Treasured Valley

Archive for the ‘Wine’ Category

Got this from the wonderful folks out at Indian Creek Winery and thought I’d pass it along…

Treat your dad and bring him out to our Happy Pappy’s Day celebration!

Relax outside in the beautiful Indian Creek Winery gardens and enjoy live music by the JB Trio and Jonathan Warren and the Billy Goats. Sample our wines and join in on some barrel tasting. Mama Mui will have her delicious Thai cuisine ready for $6/plate, Rollingstone Chevre as well as other local goodies, massages by Three Oaks Academy, and a ball-in-the-barrel golf challenge.

$10 per adult (includes a Happy Pappy’s Day stemless glass), under-21 free. Sunday, June 20th from 12 – 5.

Kids are welcome to come – we will have a kids table with activities and a Clubhouse Astro Jump!

Then head on over to Behind the Menu’s Facebook page to overindulge in photos of food & wine. After you wet your appetite for some food & wine, head over to Idaho Winery Tours and book yourself an Idaho wine tour, you won’t regret it.

For winemaker Neil Glancey, great wine starts at the vineyard.  “We own our grapes, we grow our grapes, and we spend a lot of time in the vineyard.  If you do all the right things there, 80 percent of your job as a winemaker is done,” he notes.

Woodriver Cellars may be a recent member of Idaho’s Snake River wine fraternity, but the Woodriver Vineyard has been around for 15 years.  When owner Dave Burich purchased it, he also acquired Eagle Knoll Winery, thereupon changing its name to Woodriver Cellars.  In the summer of 2008 he hired Neil Glancey as winemaker.

Neil had been trained to make wine in Florida, and was with Carmela Vineyards for seven years before accepting Dave’s offer.  As it turns out, it didn’t take a lot of convincing on Dave’s part.  “It was an opportunity to make wine with what I consider to be the best grapes in the state, “ Neil recalls.  “I also have tools that I didn’t have before as a winemaker, such as French oak barrels and newly revamped stainless steel tanks.  This is a very capital intensive business.”

Woodriver Cellar's tasting room

For Glancey, however, great wine starts at the vineyard.  “We own our grapes, we grow our grapes, and we spend a lot of time in the vineyard.  If you do all the right things there, 80 percent of your job as a winemaker is done,” he notes.  During spring, Woodriver Cellars prunes its vines to keep their ultimate yield down to 2 tons per acre to ensure that the resulting fruit is at its most intense.

“I want to pick the fruit when the acid is really well balanced – almost to the point of being more than the sugar,” says Glancey.  He contrasts his approach to that of wineries in Washington, where “they tend to over ripen the fruit and then go back and try to balance it with citric acids.  I prefer to get the acids right in the fruit itself and achieve a nice balanced wine through the aging.  A lot of getting the balance right is like being a chef – you just have to taste it and make it the way you like to drink it.”

Woodriver Cellar’s meritage is a Bordeaux-style blend with malbec, merlot, cabernet sauvignon, and a little cabernet franc.  The meritage also includes petit verdot, an up and comer that Glancey describes as a “very rich, structured wine.”

Today, Glancey proudly notes, Woodriver Vineyard is the largest producer of malbec grapes in Idaho, the “fastest growing wine in the U.S.”  “As a grape varietal, malbec is where syrah and merlot were 15-20 years ago, so we see it really taking over in the marketplace,” he observes.

Woodriver Cellars’ malbec finds its way into several of its blends, including its cab, merlot, and pinot gris (which is sold out for 2010).  The winery boasts 15-16 different varietals, and releases about a dozen during the year, reserving its specialty wines for its Wine Club members.  One of its most popular wines is its port.  “We age it in old whiskey barrels and maintain a five year blend to keep some of the oldest wines in the barrels,” says Glancey.  “It’s been blowing people away.”

Another popular wine is Woodriver Cellar’s meritage, a Bordeaux-style blend with malbec, merlot, cabernet sauvignon, and a little cabernet franc.  The meritage also includes petit verdot, an up and comer that Glancey describes as a “very rich, structured wine.”

A great concert venue

“The petit verdot gives our meritage more heartiness – more backbone.  You get a little more tannin on the backside of your tongue, and when I blend it with the cabernet franc it brings the fruit to the forward part of your tongue, while the merlot, cab, and malbec blend on the mid part.  The petit verdot finishes it off so you have that wonderful flavor all the way across.  I like taking the best components of grapes and putting them together to make something even greater.”

