in addition to this wonderful news, we’ve been holding in a grand surprise that we weren’t going to release for another few days, but what the hell, right? we’re already up and awake, so let’s spill the beans! our Flagship Syrah (we reserve the Flagship designation for the best lot of the year) took not only Gold in its class at the Northwest Wine Summit, but also Best Red Wine, a truly great honor.

to celebrate we had been planning to host a small party on June 19th, but i imagine it will now be slightly bigger. :) so keep the 19th open! we’ll keep you posted and look for your e-invite in the coming days.

and again, if you see herb, give him a good “Well Done!” and a high five.

Gold: 2006 Syrah 4-2,A ~ Rogue Valley
Gold: 2006 Flagship ~ Applegate Valley (don’t know what this is? keep checking the website & tasting room – well worth your time. hope your on the Q-List…)

and the following for Troon Vineyard:

Gold: 2008 Troon Vermintino ~ Applegate Valley
Gold: 2005 Troon Vineyard “Blossom Fire Cabernet Sauvignon,” Applegate Valley

sooooo…..here’s your sneak peak – we are opening a Quady North Tasting Room in Jacksonville on the corner of California & 5th St. stay tuned for more information and opening dates.

so yes, a dinner with Herb (my husband, not the foliage) is set to take place at The Carriage House in Jacksonville on Feb. 26th. the exquisit menu has been created by Executive Chef Tim Keller. at the bottom of this blog you’ll find a menu and wine list. the wines being poured are not only from Quady North, but also from our southern counterpart, Quady Winery . for those of you who are unfamiliar with our family, we are on a personal quest to dominate the table with magnificent wines! not really, it just kinda worked out that way. fortuitous :)

Andrew and Laurel Quady (Herb’s parents) began Quady Winery in 1975 with a vintage zinfandel port, and have been keeping it sweet ever since. Quady Winery now produces fine dessert wines such as Essensia, Elysium and Deviation along with spectacular aperitifs such as Vya Vermouth, arguably the best vermouth around (ask me to argue it, i dare ya!) and oh my dear, don’t forget the port, or rather the Starboard. if you are lucky enough to visit the winery (located in Madera, CA) ask for a Starboard tasting. tell em’ mel sent ya.

and of course, you all know that here at Quady North we specialize in vineyard select Syrah, Cabernet Franc and Viognier from the Rogue & Applegate Valleys. Herb is incredibly excited about having Tim pair his wines simply because he is such a huge fan of Tim’s pairing ability. i’ve heard of nothing else these last few weeks. and as most of you know, the Cabernet Franc is Herb’s favorite of this vintage, so to have it headline his first local winemaker’s dinner, made by his favorite local chef, well…you can imagine how giddy he’s been. who’s 16 now? :)

so come join us and our family to celebrate our new venture, and the new vintage, with great wine and fabulous cuisine.

cheers & i hope to see you there,

-m

The wine industry, being merely an extension of agriculture, shares many of the rhythms of farming. If the cycle of a year could be compared to one, long breath, Spring would be the giant inhale, the warm air filling the lungs of the earth with life, Fall , on the other hand, would be a great exhale, with all the stored energy of the year released at once in the form of the busy harvest. Winter would be the pause in-between.
It is at this pause that we take the time to reflect on the past year and plan for the coming one. The Feds have a part in this. Every year we prepare the “5120,” a document that is kind of like a big balance sheet for wine. We report grapes in, wine made, wine sold, wine lost, wine drunk by the family (we get to drink about 50 gals ourselves, tax free). We report the different kinds of wines, with alcohol levels determining their tax classes, we report where they came from, how we blended them, how their labeled, etc… etc…etc…
This somewhat laborious effort has a somewhat distressing side effect. Thousands of gallons of beautiful wines that take up thousands of feet of floor space are reduced to numbers on a grid in a frustratingly fragile excel spreadsheet. A simple misplaced formula deletes your single vineyard Syrah, a transposed code blends your luscious Viognier. Meanwhile, after a couple of months of good hard work in the cellar, work that strengthens backs, and buffs up shoulders, you find yourself hunched over, pale from lack of sun exposure, eyes strained, peering endlessly at the tiny, tiny fonts.
January is also the time for resolutions. After pouring over your stacks of misfiled work orders, trying to find where that missing 20 gallons of Cab Franc ended up, you resolve to do better. I will file all my orders chronologically by date, cross referenced by variety and tax class. I will track every topping wine to the last gallon. I will measure my lost lees. I will, this year, I surely will…

-Herb

this is a great pie. or galette or tart or whatever you want to call it. it is sweet, it has a crust, sugar, great fruit, better wine and it is awesome with bryers vanilla bean ice cream. so here you go. herb and i just sat down and had a slice and decided we should share this lucky find.

