We have no rototanks at Foris. It would be too easy and impersonal to make the wine that way. We just seem to relish in hands-on, sweaty, hard work; and I prefer methods which are highly flexible and open to interpretation. I get the most challenge and artistic reward making the wine by feel-tasting and smelling and altering the winemaking process as we go according to what feels right for the wine.

New Release

1997 PINOT BLANC ROGUE VALLEY Varietal 95% Pinot Blanc 5% Chardonnay 95% Estate Grown Harvest Data Pinot Blanc Picked Oct. 27, 1997 23 Brix 6.5 g/L TA 3.4 pH Chardonnay Picked Oct. 23, 1997 22.5 Brix 9.0 g/L TA 3.31 pH Barrel Aging 100% French Oak 100% Old Puncheons Aged 4 months (sur lie) Bottling Data 13.6% Alcohol 8.0 g/L TA 3.58 pH Bottled May 1998 Production 333

While the goal of these three methods is the same, the results can be quite different. Over the years we have sometimes divided a single lot of red grapes to evaluate the ultimate finished wine difference between (1) punching down and pumping over, and (2) degree of punching and degree of pumping over/length of time on skins during fermentation. The result of these experiments has given me a better feel for what type of grapes (influenced by site, vintage conditions, maturity, variety) benefit most from various fermentation procedures.

While we try to do the best by every lot of grapes, it must be understood that "best" is a highly subjective term. "Best" at any winery is ultimately defined by the winemaker or winery owner's desired wine style. At Foris, we pursue producing ripe, soft, full-bodied, fruity, and intrinsically balanced wines which are drinkable upon release, but also highly ageable. It is our philosophy that this goal is best achieved, firstly, in the vineyard by growing low-yielding vines with optimum fruit sun exposure and optimum harvest ripeness, and secondly, in the winery by handling the fruit gently. Gentle handling of high quality fruit pays off in spades when the ultimate wine style desired is fruity, soft, velvety, balanced reds without astringency or bitterness.

"I can't imagine mechanized punching", states our 20 year veteran harvest helper, Ken Connolly. "For me, it's the height of sterile, hands-off winemaking." When not approached as a recipe process, and when not highly mechanized, pumping over and punching down offer a winemaker or cellar rat an intimate relationship with the grapes and tremendous flexibility during the critical fermentation period. We make the Bordeaux varieties utilizing both techniques. Pinot Noir, however, is primarily made by the punchdown process, and primarily fermented in our portable, 4'x4'x2' wooden bins with rubber liners, commonly referred to in the industry as "Oregon fermentors". At the peak of harvest we have over 200 of these bins stuffed into the winery, which need to be punched down one to three times per day. Instead of trying to describe this process to you myself, I decided to interview two of our harvest helpers to give you their perspective on this very up-close and personal way of making wine.

For two years now our office manager, Patrick Burns, has volunteered his services during harvest in the early morning and late night hours because we need him in the office during the day. For over twenty years, Ken Connolly has taken time off from his life in northern California to help Ted and Meri Gerber (Foris co-owners) with the grape harvest.

Here are some of their observations about the punching down process:

Ken and Pat agree that punching down keeps everybody involved very in touch with the flow of fruit through the winery and its transition into wine. Ken takes particular pride in "being the first line of defense against potential fermentation problems". His keen sense of smell has often brought to my attention the onset of a problem which requires my quick intervention to avoid problems down the road.

Both agree that punching down is great exercise for upper body and abdominal development. Pat takes particular pride in his physical ability to get the job done. He explains, "Rookies get in there, go gung-ho, then burn out. Think of it as being on a rowing crew. You need to pace yourself because it takes a lot of time and stamina to get through it and there's technique involved to not over or under-extract." Ken also takes pride in his ability to do the job and says, "Some folks, like me, prefer the big, brawny masculine punchdown stick. Others like the smaller girly-stick." Truth have it, Ken begins harvest hoarding and gloating over the big stick, but eventually comes begging for the small one!

