The Last IPNC as We Knew It

Seems like I enjoy starting off the newsletter lately about my trips to Starbucks. This morning I was waiting for my Chai when a guy came in asking for a cranberry bliss bar. He was told they weren’t available yet. I didn’t think much more about it until I had my Chai in hand and was walking to the car. The same guy was standing outside the passenger door of his car saying to his wife, “They don’t have them until next week.”

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I have pondered about this scene all day. My first thought was, “Wow, some people are ready for Thanksgiving to kick into high gear.” Another thought was, “I am so not ready for the end of the year.” I think I have settled on trying to embrace what is here regardless of what I like or don’t like, but I will start giving some thought to some unusual dish I can make for Thanksgiving.

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Are you ready for some Hootie and the Blowish Wine?

Oregon Gamay is getting some attention!!​

Robb Report talking about Climate Change.​

Nicolas Jay still getting amazing World Wide Coverage!​

Wine at a Tailgate Party, yes please!

​Zena Crown getting love from the Robb Report.

Ruinart expanding their hospitality offerings.

Speaking of Sparkling, a Washington Sparkling house, Tirriddis, opened their new tsating room!

Here’s a passage from Tim Atkin’s newsletter the other week.

I couldn’t help but pause for a moment after this. Do I seize the day? Do I savor the wine I’ve put between my lips and appreciate the hard work and dedication that went into making this incredible work of passion? There are many things in life we don’t appreciate enough, and only when they are gone do we realize we should have done more.

If you have been a long-time reader, you know I always chronicle my experience at IPNC every summer. So far, I haven’t managed to do so this year. Yes, I have been busy, and yes, I have only been doing one newsletter a month, but mainly I have been in a state of retrospection. Leading up to this year’s event, the organizers have been saying this is the last year of IPNC in its current incarnation. What does this mean? Nobody knows yet, and there is a chance there will not be an IPNC next year. Knowing this information going into this year’s event made it all the more special.

Before we get into all the nitty-gritty details, let’s go back a few months before the event. I was in the parking lot of a restaurant and checked my email quickly on my phone. I just about tripped over myself seeing the content of the email asking me if I would be willing to moderate a talk titled “Pinot Kaleidoscope,” featuring five producers who all make Pinot Noir and another big red varietal (Syrah, Petite Verdot, Cab, etc.). The idea was to compare and contrast how the growing of these grapes and working with them in the cellar impact one another.

How in the whole wide world of sports could I say no to this? Of course, the answer was yes, a million times over. I had no idea who the five producers were, and about a month later, I was doing a kickoff meeting with Todd Alexander of Holocene Wines and Force Majeure, Jean-Michel Jussiaume of Del Rio and Maison Jussiaume, Patrick Reuter of Dominio IV, Josh McDaniel of Bledsoe McDaniels and Doubleback, Melanie Chester of Giant Steps in Australia, and Maggie Harrison of Antica Terra. What an amazing lineup of winemakers, and here I am, sitting with people who are known for 100-point wines and winemakers I respect immensely.

You would think through my adventures in wine country I would have come face to face with Maggie Harrison, but I never had. I was intimidated, to say the least. I didn’t know what to expect, and for the kickoff meeting, she helped out tremendously! I remember being on the call. I was on the back deck in a T-shirt, feeling 123% underdressed. I was not the picture of professionalism at all! The kickoff meeting was on June 13th, which meant I had a little over a month to write bios for everyone and to create a flow for the seminar.

The week before IPNC weekend, I emailed each winemaker, making sure their bio sounded okay. Of course, each bio was in-depth and made everyone sound like a superstar because all of them were superstars! I am used to writing in long form and never really moderated a seminar before. I was dedicated to the process of my long-form content, and let me tell you, the first day of IPNC when I read these long bios, I was sweating worse than a pig in the middle of summer right along the border of Georgia and Florida, where the humidity is 120,000% at 9:41 in the morning. I was a wreck after the first talk on Friday, but I am getting ahead of myself a little.

IPNC officially kicks off Friday morning, but there are Thursday night dinners. This year, I was invited to a dinner at Humble Spirit, and I jumped on the opportunity even though I normally attend Chardy Party at Hazelfern. I was also torn at the dinner at Nysa with Audeant. I also got invited to a dinner at Penner-Ash a week before the event. There were so many choices this year, and trying to decide where to go was next to impossible.

Could I go into all of the detail of the Humble Spirit dinner? Yes, I sure could! The problem with that, though, is it’s only Thursday night, and there are three more days of activities. You would need three pots of coffee for this one newsletter. So, here are a couple of details for you for Thursday night’s dinner at Humble Spirit. First off, it was spectacular! The food and the wine were amazing! Earlier in the week, I interviewed Brenda and Frank, who have The Ground, Stillwater, Humble Spirit, Tabula Rusa Farms, and more! If you haven’t listened to or watched the episode, you need to take the time. These are some amazing people who are trying to make something special out there in the world. Here are all of the links: YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify.

There are advantages and disadvantages of being a moderator for a panel in the afternoon. First, let’s start with the advantages. I get to talk with a superb group of winemakers diving deep about wine along with their process and philosophy on making wine. The disadvantage is I have to curb my intake of wine before the talk. I need to function, not make a fool out of myself and the panel of winemakers. You might be asking where I am going with all of this. Well, Friday morning is the kickoff for IPNC with breakfast followed by the Grand Seminar for some and off-campus activities for others. There is an amazing amount of knowledge to gain at the Grand Seminar while tasting through some incredible wine. Did I go? I did not. I showed up at lunchtime and had very little wine at lunch even though I saw some out-of-this-world wine being poured! Like I said, there are some disadvantages.

