Nau is a Portland-based active wear company that makes gear for “artists, athletes and activists out to unfuck the world.” I would have chosen a different way of expressing that sentiment, but I do hear what Nau is saying and I count myself among the people they’re trying to reach.
When you visit Nau’s Web site and click on “Collective Stories,” you’ll find an archive of videos that showcase the concerns of Nau employees and their customers. For example, here’s a piece on Salmon Nation and Salmon Nation Artists Project CD:
I like how Alexa Wiley Pengelly, one of the CD’s producers says, “Culture is alive. It is found within experiences and moments passed down and shared by our elders, civic leaders and creative communities, connecting people to the land.”
I also love the paintings of the mighty fish by Mimi Matsuda.
Our friend Colleen treated us to a private tour and tasting at Lemelson Vineyards on Saturday. It was a special treat for my 44th birthday and it was an honor to be welcomed as VIP guests from the minute our party arrived.
Colleen is Lemelson’s National Sales Manager, which means she travels to accounts non-stop to act as the winery’s ambassador. And from what we saw on Saturday, she’s quite the ambassador. In fact, it’s clearly time to start calling her Madame Ambassador.
First, Colleen showed us the facility’s vaulted high tech room where the grapes are destemmed and put into large stainless fermentation tanks. Then we descended like gravity to lower rooms with more tanks before reaching various cellar rooms where Colleen explained in great detail what was inside all the expensive French Oak barrels. Lucky for us, we tasted straight from the barrels so our education would be complete. After the tour we soaked up the day’s warm sun on the deck and let some of Oregon’s finest wine flow down our gullets.
It was a great time to put it mildly. If you have yet to experience a glass of pinot noir from Lemelson, do yourself and your loved ones a favor and let the good times roll…
While our focus here is clearly on Oregon wine, beer and coffee, the great state of Washington is right across the river, just a few miles from Portland. Therefore, it can’t hurt to become knowledgeable about the liquid goings on there.
According to Ruth Zschomler of The Oregonian, Washington ranks second in the U.S. after California in wine production. The wine industry contributes more than $3 billion to the state’s economy and provides 14,000 jobs.
The state recently licensed its 600th winery. By comparison, Oregon has nearly 400 wineries.
Clark County, near Portland, has six commercial vineyards with three more underway and an eye toward earning a designation as an American Viticultural Area. The local growers in Clark County have formed the Southwest Washington Winery Association, a nonprofit, to help attain AVA status.
The winery association is working on viticulture education in Clark College in Vancouver. The college’s corporate and continuing education program offers 13 classes in wine education.
This morning I headed down to SE Belmont for my first taste of Pine State Biscuits. I had a country ham and cheese biscuit and a side of hash browns. Both were perfectly prepared.
Afterward, I scooted down the street to Stumptown Coffee where I ordered an iced quad espresso. I decided to post up next door in the Annex since it’s a bit easier to focus in that space.
It turns out my choices were serendipitous. Glen in the Annex was busy working up his daily ritual—the 11:00 am cupping (there’s also a 3:00 pm cupping every day). I asked him what he was doing and the next thing I knew I was being offered an education normally reserved for coffee buyers and award show judges.
Glen had five different roasts available to smell and taste. We bent over each cup, using a spoon to release aromatics while dipping our noses into the rich brews. Glen mentioned that coffee is three times more complex—chemically speaking—than wine. My nose agrees. With wine I can detect the subtle gifts of chocolate, tobacco, berries, etc. Picking up the elemental differences in coffee is a bit trickier.
I did pick up an intense citrus nose in the Ethiopian Bera. Glen said that it evokes strawberry-flavored Jolly Ranchers for him. I brought a pound home, so whatever we were smelling, it was worthy of $14.00 and further exploration.
I have to give it to Stumptown. This free daily cupping is a wonderful experiential marketing offering. It solidifies Stumptown’s place in our minds, but even better, it tells us more about who Stumptown is. Many companies would be content with providing exceptional coffee. Stumptown is doing more and reaching higher. Coffee is passion and Stumptown is wisely inviting others to share in their particular passion.
