A once in a lifetime experience!
2nd September 2011
Picked by: Kendra Wells
It’s not everyday that you get to have coffee with Dick Ponzi. It’s not that we don’t see him often, but the opportunity to meet him at the Scholls South Store to talk about the early days of the Willamette Valley wine industry was a real treat!
The Wine Bar team listened eagerly while Dick relayed stories of how the formative years of our industry unfolded, and the people who contributed. Dick explained that a few fellow “wine pioneers” implemented a self-imposed tax to fund vine research. The result of this “fundraiser” was three clonal test sites. Each 2 acre vineyard was planted with 20 different Pinot Noir clones supplied by Oregon State University & UC Davis. The original purpose was to find the best clones of Pinot Noir that fit Oregon’s climate and growing conditions the best. The latter discovery was that the blending of all of those clones was a unique thing all its own.
Following our coffee chat, and on the arrival of Luisa Ponzi (our highly qualified current winemaker), we caravanned to the Abetina Vineyard, the last remaining clonal test site(which is owned by the Ponzi family). Luisa and her dad took us through the site as we identified the original metal tags marking each clone and vine number. At this point in the season the greatest variation we saw was in the cluster formations. Some were very tight while others were very loose. As we roamed the vineyard we got a chance to ask all of our burning questions like, “What does Abetina mean anyway?” Dick explained that it mean “small fir” since it was a small planting on Firdale Road. Our manager, Andrew Turner, video taped the entire vineyard experience (the purpose of this excursion) so keep an eye on our website for that to be posted soon on our blog.
What I took away from the tour was a true sense of the incredible group effort of those early pioneers. Having this opportunity to walk and talk with one of them was humbling and a great reminder of the community amongst the industry. Be sure to check out the single vineyard Abetina Pinot Noir bottling we did in 2008, and come and taste the 2008 Ponzi Pinot Noir Reserve (which the Abetina Vineyard is the foundation of) before they are gone!