Fall 2015 Newsletter

If you haven’t joined yet, our Wine Club is a great way to try all our wines! 

Club members get a 15% discount on our wines (20% for purchases of 12 or more bottles and on library and large format wines), complimentary tastings in our tasting room, invitations to member-only events, discounts on tickets to wine events**, and priority access to new and limited releases. The wines can be shipped direct or picked up in our tasting room. Gift memberships are also available. For more information or to sign up, visit edgefieldwinery.com or email wineclub@mcmenamins.com.

Wine Region Spotlight: 
Mosel Valley

Stretching across three countries--France, Germany and Luxembourg--the Mosel Valley is widely regarded as one of the best areas for Riesling in the world. Wines from the area are generally light, low in alcohol, crisp and high in acidity, and notable for their floral aromas, thanks to the cool breezes coming off the Mosel River.

Vineyards were first planted in the area by the Romans in the second century AD and viticulture was well-established by the fourth century. The industry continued to flourish throughout the middle ages and began exporting wines, most notably Riesling, by the 18th century.

Traditionally packaged in a tall, green colored “hock” style bottle, German Rieslings are generally classified by their sweetness level, ranging from lightly sweet and crisp (Kabinett and Spätlese) to rich and sweet (Auslese and Beerenauslese) to very sweet, concentrated dessert wines (Eiswein and Trockenbeerenauslese). Our Rieslings are most similar in style to the Spätlese wines.

Vineyard Spotlight:
Elhanan Vineyard

Originally planted in 1984, Elhanan Vineyard was one of the first plantings of wine grapes in the South Willamette Valley. The site is rooted in Jory and Willakenzie soils, and sits on a southeast-facing slope. Edgefield Winery has been working with the vineyard since 1992, receiving Riesling and Muscat grapes used in our Riesling and White Rabbit wines.

Erin and Chris Sarver were brewpub owners and amateur winemakers in Michigan prior to purchasing the vineyard in 2007. You can visit the vineyard, and try their estate wines at the Sarver Winery Tasting Room in Eugene. More information here.

Instructions

1. Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with a silicone baking mat or parchment, or find a Dutch oven with a diameter that's just a tiny bit larger than your pumpkin. If you bake the pumpkin in a casserole, it will keep its shape, but it might stick to the casserole, so you'll have to serve it from the pot—which is an appealingly homey way to serve it. If you bake it on a baking sheet, you can present it freestanding, but maneuvering a heavy stuffed pumpkin with a softened shell isn't so easy. However, since I love the way the unencumbered pumpkin looks in the center of the table, I've always taken my chances with the baked-on-a-sheet method, and so far, I've been lucky.
    
2. Using a very sturdy knife—and caution—cut a cap out of the top of the pumpkin (think Halloween Jack-o-Lantern). It's easiest to work your knife around the top of the pumpkin at a 45-degree angle. You want to cut off enough of the top to make it easy for you to work inside the pumpkin. Clear away the seeds and strings from the cap and from inside the pumpkin. Season the inside of the pumpkin generously with salt and pepper, and put it on the baking sheet or in the pot.
    
3. Toss the bread, cheese, garlic, bacon, and herbs together in a bowl. Season with pepper—you probably have enough salt from the bacon and cheese, but taste to be sure—and pack the mix into the pumpkin. The pumpkin should be well filled—you might have a little too much filling, or you might need to add to it. Stir the cream with the nutmeg and some salt and pepper and pour it into the pumpkin. Again, you might have too much or too little—you don't want the ingredients to swim in cream, but you do want them nicely moistened. (It's hard to go wrong here.)
    
4. Put the cap in place and bake the pumpkin for about 2 hours—check after 90 minutes—or until everything inside the pumpkin is bubbling and the flesh of the pumpkin is tender enough to be pierced easily with the tip of a knife. Because the pumpkin will have exuded liquid, I like to remove the cap during the last 20 minutes or so, so that the liquid can bake away and the top of the stuffing can brown a little.
    
5. When the pumpkin is ready, carefully, very carefully—it's heavy, hot, and wobbly—bring it to the table or transfer it to a platter that you'll bring to the table.