Doug, a Greek/Italian with a long family history of wine making, and his wife Gina, half-Italian herself, seem the perfect couple to be taking on this historic task. The idea for Maragas Winery was first dreamed up by the couple in 1999, and by 2001 Maragas had produced its first vintage – out of a four-bay garage on the east side of Bend, and by 2003 in a nice downtown Bend location. But all this with grapes from outside of Central Oregon – currently the Maragas wine is made from the grapes of Western and Southern Oregon, and California.

At this point, it’s helpful to know that Doug Maragas had a very industrious Greek grandmother. Anna Maragas and her husband owned a grocery store in Canton, Ohio in the 1940s. When good oranges were nowhere to be found, she said, “I can do better,” and set off to California. By herself. And came back with a train car full of delicious oranges, somehow obtained on credit. Anna began brokering fruit, and eventually grapes, up and down the west coast, her tenacity landing her with the only train car permit to do so during the war. Once the good lady had her hands on some fine grapes, she did what any industrious woman would do – she began to make wine.

So, I can imagine Doug Maragas paying the great amount of money that winemakers must pay for grapes, and saying, “I can do better.” And like his grandmother, doing it all against the odds and with great tenacity, despite the risks.

You may wonder why Maragas Winery is the only one operating in Central Oregon. Goodness, vineyards abound in the Willamette Valley of Oregon where the Pinot Noirs are as famous as anything from the Napa Valley. The freezing winter temperatures are probably the biggest deterrent. Spring and fall frosts can also be deadly to the crop – as Gina says, it can frost here at any old time, and lastly, Central Oregon has a short growing season. There simply must be enough heat to ripen the fruit.

There is some encouraging news, however.

The new Maragas Winery and Vineyard, completed in November 2006, is located about 20 miles north of Bend in a fortuitous microclimate. The 40-acre property is at a lower elevation and gets more sun than other parts of Central Oregon, possesses a beneficial sandy loam, volcanic soil, and most advantageous, is protected by rock cliffs that serve to draw cold air away from the vines.

With help from the Oregon State University viticulture experts, Maragas carefully picked 16 of the heartiest varieties most likely to survive and thrive and produce an excellent wine. The Maragases opted to not plant any hybrids at this point (which are actually more suited to cold-climate growing), instead cultivating the traditional Vitis vinifera varieties because of their status as the best-tasting wine grapes. So far, they have planted a one-acre pilot vineyard, to test the varieties before choosing the vines for the remainder of the acreage. It will take about three years to know the results.

The first vines are now springing forth with new buds, a hopeful sign of an agricultural breakthrough that will someday soon christen Central Oregon as wine country.

photo credits: Maragas Winery, Google Images, Wines and Vines.

Technorati Tags: Maragas Winery, Central Oregon winery, vineyard, wine making, winery

I fell in love with wine when my uncle decided to buy three vine parcels in Chåteauneuf-du-Pape to re-create the family vineyard, Domaine du Banneret, which originally dates back from many centuries.

This begins the story of Domaine Rouge-Bleu. Jean-Marc Espinasse, the charming man behind this Provençal vineyard, went on from that first wine making adventure to begin his very own vineyard just over a year ago. He was offered 25 acres of old vines, and with his lovely American wife Kristin and their children, began the amazing task of creating Rouge-Bleu, along with renovating a nearly 400 year old Provençal farmhouse. I was immediately drawn into this story because of that endearing quality of a man living out his dream.

I stumbled upon Jean-Marc’s blog recently, and was excited when I saw that he and his wife were doing a west coast tour! But, I read his blog a few days too late, as he had already passed through Portland, just hours from me. I left a comment on his blog anyway, mentioning our dream of a vineyard on our property someday. I was so surprised to see an email several days ago titled Vineyard in the desert, from Jean-Marc! He asked the telling question:

Do you have underground water at around 5-10 yards deep in the soil?

I knew immediately I was in trouble. I responded that it was quite doubtful, since we had to drill through over 60 feet of solid rock, plus another 200 feet, to hit water when we installed our well. Monsieur Espinasse is a gracious but straightforward Frenchman, and gave me no-nonense advice:

I am afraid but I don’t think that vine is the kind of plant that would behave well where you live. I am also “deeply” convinced that irrigation is the worst thing you can give to a vine since they have natural genes to get rooted deep to find the water. I am sure you can find another farm crop to do there. Making wine is great but farming in general is always rewarding. Cheers.

Ah, well, let’s talk about Rouge-Bleu! Their “Dentelle” Cuvée is scheduled to be bottled in just over a week, and I imagine everyone is very excited. Organic and ancestral practices at Rouge-Bleu call for some interesting viticultural procedures. Jean-Marc’s latest post involves egg whites — don’t worry, they won’t end up in your bottle. Evidently, the albumin contained in egg whites aids in the clarifying process, and using them allows Jean-Marc to avoid too much filtration, which kills the natural sediments so vital to their natural wines.

What are the benefits of organic grape farming? Jean-Marc says that the combination of natural cultivation and harvesting at low yields allows the vines to produce their very best. The result will be good levels of alcohol, high levels of acidity, the right balance of sugar, and a promising aging.

Another term you’ll hear around Rouge-Bleu is biodynamic viticulture. It’s hard to define, as each grower will modify his practices to suit his needs, but it seems to go beyond organic farming. Biodynamic farming will also take into account timing, and, for example, apply certain soil applications according to traditional seasonal markers. A biodynamic approach to a vine disease, for instance, would be not to focus on how to kill the disease, but to ask why the plant is sick in the first place. There is something depleted in the soil, let’s fix the soil, instead of, there’s just something wrong with the vine. This makes sense, but biodynamic philosophy can also lead into mysticism, at which point I would depart.

Here’s a nice sampling of how Jean-Marc practically applies his farming philosophy:

Our Carignan grapes are very weak towards Oidium [fungus]. Using our tractor that pulls the sulfateuse would damage some vine shoots and would not permit to spray straight on the grapes. Since the surface we have is small, I decided to use the traditional manual sulfateuse last week which allowed me to be much more precise while spraying the grapes.

Due to all the rain we had, our baby vines have been completely surrounded with “weeds.” Leaving them would damage our vines because those herbs would drink all the water in the soil. But since we don’t use chemical weed killers and since our décavailloneuse can’t recognize a baby vine and would kill them, we have to remove those herbs by hand.

Provence is an ideal location for wine making, as Jean-Marc is discovering. The Mistral, which is the strong, cold northwesterly wind that blows through southern France and into the Mediterranean, can be deadly; however, the dry Mistral winds minimize vine disease and can return health to the vineyard. The stony ground and soil rich in calcium carbonate is quite amenable to vines and little else. The Mediterranean climate is famously favorable to the vines.

If you have any questions about Rouge-Bleu, be sure to check in at Jean-Marc’s website. I think I’ll be asking how to get my hands on some bottles of the upcoming Dentelle Cuvée and also the Mistral, which is scheduled to be released later this year. If you live in Houston, Texas, you’re in luck — French Country Wines imports the Domaine Rouge-Bleu wines.

photo credits: Rouge-Bleu

Technorati Tags: bottling wine, Provence, organic farming, biodynamic viticulture, Rouge-Bleu, vineyard, winery