Both Ken and Pat agree that besides the physical challenge, the great multitude of bins offers a seemingly endless game of how to properly lay out, shuffle and remove the bins from an extremely tight space. "No matter how good your intentions and how well you thought it out," states Pat, "each bin has a life of its own and you can't know which bins will ferment faster than the others. It almost always seems that the one you need to get out first (to press off) is always in the back corner and facing the wrong direction so the pallet jack can't get under it!"

While Pat feels it is much easier to punch Pinot than Merlot, I reminded him that that situation is vineyard specific: our Merlot and Syrah grower Sherman Lamb has a site which produces very small berries, without much juice. Sherman's bins are clearly the most difficult to punch of all, and require very gentle handling to not over-extract. Ken reminded me that all bins are hard to punch at first, but once the fermentation takes off, it's much easier.

New Release

1996 SISKIYOU TERRACE CHARDONNAY Varietal 100% Chardonnay 100% Estate Grown Harvest Data Picked Oct. 17-23, 1996 24 Brix 5.8 g/L TA (Average) 3.48 pH (Average) Barrel Aging 100% French Oak 25% New Barrels Aged 10 months, sur lie Bottling Data 13.9% Alcohol 5.8 g/L TA 3.46pH Bottled Sept. 18, 1997 Production 356

Even still, Pat would rather punch Sherman's bins than be "sentenced to punch the volcano" (the name we gave to a three ton capacity tank which overflowed like a volcano when we over-filled it one year). He explains, "It takes 15 minutes just to punch a hole through the cap of that big volume, then only 5 minutes to punch the cap down. The angle of it, however, has you reaching down so far, you feel like you're sacrificing your arm to the wine Gods." Ken agrees, adding, "Yes, there is something particularly death-defying about punching the volcano." Ken admits, however, that he is notoriously cowardly about high and small places.

Pat says he likes the early morning punch because it's peaceful before too much work gets going, "but it's kind of scary because just when you think you might be done, an onslaught of more bins may arrive." So, he says he prefers the night shift because there is no fear of more fruit. Ken, however, doesn't believe that Pat has ever done the night punch since he obviously isn't afraid of the "ONE MORE THING!" After Ken punches at night, Sarah is notorious for repeatedly needing one more time consuming job done, often well past midnight.

"But a far greater hazard than working with Sarah at night," states Ken, "is early in the morning, walking into the bin rooms into a six foot layer of CO2 gas." George describes this as walking smack into a wall. Time to ventilate the rooms before entering. Then there's the harvest when Ken showed us how CO2 asphyxiation is not limited to the bin rooms...A few years ago I rudely woke Ken up from a CO2 haze with a scream. While he was pumping over a tank, I looked up to see him slowly sinking into the tank, while holding the wine hose outside the tank, spewing untold quantities of Gold Merlot down the drain. This is one of our favorite horror stories we laugh about now.

Returning to why punching down makes our wines special, Ken likes to relate it to what has been referred to in Napa as the "Rutherford dust" effect. Apparently certain wineries in Napa claim that the secret ingredient to their great wines is the dust from Rutherford. "In response", says Ken, "I'd call it the 'Oregon dew' of human sweat which gives our wine its special character."

How our wines are aging

By Sarah Powell, Winemaker

Botrytis infected grapes (Noble Rot)

Gewürztraminer
Youthful: Exhibits tight fruit of grapefruit, lychee and roses. Cool vintages usually start out as medium body and gain weight in mouth after some bottle aging. Some vintages, usually the hot ones, offer big body from the start. Rainy vintages may start out lighter in body but will fill in with aging.
Aging: Exhibits full, complex fruit which has changed from mostly grapefruit to strong lychee, honey, orange peel and spice. Texture has filled out from a tight, fresh mouth, to a rich, supple mouth.