I quaffed my first pint of Terminal Gravity IPA last night. While considering my choices at McPeet’s Tavern on Fremont Street, I found the branch-of-a-tree tap handle intriguing. Thankfully, the beer was right there with it.
Here’s how Beervana describes the liquid from Enterprise, in the NE corner of the state:
Pours a surprisingly dark, deep amber/orange with a nice head that, not suprisingly, doesn’t survive the alcohol long. Malt and alcohol dominate the nose, hops singing harmony.
I enjoyed this pint on the heels of Widmer’s Broken Halo IPA, which was a refreshing opener to the night’s beer session. Terminal Gravity’s IPA provided a deeper, richer, more brooding experience and the perfect segue into even denser liquids of the stout variety.
I first stumbled in to Big Horse Brew Pub in downtown Hood River in 1996 when I was on an epic NW road trip. I remember being impressed with the location and the beer. We stopped in again today and things were as I last experienced them. Stunning views of the river and tasty beer.
These are all well known items to craft beer drinkers in the Pacific Northwest, thanks to the Herculean efforts of two brothers, Mike and Brian McMenamin, owners of the entertainment empire that bears their name.
Edgefield. Kennedy School. The Crystal. The Bagdad.
These proper nouns are also well known. You can order a Hammerhead or Ruby in these places, but that’s just the beginning. You can also spend the night, dip in an old school soaking pool, see a concert or movie, attend a wedding, and so on. Thanks once again to the beer brothers, Mike and Brian.
What started on SE Hawthorne Blvd. in 1983 is now a business with more than 50 pubs, hotels and music venues in Oregon and Washington. McMenamins sales in 2007 topped $27 million dollars. They employ 1,400 people and the brothers now run the third largest craft brew operation in the United States. They also produce and market wine, spirits and coffee.
So, what’s the foundation for their success? Timing had something to do with it, as did their entrepreneurial makeup and powers of persuasion. The brothers were semi-normal tavern owners until 1985. That’s the year they successfully lobbied lawmakers in Salem, Oregon, to allow patrons to consume beer at the place where it is made. They soon started brewing at their Hillsdale location and before their eyes an entire industry was born.
Another key that unlocked McMenamins success is the family-friendly atmosphere that they bring to their properties. While the beer is strong and the spirits stronger, there’s something almost theme-parkish about each McMenamins property. The properties all share a fun, somewhat kitschy, look and feel. You instantly know you’re at a McMenamins when you enter one, and that’s a credit to Mike and Brian, as every business needs a strong sense of identity if it’s going to stand out in the sea of sameness.
McMenamins, for certain, does more than just stand out in the neighborhoods they inhabit-they’re often the defacto community center. Take Kennedy School in NE Portland. There’s the building itself to consider. It spans an entire city block and is a lovingly restored architectural gem. Inside the old elementary school, former classrooms are now spacious accomodations for guests to the Rose City. Kennedy School also has live music and a movie theater, plus a restaurant and five bars, including the Honors Bar and Detention Bar (for good and bad citizens, as the case may be).
Yes, there are five bars, all in one building. That’s how the McMenamins roll.
There’s something European about what the McMenamins are doing. Mike McMenamin has noted in interviews that bars in Portland were generally dark, hard-partying, slightly scary places when he got into the business. He had a different vision and he’s executed against it perfectly. McMenamins pubs and hotels are now anchors in the communities they serve. In several cases, the buildings the McMenamins bought and refurbished were historically signigficant properties. Their way of doing business consciously improves the community while helping members of said community have a good time.
There are some rumblings from long time customers that the quality of the chain’s food and the beer have suffered, after the company expanded into hotels and the concert business. “They’re cutting corners now they never would have cut before,” says Nathan Parr, who’s been a fan since the early 1990s. There’s likely some truth in his assessment. Furthermore, Mike McMenamin has lamented not knowing all his managers. And the widespread proliferation of the McMenamins brand is Starbucks-like in Portland particularly. Yet, if you weigh the positive contributions to local communities and to the craft beer culture in this region and nation, it’s hard to fault Mike and Brian. The company they’ve built is as Portland as Nike, maybe more.
