C4
EAT, DRINK & EXPLORE
East Oregonian
Saturday, December 21, 2019
Wine-making forces come together
By PAUL GREGUTT
Special to the East
Oregonian
WALLA
WALLA,
Wash. — One of Walla Wal-
la’s newest wineries brings
with it a veteran wine-mak-
ing team with a rich mix of
experience and a penchant
for experimentation. It’s a
sign of growth and a matur-
ing industry that it is capable
of attracting excellent talent
from outside the region.
Here’s the scoop: Force
Majeure,
which
was
founded in 2004 under the
name Grand Rêve Vintners,
has moved from Wood-
inville, Washington, to a
property that formerly was
home to the Pleasant View
School, a few miles west of
Milton-Freewater.
The school’s former
gymnasium now holds rows
of fermentation vessels,
including an impressive
number of large concrete
“eggs.” Adjacent is a bar-
rel room where wines from
the previous vintage, which
was made in a rented facil-
ity in Walla Walla, are rest-
ing. The old school is nearby
and slated to become a tast-
ing room once renovation is
complete.
From its first releases
a decade ago, the winery
caught the attention of crit-
ics and customers with its
ambitious portfolio of Bor-
deaux- and Rhône-style
wines from Red Mountain’s
prestigious Ciel du Cheval
vineyard. Each of these Col-
laboration Series wines was
made by a different “guest”
winemaker. The program
concluded with the 2013
vintage, but some of those
wines are still available on
the winery website.
The high-elevation estate
vineyard, planted on Red
Mountain above Col Solare,
may have paved the way
for this move to the Rocks
District in the Milton-Free-
water area. It was located
on almost soil-free, rock-
strewn, hardscrabble land.
In the fall of 2010, just as
the first estate-grown Mour-
vèdre vines were ready to
be picked, thieves stole the
entire crop under cover of
night. But still more trouble
was ahead. In 2011, a trade-
mark scuffle forced a name
change just as the young
winery was beginning to
establish name recognition.
Walla Walla Union-Bulletin Photo/Greg Lehman
Force Majeure Winery winemaker Todd Alexander.
Walla Walla Union-Bulletin Photo/Greg Lehman
Force Majeure Winery winemaker Todd Alexander.
Walla Walla Union-Bulletin Photo/Greg Lehman
A 2018 Voignier from Force Majeure Winery.
Then in June of 2014,
founding partner Ryan
Johnson left. Winery own-
ers Paul and Susan McBride
hired Todd Alexander to
oversee the change to estate-
grown wines that would be
made at a rented Woodin-
ville warehouse. Alexander
had been honing his skills
in the Napa Valley, where
he worked at the cult-cali-
ber Bryant Family Vineyard
among other high-profile
estates.
As he explained to me
in a recent visit to the new
winery, he’d met Mike Mac-
morran and Mark McNeilly
(from Collaboration Series
contributor Mark Ryan
Winery) in France the pre-
vious summer. “We hit it
off, had a good time, and
my wife Carrie and I had
been talking about what’s
next after Napa. I wanted
go elsewhere to apply what
I’d learned.” Force Majeure
was the right place at the
right time.
Fast forward to 2018
when long-simmering plans
came to fruition with the
purchase of the school prop-
erty and a small vineyard
nearby, previously owned by
Otis Kenyon. It seems oddly
apropos that the 10-acre site,
originally planted in the late
1990s, is partly in and partly
out of the official Rocks Dis-
trict American Viticulture
Area.
“It finally feels like
things are starting to set-
tle,” Todd said with a grin.
“We have so much oppor-
tunity here. In California
everything is so expensive
that you have to plant what’s
going to make money, which
is Cabernet Sauvignon. That
tamps down creativity. It’s
not like the old days where
you could experiment.”
As it stands today, the
Force Majeure team also
includes vineyard man-
ager Damon Lalonde, who
recently did similar work for
Corliss Estates and Charles
Smith; and consulting enol-
ogist Helen Keplinger,
another Napa veteran with
a resume that includes three
years in the Priorat region of
Spain. Those Priorat wines
inspire such Force Majeure
releases as the 2017 Par-
vata, a stunningly powerful
red principally composed
of Syrah, Grenache and
Mourvèdre.
It’s this combination
of two estate vineyards in
world-class red wine Ameri-
can Viticulture Areas (and a
third in the planning stages),
experienced
consultants
from both within and out-
side the Valley, a winemaker
with energy and creativ-
ity, and owners with vision
and a proven ability to over-
come obstacles that together
make Force Majeure such
an aptly-named and pow-
erful addition to the local
industry.
At the moment, the win-
ery is open by appointment
only. A tour and tasting costs
$30 per person (online reser-
vations can be made at force-
majeurevineyards.com/wp/
visit/). The wines are prin-
cipally sold by mailing list,
which remains open to new
members with no minimum
purchase required.
Among the current Force
Majeure releases, which are
expensive but highly recom-
mended, are a 2018 Viog-
nier ($55); a 2017 Parvata
red blend ($70); a dense and
tannic 2017 Cabernet Sauvi-
gnon ($125); and a marvel-
ously fragrant and rich 2017
Syrah ($70).
A Todd Alexander side
project is Holocene. Sourc-
ing grapes from a Yam-
hill-Carlton vineyard, the
2017 Holocene Memorialis
Pinot Noir ($54) is a ripe,
earthy wine. Its lush aromat-
ics roll from spicy cranberry
into rich strawberry, blue-
berry and red plum, along
with details of baking spices
and composted earth.
A companion wine, the
2017 Holocene Apocrypha
Pinot Noir ($54) gets its fruit
from Antiquum Farm. This
is a spicy, sleek wine with a
strong mineral component.
