About a year ago, Lisa dreamed up and established the Foodie Friday tradition at LAD. One Friday every few months, the LAD team organizes a special foodie outing to feed our curiosity about the industry and extend our knowledge base as experts. We’ve baked foccacia with Nostrana, tasted beer and toured Raccoon Lodge and taken canning lessons at Lisa’s – it’s been good! A few weeks ago, Stewart and Athena Boedecker, Boedecker Cellars, invited us into their new Northwest winery, The Portland Wine Project, which they share with Grochau Cellars. Foodie Friday, perhaps? Yes, please.
With Lisa in San Francisco and Stephanie tied up at a meeting, Lota, Jackie, Shawn and I headed out to Northwest Portland for our first taste of Crush. First impression – I can’t wait for this tasting room to open! The space was modern and inviting. Even amongst the construction, the energy was contagious. The 10,000 sq/ft winery is a fantastic industrial loft-style space with floor to ceiling windows, tasting room, cellar and crush facility.
We started off the day in the main crush facility. Athena brought us over to the collection of massive fermentation tubs that needed to be punched down and pumped over.
This is when we were given our first task. I started out with punch downs. To do a successful punch down, I learned you must work the flat tool down through the huge tub of fermenting grapes to make sure the juice and skins stay mixed up. After ten minutes, my arms couldn’t take it anymore (quite the work out!) so I switched with Jackie who was doing pump overs. The pump over process takes the juice from the bottom of the barrel and pumps it over the top with a hose. Again, we did this for about 10 min each barrel.
After punch down and pump overs, it was time to sip. Stewart took 
us through an educational tasting of four fermenting tubs – three pinot noir (from different vineyards) and one syrah. We could taste the subtle differences between the pinots. Grapes from Carlton Hill tasted well-rounded and elegant. Grapes from Holmes Gap Vineyard tasted as vibrant and bouncy as the young winery.
After the tasting, we were presented with a less glamorous task…siphoning a pinot gris jug to separate the juice from left over sediment.
Lunch was delicious! Athena whipped up one of her favorite pasta recipes from her James Beard pasta cookbook, a nice green salad,
Cypress Grove cheese with fresh bread and, of course, wine. It was the perfect end to our day in the life of a winemaker.
For more information about the Portland Wine Project, click here to read Mike Thelin’s article in Portland Monthly.
