Red, White & True

Looking for something fun to do over the 4th of July holiday weekend?  Why not head out to Oregon’s wine country?  There are lots of great events taking place in the Willamette Valley over the weekend.  One of our favorites is Red, White & True Oregon Wines.  Participating wineries and tasting rooms will open their doors for special wine events and activities over the weekend of July 3–5.  You’ll be able to sample new releases (and revisit old favorites) while enjoying activities such as picnics, barbecues, bluegrass music, bocce ball and more!

And to make the weekend even sweeter, wineries participating in Red, White, and True events will be donating “A 4th for the 4th,” which means that a fourth of tasting fees and other proceeds from the weekend will benefit Ecotrust’s Farm to School initiative, which is Ecotrust’s effort to educate children about Oregon agriculture and bring more Oregon grown products into the school lunchroom.

Great wine and great fun for a great cause.   Click here to see a list of participating wineries and to learn more about Red, White & True Oregon Wines.

PDXposed at Indie 09

KGW’s PDXposed visited the 2009 Portland Indie Wine Festival’s Grand Tasting on May 2nd.  Click here to check out the segment, which features an interview with PDXposed host Jon Olson and PIWF Founder Lisa Donoughe.

Enjoy!

Indie 2009 Recap

Wow!  It’s hard to believe that the 2009 Indie Wine Festival is now just a memory.  The weekend was amazing and we’re still floating on a cloud thanks to the huge success of both the Producers Dinner and the Grand Tasting!  Folks from all over Oregon, New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Georgia, and even London(!) enjoyed a great weekend full of fabulous wine and food.

The Festival started off with a bang at Friday night’s Producers Dinner, held at Ten-01.  Sommelier Erica Landon and Executive Chef Benjamin Parks dazzled the lucky attendees with their brilliant food and wine pairings that showcased featured Indie wines to perfection!  Portland writer Byron Beck has a great post about the dinner on his blog.  Check it out!

Saturday’s Grand Tasting was definitely one of Indie’s best ever (not even the afternoon’s crazy thunder/hail/lightning storm was enough to dampen anyone’s spirits…although we were thankful that this is an indoor festival!)!  The Portland Wine Project was the perfect venue for the event; attendees loved exploring Portland’s newest urban winery and had nothing but great things to say about the new venue!  (If you haven’t had the chance to check out the Project, definitely make doing so a priority!)  The quality and variety of wine being poured was outstanding- I still can’t choose a favorite! 

Also outstanding?  The food!  The quality (and quantity!) of food at this year’s Festival was incredible!  The chefs, restaurants, and caterers went above and beyond and provided our Indie guests with lots of exciting food.  For the full list of what was served, check out our twitter stream.

Indie 2009 was a huge success and we are so proud to be able to showcase Oregon’s craft winemaking community at such a topnotch event.  Pictures of this year’s Producers Dinner and Grand Tasting can be found HERE.  (Thanks to our friends at Holland Studios for taking such awesome shots!)

As always, we’d love to hear from you!  What did you love about the event?  Any suggestions about what we can do to make next year’s festival even better?  Feel free to leave a comment on this post or drop us an e-mail at info@indiewinefestival.com.  We’d love to hear from you!

See you at Indie 2010!  Cheers!

PS: Just because the event is over doesn’t mean the blogging/twitter/facebook fun is ending!  Stay tuned for  updates about next year’s Festival, exciting developments with the Indie Wine Foundation, and interesting tidbits about Oregon’s craft winemaking community…

Today’s The Day!

It’s finally here!  We are so excited for today’s Grand Tasting and are looking forward to a day full of great wine, great food, and great new friends.

Final preparations are underway, volunteers and wineries are starting to arrive, and there is a great feeling of anticipation in the air for what promises to be the best Indie yet!

Want to attend but didn’t purchase tickets online?  Don’t worry.  Tickets will be sold at the door. 

Details: The 2009 Portland Indie Wine Festival is being held at the Portland Wine Project in NW Portland’s Industrial District. 

1 pm- VIP Ticket Holder Entry

2pm- General Admission Holder Entry

6pm- Festival Ends

7pm- Wine Sales End

Congratulations to Dina, who won 2 tickets to the Festival through our blog/twitter ticket giveaway.  Thanks to everyone who participated!

Here’s to a great day!

PS: Follow us on twitter (@indiewinefest) for live-tweets throughout the day.  Our hashtag is #PIWF09

Win 2 Tickets to Indie!