The fruit is ripe, dense and
precise, conjuring up bram-
bly raspberry, blackberry
and a bit of sandstone.
Sharing a family meal can help those with dementia connect
By MELISSA
RAYWORTH
Associated Press
LOS ANGELES —
Long before Tim Holling-
sworth earned the James
Beard Foundation’s Rising
Star Chef of the Year award
and served as chef de cui-
sine at French Laundry, he
was learning to cook by his
mother’s side at home. As a
kid, Hollingsworth would
measure ingredients to
help his mom make dinner,
and he’d talk with her and
sample the dishes as they
cooked.
Today, Hollingsworth —
the winner of Netflix’s “The
Final Table” and owner
of Otium in Los Angeles
— returns the favor. His
mother, now struggling with
memory loss, sits with him
as he cooks her favorite rec-
ipes, from fragrant pots of
chili to comforting platters
of chicken and dumplings.
Although she’s not really
able to participate in the
cooking, being present for
the preparation and eating of
familiar dishes with her son
helps bridge the distance
that dementia can create.
When we make and share
food with others, “we feel
a sense of usefulness and
belonging,” says Sheila Mol-
ony, professor of nursing at
Quinnipiac University and a
gerontology researcher.
If family members with
dementia can be involved
in meal prep or table setting
even in a small way, that
may give them some sense
of peace and what Molony
calls “at-homeness.” It helps
them feel like part of the
social fabric of a family or
AP Photo/Hugh Acheson, File
Tim Hollingsworth, chef and owner of Otium in Los Angeles,
appears in a scene from the cooking competition series “The
Final Table.”
Kim and Jeff Borghoff pose at a fundraising event for the Alz-
heimer’s Association. For Kim Borghoff and her family, keep-
ing a tradition of Sunday meals helped maintain a sense of
normalcy as her husband and his father were simultaneously
struggling with Alzheimer’s disease.
community.
“Whether we’re sharing
a recipe or a memory about
food, we’re really linking
into the meaning of being,”
Molony says. “This food
ritual can help older adults
with dementia reconnect
with their own personhood.”
For Kim Borghoff and
her family, keeping a tradi-
tion of Sunday meals helped
maintain a sense of nor-
malcy as her husband and
his father were simultane-
ously struggling with Alz-
heimer’s disease.
Family meals have been a
priority ever since the three
Borgoff children — now in
their 20s — were growing
up. So when her father-in-
law and husband were both
diagnosed with Alzheimer’s
several years ago, Borghoff
began making sure that
every other Sunday, the
mer’s Association has been
spreading the word about
the connecting power of
mealtime through their
Around the Table program.
Along with Hollingsworth,
they’ve enlisted other chefs,
including Hugh Acheson,
chef and owner at the Geor-
gia restaurants 5&10 and
The National, to help spread
the word.
Acheson’s father, a for-
mer professor, developed
Alzheimer’s about five
years ago. Sharing meals
was always a part of their
relationship, but it’s taken
on new meaning for Hugh
Acheson as his father’s
memory fades.
“As a single father rais-
ing four kids and a full-time
academic,” Acheson says,
his father didn’t have much
time to cook gourmet meals.
So Acheson doesn’t cook the
AP Photo/Adam Rose, File
whole family had dinner
together.
“It was the best time,
because everyone would sit
around and for whatever rea-
son, we were always laugh-
ing,” she says. Sharing these
meals with relatives helped
both men regain a bit of their
old personalities, even if just
for a short time.
The menu didn’t really
matter: “I could have
ordered pizza,” Borghoff
says. It was the familiar and
comforting experience of
lingering around the table
together even after the plates
were empty.
“When you’re with the
kids and you start talking
about memories,” she says,
it’s “good for the caregiv-
ers and the family to be able
to get that person back and
remember those times.”
This fall, the Alzhei-
same dishes they had years
ago.
“I’m not gonna make him
the burnt rice and fish sticks
that he made us, which I’m
sure was delivered with
love,” he says. Instead,
Acheson might grill a good
steak and simply pair it with
a fresh, green salad.
“Food is so much about
finding a thread of personal
history where it means some-
thing to you, and I think
that’s as much for the care-
giver as for the person suffer-
ing through dementia or Alz-
heimer’s,” Acheson says.
A good meal made with
love can draw out a person
with dementia and bring
them real joy, he says, “even
if they’ve completely gotten
to the point where they may
not have that connection to
the family story.”
Ruth Drew, director of
information and support
services at the Alzheimer’s
Association, often hears
from caregivers about the
positive moments that can
happen during meals with
loved ones.
One caregiver whose
husband has Alzheimer’s
told Drew about a weekly
dinner she hosts along with
another caregiver whose
spouse
has
dementia:
“They’ve been friends for
decades and they love to get
together for supper,” Drew
explains. At these dinners,
the caregiver’s husband is so
comfortable that “he’s able
to be at his best,” she says.
“He holds conversations. He
can crack jokes.”
Drew hopes that during
the holiday season, fami-
lies will embrace the some-
times challenging experi-
ence of sharing meals with
relatives who are dealing
with dementia, and that they
won’t feel pressure to make
everything from scratch.
If caregiving leaves lit-
tle time for holiday cook-
ing, she says, families can
“do something different that
is a little bit no-frills and no
fuss, and focus the time and
the energy on the people
around the table.”
Acheson agrees that the
people are the priority. But
he says caregivers can help
themselves by making sure
the meals are tasty and
memorable.
“We just don’t make
memories over Pizza Pock-
ets,” he says. “We make
memories over good food
that’s been cared for and
means something, prepared
with attention and thought
and love.”