Dear love, I wanted to let you know how much you mean to me, and how there aren’t enough words to express this. But I am a flawed human. I may not always be on time with the flowers, helping out with the chores, keeping places tidy and neat, or quick to understand what you need most when you’re busy.
Despite all that, there is one thing I am good at: picking out the wine for our evening.
Because wine is, after all, my love language.
The Morgan family have played an important part in the development of the Santa Lucia Highlands and their winery has been recognized for the quality from the begining with their very first Monterey Chardonnay earning a Gold Medal at the LA County Fair and a Platinum Medal from Wine & Spirits Magazine. Since then, they have won many awards including the prestigious “Winery of the Year” honors from Wine & Spirits in 1996 and from the San Francisco Chronicle in 2003.
Pinot Noir is known as the heartbreak grape. A thin-skinned variety that easily succumbs to disease, it requires just the right climatic conditions to thrive: a cool climate with plenty of fruit-ripening sunshine. In places like California, where the weather can get extremely hot, the grape does well in cooler areas close to the Pacific Ocean. One place the grape has been able to shine is Sonoma County, a vast area whose topography includes more than 55 miles of breathtaking Pacific coastline.
Cooper Mountain Vineyards is a winery ahead of the curve in the Willamette Valley, being certified organic since the early '90s. Barbara Gross, co-owner and operator, sat down to speak with me about growing up on a Willamette vineyard, finding her place among the vines, and maintaining the spirit of the vineyard through the good times and the bad.
