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Words from the Winegrower AKA Paul
In the vineyard Harvest has ended, and pruning hasn’t started. What are we doing? This week, it’s mostly mowing vegetation to keep the vineyard floor from being a great habitat for voles. This cute little …
Thanksgiving Recipes
Here is a link to a PDF of our popular Thanksgiving recipes. Print it out on paper stock and cut along the dotted lines. You will have six recipes and a bookmark. Three are hors …
Holiday Dinners and Wine Pairings, What to Do?
What wine should you serve for (insert your favorite winter feast here)? Well, if it’s a feast with multiple guests, it’s not about a single wine; it’s about which wines will suit my guests and …
Thanksgiving in Wine Country
This event is 11a-6p, November 29, 30, December 1. Once upon a time, in the Yakima Valley, most wineries held an open house over the weekend of Thanksgiving. Each winery created a dish and gave …
Honoring Veteran’s Day
We have veterans in our family tree; you probably do, too. Ours served in World War II, back when there was little communication between the people in the military and their families. My father and …
Words from the Winegrower AKA Paul
Busy, busy, busy! Even without doing (much) winemaking this year, a lot of things still need doing. Yesterday, we were sending cattle home from summer camp on our organic pasture, leaving Miss Piggy and our …
Questions for You, our Loyal Customers
As many of you know, we are trying to retire. What is stopping us, you ask? First, we need to sell most of our existing bottled wine and also sell or lease the vineyard. However, …
The Horses are Coming! The Horses are Coming!
2024 BCHW 23rd Annual Winery Ride and Halloween Costume Contest, October 26th The Back Country Horsemen of Washington State are having their annual ride in the Rattlesnake Hills. Approximately 400 horses and their riders will …
The World is Swimming in Wine
99% of wine regions have a surplus. They are overproducing and shooting past the demand curve, which has been descending slightly over the past few years. That is the big problem in Washington. We were …
Words from the Winegrower AKA Paul
Harvest Progress Now that we have actually harvested some cultivars, we are seeing how our estimated harvest stacks up to the real deal. We knew our estimates were questionable. The subzero temperatures in January damaged …
Another Tale
See Last Call for Cabernet. In the early 90s, I went toe to toe with a bunch of high-priced Napa wines. With a $12 bottle of wine. I was at Worden’s Washington Winery in Spokane. …
Last call for Cabernet!
We don’t make it often, and we don’t make much. We have two cases, 24 bottles, available at $48. No discounts. Then, we will have some available at $400 a bottle to donate to the …
PMS Donations through 8/20/24
800 Freedom Kits! Freedom Kits are washable, reusable feminine hygiene kits made primarily for young women in developing countries so they can stay in school during their period and eventually graduate. Volunteers of all ages …
What is the State of Wine in the World?
In the Wine World right now, there are more grapes and wine than consumers. It happens regularly . . . It takes years to get a vineyard into production. When times seem good, people plant; …
Wedding Anniversary Weekend (Labor Day Weekend)
How to celebrate 24 years of marriage? Our Wedding Anniversary Weekend is coming up this Labor Day Weekend. For 14 years we have celebrated with a discount based on the years our customers were married. …
Words from the Winegrower AKA Paul
About the farm Despite the water shortage and rationing this year, the effects are quite minimal. In a year with a full supply of irrigation water, we use only half of our allotment. Vineyards only …
No more tasting fees!
As an experiment, we decided to eliminate our tasting fees. Our sales have increased! And we would rather you spend your money on our fabulous wine rather than a tasting fee. We came to the …
WAugust: 31 Days to Celebrate WA wine
31 Days. 1000+ Wineries. Search for WAugust events near you & join in the 31-day celebration of Washington Wine! Your Wine. Your Way. Your WAugust. Stay tuned and we will update this with our WAugust …
Words from the Winegrower AKA Paul
Summertime and the living is easy! Unless you’re on the crew chopping out the competition to young vines on a hot day where you need to drink a liter/quart of water every hour. Fortunately for …
What’s your beef?
That’s a culinary question, not a confrontation! Our beef is now ready to go from the butcher’s freezer. Three animals feeding 16 families. Due to a customer moving, we have a share available, approximately 100 …
Yum, melons!
Arava! What a great result of the work of plant breeders. It’s the best this year because it was the first! Best with an ounce or two of our Angelica MRS. We are now in …
Yakima Valley named best wine region!
We did it! The votes are in, and the Yakima Valley has been named Best Wine Region in USA TODAY’s 10Best Readers’ Choice Awards! The awards were announced this morning, following a month-long public vote …
New Release! 2017 Sangiovese
We are soon releasing our 2017 Sangiovese. It has been bottled for a while, but we haven’t slapped the labels on yet. I don’t think many people would be able to distinguish it from the …
Words from the Winegrower AKA Paul
This very hot spell has been hard on the primates, dogs, cats, and potted plants. The sheep and cattle are out grazing in the hottest part of the day, so apparently, it’s fine with them. …
PMS Donations through June 2024
Over the past 13 months, we have donated over $5800 to make almost 735 Freedom Kits at $8 each to be used locally in the Yakima Valley. We are trending towards being able to fund …
Period Poverty
Period poverty is not something most of us think about as we are sitting down to enjoy a nice glass of wine with dinner. But if your wine of choice for dessert is our PMS …
Taste Rattlesnake Hills: Sip, Savor, Celebrate
June 8 and 9, 2024 This is the first year for this brand-new event. You all know that we have food every day, albeit in tiny quantities. Over this special weekend, nine of our area’s …
FAQ Regarding Our Retirement
We are stopping the production of new wines. We will only have a tiny production of 30 or so cases of Wiggly in 2024. Selling grapes: We have been selling some for the past couple …
Wine Sale!
