Youngberg Hill

The IPNC, located in McMinnville Oregon, is now in its 26th year as one of the world’s premier events focused solely on Pinot Noirs.  It is a rare opportunity to taste some of the best Pinot Noirs from around the world, side by side, paired with specifically chosen food, and centered around educational sessions to learn more about what makes Pinot Noir special.

While the focus of the event was originally Oregon Pinot Noir (as is Oregon Pinot Camp today, or OPC, held in mid-June each year), it quickly expanded to include Pinot Noir from Burgundy, Australia, New Zealand, California, Germany, Austria, and Canada. To have the opportunity to taste Pinot Noir from these very different regions of the world and compare them to each other is a rare experience.

Rarer still is the gathering of winemakers from these regions, as they discuss the challenges in their particular growing area and what makes their terroir distinctive.

IPNC always runs the last weekend in July and promises to be even more highly attended than in the past.

We are looking forward to running into old friends who share our passion for the grape, and welcoming new vintners into the fold.  The guest speakers are well chosen and the group will benefit from their expertise.  But mostly the IPNC is about celebration – a celebration of Pinot Noir and the beauty of the wines produced from this special grape.

When selecting a wine for dinner, many of us typically play it safe.  We tend to choose a wine we know and like.  It’s like driving the same route home every day without even thinking of it because we do it so often.  We recently had a wonderful experience playing with our food at the Wine Country Cooking Studio in Dundee with Chef Wendy Bennett.  It was an experience that was interactive, educational, creative, and hands on.  Something as simple as making a salad with ingredients you hadn’t thought of before but were right in front of you.   We played with the food and gained an appreciation we didn’t have before.  It got me thinking, why not play with wine the same way?  We love when we are able to share with guests how the grapes are grown and the wine is made; you can see them light up with discovery.    Everything comes together with an understanding of what you’re enjoying and why.  Yes, wine can be fun if you play with it.  We see it daily in our tasting room when a guest might taste our Pinot Blanc, or something else they haven’t tried before.  Or when someone visits us from another state, and experiences Oregon Pinot Noir for the first time.

 When was the last time you played with your wine?

What was the funny word again, lagniappe (lan-yap)? It is a tradition in Spanish business trade for the seller to offer something beyond what is being purchased as a gesture of appreciation toward their customer.  We at Youngberg Hill have also adopted this tradition, to ensure that our wine club members receive a little something more than our wonderful wines with their membership.

It starts with no sign-up fees.  Ours is a pay-as-you-go membership and the shipments are fully customizable.  Care to pick up your shipments at the tasting room?  We throw two pick-up parties a year so you can save some cost on shipping and sample your latest acquisitions.

Additionally, the discount assigned to your wine club membership level is good for all Youngberg Hill purchases, including stays at the Inn.  Tasting fees are waived for you and your friends.  You can restock your cellar any time, again using your discount, and for those special occasions you might be able to talk us out of something from our wine library.

And for those in the Pinot Club, they also receive passes to two winemaker’s dinner served at Youngberg Hill.

As an added token, if you as a wine club member bring an empty 375ml bottle with you on your next visit to Youngberg Hill, it will not leave empty.

It is time for you to join us!   Click on this link and you will soon be sipping some of the best wines in the Valley, and enjoying the royal treatment atop the Hill.

We are often asked what the term “biodynamics” means. My response is simply that it’s an holistic approach to farming.  Just as a naturopath looks at an illness by considering all aspects of the body, we solve agricultural  problems by looking at the entire farm, and seeing where improvements can be made.  Just as one’s own body health includes diet, exercise, cleanliness, etc., so the farm’s health is made up of different elements all working together.  We are constantly aware of how changes in one area of the farm impacts other areas, either positively or negatively, and work to minimize the negative.

One such example is the need to reduce the impact of an particular insect on the farm – yellowjackets. We will not use poisons because it will have an adverse effect on other, non-harmful insects. We do not even necessarily want to kill off the yellowjackets – just reduce their numbers, which in turn will reduce their negative impact on the farm.

To achieve this, we capture several of them in a trap. We then use a biodynamic process to combine the remains of the yellowjackets with some other materials to make a tea.  That tea, which acts as a natural repellant, is then sprayed in those areas that we want the wasps to avoid.

Not only have we noticed a significant reduction in yellowjackets in the areas that were treated with the tea, but we have also seen an increase in beneficial insects and birds in those same areas.

Nature helps us strike a balance on the farm, and as long as we are working  with that balance in mind, we, along with our grapes, garden, animals and ultimately our wine, all thrive.

Wayne Bailey will be hosting a Biodynamics class at Youngberg Hill on July 26th.  Visit our calender of events  for more details.