Drink good wine, help a good person

[little ms foodie]

Mentioned in one of my wine newsletters today:

<<Lastly, I have a favor to ask- Bryce Bagnall, formerly winemaker at

Witness Tree Vineyards, has ALS (Lou Gehrigs Disease) and he's, well,

he's not doing as well as I wish he was. He needs home health care

pretty much fulltime now. A group of Oregon wine industry people who

like Bryce and want to help formed an organization about a year ago

called the S.O.B.s (Supporters of Bryce). If you know Bryce' sense of

humor, you'd see that the name's appropriate.

You can read about Bryce on his website:

http://www.supportersofbryce.org/

To help with his health care, 36 wineries donated Pinot noir to create

the St Bartholomew's Pinot noir 03 $25 (no discount). It's a nice,

quaffable, fruit forward wine that was made by Bryce, Doug Tunnell of

Brick House, Russ Raney of Evesham Wood, Eric Hamacher of Hamacher and

Carlton Winemakers Studio, Luisa Ponzi of Ponzi, and heck, I'm sure

there were a few more people who showed up to creat the blend who I

forgot to mention- sorry guys and gals. About 350 cases were sold by

the participating wineries at Thanksgiving.

And Jon Bonne wrote about the wine in MSNBC here:

http://www.supportersofbryce.org/MSNBC.pdf

Jon says: " Tart and full of red berries, the stillfresh wine is a

lovely food match. It rounds out nicely on the tongue, and will

deepen with a bit of time."

Oregon Wine Report says: "Summary: Medium intensity purple

fuchsia-blossom color. Excellent, full pinot noir aromas of sweet

black cherries and leather, with a gentle overlay of peppery spice.

Pleasing light texture carries clear and high-toned tart cherry and

red raspberry fruit flavors. At the back of the mouth there is a

slight dry woodiness that complements the fruit. Good balance with

crisp acidity and nice fine-grained tannin structure. The finish is

particularly sweet, reverberating with sour cherry-candy fruitiness."

OWR continues: "Comments: Now this is what Oregon should be making

more of: good quality, immediately enjoyable, varietally correct pinot

noir. The dried cherry fruitiness of this wine makes it both pleasing

to sip by itself, and a good candidate for plonking down on the dinner

table to pour with everything from spaghetti carbonara, flank steak,

or a hunk of salmon—plus, it's a good deal at $25.00 a bottle!"

If you want to do a good deed, be a mensch, support a great guy who is

on a tight budget and who I'd like to see have a comfortable and well

cared for 2005, please buy some wine. 100% of your purchase price goes

to Bryce, we just take the shipping charge so we can cover shipping.

Order the wine here:

http://www.northwest-wine.com/St-Bartholom...Pinot-noir.html

I figurethe last 100 cases will cover about what it's going to cost to

hire someone to see that Bryce has everything he needs. No more lying

on the floor of the van for 2 hours because he can''t reach his cell

phone. >>

I have had the pleasure of meeting and speaking with Bryce as Witness Tree makes some really nice wine. He is one of the most passionate people in the north Willamette Valley.

For those of you who have a love of wine and the people who work so hard to create it I urge you to consider purchasing the St. Barts to help Bryce.

Wendy

[Brad Ballinger]

I know Steven Westby at Witness Tree, also a nice guy.

I've also seen the effects of ALS on professional colleagues of mine. It's a sad thing to see.

The wines of Witness Tree (both their chardonnay and pinot noir) are quite nice. And the "regular" wines from them are very affordable and can go toe to toe with higher priced ones.

This is a good cause.