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South Willamette
Winer es
association
Annual Barrel Tour
2012
10th
Anniversary
Celebration
JUNE 2nd
King Estate
Iris Vineyard
Chateau Lorane
Saginaw Vineyard
JUNE 9TH
L A U R A A N D M I C A H B O D N E R AT T H E I R
PLEASANT HILL WINERY
P H OTO B Y R O B S Y D O R | D I G I TA L L AT T E . C O M
Less is More
Bodner Wine Co. will make no wine before there’s room BY PATRICK JAMES
M
icah and Laura Bodner’s winery could fi t in
your garage, if your garage had a little more
head space for punching down a 1,000-liter
open-top tank. To facilitate the dynamic
process of opening a winery, the Bodners
fi rst needed leverage. So they removed the ceiling in a barn and
squeezed in equipment wherever it would fi t.
The barrels and tanks in the Bodner’s barn occupy the same
small compartment; the destemmer (no crusher), presses, bins and
stainless-steel vessels are stored in the corner opposite the chemistry
lab; the offi ce also serves as a cellar and cold-fermentation room.
And all of this makes up Bodner Wine Co., located in Pleasant Hill
behind Laura’s parents’ house.
In a highly competitive industry where quantity, price and
name-recognition can often dictate the market quality of popular
labels, microwineries (or nanowineries) with limited production
capability have the freedom — and incur all the risks — of making
atypical wines. The Bodners are limited in production, growing
slowly to ensure quality in their wine as well as in their investment.
In other words, they can’t afford to produce more wine than they
already do.
Currently the Bodners have released only one bottling of their
wine, 60 cases of Willamette Valley Pinot Noir from 2010 — a
tough year to start by industry standards, as the cool weather forced
grape-growers to pick earlier or later than was ideal.
But the Bodners have no vineyards of their own. They purchase
grapes from small Roncalli and Herberson vineyards and then
bring them to their tiny winery instead of processsing them at an
estate. Just to house a facility for alcohol production — and then to
legally sell the alcohol — the Bodners had to jump through myriad
county, state and federally mandated hoops to bond and establish
their winery.
“Then we started acquiring equipment as cheaply as possible,”
Micah says. The pump for moving and racking wine off the lees
was purchased used from Noble Estate Winery; the barrels for
aging were recycled, scraped and custom toasted by Re:Wine in
Eugene to impart a one-third “new” French oak character in their
wine. Also, before the Bodners were able to acquire a newer, gentler
bladder press, the fi rst vintage was loaned to them by Bodner the
elder. Most important, however, was gathering information.
Micah Bodner grew up out Lost Creek on a 56-acre family
farm, fi ve acres of which were planted with native grapes
WWW.EUGENEWEEKLY.COM
(Glenora, Aurora, Lakemont) and used for home fermentation. But
a few years ago, after deciding to pursue commercial winemaking
— and while Micah was fi nishing graduate chemistry studies in
Baltimore — the Bodners began to research large-scale vinifi cation
techniques from online UC-Davis curricula. After returning to
Oregon and sorting out the fi scal and physical potentialities for
production, the Bodners traveled to Napa to glean what not to do
when making wine.
In true P-Hill fashion, the Bodners camped out and hiked
between wineries during the day. “People in huge SUVs were
looking at us like, ‘What are those crazy people doing?’” Laura
recalls. Underground investigation, tasting wines and then trying
to sneak back into the production facilities for a peek at the works
were all activities that helped the couple realize they wanted to
make the opposite of “over-oaked, over-ripe, fl abby, fruity wine
that so many people enjoy,” Micah explains. “We make the wine
we like, and we have the freedom to do it.”
And what the Bodners like is a delicate, aromatic, light-
bodied Burgundian-style wine with an emphasis on terroir (the
characteristic of a particular geography and climate). Drinking it
is like tasting dirt and sweat (in a good way) and inhaling the fruits
of labor.
To own and manage a business is a series of full-time jobs, and
with Laura pregnant and selling real estate, and Micah researching
medical chemistry at UO, time is at a premium. And the Bodners
are farmers as well.
Nearby Zephyr Ridge Vineyard, just down the road from the
winery, is planted with 250 Riesling vines that are a quarter-
century old. In 2010, that particular Riesling, the Bodner’s fi rst
vintage, proved unusable. After a year of work — tending, pruning
and spraying organic sulfur and milk on the plants and soil — the
Bodners were able to nurse to health and harvest from the vines
nearly a ton of 5- to 10-percent botrytized grapes (grapes infected
with a benevolent fungus named Noble rot). This hard work
resulted in a freshly bottled German-style Riesling — off-dry
apple, mineral backbone, low alcohol — to the tune of 30 cases.
“Our fi rst year goal was to make good pinot,” Micah says,
“then slowly branch out with other varietals and quantities. We
want to control our production to make wine that is different from
anywhere else.” F
Sweet Cheeks
Domaine Meriwether
Territorial Vineyards
& Wine Co.
LaVelle Vineyards
JUNE 16TH
Pfeiffer Vineyards
High Pass Winery
Brigadoon Wine Co.
Eugene Wine Cellars
featuring:
b2 Wines
Noble Estate Vineyard
J. Scott Cellars
$60 per person
For information or
to purchase tickets
SouthWillametteWineries.com
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SouthWillametteWine
@SWillametteWine
SouthWillametteWineries.com
Bodner Winery is located at 85151 Ridgeway Rd. in Pleasant Hill; for further infor-
mation about Bodner Wine Co., visit bodnerwinecompany.com
EUGENE WEEKLY’S UNCORKED 3