My recent article, “Sparkling wines to celebrate spring,” was published in Roseburg, Oregon’s The News-Review. This is my first article written on behalf of the Umpqua Valley Winegrowers Association for The News Review, and I’ll be publishing something every other month for the rest of the year, so look out for the next article in June.

I was devastated to learn that Libre was closing, and that Saturday, 4/4 would be their last night. If you don’t know, Libre was a dessert and cocktail bar with heavy Mexican culinary influence. The cocktails and desserts were truly works of art. It was in my Top 10 of favorite bars/restaurants for sure.

Someday Bar is a wonderful little wine bar, tucked away in an alley off Division Street, between SE 36th and 37th. They have a small food menu that changes frequently, and they have a great rotating menu of wines by the glass, and even by the half-glass.

Steve read about a wine bar in Gresham called The Scout that he wanted to visit, and we decided to make it a whole day. My older daughter wanted to go to a new coffee shop in Gresham she heard about on TikTok called Alolia Cafe, and I had been wanting to check out the stores Daiso and Miniso. I also thought it would be nice to do a hike at Gresham Butte, since it was such a gorgeous day, and I hadn’t been there for several years.

Steve, my daughter, and I went to see the cherry blossoms down at the Waterfront.

My oldest daughter and I had a day of vintage/thrift shopping and lunch in Portland yesterday. We went to a huge three-story warehouse in the SE industrial district called Memory Den Vintage Mall. I think we must have spent about four hours there.

I saw this daffodil while walking the dogs. I thought it must have been placed on tope of the bush by someone, but no, it is growing right through the bush.

I started classes in the Winemaking program at Chemeketa Community College today. I’m taking Intro to Winemaking, Intro to Viticulture, and Wine Appreciation. It feels crazy to be starting school at my age, but I was relieved to see that I was hardly the oldest person in these classes. It turns out that a lot of middle-aged professionals in Oregon decide to start making wine.

Things have been really hard, and when things are really hard, I turn to the trees.

As per tradition, we went to get our Krampus holiday photos taken. This was the first year Steve came along too.

We learned that our Syrah has smoke taint.

While we were waiting for the Melrose Syrah, we had the opportunity to harvest some wild Merlot at Freed Estate for free. We decided to use it for a Pét-Nat.

We harvested Syrah from Freed Estate Vineyard and Melrose Vineyard in Umpqua Valley, Oregon. It was a tough experience, to say the least.

I can’t express enough how exhausted we are, and how little time there is for anything but work, work, work. Nevertheless, we made time for a nice little harvest dinner.

We did it. Our first harvest. Tempranillo from Freed Estate Vineyard, Umpqua Valley, Oregon.

We met with Carrie at AVP and decided to move forward with making our wine there this year. It’s a great space in Milwaukie near Bob’s Red Mill off the 224.

Our Rewine barrels were delivered to Steve’s place, and we went out for tapas.

We found out recently that we are not likely to get our permits and licenses in place in time for harvest, so we’ve been struggling with what to do. It didn’t seem likely we could find a place to make it this late in the game.

We toured Rewine Barrels and then stopped in for a tasting and pairing at St. Innocent.

Even though summer doesn’t officially end until the Autumn Equinox, September 1st always feels like the end of summer. Here are photos of some things we did this summer.