September 9, 2016
CapitalPress.com
9
Old is new at Illahe Winery
By GAIL OBERST
For the Capital Press
The steady clip clop of
mules’ hooves announced the
arrival of a stagecoach haul-
ing wine to the banks of the
Willamette River in Indepen-
dence, Ore.
It was the next-to-last leg
in the journey to deliver Illahe
Vineyards’ 1899 Pinot noir,
a wine made using mostly
1899-era tools and technolo-
gy. The last leg to the distrib-
utor was a three-day trip in
canoes bound for Portland.
Once there, a bike messen-
ger pedaled the wine to the
distributor. In all, the wine
was transported nearly 100
miles from the vineyard to
Portland by horse, carriage,
canoe and bike.
“We’re keeping it as real
as possible,” said Brad Ford,
part-owner and winemaker at
Illahe.
This is the second year
the 1899 Pinot noir has trav-
eled by canoe. Both years, the
journey began two years earli-
er in the vineyard eight miles
west of the Willamette River.
There, in the vineyard-strewn
hills above Dallas, the best
clusters were hand-picked and
hauled to the winery’s crush-
pad by Bea and Doc, two Per-
cheron draft horses.
The Percherons help haul
all of the varieties in the 52-
acre vineyard, not just the
1899 Pinot noir. This year,
the 1899 Pinot noir makes
up about 200 cases of about
10,000 released at Illahe
Vineyards.
After hand-sorting and de-
stemming the grapes, they are
pressed in a hand-operated
wooden basket press before
they are moved into wood
barrels for fermentation. At
every step of the winemaking
process, there were modern
conveniences to deconstruct.
A tiring bucket brigade of
staff and volunteers helped
rack the juice from the press
to the fermenting barrels,
work done by electric pumps
today. Last year, Ford in-
vented a bike-powered pump
that “could have been used in
1899,” had someone thought
of it, he said, assisting the
bucket brigade.
Even stainless steel,
which was invented in 1911
and since then has been the
winemaker’s friend, was
exchanged for 19th centu-
ry-style wood fermenters.
No yeast was added. In-
stead, in the old-timey way,
the wine gathered up native
yeasts from the air of the win-
ery. The Pinot noir spent two
years in barrels before being
bottled and packed down the
hill in a wagon pulled by Bea
and Doc.
Once bottled, the wine was
hand-corked and dipped in
wax, then hand-labeled.
Are all modern con-
veniences shunned? Ford
shrugged and admitted that
some couldn’t be undone.
His winery has electric lights
and modern plumbing, for ex-
ample. He didn’t disconnect
them for the 1899 Project.
But each year he subtracts
another modern convenience.
This year, he put the wine on
Gail Oberst/For the Capital Press
Mules haul Illahe’s 1899 Pinot noir to the Willamette River, where it
will travel by canoe to Portland.
Gail Oberst/For the Capital Press
Brad Ford, winemaker at Illahe Vineyards, prepares Percherons
Doc and Bea for their trip down the hill to the labeling room. For
the second year, Illahe made a small batch of Pinot noir using only
1899 technology.
a mule-pulled stagecoach to
get it from the winery to the
River.
Next year, he has a plan
to eliminate the ever-present
plastic picking and hauling
buckets. With help from the
local high school ceramics
class, he’s building a kiln on
the property, and hopes to be-
gin using pots made on site.
Whether the wine is worth
the effort and the $65 price tag
per bottle is up to the critics,
but the increase in production
and attention says something.
Illahe made 75 cases released
in 2013. The 1899 Pinot noir
will be available for sale at the
winery, 3275 Ballard Road, at
Carmella’s Wines in Portland,
and at a few other shops. In-
formation is at http://illa-
hevineyards.com.
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