Here are some pictures of the food at lunch.

Finally getting back around to me sweating like a pig in the middle of summer right along the border of Georgia and Florida. Walking into the room for the panel, it was a little warm to start off with. There was a little AC unit trying its best to do what it could, but it wasn’t cutting it. Volunteers were pouring 10 wines for each person to taste through, and it was my job to help create a journey along with the winemakers about each wine. The plan was to talk about the Pinots and go through the bigger reds. Before diving into the wines, I wanted to read my bio for each winemaker. Do you remember me saying I long for long-form content? Well, when it takes me three to four minutes to read a bio while reading off my iPad in front of a group of people, guess what? Long-form content is not my friend at all! It was uncomfortable for me, the winemakers, and I am pretty sure people were falling asleep after lunch listening to me ramble on and on. After my rambling, the seminar went okay.

One thing I did to engage the crowd was to give everyone a “drink ticket” when they entered the room that had a number on it. There would be pauses in the conversation. I would ask the current winemaker on deck to pick a number. I would then put the person who had that ticket on the spot and ask a question about the winemaker. If they got the answer right, they got a t-shirt. It was a fun little twist to the talk. Overall, I was glad the first talk was over and made notes on what needed to change for Saturday.

I walked out of the building over to the afternoon break portion of the day and was surprised to see Coravin pouring wines. I mean, of course, they were using their amazing devices to pour red, white, and sparkling wines, but the reason I was surprised was I remember having a discussion at Salud the previous November and offered up that I knew Greg Lambrecht from the podcast, founder of Coravin, to a conversation about IPNC sponsorship. I was happy to see Greg behind the tables also pouring wine. I, of course, got some Lytle-Barnett Sparkling and got to talk with Greg in person for a little bit. I love putting people in contact with one another!

Friday night at IPNC is all about the Grand Dinner. There is always amazing wine that is getting poured along the side of killer food! I am already 1,600 words in, and so I will let pictures do all of the speaking.

I am a very early riser in the morning, and Saturday morning was no different. After getting my morning Chai, I dove headfirst into taking my long-form introductions for the winemakers and chopping them down to the bare bones to get the point across. Was I able to make it for Saturday’s breakfast? Nope. Oh well, on to lunch I went, and I happened to run into Joe Dobbes. It’s always great to see him and catch up! I saw him again a few weeks back, and he was neck deep into Harvest.

I don’t remember much about lunch. I was nervous like something fierce. Walking into the room on Saturday, I let the winemakers know the bios were going to be shorter and thought it would be best for each person to talk about both wines at the same time instead of trying to do the Pinots and then the other wines. Another plus for Saturday’s talk was that the AC was doing a much better job!

The talk was clicking along perfectly. One of the audience members brought a 1983 Oregon Pinot Noir to talk about with Maggie Harrison. The winemakers were bantering back and forth. The crowd would laugh. I ran out of t-shirts and the only thing I would have changed would have been me talking more about Josh McDaniels as a winemaker instead of Josh McDaniels working with Drew Bledsoe. After the session, I walked up to him and apologized.

So happy to have both sessions behind me, I no longer needed to stress out. I went over to a friend’s Airbnb and decompressed for a bit with some Champagne of course! After decompressing it was time to get in line for Salmon Bake. If you are not aware there is always a pre-party partaking of wine while in line and there just happened to be some Lytle-Barnett.

I was antsy and waiting in line wasn’t doing it for me. I decided to hop over to the Alfresco Tasting. I always enjoy this event because there is a concentration of people in a relatively small area to talk with. I got the inside scoop of an amazing winemaker making his own label in 2024 at an equally amazing facility. You will have to stay tuned to hear more in a couple of years.

Some of the highlights of the tasting included: Audent, Maison Jussiaume, and of course Corollary. I was too late for Charles Heidsieck. If you know Kristy Wenz of kristys_winetravels she was next to Philippe Andre pouring Charles. Come to find out they have known one another for some time. I tell you what, the wine world is so small and wonderful!

Salmon Bake is the best! You never know what wines are being poured and who is pouring them. Here are some highlight bottles I found, and yes, there was food, but I wasn’t here for food. I was looking for connections and wine. I wanted to enjoy the last Salmon Bake, if this was going to be the last Salmon Bake.

In previous years, I always heard there was a Salmon Bake after-party. I never had the desire to party after the party, but this year I was all in. There was pizza, food, great conversations, and memories to last a lifetime.

When I woke up the next morning, I was a little sluggish, but overall not too bad. There was Champagne galore with plenty of food to go around. All weekend though, we were waiting to hear what the future of IPNC looked like. There were so many questions in the air all weekend. I wasn’t hearing a peep of anything from anyone. So, when the new IPNC president, Michelle Kaufmann, got up to talk, I had to get up and video what she had to say. She started off with, “What does 2025 and beyond look like? And I am here to tell you our future looks extremely bright. I’ll be honest. I don’t know exactly what our future looks like, but I am filled with joy that our community here in Oregon has come together to rally and save our event.” Michelle had other things to say, but that is the meat and potatoes of the speech.

Since July, I know there have been a lot of town halls to see what the future looks like. There haven’t been any decisions made yet, but here is what I do know. The Oregon Wine Community is strong as all get out. There are veterans, along with newcomers and everything in between, working to figure out a solution. IPNC is a huge monument for Oregon Wine, and we don’t want that going anywhere!

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With Gratitude,

A.J.