crust:
1 1/2 c flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 stick butter, cold and cut into chunks
cold water

filling:
part 1.
about 4 cups peeled, cored & sliced asian pears
1/2 c Quady North Viognier ( I used 2006 Steelhead Run Vineyard)
1 vanilla bean
1/4 c rasins
3-5 whole cloves
1/4 c sugar

part 2.
1 T corn starch
1 T flour
1 teaspoon cinnamon

note: have some extra sugar on hand and have some extra butter at room temp. for basting pie during last 15 min. of baking.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

step 1.
place pears, viognier, rasins, sugar, cloves, and bean into a sauce pan and bring to a boil. it will not seem like a lot of liquid, but you just need enough to soften the pears & rasins.

step 2.
while the pears are coming to a boil, make the crust. in a food processor, pulse flour, salt and butter until the mixture is crumbly. add cold water a bit at a time while pulsing until mixture comes together. do not over mix. place onto parchement paper and roll out crust to about 15″. large enough to place fruit into middle and fold over edges onto fruit pile. sprinkle the crust with a bit of sugar and set aside (still on parchment paper) onto a cookie sheet.

step 3.
check on the boiling fruit. when it is soft enough to pierce with a fork, take off the heat and into a mixing bowl place “part 2″ ingredients. using a slotted spoon, scoop out pears and raisins into the mixing bowl making sure to leave liquid, cloves and vanilla bean in the pot. mix the fruit with the flours and then pile fruit into middle of prepared pie crust. quickly and carefully fold over the edges of crust to parital cover fruit. try to seal the folds as best you can by gently pressing crust together.

step 4.
bake pie for 30 min. on middle rack. when timer goes off, pull out pie and baste with butter on edges of crust and also on exposed fruit. sprinkle with sugar and then return to oven to bake for another 15 min. let cool, but serve warm and with ice cream. enjoy and cheers from the quady family. if you have questions or comments, email me at quadynorth@mac.com

late last night herb released the 2006 Cabernet Franc and the 2007 Rosé via an email blast. for those of you who did not recieve the notification, please email me at info@quadynorth.com and i will forward you the copy. herb has been all about this cab franc and how it is his favorite of the vintage, so if you are interested i suggest you grab it while you can as there were only 65 cases produced and he’s only releasing 50 of them for sales. currently there are no retail stores who have access either. personally, i was pleased with the rosé (and don’t even go the “rosé is for girls” route! we will have words!) rosé has a proud history and a revered place in the quady household! just the process of producing a quality rosé should be held in high regard. don’t know how rosé is made? well….lets talk pink…and it has nothing to do with thomson seedless!

our dry rosé is made in the classic French saignée method, where juice is drawn down (or “bled”) during the crushing of a red wine, in our case our Syrah 4-2, A (which won a gold medal at the Northwest Wine Summit this year!). the draw down effect produces a more concentrated red wine and gives the winemaker the opportunity to produce a offspring wine – the rosé.

my favorite thing about rosé is trying it’s parent wine and finding the commonalities. i love the process and creativity in rosé. too often does rosé get a bad name due to cheap knock offs that use miscellaneous red grapes crushed with sweet white grapes. rosé actually gets it’s pink from the amount of time the juice spends in contact with the skins during the original crushing. the longer you wait to draw down, the more color you’ll typically get. also the grape varietal plays a part. our rosé is made from Syrah, but we’ve enjoyed rosé made from mourvedre and other red varieties as well.

herb and i were talking tonight about life changes and how many of our friends and people we know change careers as they go through life. yet we couldn’t find one example of a winemaker who changed profession. we know people who came about winemaking via other careers, but not a winemaker who say decided to just up and move into something like kayak building or decided that their true calling was finding & producing records for unknown ska bands out of des moines.

it was a strange realization. although i could have never imagined 10 years ago that we would be this involved in viticulture, and on the brink of opening the doors to a new winery, i don’t think that i can imagine us doing anything different ten years from today. i think winemakers stay winemakers simply because it isn’t simply a job, it’s a life. not the life you see in movies & tv where everything is so superficial, but a real daily investment. you plant a vine, you watch it grow, you harvest it, you help its fruit develop, and then you share it. how can you leave something like that?

so on this very late evening, after hours of hard work, i welcome you to Quady North. a family project, three generations strong, two of which happen to be incredible winemakers. (yes, i admit to having a strong bias – but trust me, i’m not alone) our family looks forward to sharing our efforts, our growth and many harvests to come with you and yours.

Cheers,
-m