Youngberg Hill

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.

The answer: It depends.

As a purist, who received his wine indoctrination in France, I believe there is no substitute for cork. That answer is based on the intent for wine to be cellared for decades, easy access to cork in France, minimal concern for recycling, and most wine being consumed locally.  Cork has the benefit of being a slow emitter of oxygen into the bottle over a long period of time. The risk is that cork can sometimes have a bacteria that will cause the wine to go bad over time. That risk is small (2-3%) and getting smaller as suppliers are getting better at detection and cleaning.  However, one customer opening one tainted bottle is one too many for me. And if the customer lives far from the winery, replacement is also expensive.

From an engineering perspective, screw caps are a no-brainer. They provide a cleaner, safer closure than cork. Therefore, I am confident that when anyone opens a bottle of our wine anywhere in the world, if it has been handled properly, it will be as good or better than when it went into the bottle. There is good data to suggest that screw caps also allow a minimal amount of oxygen into the bottle for aging. However, research indicates that fewer than 10% of bottles purchased are cellared for more than one year, so aging is much less of a concern. Screw caps are arguably more environmentally sustainable, and when they are recycled they have a lower carbon footprint than cork.

When we bottle our wine at Youngberg Hill, different aspects of quality come to my mind.  My first concern is that when anyone opens a bottle of Youngberg Hill, it has to be good; therefore the screw cap wins. Next is the environment, with many arguments on both sides, but sustainability favors the screw cap. Third is the matter of aging, and given the purchasing and cellaring habits of today’s wine lovers, this is just not an issue, so cork is not necessary.

To be continued.

It’s true – we really are.

For those of you who follow us on Facebook, you are probably well aware of the growing problem that we have with European Starlings that feed on our grapes just before harvest.

When our harvest is late, which is common here on Youngberg Hill, we can lose up to 30% of our hard won harvest to these invasive birds.

We now know that the starlings pose an even larger threat than we once thought.

Oregon is losing an alarming number of native birds due to the explosive growth of the starlings and native species like the Western Bluebird and Violet-green Swallow, as well as several species of Woodpeckers and Flickers, are feeling the impact of the invasion.

Many wildlife biologists are convinced that the starlings are enacting irreversible harm to western ecosystems and our new knowledge of this fact has spurred us to take action.

We recently partnered with Dr. Don Powers, Professor of Ornithology & Ecology at George Fox University to conduct the first Youngberg Hill native bird species survey on March 17^th.  We hope to make this survey an annual event so that we might be able to measure the health of our native bird population each year.

We are also enhancing native bird habitat around the vineyard though the planting of native shrubs and the installation of nesting boxes and feeders that are anti-starling in design. You can help our efforts by using starling-proof bird feeders in your own backyard bird habitat.

In our April newsletter we’ll be reporting on the results of the native bird survey so be sure stay tuned!  As always we appreciate your support for our sustainability efforts and believe that not only are they the right thing to do, but ultimately make for a wine that leaves a good taste in your mouth in more ways than one!