Jolee’s Napa Nachos

Pair with Del Rio Cabernet Sauvignon

Ingredients: 
Really good potato chips such as Kettle chips 
5 oz (more or less) of well aged Blue Cheese, such as 
the Rogue Creamery’s Rogue River Blue 

Preparation: 
Place chips in an oven safe dish, as many as you wish to make. Sprinkle with blue cheese and place in over at 450 degrees until cheese is melted and chips are golden brown. 

It sounds crazy, but it is yummy! Wonderful appetizer to serve with our Del Rio Cabernet Sauvignon. 

The Adventures of the White Merlot Continue

As the holidays have flown by, our White Merlot has had time to settle in. In early December we ended the fermentation process by placing the wine in the cold, inhibiting the yeasts from reproducing. Now the wine has been racked off the lees (the sediment created during fermentation) and sulfured. The wine created has a nice refreshing lightness and the sweet flavors enhance rather than overwhelm.  Next week we will rack one more time to increase the wine’s clarity in preparation for the next process, bottling.

But, before we can bottle we have one last order of business . . . we need a name for our wine! Please submit via a comment below, facebook or via email to lindsey@delriovineyards.com your name selection. All entries will be due by next Wednesday January 4^th.

We have secured a date for bottling . . . those who helped process the wine in November are welcomed back to the winery to help us bottle. Please join us on Saturday January 7^th from 3-5pm in the winery to bottle and take home your very own bottle of White Merlot. 

8th Annual Winter Wine Event

Join us on Saturday January 14th from 1pm to 4pm for our 8th Annual Winter Wine Event. This event is a delightful festival, which fills our winery with wonderful products from a number of local artisan producers of coffee and candies to savory BBQ. For only $10, enjoy wine tasting, a commemorative wine glass, samples of local products, and the great sounds of the Oregon Little Big Band.

Details: 
Saturday January 14th, 2012
12-1pm Early Entry for Wine Club Members
1-4pm General Public
$10.00/person - includes logoed wine glass. 

Participating Local Vendors:

Abuela's Delights

Cary's of Oregon
Gary West Meats

Good Bean Coffee Company

Homemade Confections

Krebsbach Find Foods

Mrs. Britt's

Oregon Artisan Foods

Pennington Farms
Pete's Gourmet Confections

Pickled Planet

Rogue BBQ

Sherry's Pasta

Smith's Pepper Sensations

Taylor's Sausage

The Cupcake Daily

Zorba's Chocolates

*In addition to samples vendors will be offering products for sale.

Live Entertainment by:

The Oregon Little Big Band

Michelle Le Comte and Tim Wallace play a repertoire of swing, rumbas, and soft jazz surely to delight.

2011 Holiday Cheese Ball & Dip Recipes

All eight lovely dips were created by Del Rio tasting room staff members for the 2011 Wine Club Pick Up Party held on Saturday December 10th. It was at the party that our wine club members were able to enjoy each dip and select their favorite. Now that the voting is complete we would like to reveal our all our recipes and their creators.

1st Place: Blue Cheese Ball
Made by Jolee Wallace, Del Rio Vineyards owner

1 8oz cream cheese
1 stick of butter
1 small can of olives
Green onions chopped (use on the green part)
Small container of blue cheese

Soften the cream cheese & butter. Combine all ingredients.
Roll the shape of a ball on roll in your favorite nuts. Serve with crackers, bread or veggies.

2nd Place: Grandma Marianne’s Seafood Dip
Made by Lindsey Zagar(actually Lindsey's Mom)
2 – 4 oz shrimp
1 6 oz crab well drained
1 can mushroom soup
1 cup celery – chopped
½ cup onion – chopped
14 oz cream cheese
1 envelope unflavored gelatin
½ cup cold water
1 cup mayonnaise

In sauce pan over low heat beat cream cheese and soup until blended. Add shrimp, crab, celery and onion stir until smooth. Remove from heat and blend in mayonnaise. Into ½ cup cold water, mix gelatin until dissolved, pour into crab mixture and chill.

Nancy’s Pepperoncini Dip
Made by Gloria Eilefson

1 lb. Swiss cheese, coarsely shredded (don't use pre-bagged kind it won't work)
1/2 bunch green onions with tops, chopped
1/2 cup chopped pepperoncini
1 TBS. finely chopped jalapeno peppers (or to taste)
Mayonnaise

Combine the cheese, green onions, peppers in a bowl. Add enough mayonnaise to bind and mix well. Store in refrigerator for up to one week. Add additional mayo and pepper juice if needed. Serve with corn chip scoops, carrot sticks , etc.

Caramelized Onion & Bacon Cheese Ball
Made by Susie Moore

1 Tablespoon olive oil
1 large yellow onion
8 oz. cream cheese softened to room temperature
6 strips bacon, fried crisp and crumbled
2 Tablespoons red wine vinegar
½ teaspoon thyme
Salt and pepper to taste

Peel and cut onion in half. Slice very thinly. In a large non-stick skillet, heat oil over medium heat. Add onion and cook stirring frequently until golden (about 15min.) Cover and reduce heat to low. Cook stirring occasionally about 30min. Watch that the onions don’t burn. Allow onions to cool slightly then coarsely chop. Blend cream cheese, bacon, onion, vinegar, thyme, salt & pepper. Remove mixture and form a ball. Cover with plastic wrap and chill for at least 1 hour. When ready to serve, roll ball lightly in mild parmesan cheese and display with olive penguins

Cranberry Cream Cheese Spread
Made by Juanita Wright

16oz. soft cream cheese
3 Tablespoons packed brown sugar
½ cup toasted walnuts
½ cup whole cranberry sauce
1 teaspoon fine shredded orange peel

Cover and Chill for 4-24 hours. Serve with bread, crackers, or fruit.


