Watershed’s recipe for getting a small, Portland neighborhood restaurant into the New York Times.

Ingredients:

1 passionate sommelier

5 curious local wine writers enjoy a natural wine tasting at Tabla

1 great local story.  Natural wine positioning in motion.

2 PR pros with well connected, strong freelance writer friends

1 fantastic August evening hanging out with Hannah Wallace as she researched her way through Portland, Ore.

The result speaks for itself.

We know that there are tons of small neighborhood businesses that are as passionate about wine and food as Michael.  We’d love to share our ingredients to success with you.

Congrats Michael, Tabla and Hannah!

Click here to read the piece, and if you haven’t already, check out Michael’s natural wine list at Tabla.

Calling all frugal foodies!

I’ve just made a great discovery that I must share with you…

Yes, the waning economy may have taken its toll on your pocketbook, but the good news is that it’s never been less expensive to indulge in what used to be a very exclusive culinary tradition – pairing dinners.

Wine dinners are no longer only for people with six digit incomes, and with the growing interest in spirit and beer pairings the wine dinner stigma of hob-nobbing with starch-shirt wine collectors has been distorted beyond recognition. What is gradually taking its place is an emphasis on education, discovery and approachability. The lovely result of this – and the “great discovery” I mentioned earlier – is that these intimate dinners are no longer only once a year and $150 a seat. They’re weekly and they’re $60 a seat!

This epiphany hit last night while pondering my first course (fried squash blossom

Cafe Nell's Squash Blossom

stuffed with crab mousse and drizzled with a balsamic reduction) at Café Nell’s new weekly summer wine dinner – this one featuring Sokol Blosser wines. Each week throughout the summer months, Executive Chef Andrew Garrett will prepare a 5-course wine pairing dinner for the astounding affordable price of $55, wine included.

My words of advice… Don’t wait for the economy to improve to indulge in a pairing dinner. Seize the moment, grab a friend and head to one of the many dinners taking place at restaurants everywhere. I guarantee you’ll spend less than ordering dishes a la carte.

40 wineries in one day, how to pick and choose which to taste? Twitter, of course!

Unable to make it to the festival this weekend, but curious which wines will get big buzz? Twitter’s, the answer!

This weekend, the Portland Indie Wine Festival will be a tweeter’s dream. Join the conversation or just follow along to discover Oregon’s best small production, hard to find, wines. It’s gonna be a tweet fest like no other!

Follow the fun at #PIWF09 .

I just received Michael’s real time email with a preview of what’s in store for Tabla Mediterranean Bistro’s Tuesday Flight Night this evening. It sounds delicious! Unfortunately I’m missing out, but for those of you seeking a fruity Tuesday night bite paired the perfect wine head over and let me know how it is!

Pears
October 14, 2008
Wine Flight :: 12
Food :: A la Carte or 23 for all 3

cheese plate :: ossau iraty, brie, purple haze,
grilled pears and saba :: 12
Pairing :: 2006 Roland Lavantureux, Chardonnay, Petit Chablis, France

duck sausage :: stuffed pears, thyme, grana frico :: 8
Pairing :: 2007 Domaine Lapierre, Gamay, Morgon, Beaujolais, France

grilled pork chop :: pear and sage chutney :: 15
Pairing :: 2005 Azul Guelbenzu, Tempranillo/Cabernet/Merlot, Ribera del Quieles, Spain Full Glasses ::

Full Glasses ::
Lavantureux :: 12
Domaine Lapierre :: 13
Azul Guelbenzu : 11

Dinner on a vineyard. Lots of good people, good wine and what has become for some, a great summer tradition. This is an evening at Plate & Pitchfork

Pre-dinner vineyard tour with A to Z's vineyard manager

These are the vitals:

Saturday, August 2 at Jacob-Hart Vineyard in Newberg
Chef Vito Dilullo from Ciao Vito and Chef Rich Meyer from Higgins
Wines from A to Z Wineworks, Rex Hill Vineyards and Francis Tannahill
Featuring produce from OakHill Organics.
Tickets for this evening are $125 per person.

Dinner began at 6pm. The cashmere blanket, deep mustard scarf, grey wool sweater got wrapped around my shoulders by the time the bay shrimp arrived.

Carrots were the star of the evening. Sausages were delicious too but sometimes a perfect carrot can sweep me off my feet.

Thank god for summer evenings of cool breezes, volunteers from Oregon Tilthe, a local momentum that creates endless opportunities for eating near dirt, and a trunk filled with blankets.

My love affair with Oregon is in full swing this week.

Downtown Drinking on a Dime

Our mission: To seek out downtown happy hour destinations where we can fill our bellies for $10 or less. The good news is that there are a ton of hot, hip fantastic options. That’s right, a table for two can enjoy cocktails and hearty appetizers and drop a $20.00 plus tip. So come along the LAD happy hour trail and drink up!

Red Star Happy Hour Beer and Food Pairings Under $10!

Places we went:

• 23 Hoyt
• Basta’s
• Carafe
• Clyde Common
• Masu
• Red Star
• Rock Bottom
• Silk
• Southpark
• Ten 01

23 Hoyt:

Here’s the great thing about 23 Hoyt’s happy hour menu: it runs until 7:00. Although I really like a good happy hour, I rarely make it out of the office in time to get somewhere by 6:00 p.m., so a later happy hour always makes me, well, happy. When I first went to 23 Hoyt’s happy hour I was seriously questioning whether it would pass the $10 happy hour challenge. I was expecting small portions and large prices, mostly given the location, atmosphere and clientele. I was pleasantly surprised on all fronts.

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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…

LAD’s client, Olsen Family Vineyards has launched their blog!

From Jamie Olsen, president:

We are looking at this blog as a way to connect with people and let you know what we are up to. In case you are unfamiliar with us, we are a 5th generation family owned farm here in the Willamette Valley that began making and selling wine last year. The exciting news is we are growing quickly. In fact, we have so many activities and events going on we felt that a blog would be the perfect place to connect with people and give them a peek into what Olsen Family Vineyards is all about.

This summer is an especially busy time for us. We have hired a new winemaker, have released our first rosé, are attending and sponsoring events all over the country. Our Viridian Wine Van, in partnership with Cayce Kerr who is Fuzzy Zoeller’s caddy, can be seen around the country at several PGA events throughout the summer. So look for announcements and news about events, interviews with staff, tours of our Vineyard through the year, regular updates from Cayce on tour, tasting notes, and even recipes and videos of things like tastings with Viridian wines. We may even go a little crazy and hold a contest or two.

Yet the blog is something more to us. As a newer wine brand we look forward to connecting with people that care about the same things we do, including feedback, ideas and other input. So whether you are an old friend, or someone new, take a look at our blog blog.viridianwines.com.