Fantastic dog photographer Erin Vey and attendee Amber (with her Rhodesian Ridgeback, Nala) have posted their photos and thoughts on the Cuvee Birthday Bash Fundraiser, which took place Saturday, February 7 at SageCliffe, on their blogs.
Click on the following links to drink in their fabulous pics and the wonderful comments about our paws-for-a-good-cause event!
http://www.erinvey.com/bark/2009/02/09/cuvees-birthday-bash/
http://www.nwridgeback.com/2009/02/birthday-bash-for-good-cause.html
Every year it happens: Here at Cave B Estate Winery we prepare…once in the spring, and once in the summer…to release the wines.
It sounds like a fox hunt. A horse race. Buckets of butterflies popped open at the end of a wedding. And yet, we’re talking about wine. Why “release”? Why not the more formal–albeit stodgy–“present” or “introduce?” What accounts for such an active verb put with such a noun? After all, we don’t line up the bottles at the end of Silica Road and cheer as they lunge forward in their fragile glassy clunkiness, watching as they race for the finish. We don’t hurl them into the sky to see them swept up into the warm air currents above the gorge, watching them flutter away in a great flock of green and amber. There’s no holding back, then letting go…
Or is there?
Every spring presents the end of a tremendous period of becoming for the white wines. They have been harvested, crushed, put in barrels or tanks, ever so carefully watched and nurtured; added to or carefully left alone, crafted and brought along…all within the confines of the estate winery; dynamic and ever-changing, but contained.
But finally some of those wines have become just that, and they are ready to be removed; to be funnelled out of their containment and brought into the light, allowed to breathe, be seen, be tasted and felt on the tongue, in the throat. Their journey to this point is finished; the rest of their life just beginning.
Why are wines released? Because they cannot be held back any longer, or they will become something entirely other than what they have become at precisely that moment. They leave the domain of the winery and winemaker with purposeful timing, yet with that great sense of hope–ribbed with confidence, lined with unknowing, shaded with total abandon–that there will be people there on the receiving end of their release, ready to catch them up on the palate and experience through taste and nose and feel their entire life to date. Release and catch…. Winemaking–it’s a horse before the cart art. A grand risk. A tremendous rush.
Cave B Estate Winery’s Spring White Wine Release: Saturday, March 28, 2009. Come experience the release of the whites. Be there to catch them.
Have you come to a Live! at The Cellar performance yet?
Have you parked in the upper parking lot, walked along the winding gravel path above the Spa and Chef’s garden, rising higher until you reach the giant doors of the old tasting room? Have you laughed and talked with your friends while you continued on toward the giant Roundhouse just down the path, your breath making frosty puffs before you in the cold night air?
Have you burst into the tasting room like an exploding party favor–all high spirits and noise–and laughed and talked your way as you rubbed your arms briskly and move–immediately and happily–toward the tasting room bar?
Have you had the pleasure of chatting up Winemaker Freddy Arredondo or tasting room extraordinaire Joe France while they pour you a glass of deep red Cave B Wine or white wine so clear and crisp it’s like winter in a glass?
Have you caught a glimpse of the performers as they linger in the back hall, or had the pleasure of realizing they are the very person you’re casually chatting with while you take your first sip and place your order for your oh-so-perfect BBQ slider?
Have you moved with anticipation through the doorway from tasting room to The Cellar and stopped, struck and amazed, when you see the tremendous basalt boulder wall, the musician’s instruments and microphone, the perfect overhead performer lights, the flickering candles around the room, casting the lively faces of the crowd inside into rosy high relief?
Have you stood at the back of the rock-lined room, your glass of SageCliffe 100 red or Cave B Cabernet hovering between your mouth and the wine-barrel bistro tabletop, as you’re too engrossed in conversation and listening to the performer to remember you’re holding it?
Or have you moved to the front of the room, where there are pillows on the floor, tables with chairs, a bench, a barrel–all mere feet from the performers–so you can sit and sip, hearing every lyric and note, fully engaged, totally appreciative of this person there before you, singing their heart and soul out on this cold night to this merry band of travellers?
Were you there last October, when Ellensburg native Mark Pickerel picked up his guitar and took possession of the mic, the room, and everyone’s heart? Have you heard his words, his urban country twang, his rockabilly sensibility?
Have you made plans for 8:30 p.m., Friday, February 13? Have you figured out how to get out of them so you can come experience Mark Pickerel’s return to The Cellar at precisely that time? Have you?
Yeah! Its an Ice Wine!!!!! Yes everyone, Mother Nature graced us with some COLD! COLD! COLD! days in the middle of December. On December 16th 2008, with temperatures in the single digits, we had those much-needed cold temperatures required to freeze an intensely sugar-filled grape on the vine. With a temperature of 6˚ F at the onset of the Ice Wine harvest, the chilly thermal reading refused to break into the double digits. So with hats, gloves, facemasks and heavy coats donned and all body parts carefully covered except for their eyes, our hard working harvest crew braved the freezing temperatures to bring in the harvest for our 2008 Cave B Ice Wine. The fruit was beautiful, and eating these frozen grapes was much like having a tiny spoonful of a delightful Semillon Sorbet. A final sugar reading in the juice of 39.5 degrees Brix assures that this Ice Wine can achieve a perfect balance of alcohol to residual sugar.
Thank you, weather…hello, Ice Wine.
Facebook is for all faces…even the furry kind. I’m proud to say that I now have my own Facebook page. Do you? You can find me by searching for cuvee@sagecliffe.com. I miss many of you after you leave the Inn, so this way we can stay friends! Add me as a friend and I’ll do the same…it’s tricky working with paws, but I manage. See you on Facebook!