Pinot Gris
Youthful: Exhibits tight fruit of pear, melons, peaches and creamy yeast. Crisp acid is refreshing.
Aging: Body is fuller, aromatics intensify and become richer and more honeyed. Acid is softer. Finish is spicier.

Pinot Blanc
Youthful: Tight, citrusy and melon-like fruit. A subtle variety which we consider much more flavorful and rich with some botrytis. Non-botrytis years make a structured, refreshing, crisp wine which will develop over time. Botrytis years offer a rich, honeyed and full bodied wine from the start.
Aging: Wine increases in body. Flavor becomes more honeyed and richer.

Chardonnay
Youthful: Tight fruit dominated by citrus and pear. Cool years are crisp and tight in acid with the contributing flavor of apples. Hotter years have soft acid with the contributing flavors of peaches and melons. Sur lie barrel aging is evident from a creamy, yeasty, supple texture. Oakiness and butter are in balance.
Aging: Open fruit of citrus, honey and stonefruits. Acid, oak and butter are integrated with the wine and are less identifiable. Sur lie barrel aging is obvious from the rich texture and pronounced flavor of hazelnuts.

Pinot Noir
Youthful: Open bright fruit of cherries, cassis and violets. Soft, sweet and supple tannins which offer no astringency or bite. Rogue Valley bottling has a medium body and smooth, supple texture. Maple Ranch and Siskiyou Terrace bottlings have fuller body and more velvety texture.
Aging: Bright fruit is complexing with earthy, mushroom, fleshy, and tea-like aromas and flavors. Body and texture may be similar to youth, or softer and more velvety, or eventually, softer and a bit lighter.

Rogue Valley Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc
Youthful: Open bright fruit. Merlot: black cherries, bramble, chocolate. Cabernet Sauvignon: deep raspberry, bramble, blueberry and tea leaf. Cabernet Franc: bramble, cherry and violets. Hot vintages make bigger wines with darker fruit, more concentration and tighter tannin. Cooler vintages have more supple tannin, medium body and brighter fruit. All are soft and highly drinkable.
Aging: The wine's texture, tannins and fruit become more harmonious, velvety, and supple. Berry fruit is complexed with some earthiness. The nose and flavors are more lifted, sweet and harmonious.

Klipsun Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon
These wines are so big and power-packed with youthful fruit and tannin, none have yet reached what I would describe as aging in character. The Merlot exhibits deep black cherries and is softer than the Cab which shows off intense blueberry and deep black bramble.

Chart to wine aging

1996 Siskiyou Terrace

Pinot Noir and Chardonnay

By Sarah Powell, Winemaker

But the word "reserve" has become tired, over-used, and sometimes meaningless. Many low-end wineries call all their wines ÒreserveÓ in some form or another. So we have decided to quit using the term. Since 1994, when a reserve wine has been from a single vineyard, we have designated the bottling by the name of the vineyard. Maple Ranch Pinot Noir and Evans Creek Cab are examples. I particularly enjoy the labels on our vineyard-designated wines, as they clearly relate the wine back to its fundamental and most important origin: the land. Many times, however, a more complex or appealing wine can be made from blending. When more than one vineyard is involved in this blend, Oregon law prohibits us from using a vineyard name on the label. In an effort to still relate the wine back to the parcels of land it came from, we now introduce our "Siskiyou Terrace" Pinot Noir and Chardonnay.

Unlike our previous two bottlings of "reserve" Pinot Noir, which were 100% estate grown on the Maple Ranch, this wine was blended with 25% Pinot Noir from one outstanding block of vines located on the adjacent estate vineyard, Three Creeks Ranch. The name "Siskiyou Terrace" was chosen to convey the location of the two ranches, planted on the benchland, or terrace, of southern Oregon's Siskiyou Mountains.

