Stone's Throw '08 Pinot Noir

One of the wines I was lucky to get at the Eugene Ballet's "Table Dances" event Friday night, from the wall of wine, was a Territorial Vineyards Stone's Throw Pinot Noir, '08.
This is a big wine with bold dark cherry, a bit of oak and lots of layers of soft, dark fruit. The smell drifts up at you with over notes of hay, and sweet berry. We opened it early today and let it open for a while before we had a taste, now many hours later it is tasting quite remarkable and will be a nice companion for my computer, my cats, and me.
Tonight we tried a new, to us, place for dinner, Rabbit Bistro here in Eugene. It is located in a PC Market shopping center, is small and quite, and has a bit of friendly pretence that did not put me off.
My wife is vegetarian and we eat away a lot. I all of our wanderings I have had little trouble finding something for her on the menu, or, if the menu is limited, something off menu to satisfy her. One of the best examples was trip to Scottsdale and a meal at Lon's. They are known for MEAT, MEAT, and more MEAT, yet they went out of their way to make a very complete and perfect meal for both of us. This is the case more often than not, unless you are in some podunk little town where vegetarian means a cheese sandwich, grilled if you are lucky.
Rabbit has no vegetarian items on the menu, and after I was warned that no special meal would be made, they made a very nice little Pot Pie with mushrooms, onions, broccoli, carrots, and potato. She enjoyed the butter lettuce salad also.
I had he hanger steak and the same nice little salad. The meat was well cooked, tasty, and done on a Yorkshire Pudding which was a nice touch.
We each had a glass of '09 Haden Fig Pinot Noir. Erin Nuccio has a great story and is someone to watch in the exciting new crop of Oregon wine makers. They also make a Pinot Noir Blanc that is very good (but not nearly as amazing as Ghost Hill's Pinot Noir Blanc, this is a must drink!) Read about Erin here.
We recomend Rabbit Bistro for a well prepared meal, a glass of good wine, and least I forget, a fine desert ( mine was the Apple Crisp with Guinness Icecream!)
Now back to the last sips of this tasty little wine local!

Show at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art

I have been very honored by having my work on the walls of the museum for the last month and look forward to the dinner on the 27th with all the wineries and Marche' showing off what theey make!
Here are a few of the images on the wall.

 Territorial Vineyards

 Sweet Cheeks Winery

 Saginaw Vineyards

 RainSong Vineyards

Noble Estate Winery
These are etching done in solarplate, inked up and printed with my old press on to birch plywood. Once this is done there can be no more etchings printed on paper as the plate is ruined. With that in mind, I printed an edition of 30 of each etching before printing on wood.

Eugene's Well Hidden Gem

For those of you who do not frequently visit the Whitaker District, Neighborhood, area, etc. you are missing a diamond in the rough. Whitaker is a last mecca for Eugene's urban hipsters, gentrifiers, and retired hippies. there are a few anarchists thrown in to the mix for good measure but mostly the place is happy, laid back, and down toward Blair, contains a great mix of new stores, galleries, and restaurants.
(click here for map). On third street, on the corner at Adams Street,
Territorial Vineyards and Wine Company sits in an old warehouse with a tasting room, a huge wine storage area, and all the equipment needed to produce some very fine wines.
(click here for map).

In an old 12,000 square foot coffee warehouse they put together a fully functional wine making facility complete with crush pad and climate control.

In their own words:

With relatively small production levels, an efficient floor plan and plenty of room, wine maker John Jarboe is able to closely monitor and intimately 'know' every lot and every barrel from crush through bottling. Pinot Noir lots, for example, are fermented, vinified and aged separately by vineyard, by clone and further by free-run and hardpress. With this high degree of specificity John is able to experiment with a wide range of French oak barrels taking the best from a range of coopers and forests. While this makes for a grueling regimen of tasting and selection at blending time we accept this burden as all part of a day's work. (more)

I stopped by today to give them the photo-etching I made for them and to pick up a bottle of their wonderful '08 Stone's Throw Pinot Noir This wine has a huge amount of nose with black-caps and warm toasted bread followed by blueberry, spice, and black current and cherry.

They are well known in Lane County to be generous and caring about the arts and other non-profit enterprises so please do all you can to make it down on a Friday or Saturday for a taste and some music.