Image provided by: Clackamas Community College; Oregon City, OR
About The print. (Oregon City, Oregon) 1977-1989 | View Entire Issue (Feb. 8, 1978)
Lt and sour red cabbage-or t his special wine collection- L red current to mead (hon- I henry Endres Winery, located |13300 S. Clackamas River L, Oregon City, began in K5 when Henry Endres, Sr. L his job during the depression. I "He always made good wine I he decided to make a living | it," Endres said. "He built twine in 1935 and in 1936 hot his permanent license and Led selling." ||n 1951, Endres and his wife Irgaret took over the winery I Endres, Sr. retired. I'Every year we try to make it liter than the year before," Irgaret said. "It's a challenge, lery year it's different—diff- Lt amount of .rain and sun- |ne-so it makes the wine dif- Bt." ■Endres begins his wine with fch fruits and berries which he rows on his 15 acres of private- lowned and leased fields. Hen- fs Winery holds a farmer's wine Lense rather than a commercial lense. They grow their own Lit opposed to importing and lying fruit. rWe use pure, ripe, sound Lit out of the fields in sea- an," Margaret said. "We like to irry it all the way through." I To start the process of build- « wine, Margaret begins with a Lt tube slant of ye ast and a quart of fresh, sterilized berries or fruit. "In about a day and a half it will be bubbling up and she'll add more sterilized fruit and build it up until we get a five percent culture and 95 percent fruit," Endres said. "Then we'll innoculate the vat which is 400 to 500 gallons of fruit." After the fruits are put in to the vats, sugar solutions are add ed to feed the yeasts and keep it going well. "My husband has analyzed all the fruits to find out how much natural sugar and natural acid there is," Margaret said. "This way he'll know how much solu tion to add to bring it up to the alcohol content he wants." "Wine without sugar around here is about seven to eight per cent," she said. "It's hard to to keep and many wine diseases come up with this type of wine. A good sipping wine is around 11 and 13 percent. This is where our wines are. Wines that are 18 to 19 percent just get you drunk." "We adjust it," Endres said. "We're not allowed to fortify it. We have to let .it ferment naturally. It's a natural product that ends up to be about as natural as you can get." Aging, finishing and racking take place after the fruits are placed in the vats. "We age everything in oak tanks," Margaret said. "If we got bigger, we'd have to go to metal. Wine connoisseurs can tell the difference because the winesseem to have a metalic taste." Some wines need little aging, according to Endres. "Cane berries are ready to drink when they're clear," he said. "Some of the fruit wines, on the other hand, need lots of ag ing. Some of them we won't crack for about 18 months." Previous wines made by Hen-. ry's include cherry, plum, apple, current,mead,rhubarb,red grape, white grape, elderberry, logan berry, raspberry, strawberry and rose. "Now on deck," Endres said, "are apple, rhubarb and red grape. Elderberry, rose and lo ganberry will be ready for East er." Henry's wines are sold out of the Endres farm. Prices are $6 per one-half gallon of wine. Endres son, also a Henry, is intending to take over the winery in the near future. "We're going to retire on a piece of property I own," Endres said. "I'm going to just raise fruit for him." "Henry is also a chef," Mar garet said. "A gourmet chef that is. He makes Chinese dishes, spaghetti, German dishes, etc. It sure helps me out a lot. He can even cook more after we retire." "We've made a living doing this," Endres said. "We've work ed hard to make it the best fruit wines in the Northwest."
