Wednesday, November 30, 2011

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^

Sunday, November 20, 2011

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!

Friday, November 11, 2011

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...