Folks are trying the Sève and Oyster White and coming back for more. Try a bottle, it’s always satisfaction guaranteed. I’m drinking the Sève several times a week, which is great with our frequent stir …
Beef for Sale
Update: We still have a share of beef available. The beef is currently at the butcher shop and ready to go very soon, maybe this week. We have three head of cattle in the freezer. …
Words from the Winegrower AKA Paul
Spring is often a crazy busy time. So much is happening in a short burst of life! Shoot thinning, planting things in the garden, weeding, mowing the lawn every 5 days, rotating cattle daily, irrigation, …
PMS Donations through May 2024
We have donated over $5000 to make almost 632 Freedom Kits at $8 each to be used locally in the Yakima Valley. We are trending towards being able to fund over 5000 kits! This money …
Spring Barrel Tasting
April 26, 27, 28 Paul, the Man in the Wild Pants, has been hosting Spring Barrel Tastings since 1985, both in Spokane and the Yakima Valley. Approximately 46 separate events. He has tried to make …
Brand New Little Free Library
After years of Barbara dreaming about having a Little Free Library, Paul finally made it happen! It still needs a few final touches, but it is full of books and ready to go. Feel free …
Words from the Winegrower AKA Paul
In every newsletter, Paul updates what is happening in the vineyard and on our farm in general. First of all, Barbara is driving to Portland for a little vacation and then up to Seattle and …
PMS Donations through February 2024
We have donated over $3100 to make almost 400 Freedom Kits at $8 each to be used locally in the Yakima Valley. This money comes from nine months of our sales of PMS wine and …
Where’s the Beef?!
We have been selling shares of sheep and cattle over the years. Selling meat requires a USDA slaughterhouse. Animals are taken away from their herd and hauled in scary vehicles to strange and scary places …
Ava 18-year Anniversary (Founders’ Day): Chasing out the Snakes
This is happening the weekend of St. Patrick’s Day (3/15 – 3/17). Founders Day is officially on 3/20, but that is a Wednesday, and not so easy for people to come visit us. St Patrick’s …
Wine Sales Update
If you are a long-time patron, you know we are slow wine producers. We typically take 1-4 years longer to put a wine on the market than most. We feel time is an important part …
The end of Paradisos or another chapter?
Barbara and I have decided to stop wine production and start the process of retirement. We will continue to finish the last couple of vintages and continue to sell wine for another 3-5 years until …
Words from the Winegrower AKA Paul
In every newsletter, Paul updates what is happening in the vineyard or on our farm in general. Spring is making its way past winter. Barbara will be making her way over the not snowy enough …
Red Wine and Chocolate!
Ten chocolate bites with wine Tuesday, February 13 – Monday, February 19 There has been a lovely trend in the approach to Valentine’s Day. It originated as a Christian feast day honoring one or two …
Love, Chocolate, Wine—Food of the Gods
Thinking of chocolate only as candy is too limiting (though a glass of Zort and Guajillo Chile chocolate IS a mystical experience). Chocolate candy represents less than 200 years of the thousands of years of …
Words from the Winegrower AKA Paul
After the January cold, below zero, we have had the chance to do some preliminary assessment of cold damage. The results are confounding! Typically Cabernet Sauvignon is one of our cultivars least affected by cold. …
Holiday Dinners and Wine Pairings, What to Do?
What wine should you serve for insert your favorite winter feast here? Well, if it’s a feast with multiple guests it’s not a single wine, it is which wines will suit my guests and the …
Private Label Wines
We do private label wines for both businesses and just regular folks. The two different wines that we are available right now are B’s Blend and Sangiovese. You supply the graphic and we will make …
Thanksgiving Recipes
Here is a link to a PDF of our popular Thanksgiving recipes. Print it out on paper stock and cut along the dotted lines. You will have six recipes and a bookmark. Three are hors …
First Winery to Commit to 300 Gram Bottle
By Press Release November 16, 2023 Today a small winery in Zillah Washington was the first winery in the USA to commit to the new 300 gram bottle from Verallia. Paradisos del Sol Winery and …
Thanksgiving in Wine Country
Once upon a time in the Yakima Valley, the majority of wineries had an open house over the weekend of Thanksgiving. Each winery would create a dish and give out recipe cards. For many years …
The Horses are Coming! The Horses are Coming!
2023 BCHW 22nd Annual Winery Ride and Halloween Costume Contest, October 28th That is, the Back Country Horsemen of Washington State are having their annual ride in the Rattlesnake Hills. There will be approximately 600 …
We have wrapped our 11th vintage from our Zero-Pesticide Vineyard
We’ve wrapped up the harvest in the vineyard for this vintage. My first vintage on the crush pad was 1983, 41 harvests ago! Every vintage has been different, some radically so. This one was fairly …
PMS Donations through September 2023
We just donated $1400 to make 175 Freedom Kits at $8 each to be used locally in the Yakima Valley. This money comes from four months of our sales of PMS wine and is funded …
New Release of Rosé Paradiso
We have just released a new vintage of our Rosé Paradiso! It is the 2020 vintage. Are we the slowest Rosé producers? At the least, we are in the 1% that is s l o …
PMS Donation Update as of 8/31/23
We have been selling our Paul’s Mocha Stuff (PMS) since the beginning of June. We chose to have this wine be a “choose your own price” wine. Minimum $14, maximum “sky’s the limit.” Anything over …
Small-Batch Wine Processing
What do you do with that one row of grapes that you want to process but not through the usual methods of a de-stemmer, crusher, and press? Do it all by hand! Like we do …