Snow has finally fallen here at Cave B Inn turning my home into a winter wonderland. I spend my days frolicking through this fluffy white powder with icicles hanging from my nose. When I finally decide to come in from the frigid cold you can find me curled up on my bed or snuggled up by the fireplace. I definitely have more time scheduled for naps these days and find myself waking up earlier and ready to play. But my favorite place to hide out is with all of my friends that come to visit me, just listen for a tap at the door and youll know its me.
Ive found that playing with toys inside and sliding on the wood floors is really, really, fun. Now that I no longer blend in with the ground its becoming harder to sneak up on my flying friends, but I still find ways to surprise them. Ive also noticed that as it gets colder my staff here at Cave B like to fatten me up with lots of cookies and bones, but Im not complaining. So if you need a new friend, come watch the snow fall here at home with me!
Cuvee
Head Dog: Guest Relations
It’s December 12: The first day of winter is just around the corner, and we at SageCliffe are gearing up for the holiday season. Winter menus are in the works and Tendrils is excited to dive into the local bounty.
On the top of my list are citrus fruits: blood oranges, kumquats and Meyer lemons. What else? Black cod, brussel sprouts, winter squashes, celery root, and veal shanks.
Look for these among others on our Tendrils menus when you come visit Cave B Inn at SageCliffe in the beautiful winter season!
~Shauna Scriver
Executive Chef, Tendrils
At SageCliffe, everything begins and ends with the environment. Late in the year 2006 our environmental sustainability efforts at Cave B Inn & Spa, Tendrils and Cave B Estate Winery were kicked up a notch. We continue to seek more ways to bring the SageCliffe experience to guests in a responsible, sustainable manner. Lately, this has included the holiday decorating of SageCliffe: an endeavor both fun, and increasingly green.
By using as many natural materials from the SageCliffe land as possible, and augmenting with reusable, recyclable or compostable decorations, weve created a beautiful holiday environment that is also friendly to the environment. Dried sunflowers from the Chefs Garden are to be found among the holiday decor, as well as cattails, lavender, curly willow, sage, tumbleweed and mustard plant from the meadow and gorge. Bundle upon bundle of grapevine cuttings from our own vineyards were twisted into wreaths, balls, swags and more. Augmented by the purchase of dried berries, hickory sticks, cotton ribbon, paper holly, wreaths & swags, as well as tree skirts made from sustainable hemp burlap, the holidays at SageCliffe this year are naturally, sustainably beautiful. Come on over to the steppe desert to see true green!
In November we released our 2007 Cave B vintages of Barbera, Sangiovese and our first ever Tempranillo. I must say that the Tempranillo has become a Tasting room Rock Star, making up about 25% of our daily sales since its release. With beautiful full fruit flavours and earthy nuances, this young red wine is ready to drink and wants to join you at the dinner table to accompany some of your dinnertime favorites. Its nap time! (For the wines). With all of the red wines in barrel now slumbering away and working through the malo-lactic fermentation, things have slowed down since the all-too hectic but exciting days of the 2008 crush. All of our Cave B and SageCliffe white wines are dry. Both barrel fermentations and tank fermentations have worked through with cool, steady, long fermentations. These long cool fermentations have made for some truly beautifully crisp and fruity white wines.
Until Next Time,
Bueno Provecho,
Freddy Arredondo, Winemaker
Last Friday night, November 14, Live! at The Cellar was truly alive and jumping. Singer-songwriter Kristen Ward, accompanied on guitar by musician Gary Westlake, played and sang their rock-country-soul hearts out to a crowd of true music appreciators and animated minglers alike.
Lucky seven in the lineup of Live! at The Cellar performers, Kristen Ward’s deep, sonorous voice and thought-provoking lyrics entranced those seated on the floor, chairs and benches near the duo at the front of the room. The cadence and lyricism of Kristen’s music pulled in the audience who had come to hear a truly up and coming artist sing with her heart on her sleeve. Gary Westlake, assistant to the manager of Pearl Jam for the last 25 years, brought his own amazing guitar work and rock and roll sensibility to the performance, strongly complementing Kristen’s youth and femininity with his own rock-veteran solidity.
Kristen’s prime cheerleader, Gary was the individual who introduced Kristen to her now-mentor, Mike McCready of Pearl Jam. After hearing Kristen’s music playing in Gary’s London hotel room one night, Mike asked the proverbial “Who is that?” A short few weeks later, Mike had laid down a track on Kristen’s second CD, and their mentor relationship was off and running.
For SageCliffe, the opportunity to host Kristen Ward and Gary Westlake at The Cellar completed a wonderful kind of circle, as Gary had stayed at Cave B Inn several times in the past with Pearl Jam, when the band played at the neighboring Gorge Amphitheater.
This time in a different role, as guitar-player, Gary had returned once again to Cave B. The Cellar is our new, emerging venue, and Kristen Ward and Gary Westlake are on their own emerging musical path….it seemed fitting that the two came together last Friday; perhaps the full-circle nature of the event is what brought out the full-house crowd that listened, talked, ate, drank, made new friends and went home humming Kristen’s songs-from-the-soul.
Live! at The Cellar has hit its stride; we look forward to many more full-circle moments, and full-house crowds. See you in February!
Were you at The Cellar for Kristen and Gary’s performance? Tell us what you thought by leaving a comment!
To see more Kristen Ward/Gary Westlake performances, visit Kristen’s site: http://www.kristenward.com.