We went looking for Terrapin Cellars on Saturday. According to our source materials, the wine is produced in Rickreall, just west of Salem. We arrived in the small town by mid-afternoon and looked around a bit, but we didn’t see Terrapin. I don’t know if I imagined a shrine to the classic Grateful Dead album or what, but it wasn’t there. We asked a local walking his two dogs and he said the winery–he couldn’t think of its name–was on the edge of town. That’s the lead we were looking for, so we motored over there and found Eola Hills ready and waiting to serve.
Unlike most of the wine tasting rooms we’ve been to recently, Eola Hills didn’t charge us to taste their value-conscious wines. They did ask for a $5 fee on their higher end wines, but then they applied those fees to the purchase of wine, so there was no tasting fee after all. While there, we inquired about Terrapin and the woman said, oh yes, Terrapin is made on premise. Then she dodged off to get me the winemaker’s phone number. It turns out lots of winemakers produce their wine at Eola Hills. So, for those in the Amity Eola Hills area with grapes and the requisite know how, but no winery, there’s a community-oriented production option. Pretty cool.
As for Eola Hills, their wine is pretty decent for the price. Most bottles we sampled were going for $13 or $14. Some of their higher end offerings were $25 to $50. Their $50 bottle, the 2006 Oregon “Wolf Hill” Clone 667 Pinot Noir is right up there with the best of them. The complexity of Wolf Hill kept coming and coming. I’d love to take an entire bottle for a ride some night.
Oregon’s artisan culture has given rise to a full fledged microdistilling movement. The Seattle Times published a detailed and glowing review of the scene last June.
With 17 microdistilleries in Oregon, and eight more startups expected across the state by year’s end, spirits aficionados haven’t seen anything like this in recent memory.
Collectively, the distillers help shape the bar and culinary scene in Portland. The Rose City is now seeing a renaissance of classic cocktails, and some high-end restaurants are trying experimental pairings of food with spirits.
“The distillery scene here is where the wine industry in California was in the 1960s,” said Steve McCarthy, owner of Clear Creek Distillery, one of the nation’s first microdistilleries. “We are rewriting all the rules. The artisan distilleries are making up a whole new industry.”
One of the most valuable offerings in the piece is the sidebar, where the state’s microdistillers are listed.
Elsewhere in the Beaver state there’s Bendistillery, BU-TAY Vodka and Liquid Vodka in Bend. Plus Brandy Peak Distillery in Brookings; Dolmen Distillery in McMinnville; Hood River Distillers in Hood River; Indio Spirits in Cottage Grove; and Rogue Spirits in Newport.
Among the spirits being crafted here: whiskey aged in Oregon oak, pear brandy, pinot noir brandy, gewürztraminer grappa, Eastern-style gin, hazelnut spiced rum, vodka infused with hot pepper, saffron, tarragon, chocolate and basil.
American Viticultural Areas, or AVAs, define wine growing regions throughout the U.S. It’s a program administered by the ATF. Lately, I’ve been studying the local wine producing regions by visiting the areas on weekends and by looking at maps, like this one, care of the Oregon Wine Board.
According to WinesNW.com, when Willamette Valley AVA was first authorized 1984, its geographic description included some 3.3 million acres. Twenty years later, winemakers and wine growers succeeded in submitting applications for approval of six sub-regions within the Willamette Valley, to better describe micro climates proven over the years to be distinctly suited for the growing of wine grapes. McMinnville Foothills, Dundee Hills, Ribbon Ridge, the Yamhill-Carlton District, Eola-Amity Hills District and the Chehalem Mountains were all authorized as official American Viticultural Areas (AVAs) in 2005 and 2006.
Once that data kind of sinks in, it’s time to start identifying certain wines with the characteristics found in a given AVA. For instance, we know that 2006 was a great year for pinot noir in the Willamette Valley. But was it a better year in Dundee Hills than it was in Eola-Amity Hills? I don’t know, but I know it’s going to be fun finding out. Some of the famous producers in Dundee Hills include Sokol Blosser, Archery Summit, Domaine Drouhin, Domaine Serene, Erath Winery and The Eyrie Vineyards. In other words, the classic Oregon producers. Eola-Amity Hill is more of a mystery. I’ll need to go looking for a bottle of Witness Tree or Strangeland.
BTW, where is the best place to buy locally produced pinot noir in NE Portland?