Woodriver Cellars wines are available primarily in restaurants, but the winery is moving into the retail sector as well, and consumers can also find their wines at the Capital City Public Market in Boise.  In the meantime, the best place to buy Woodriver Cellars wines is at the winery itself, which is located on Highway 16 just two miles north of State Street – open seven days a week from 11 am to 7 pm.  Tours of the winery take place on Friday and Saturday nights, and visitors are invited to stay for dinner and live music…or check out the venue’s four official bocce ball courts to try their hand at what has become the third most popular lifetime sport.  Who knew?

Dinner is served

Michael Boss is editor-in-chief of Behind the Menu…and a guy who loves wine.  This story is part of our series, Idaho Vines: a celebration of the Idaho wineries participating in this year’s Savor Idaho.  Join us on Behind the Menu’s Facebook page for a daily conversation about our Treasure Valley culinary scene.

This weekend Bueno Cheapo Vino will be doing two tastings, on Friday you can check out 6 different wines from Kuna’s Indian Creek Winery from 6 to 8pm.

Pat Brubaker from Bueno Cheapo Vino

And on Saturday you can taste some vino from Snyder Vineyards, which is in Buhl from 1-4pm.

Spend $50 bucks, save $10, that sounds like a deal to me.

Just print off the coupon below (use the “Print Friendly” button on the far right of the “share and enjoy” bar’o'buttons) take it out there, sip some fine Idaho wine, enjoy the sunshine, pick out a few bottles to take home and share with your friends and give ‘em the coupon — save some dough. Easy enough.

Gotta do it soon though, the offer expires on April 4th.

Read the rest of this entry »

Wine Business Monthly recognized Snake River AVA’s Cinder Winery as one of their “Top 10 Hot Small Brands” of the year for “brands that represent market trends or innovation, that take a leadership position in their regions”.

From the release:

The publication’s Top 10 Hot Small Brands for 2009 List highlights Cinder’s award-winning 2008 Viognier. It’s the first time the top list has called out an Idaho winery. In recognizing Cinder, the publication stated, “The Hot Small Brands list gravitates toward wineries and brands that represent market trends or innovation, that take a leadership position in their regions.”

“Most of the wines represented here are from up-and-coming wineries that have achieved success by delivering on quality. Cinder’s 2008 Viognier made our list due to the quality of the wine, coupled with the vigilance in the exploration of different grape varietals that will grow best in Idaho,” said Cyril Penn, editor of Wine Business Monthly.

“We’re doing a lot of exploration about what’s going to grow really well here, “ Krause said. “The two varieties I’m most excited about are Viognier and Tempranillo. We are thrilled to be recognized by an industry leader such as Wine Business Monthly and we hope that the award will bring an even greater focus to the potential of the Snake River Valley and the work Cinder is doing.”

For two years, Cinder has been producing wines at the Urban Winemakers Cooperative in Garden City, along with Syringa Winery and Vale Wine Company. Now that each label has enjoyed the support of the cooperative, the three labels are ready to strike out on their own paths.

“We wish both Syringa and Vale Wine Company continued success with their brands. Melanie and I are excited to continue our gradual growth while gaining a deeper understanding of the Snake River Valley. We are now pleased to announce the evolution of the Urban Winemakers Cooperative building into “Cinder Winery” as we continue to create world class wines guided by our passion for the wines and our love of this region,” said Melanie’s husband and Cinder co-owner, Joe Schnerr.

Get your winter vino drinking cap on, next Thursday, December 10th The Idaho Wine Commission and the Downtown Boise Association present the 2009 Downtown Boise Winter Wine Tasting at the Grove Plaza. From 5:30 to 8 p.m. taste wines from these Idaho wineries: Davis Creek Cellars, Fraser Vineyard, Bitner Vineyards, 3 Horse Ranch Vineyards, Wood River Cellars, Pend d’ Oreille Winery, St. Regulus Wines, Coiled Wines, Holesinsky Certified Organic Vineyard and Winery and Seventh Son Vineyard.

I’ve always thought that winter and a big hearty red wine go together as nicely as red wine and dark chocolate do.

Click here for more details.

And via The Idaho Business Review, WineTrails of Idaho, a guidebook to Idaho wineries has been published, check it out. Locally you can pick it up at Boise Co-Op or Barnes and Noble.

Speaking of wine, this month’s First Thursday is a big one, plan your itinerary at Boise Weekly.

Wine, El Gallo Giro tacos, grape smashing, cork spitting and live music?

What’s not to love?!

Details here.