hunkering down and being still

As the shadows get longer and the days shorter we head quickly to the longest night... - The mist was heavy of the farm yesterday which happily means the week or so of very cold 'hose freezing' weather is breaking for a while at least. We sit by the fire with the dogs a lot these days it's really nice to rest. To celebrate the light we cut two trees and filled them with lights to make up for the lack of it in the sky... One for the front of the house and one for the inside : ) when trees are plentiful you can be decedent with them ! Happy Solstice week - May you find a peaceful slowness...





the goat likes this idea...

gotta love a man that gives you a rifle for your birthday~

Thanks baby : ) - 'the wife'

New Paintings -

I just finished some new chickens for Christmas stockings! I'm offering a holiday special - one chicken is $200, 2 Chickens are $375 and three are $550. As an added bonus I'll pack and ship the birds to you for free! (ups ground) ... the chickens come mounted on dark gray painted blocks ready to hang.

(they are all the same size 7.5 x 7.5 out side dim. with the block they are mounted on and the painting it self is 6" x 6")


(if you are interested in other paintings look over there > on the right on my flicker site)

















SOLD ^








SOLD^

Come visit us and get your Big Table Farm Wines!!

Join us November 25-27, 2011 for the 29th annual Wine Country Thanksgiving event.

11am - 5pm If you are in the area the Thanksgiving weekend, come out and visit Big Table Farm!

We are excited to introduce you to our newly released wines. Clare will be showing new paintings as well. Please use our web site for directions to the farm.



Seems like this fall everything has happened just in its right time, from the weather during harvest to fermentations and finding mushrooms.

In keeping with that the Riesling and resonance have come together just in time for the big Thanksgiving Wine Weekend . We held these two wines back from our fall release as they were just not quite ready. They have come together beautifully and are ready to enjoy, of course, if you cellar these wines they will mature even more. We are excited to share this year's Resonance; it's quite elegant and the Riesling is beautiful with great acidity like last year. 2010 was a cooler year producing elegant, lower alcohol wines.


The 2010 Pinot Noir Resonance Vineyard was fermented with native yeasts, 75% whole clusters, and aged sur lie in 30% new French oak for 10 months. The aromatics display brambles, cola and red fruit with vanilla and oak. The mid palate is sweet with licorice, spice and brown sugar. This wine has balanced acidity that carries the wine through to a long finish. The label on this wine is a grown up version of last year's new-born calf illustration.

The 2010 Riesling Brooks Estate Vineyard features a drawing of a chanterelle gathered last year from our woods. This wine is barrel-fermented in neutral oak, fermented completely dry, and aged sur lie with batonage for 10 months before bottling without fining or filtration. Aromas of white flowers, hints of caramel, toasted almonds and lemon greet you, and transitions into a mid palate of lemon along with a rich coating mouth feel. The smooth-texture is nicely balanced with a bright acidity and spice. This wine was not cold stabilized which means, if you leave it in the fridge too long, tartrates (a harmless sediment) will form creating 'wine diamonds' -please take note.

Despite some initial fears about the 2011 harvest, the fruit came in perfectly ripe from our beautifully farmed vineyards. The Resonance vineyard has proven itself yet again this year as a stellar site with the fruit coming into the winery at 24.5 brix; not too shabby for a 'lean year'.
This harvest was punctuated by a wonderful harvest meal here at the farm.



It was a small 'thank you' to our amazing cellar crew and volunteers who helped this harvest season go beautifully. The meal featured the bounty of our farm along with porcini mushrooms, fresh picked just an hour before from our woods - look for these porcini on next year's Riesling label.

Finally, right on time just as the last ferments got rolling, Robert Parker's "The Wine Advocate" scores for our '09's came out giving us a nice little boost as we went into the final week of winery work. We are grateful for the scores we received:

Riesling 91pts 

Cattrall Brothers Pinot Noir 93pts

Resonance Pinot Noir 92pts

Willamette Valley Pinot Noir 92pts

Thanks for all the interest in the 2009's; yes, they are sold out but this is your chance to get the 2010 wines. That way when they hopefully start to get attention you can know yours are tucked safely in your cellar..

you can click here to order wine if you can't make it for the big weekend!

A day off from the winery

Harvest has gone beautifully this year but full on like every year .. but a great vintage for us for sure - more on wine on another post this post is about meat! more specifically pork ...

I've had this day on the books for a while so I avoided the winery yesterday and left Brian and crew to barrel down pump punch and stomp.

The day started out really nicely it was a beautiful morning on the farm which I got to enjoy always a good start to the day to not have to rush through chores as this is my favorite part of each day.





At a very civilized hour my friends Linda and Kathleen showed up and we processed 45lbs of Big Table Farm pork into 4 kinds of sausage, plus scrapple.. : )



It was very fun and with three capable ladies workin together it really was pretty darn painless so much so that we got to enjoy a leisurely lunch on the grass and took a walk to the back field mid day enjoyed the sunshine and picked up wind fall apples... Thanks Kathleen for the beautiful corn soup! It was a lovely day and I'm so lucky to count these women among my friends!!







the sausage features sage, fennel and apples from the farm and garlic and red pepper flake, fennel, garlic and shallots from Ayres Creek Farm ...



Tip - If stuffing sausage into casings it too much work and equipment you can always get ground pork and flavor it your self and put it into rolls and freeze it... this makes such a nice handy breakfast meat : ) there are so many recipes to choose from and it's pretty fun to flavor your sausage and taste through out the process till you get it right...

another day of grapes!

We processed 10 tons yesterday and another 10 or so today! whew... I'm tired just typing that : ) -- we've been sooo lucky with amazing people coming out to help see my friends Kathleen's blog for yesterdays photos and here are some photos from today -- Big Thanks to everyone that has come out so far!!!

Laura, Kathleen, Gina, Tera, Alex and Alacia -- and of course the core crew Mila, Lester, and Katie... and thanks to Tom Boyer for the grape hauling!!



The Wertz Vineyard - Coury Clone planted in the 70's - Brian found this diamond in the rough cvinyeard back in 2007 it's our second year getting this fruit and it's a great site he found!! We Get Pinot Noir and our Pinot Gris from this site : )









The Cattrall fruit came in on the famous truck - featured on the '09 Cattrall -- ! Thanks Tom and Bill BTW the 2010 truck is pretty fine too ; )







Thanks to all from Big Table Farm!! here's to 2011!!

Full swing!!!

Well harvest has started - we brought our first grapes in last week and will be bringing in all the rest by Friday!! Every thing looks amazing we are very excited this year!! we've had amazing help so far !! - thanks to all who have come out!

















Other than the grape harvest Mila has helped me bring in and press 15 gallons of apples juice which is now all caned and ready for winter!! Big Thanks to Chris and Amy of Square Peg Farm for the use of there beautiful press!!















Then of course it's not fall with out the pumpkin patch plow!! thank you Duane and his beautiful Shires!!











The cows on there new pasture : )




and the lovely Mila relaxing post carving! Happy fall