New Release

1996 SISKIYOU TERRACE PINOT NOIR Varietal 100% Pinot Noir, Estate Grown 75% Maple Ranch 25% Three Creeks Harvest Data Picked Sep 30 - Oct 5,1996 25 Brix 7.7 g/L TA (Average) 3.63 pH (Average) Barrel Aging 100% French Oak 20% New Barrels Aged 10 months Bottling Data 13.9% Alcohol 5.5 g/L TA 3.85 pH Bottled Sept. 1997 Production 1103

The soils, aspect and air drainage of these blocks, planted in 1988 and 1991, vary considerably from the original 23 year old Gerber Vineyard. This first planting, totaling 20 acres, is planted in clay below mining tailings, near the valley floor and surrounded by pine covered knolls. Maple Ranch produces from 15 acres and is currently being planted out to total 35 acres Three Creeks Ranck produces from 40 acres and is expanding to 70. Both sites are located only four miles from the original planting, slope westward, and have several differnt soil types. The best wines come from the better drained, rocky, and oorer soils. The vines are spaced six by nie or eight feet and trellised multiple wire vertical. The soils are clay loam of varying depth with outcroppings of rocky gravel bars. Creeks flowing from the forested hills above and ponds grace the ranches with ample water. The sites are frost-free for our area, both in the spring and fall.

Although blended, this Pnot Noir is consistent in character with our previous Maple Ranch bottlings. Vintage variation, however is apparent in this bottling's extreme ripeness and concentration. Extremely low yields (two tons per acre), coupled with a protracted heat wave created a very intense wine. The varying soils of the ranches and carefully chosen mixture of clones planted created a remarkably complex wine.

Similarly, the 1996 Siskiyou Terrace Chardonnay is also a blend of what I consider to tbe the most intense and concentrated lots of Chardoinnay from Three Creeks and Maple Ranch. Souther Oregon Chardonnay excels under the conditions we saw in 1996. The lean, rocky soils of the particular blocks, coupled with extremely low yields (2 tons per acre) and full ripeness of the grapes under quite warm conditions created a wine of intensly concentrated fruit and rich texture. We consider this wine to be perhaps our finest Chardonnay yet.

George Sickler

Our quitessential winery worker

By Sarah Powell, Winemaker

A small winery requires staff with varied skills and backgrounds with the flexibility to do many different jobs, often detail-oriented. Let me introduce our quintessential winery worker, George Sickler: vineyard worker, tractor driver, mechanic extraordinaire, welder, plumber, electrician, computer hardware and software wizard, inventor, star-gazer and home telescope builder, cement layer, construction worker, carpenter, crush pad king, winery helper, bottling line saviour, and most recently hobie-cat sailor.

Like most of our employees, George has had many occupations throughout the years, all of which either directly or indirectly contribute to his phenomenal winery skills today. Every winemaker who is not mechanically inclined or who does not have the time, relies heavily on someone who is. Every winery in expansion mode, doubly so. We have enormously benefited from GeorgeÕs mechanical skills which began as an aircraft mechanic in the Korean War, and which he continued to develop in the aircraft manufacturing industry, heavy equipment repair business, lumber mill mechanic, carpentry, plumbing, and electrical work.

Whenever we have an equipment malfunction, from the Massey Ferguson or John Deer tractor to the German pumps or the Italian bottling and labeling machines, George is who we look to to fix it. On any given day, a winery visitor might observe George welding, re-wiring, plumbing, disassembling various pumps, tractor and implement parts, the bottling or labeling line, reassembling, or tinkering. During harvest, one might see George on the crushpad forklifting grapes off of trucks and dumping the grapes into the crusher

George loading the press with grapes

or press and operating, cleaning or repairing all the crush pad equipment. At night, we try to leave him alone, but he has been known to come back to the winery to help us fill barrels in order to get tanks empty, or to urgently repair equipment, such as the press bladder which has blown, or the grape dumper which cannot lift, or the refrigeration unit which cannot chill.

