Posted in Great Wine Demystified, tagged 2008 vintage, Bethel Heights Southeast Block Pinot Noir, ted casteel, Willamette Valley on July 30, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
The 2008 vintage in the Willamette Valley is about three weeks behind “normal” this year, due to an extremely cold spring. We had snow in March and cold rain into mid-June. Here at Bethel Heights, bud break didn’t happen until April 20, and bloom didn’t begin until the twenty-first of June. Happily, very intense summer conditions [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on July 27, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Add new tag, Ben Casteel, Christophe Roumier, Dominique Lafon, Etienne Grivot, Evening Lands, jessie casteel, Jon Casteel, mimi casteel, pat dudley, Seven Springs, Steamboat Pinot Noir Conference, ted casteel on July 23, 2008 | 1 Comment »
Here is what I wrote in Quoi de Neuf? (the Oregon wine gossip column) back in August of 1988, when everyone was going off to the Steamboat Pinot Noir Conference and I was staying home with the kids:
“Among the Burgundians in attendance were last year’s three most eligible Grand Cru bachelors – Dominique Lafon, Christophe Roumier and Etienne Grivot…
People who [...]
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Add new tag, Ben Casteel, Cristom, Mark Vlossak, St. Innocent, Steamboat Conference, Steamboat Inn, Steve Doerner, Steven Westby, terry casteel, Witness Tree on July 22, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Bethel Heights has been participating in the Steamboat Conference since the early 80’s. The first year we took a wine to show was 1981. Back then the event was called “The Pinot Conference,” and an attempt was made to alternate the location between Oregon and California. That first year I attended we met at Acacia [...]
Posted in The Vineyard Life, tagged bethel heights, family business, family vineyard, gdp, jessie casteel, marilyn webb, mimi casteel, multi-generation, pat dudley, pinot noir, r stuart, row tag, succession, ted casteel on July 22, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
When I sit down to work at my desk (in Chicago), so far away from the action, I always like to click through some of my vineyard photos to try and connect (remotely) and get the BHV juices flowing. Here are a few from a visit last Spring:
At Bethel Heights, we’ve been talking a [...]
Posted in Great Wine Demystified, tagged Ben Casteel, bethel heights, Cool Whites, pH, steamboat, Tony Soter on July 16, 2008 | 1 Comment »
So, after that last post I decided to ask Tony Soter why he ruled pH out of the conversation at the Cool Whites seminar, and this is what he said:
Pat,
pH is a technical reference to a measure of acidity that is confusing to most non technical people because the number goes up as the [...]
Posted in Out and About in Wine Country, tagged Adelsheim, bethel heights, Casteel, Chardonnay, Chehalem, Gewurtztraminer, OPC, Pinot Blanc, Pinot Camp, Riesling on July 10, 2008 | 1 Comment »
I remember when we were standing around at a typical road show wine tasting in 1998, in a typical hotel ballroom in Chicago, behind our typical white tablecloths, in alphabetical order: Adelsheim, Bethel Heights, Chehalem… David and Harry and I saying to each other how “this could be a tasting from anywhere – [...]