The 2009 Portland Indie Wine Festival is finally here!  Don’t have your tickets yet?  Don’t worry!  As a thank you to our loyal twitter and blog followers, we’ve decided to give away a pair of tickets to the Grand Tasting tomorrow.  In order to enter, leave a comment on this blog post OR send us a DM on twitter (@indiewinefest).  Include your name, contact info, and the name of your favorite Oregon wine.  Entries will close at midnight tonight and a random drawing will be held in the morning.  The winner will be notified by 10am. 

Remember, the Festival is from 2-6pm tomorrow afternoon at the Portland Wine Project in NW Portland’s Industrial District.  Please enter only if you are able to attend!

Don’t want to push your luck trying to win tickets?  You can buy tickets online until 5:00 tonight (Friday).  We will also be selling tickets at the Festival door tomorrow.

Cheers and Good luck!

**UPDATE**  We’ve decided to keep the comments for this post private to protect the personal info of our participants!  You’ve named some great wines…keep them coming for your chance to win!  Remember, we’re accepting entries until midnight tonight.

Indie is Around the Corner!

It’s hard to believe but we’re a few days away from our Fifth event weekend! and Yes, it does take a village to make this all come together. Thank you everyone involved!

We have fantastic sponsors and partners on board this year. Pihl Excavating stepped in early as a presenting sponsor and we hope that relationship grows. We are also really excited about the involvement and support from California Pizza Kitchen who has selected our event as their first taste-test for a new line of pizzas. Have you seen their new ads focusing on wine pairings? It’s a great fit for our guests who can use their palates this year to influence the final selected flavor choice with their vote on Saturday.

As the founder of this small start up, this economy has defnitely made me stop and wonder if our little non-profit can sustain major bumps in the road and it is only with the support from organizations like CPK, Pihl, Travel Portland, Hotel Vintage Plaza, Ten 01, among others, that has allowed us to move forward with optimism. So, with that, I will take a deep breath, enjoy the anticipation of all those amazing wines and fantastic dishes we will enjoy this weekend and hope to see you at one of the most special wine events I’ve ever been to – OK, I’m biased but really, it’s cool, no?

Lisa

Producers Dinner Menu

 

Enjoy an evening with great company and wines that have been sold out for years!

 

On Friday, May 1st, Ten 01 is hosting the Portland Indie Wine Festival’s Producers Dinner, a very special fundraising event to celebrate five years building a community of Oregon’s top craft winemakers and the newly formed Indie Wine Foundation – a non-profit devoted to preserving and sustaining the art of craft winemaking. 

 

The Producers Dinner will feature a five-course menu crafted by Ten 01’s new Executive Chef Benjamin Parks, alongside rare releases pulled from the Indie Wine Festival’s cellar by award-winning sommelier Erica Landon.  Original Indie winemakers who went from their garages to the pages of Wine Spectator, like Jason Lett of BlackCap and Eyrie Vineyards, will join us for the evening.

 

THIS EVENT WILL SELL OUT, so please reserve your seats now by visiting www.indiewinefestival.com/tickets and see Producers Dinner.  Tickets are $150 per person.  Dinner is from 6 – 9 p.m.

 

Check out the amazing menu!

 

 

Poached quail eggs

Local sweet peas, dry pecorino, guanciale

 

2007 Anam Cara Riesling, Chehalem Mountain

 

Polpetini en brodo

Parmesan broth, pork meatballs, root vegetables

 

2006 BlackCap, chardonnay, Dundee Hills

2004 Stoller, chardonnay, Dundee Hills

 

Lavender-honey duck breast

Cannellini beans, grilled asparagus

 

2006 Roots Pinot Noir, Willamette Valley

2006 Matello Pinot Noir, Willamette Valley

 

Roasted grass fed new york steak

Olive oil potatoes, roasted shallots, lacinato kale

Choron sauce

 

2005 Dalla Vina Syrah, Columbia Valley

2005 Dominio Syrah, old man looking east, Columbia Gorge

 

Buttermilk Panna Cotta

Rhubarb Coulis and Vanilla Tuille

 

2009 PIWF Festival Announcement – Wine Warehouse Sale Cancelled for 2009, Plans to Launch Event in 2010

The PIWF has decided to cancel the Wine Warehouse Sale for 2009 with hopes to move forward with the event in 2010. We love the idea of a recession-proof sale featuring wines from our amazing 2005 – 2009 Official Selected Portland Indie Wine Festival Alums, and it garnered a ton of interest among winemakers and consumers. However, after researching and moving forward with the idea, we decided, it required more infrastructure than we had in place this year to pull it off without a glitch.