George built all the scaffolding we walk on during harvest around our new crush pad equipment. He welded the grates we walk on over the winery gutters and drains. He laid the cement floors and walls of the three new additions we have built onto the winery in the last four years. He framed, roofed, plumbed, and pounded thousands of nails during the construction of those additions as well.

Inside the office, George has trouble-shooted both our computer hardware and software. In the vineyard, he has done every job from spraying sulfur, to stripping leaves and pruning. In the winery, George has also done every job from pressing the grapes to running the bottling line. When we bottle, it is he who comes to work at 6:00 am to set up and heat sterilize the bottling line so it is ready to run when the rest of the crew arrives at 8:00. He also invented our barrel ÒbeeperÓ which helps us to not over-fill barrels by a sensor sounding off a beep when the barrel is almost full.

George has truly set the standard of quintessential winery worker. He is our most valuable employee, helping in nearly every aspect from vineyard to winery, not only with competence and grace, but also with a smile on his face and positive attitude toward life which makes him a pure joy to work and spend time with. Thank you, George.

Uniqueness-it's all in the taste!

By Julianne Allen, Marketing Director

Diane Floyd-7 year harvest veteran at Foris Vineyards

When making a presentation to a wine buyer, I can assure you that they know Terroir pertains to soil type and not some kind of terrorist organization. Contrary to what some computer geeks may think, microclimate is not the working environment for a micro chip. Nor does clonal selection refer to a part of some genetic researchers attempt to clone humans.

New Release

1996 CABERNET/CAB FRANC/MERLOT Rogue Valley Varietal 72% Cabernet Sauvignon 21% Cabernet Franc 7% Merlot Harvest Data Cabernet Sauvignon Picked Oct 22,23&28, 1996 23 Brix 7.5 g/L TA (Average) 3.40 pH (Average) Cabernet Franc Picked Oct 22 & 26, 1996 22.1 Brix 6.5 g/L TA (Average) 3.45 pH (Average) Merlot Picked Oct 10, 1996 24.5 Brix 7.7 g/L TA (Average) 3.60 pH (Average) Barrel Aging 100% French Oak 20% New Barrels Aged 20 months Bottling Data 13.7% Alcohol 6 g/L TA 3.58 pH Bottled August 1998 Production 2067

Buyers know wine lingo. Yet, a sure way to turn off a wine buyer is to start the wine terminology rap on "What sets Foris apart!" As I spit out the verbage, slowly but surely eyes will glass over, rhythmic breathing will set in and soon I'll realize I've lulled the poor guy to sleep on his feet. So how do I get my point across?

It's all in the taste. That's what it takes. A knowledgeable wine buyer who tastes any one of our wines, will immediately recognize our uniqueness and the style of Sarah's wine. For example, IÕve had great success in sampling our Pinot Gris, Pinot Blanc and Gewürztraminer together as a set. The usual response is "These wines taste like they came from Alsace." (Even Mr. Parker made such a reference in his review of our Pinot Blanc and GewŸrztraminer.) So, right away, I do not have to describe the style or our uniqueness. From there, curiosity takes over and I'm usually questioned about our growing region, climatic influences, soil types, fermentation practices and cellaring.

In tasting our Pinot Noir, the climatic difference between our vineyard site and the North Willamette becomes apparent in the style of the wine. We have warmer days and cooler nights. As a result, in general, our Pinot exhibits more forward, powerful fruit and softer tannins, while the Northern Oregon Pinots are more restrained with bigger tannins.

When it comes to our Bordeaux varietals, just seeing the label usually sparks interest because so many people are still unaware that Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon are grown in Oregon. When tasting these wines, the flavor components are different. Later ripening than Washington or California, our region produces wines with bright, forward fruit reminiscent of deep raspberry, blueberry, cherry, tea leaf and chocolate followed by soft tannins.

In essence, the wines speak for themselves. And in my experience this grass roots approach to marketing our wines is the next best thing to being here - at the winery, that is, barrel tasting the fruits of our labor and what sets us apart at Foris!