April Trip - Part 1

It is spring in the Willamette Valley!  We spent last weekend in the area to meet with consultants and to spend some time on the lot.  We drove up on Thursday and stayed until Sunday.  Yet again, we had a lot to do.

Thursday night we arrived in time to have dinner at the Dundee Bistro.  This is a great little restaurant in the heart of wine country.  It has an extensive wine list from local wineries.  Our waiter was very knowledgeable on the selections and was able to give us some great info.  We chatted with him about our land and our plans to grow grapes.  He had some good ideas on unique grapes that might do well with consumers.

One of menu options was dolcetto.  This is one of the grape varieties that we have on order to plant in spring of next year.  The dolcetto was grown locally in the Willamette Valley.  Chris had a glass and was impressed with it.  It is very encouraging to find dolcetto that was grown in the area and that tastes so good.

Lagrein is another type of grape we have ordered for spring 2013.  There was one bottle of lagrein available at the Bistro.  Chris had enjoyed this particular wine on a prior trip.  It certainly encouraged him to search for lagrein that we could plan in our vineyard.

Friday was a very busy day and our first chance to see the work that had been done on the lot.  We had an appointment at 8am to meet the guys from A-1 and a pole-barn contractor.  We are planning to build a 24'x24' pole barn near the well site.  This barn will have a water tank and will provide a shelter for the equipment we have yet to buy.  Unfortunately, the area we want to use is not flat, so we will need A-1 to make a pad for the barn.  After a lengthy discussion, we settled on the placement.  The area has been very wet, but as soon as it dries out, A-1 will begin clearing the pad.

After visiting the well site, we headed up to see the progress on the 2 areas we are having A-1 clear.  We had seen pictures, but it looked like so much more land than I expected!  All of the trees are down and piled up along the road.  There is still a lot of debris on the hillsides, including the stumps, that will have to be removed up.  Here are a couple of pictures of the slope on the north side of the property.  There are approximately 5 acres of plantable land in this area.

There is a large area near the home site that will also be cleared for planting.  This is probably about an acre of land.

The final area that we have a contract to clear is the home site.  It looked fantastic and I'm sure it will be perfect for a house.  There are great views in every direction.  We do not have the house plan figured out yet, but the back will probably face the views below.  The front of the house would overlook the 5 acre block shown in the first 2 pictures.

We talked with Larry and Mike about the work covered in our contract.  We decided to change it a bit to get a few more acres cleared for planting.  With the changes, we will have around 8 acres available for planting.  Chris keeps adding more vines to our orders, so we will need the extra space!

We spent some time exploring the lot with Larry and Mike before heading off to the nursery.  I will post more about our trip in the next few days.

Larry from A-1 Logging