so much happening on the farm so little time to post!

First off thank you to all that have placed your orders for our fall wines! The 2010 wine release has been very successful and the wines have been very well received - If you haven't gotten yours yet drop us a line and we'll ship them off to you!







The garden has been great this year Brian has lead the charge with beautiful beans, winter greens, potatoes and root vegetables among other things... I grew the broccoli, tomatoes, onions and cabbage and herbs and a few other odds and ends...








The animals are all doing well on the fall pastures which are lush and green and full on a second crop of white clover... we have also integrated our goats in with the cows to create a 'flerd' (flock and heard) that cooperatively graze! : )

Brian smoked Don and man is he tasty ! all the fall pork and chicken is safely tucked in the freezer... which is COMPLETELY full so everything else that comes in needs to be dried or canned from here on out...





Hence lots of canning is happening... about 40 Quarts so far and still more tomatoes and apples to go! We're lucky in some ways the grape harvest is so late gives us a chance to fill the larder.








I picked up only a small portion of the apple harvest - more still to go it's a beautiful crop I'm hoping to can apple juice...





all the wood is all stacked!! which was done with a lot of help from Mila who is a lovely young German woman who is staying with us this fall she has been a HUGE help on the farm not to mention a real pleasure to share our days with...







finally some shots of Mr Levi who is growing up beautifully !!


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Till the next post happy fall!! cheers ...

who's the bigger pig

Every once in a while I like to do a little Blog contest just for fun to draw out all the lurkers.. : )

This time the winner get's a bottle of the about to be released 2010 Willamette Valley Pinot as it features Don and Roger our current pigs.


Brian named these pigs after Don Draper and Roger Sterling .. so the question is who is the bigger pig... Don or Roger...


courtesy of AMC - Mad Men

My opinion of the TV version is that while Don Does seem to get more women in the sack Roger seems to be a bit more misogynistic about it.. all that being said your guess is to tell me the live weights of these pigs pictured below.. I slaughter on September 6th and will measure them for final weight then... hint I slaughter usually between 275# - to 300# but these boys are both bigger pigs than anticipated...

so type your weight guess in the comments section below one for don and one for roger... I'll announce the winner after the slaughter. Happy guessing...

the new bull!!

The pigs are growing and we have a new bull - His Name is Curley and despite is stature he's quite sweet!!!

this is a very nice post about the current pigs on my friend kathleen's blog!



Thanks Duane for loaning us yer truck!!

puppies, ponies, pigs and prince of pinot in that order

Went caroling around our small town saturday wit duane and the girls good times!




We slaughtered our fall pigs and de-haired meme which is always a process... but the procuitto is worth it!



This was a rainbow the morning of slaughter...


The Prince of Pinot gave us some very nice reviews in his latest issue abotu which we are quite pleased!!

Here's a link to the full article and write up on the 'prince of pinot's' web site

2009 Big Table Farm Cattrall Brothers Vineyard Eola-Amity Hills Willamette Valley Pinot Noir

13.7% alc, 100 cases, $45. Label features a grape delivery truck owned by the Cattrall Brothers, a 1947 Ford. From the oldest certified organic vineyard in Oregon, planted in the 1970s. Unfined and unfiltered. · Moderately light reddish-purple color in the glass. Lovely aromas of cherries, strawberries, red roses and sandalwood. Delicate but tasty core of red fruits with strawberry flavor at the forefront and toasty oak and baking spices adding interest in the background. A charming wine with admirable balance that is drinking nicely now. Very Good.

2009 Big Table Farm Resonance Vineyard Yamhill-Carlton District Willamette Valley Pinot Noir

14.8% alc., 190 cases, $48. Label sports picture of Haley the cow with first calf born at Big Table Farm spring 2010. Pommard, Wädenswil and Dijon 777 clones. Fermented with natural yeast, some pigeage, and aged sur lie in French oak. Unfined and unfiltered. · Moderately deep garnet hue in the glass. Boisterous and alluring aromas of dark, rich Pinot fruits that just won’t quit. Delicious attack of dark berry jam with ever changing additional layers of flavor that include anise, lavender and Asian spice. This is a wine of discovery, revealing more interest with each sip. The tannins are reigned in making for approachability now and the succulent fruit is hard to resist, but this wine will get better with cellaring. Fabulous goût de terroir.

fall always gets the better of me

Between open studios, the fall wine release and web site updates, finishing up the septic install and now harvest coming on strong - blogging has fallen by the wayside a bit .. but just in case you thought I stopped feeding the animals - I wanted to share some snap shots of the last couple weeks...



Cecelia - I actually got up 'early' to do chores and thought of you so I took these shots!






This is a few weeks back one of our 'new to us' OLD vineyards



so when most folks say "we put in a septic" they don't really mean they where the ones that plotted site plans shuffled paper and permits back and forth with the county, schlepped many hundreds of feet of pipe and drain field liners and actually used a shovel and operated a back hoe for weeks on end... The septic project in finally complete!! wow I think this falls into the category of project you only do once your self.





the little miss clementine took another trip to California a few weeks back and met a new boyfriend we are crossing our fingers for pups right before thanksgiving...



Of course there's lots of fall bounty!







and just in case you thought the pig was having all the fun...



back story --
yesterday at the winery at 6pm as Brian stomped in a bin of grapes with nothing but his undies on the lab delivery guy came in and i think got his whole evening ruined.. he really just didn't want to see Brian 1/2 naked in grapes and didn't really think people still did that .. it was classic!!! all he said after groaning loudly was 'are you serious?'



big thanks to all the folks that came to open studios and took art and wine home!!

also if you aren't on our big table farm mailing list... the wine release letter just went out if you'd like one, e-mail me or just visit the big table farm web site!!

BIG thanks to Northwest Palate and Katheleen Bauer

Kathleen wrote a super nice story on Big Table Farm and Northwest palate published it along with some VERY nice wine reviews!! - Check out Kathleens blog it's - portland foodie heaven and pick up a copy of NW palate ...