Wine In the Dead of Winter

I appreciate winter and what it brings, but I can't fully endorse it either.

The middle of January qualifies as The Dead of Winter. I don’t look forward to this season. Living in Oregon, in the Willamette Valley, I know it generally means rain. And when the rain isn’t with us, it’s generally too cold to play golf. Nonetheless, there are a number of things I associate with this dark time of year, most of which are wine-related.

THE EXODUS
Winemakers here in Oregon and up and down the West Coast generally flee. Their 2024 vintage is safely in tanks and barrels and its time for them to seek warmer climes and shake off the cold and the rigors of harvest. It’s generally Mexico or Hawaii. But either way, I’ve come to expect them not to be around.

My family too likes to get out of Oregon this time of year. Without that visit to sunnier geography, you can get pretty grey mentally as you wake up to slate skies and go to bed to the same. If you’ve not found a way to get out of dodge, by the time April rolls around and the rains think about stopping you can find yourself in a pretty ornery mood. We don’t have a getaway on the family calendar this year, so please forgive the tone of coming March and April articles here at Fermentation.

THE BIG REDS
Cassoulet. Beef Bourguignon. Lasagne. The winter here at the Wark/Berez residence is the time we break out the big food. With it comes our big wines: Syrah. Cabs. Rhones. Our cellar has grown over the years which means we can dip into those 10-20 year old specimens with these dishes.

THE REPORTS
January and February are filled with reports on the health of the wine industry and recaps of the state of the industry. You can look forward to the SOVOS Direct to Consumer Wine Shipping Report. There is the Silicon Valley Bank’s State of the Industry Report. We have the updates at the DTC Wine Symposium. The Unified Wine and Grape Symposium is filled with updates and reports. The Oregon Wine Symposium will tell us about the health of the state’s still-growing wine industry. And of course, there are countless “Wine Industry Trends” articles that tell us what will happen in the coming year.

This year we are going to witness a good deal of angst due to the reports. That is, of course, if you are in the business of making real wine and not No/Lo Wines—which will be one of the bright spots in all the reports. 2024 was not the best year for wine and we are about to hear all about it.

THE LULL
For the same reason that winemakers head south for the winter, visits to wine country fall into a lull this time of year with fewer wine lovers looking to experience the beauty of wine country in the winter.

Here in Oregon many wineries simply close down their tasting rooms for most of the week and concentrate on weekends. The same happens in Washington, while most California tasting rooms will adapt to lower visitor rates until the spring brings more visitors.

THE CELLAR REFILL
It’s hard to ignore the bargains and wine sales that come in the winter months as retailers work to move wine after their hectic fourth quarter with its intense selling associated with holidays, celebrations and gift giving. The dead of winter is when they try to spur sales and when a number of wine lovers restock their home cellars with these bargains.

Some of the bargains being offered by retailers are truly epic. With winery, wholesaler, and retailer inventories still higher than they would like, It’s worth taking a lazy couple of afternoon hours and perusing the various online wine retailer websites. You can find lists of the best online retailers all over the web and if you are looking for specific wines then Wine-Searcher is a good way to go. The bottom line is that if you depleted your cellar over the last few months, the dead of winter is the right time to refill.

THE BARREN BEAUTY
Argue with me if you want, but I’ve always found the winter vineyard the most interesting and beautiful season in the vineyards. For me, this means a little more travel around the Willamette Valley just to drive and see the vineyards—when a lull in the rain allows.

The stark, denuded vineyards reveal the vines’ architecture when the leaves have fallen away. And when the growers get around to pruning next month, the vineyards appear as good, cleaned-up little soldiers, all in their rows and ready to march into spring. There is a barren quality to the vineyard, different in every way from the colored-up vineyards of fall and the elaborately bushy vines of the summer. I look forward to drives around wine country in the dead of winter when there are fewer folks and the vineyards reveal themselves.

There is a tempo to the dead of winter that does not elude the wine industry and wine lovers. It’s time to re-energize and gear up for the next growing season. The industry self-assesses. It’s not my favorite time of year. But I appreciate what it brings.