tasting series…