Dear Friends,
I hope you have had a great week and enjoying a relaxing summer. I hope too you are staying safe from COVID. The weather is bringing lots of challenges to farming and our hospitality. It is supposed to be over 100 for three days again this week. If we aren’t pivoting from COVID, we are adjusting for the heat.
Heather and I had a fun field trip to Portland and Eugene this week to meet with two of our new Beyond Brooks partners. Heather’s takeaway? Getting some new feed for the chickens!
A few highlights below including the perfect pairing that I may eat at least 10 times this month! It is so fresh and delicious! And Shannon, our new wonderful gardener, shares some her thoughts.
Happy reading and happy Sunday!
Cheers,
Janie
The August Perfect Pairing
It is always a joy to see what Executive Chef Norma comes up with the perfect pairing each month. When it came time to try the wines to figure out the pairing, we tasted the 2017 and 2018 side by side. They were very different vintages and as a result, they are very different wines especially when it comes to food pairing decisions. We decided the ripe fruit and smooth tannins in the 2018 Temperance Hill would pair better with the spice and peppers in the tuna dish.
Temperance Hill is one of our favorite vineyard sites to work with. It is the highest elevation site in the Willamette Valley with our blocks at about 1,000 feet. It is also in the bullseye of the Van Duzer winds. For both of these reasons, the wines have tension and great acidity. Consistently cherry and raspberry bramble notes, you will find more floral characteristics in 2017 and dark fruits and iron notes in 2018 all of which are reflective of the respective vintage. It is always fascinating to try two wines with the same winemaker, same site, same farmer, same clones, but a different vintage. We have not released the 2018 but we have it on the website since we are featuring it this month. I encourage you to try them side by side as well. For this month only, the 2017 and 2018 Temperance Hill are both on the website.
Check out the 2017 and 2018 Temperance Hill Pinot
Please know that with the extreme temperatures here and across the country, we are happy to hold your shipment until cooler weather prevails. Otherwise, please make sure you select overnight or two day to ensure your wine makes it safely!
Get the Recipe Card
National Millennial/Gen-Z Community
I absolutely love when a customer thinks of us for events. This past Tuesday, we were fortunate to host the National Millenial/Gen-Z Community. Seven universities and IW Group banded together in 2016 to find ways to collaborate, create, and drive purposeful conversations that unite us, not divide us. Today they represent 44 colleges and universities in 40 states. They have held exceptional conversations with over 180 executives to broaden awareness and understanding, advancing civility, and focusing on solutions. While on this trip, they met with executives at Tillamook, the Oregonian and Intel to name a few. They came to Brooks for an afternoon of fun–wine tasting, game playing and pizza making! It was such an honor to host them.
Check out the National Millennial/Gen-Z Community
Shannon’s Thoughts on Gardening
“This is really why I made my daughters learn to garden – so they would always have a mother to love them, long after I am gone.”
-Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass
There is an intangible allure to flowers. A beauty and poetry that reverberates in human culture. The joy that I find here at the Brooks garden and the love that I feel for the plants and the community of life that surrounds it are deeply restorative. On a recent morning in the garden, I found myself asking, “Why does gardening have this effect on us?”
For me, time spent in a garden is a time of intention and gratitude. I walk the paths of the garden in the morning with quiet hopes and no expectations. Looking and admiring flowers and insect life without any direct plan or purpose for the day. I discover what I can do only by touch and feel, and watching with expectation how it aids the garden. This is one of the major benefits of gardening; creating an impact with a direct result in the present gives one a feeling of purpose. In our digital age, it is common to spend much of our time on our computers and phones leaving us with no concrete outcomes. Gardening offers us the opportunity to balance this with creation and physical pursuit. Gardeners leave feeling that they have made an impact.
The therapy of a garden works on one slowly. It is through the changes of the season that we become once again immersed in nature. This immersive experience of being in and part of nature is another benefit of gardening. The smell and aromatherapy alone are beneficial with the cloying scent of herbs and perfumes of flowers that serve as medicinal cues and sensory experiences. Through patient observation of the broader landscape and the coming and going of birds and bees, you begin to recognize where you are amidst the larger ecosystem. Gardening reacquaints us with the rhythms of nature and expands our perspectives.
Research in neuroscience has started to support much of the existing understanding of the benefits of gardening. This is why we can all be better served by cultivating a space of our own whether a small patch, a balcony or even a window sill herb garden. These small pleasures and wonders of nature reward us far more than the work they take. If you are interested in learning more I also highly recommend reading the Well Gardened Mind by Sue Stuart-Smith. I hope to see you all soon at the Brooks Garden amongst the community of life that continually nourishes and heals me and, I hope, heals you as well.
Warmly,
Shannon
Have a wonderful week and be safe if you are in these hot temperatures.
Here if you need me: [email protected] or 831-238-4828
Janie