Look for the Indie Indie Wine Warehouse Sale to be part of the Festival in the coming years. Thanks to all the wineries who wanted to participate. Consumers, you’ll still have a ton of shopping opportunities with our 40 featured wineries and 64 wines! We have a list of the wineries who were interested in participating in the warehouse sale and would be happy to send you that list by e-mail. Just contact us at our website and we’ll send it along for you to personally contact wineries about their special offers. We look forward to seeing everyone on May 2nd. If you haven’t already, visit www.indiewinefestival.com/tickets to buy your Festival ticket.

Please feel to respond with any questions or comments below.

Cheers!
The Portland Indie Wine Festival Team

Hit of the Week – Horizon Air

The 2009 Indie Wine Festival is featured in this month’s Horizon Air Magazine.  Check out the story below!

2009 Official Indie Wineries!

The Portland Indie Wine Festival Announces Selected Wineries for 2009
Forty of Oregon’s premier craft wineries will pour at the fifth annual Portland Indie Wine Festival on May 2nd

The fifth annual Portland Indie Wine Festival has announced the names of the 40 Oregon craft wineries selected to pour their artisanal wines at the PIWF Grand Tasting, held Saturday, May 2nd from 2:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m. in Northwest Portland’s Industrial District. Sixty-one wines will be poured in the Portland Wine Project’s new 10,000 square foot urban winery, alongside some of the city’s top restaurants.

“This was a record-setting year in terms of the diversity, quantity and quality of the wine entries,” said Lisa Donoughe, PIWF founder. An all-time high of 194 wines were submitted by 69 wineries, many of whom have just released their first or second vintages. “We’re excited to be a part of an artisanal wine movement that is garnering national attention for these amazing small producers,” adds Donoughe.

Selected wineries (in alphabetical order)

1789 Wines
Anam Cara Cellars
Ancient Cellars
Apolloni Vineyards
ArborBrook Vineyards
Artisanal Wine Cellars
Barking Frog Winery
Big Table Farms
Boedecker Cellars
Capitello Wines
Carlton Cellars
Carlton Hill Wine Company
Christopher Bridge Cellars
Coeur De Terre Vineyard
Dukes Family Vineyards
Et Fille
Folin Cellars
Gino Cuneo Cellars
Hawkins Cellars
J. Scott Cellars
Johan Vineyards
Kelly Fox Wines
Lenné
Longsword Vineyard
Misty Oaks Vineyard
Monks Gate
Nuthatch Cellars
Pudding River Wine Cellars
Quady North
Ribbon Ridge Vineyard
Rizzo Winery
Séjourné
Seufert Winery
Seven of Hearts
Thistle Wines
Three Angles Wine Cellar
VIDON Vineyard
WildAire Cellars
Winderlea Vineyard & Winery
Zenas Wines

The wines were selected in a comprehensive blind tasting conducted on March 9th, 2009 at the Hotel Vintage Plaza. The judging panel consisted of 10 wine professionals, including winemaker Dick Erath (Founder of Erath Vineyards), wine and spirits writer Toby Cecchini (New York Times, GQ), sommelier Erica Landon (Ten 01), restaurateur Kimberly Paley (Paley’s Place) and winemaker Jason Lett (BlackCap of Oregon, Eyrie Vineyards). For a complete list of 2009 judges, please visit http://www.indiewinefestival.com/judges.php.

On May 2nd, join the independent producers that represent the heart and soul of Oregon’s world-class wine industry at the Portland Wine Project, located in Northwest Portland’s Industrial District. The fifth annual Portland Indie Wine Festival is the opportunity to meet the next generation of winemakers from emerging cellars across the state while enjoying small plates from local restaurants and chefs. Restaurant partners include Alma Chocolates, The Country Cat Dinnerhouse & Bar, Davis Street Tavern, Marché, Pazzo Ristorante, Phresh Organic Catering, Pyramid Brewery and Restaurant, Red Star Roasthouse & Tavern, Simpatica Catering and Dining Hall, Ten 01, Whole Foods and Wildwood.

Tickets are now on sale, and may be purchased online at www.indiewinefestival.com. General admission is $75 with tasting times from 2 p.m. – 6 p.m. and VIP admission is $125 with tasting times from 1 p.m. – 6 p.m.