This year's vintage is nothing to whine about
NEWBERG, Ore. – Tom Mortimer owns Le Cadeau Vineyard where getting good wine is a little more than growing, picking and bottling.
"A lot of people get into the wine business because they've been drinking wine and they think wine grows in the bottle," he said Thursday.
Getting good grapes for good wine isn't easy. The wine business can be brutal.
"All of the sudden, you get into it and you watch a hailstorm come through and wipe out your crop and you're like, this isn't what I was thinking about when I was sitting at a white tablecloth restaurant having a nice bottle of wine – it's farming," Mortimer said.
Even if it’s hard work and things can go sour with crummy weather, nobody's whining about the weather in Oregon wine country this year.
Vintners have had plenty of dry, sunny summer days. And with so much sun, it's making this year's harvest one of the best in the region's 50-year history.
"It's always exciting, but there's good excitement and there's bad excitement," Mortimer said. "This year it's good excitement because the fruit and the weather's been spectacular – the quality of the wine will be extremely high."
It's going to be great. I can't wait
good to note to keep my eye out for 2012 vintages...Â
And expensive I'm sure...
@kumitekat
This has been a great season for grapes, lots of late summer sun and heat.
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This will yield a high quality fruit that will be used to make some expensive wines. However, grapes will also be plentiful as every vineyard and grower is going to have a high yield or above average quality.
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I expect we will see some very nice quality wines at all price levels in 18 months or so once the wines start hitting the market.
 @Vince009 Oh good! I will remain hopeful then for affordable tasty wine in around 18 months!
Of course, I will forget all about this article by then, but I will enjoy the wine nonetheless I am sure.
Using NumbersUSA online E-Verify participant search, it appears the La Cadeau Vineyard does not screen employees for authorization/status (uh, big surprise eh?)
https://www.numbersusa.org/everify
@ThePosterFormerlyKnownAsPhredE AWW poor fella. do you see someone doing a job that YOU want to do?? SMH
That's not the point he's making!
 @jpk Le Cadeau likely hires a service provider that supplies pickers. I'll bet the service provider does e-verify.
Nope! Don't wanna do that. Just make them obey the law.
 @jpk Right!  Let's drive Oregon winemakers out of business.