Chocolate Peanut Butter Cheese Ball
Made by Jenelle Miracle

• 1 package (8 ounces) cream cheese, at room temperature
• 1 cup powdered sugar
• 3/4 cup creamy or chunky peanut butter (not all-natural)
• 3 tablespoons packed dark brown sugar
• 1 1/2 cups (9 ounces) NESTLÉ® TOLL HOUSE® SWIRLED™ Milk Chocolate & Peanut Butter Morsels
• Graham cracker sticks and/or apple slices
BEAT cream cheese, powdered sugar, peanut butter and brown sugar in large mixer bowl until blended. Spoon onto a large piece of plastic wrap; bring up all four corners and twist tightly (should form a ball shape). FREEZE for 1 hour 30 minutes or until firm enough to keep its shape. Place morsels in flat dish. Remove plastic wrap from ball and roll ball into morsels to completely cover (you may find it necessary to press morsels into ball). PLACE ball on serving dish; cover and freeze for 2 hours or until almost firm. (Can be made ahead. If frozen overnight, thaw at room temperature for 20 to 30 minutes before serving.) Serve with graham cracker sticks and apple slices for dipping or spreading.

Holiday Cheese Ball
Made by Jennifer Kerrigan

• 1 (4-ounce) package cream cheese
• 1/4 cup milk
• 1 cup shredded sharp Cheddar cheese
• 1 cup shredded Monterey Jack cheese
• 2 tablespoons crumbled blue cheese
• 5 slices bacon, cooked and crumbled
• 6 tablespoons chopped pecans
• 2 tablespoons chopped green onions (white part only)
• 1/2 (2-ounce) jar diced pimientos, drained
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
• 2 teaspoons poppy seeds
Beat the cream cheese and milk in a medium bowl with an electric mixer on low until well blended. Add the Cheddar, Monterey Jack and blue cheese. Beat at medium speed until well combined. Add half of the bacon, 3 tablespoons of the pecans, the green onions and pimientos to the cheese mixture. Blend on medium speed until well mixed. Transfer the mixture to a large piece of plastic wrap and form into a ball. Wrap tightly. Refrigerate until well chilled, about 2 hours. Combine the remaining bacon and remaining pecans with the parsley and poppy seeds in a pie plate or large dinner plate. Remove the plastic wrap from the ball. Roll in the bacon mixture until well coated. Wrap tightly again in plastic and refrigerate until ready to use, up to 24 hours.

Dolores's Recipe is coming soon.

White Merlot

A what?” “Yes, you heard me, a White Merlot.” Now, we all know what a Merlot is, but a white merlot? Let’s delve a little bit further to discover what this wine truly is about.

Merlot grapes were harvested on November 11, 2011, at 24° Brix. (Brix is a form of measuring the amount of natural sugar in the berry.) This number will help us determine the final alcohol of our finished wine.

After picking, the clusters were left in buckets for attendees of the URWT 2nd Saturday, Grape to Glass. Participants now had a great opportunity to get their hands a little dirty. This process consisted of de-stemming (pluck the fruit from the stem), sorting (bug, leaf & stem removal) and pressing. After we were sure that we had clean berries, the grapes were then heaped into a wood grape press. Luckily, we had some savvy participants here to help operate the manual press. Once the berries were inside the press, pressure was forced down upon the grapes by a ratcheting motion. This light pressing of the berries was just enough for the juice to flow without extracting the bitterness of the skins. The juice was then racked off into a 5 gallon carboy for fermentation.

The White Merlot was then inoculated with active yeast drawn from a winery tank. It was clear that fermentation had taken hold as the gasses released through the fermentation bubbler were filling the kitchen. It is now time to let the yeast work their magic. I realized today that we did not have to leave the back door open to ventilate the kitchen so I thought I would take the juice into Jean-Michel’s lab for testing. Upon analyzing the juice, it was clear that we were indeed almost finished! The Brix came in at 3.3 and the Ph was sitting nicely at 3.55. We will need to stop fermentation within the next couple of days as the desired outcome will be to have a slightly sweet wine. The flavor of this wine is delicate and has just the right amount of sweetness, without being too cloying, which is excessive sweetness. I’m still not sure what I can smell on the nose as there is still a lot of CO2 remaining in my glass which is a byproduct of the fermentation. After we rack this wine several times, the CO2 will dissipate. Stay tuned to find out what happens next!

Cranberry, Fig, and Pinot Noir Chutney

1 1/2 cups Pinot Noir
12 dried figs, diced
3/4 cup sugar
3 strips orange zest
1 (2-inch) piece fresh ginger, peeled and finely grated
4 cups fresh or frozen cranberries
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

1. Bring the wine to a simmer in a small saucepan. Remove from the heat, add the figs, and let soak until soft, about 30 minutes. Drain, reserving the wine and figs separately.

2. Combine the sugar, 1 1/2 cups water, the reserved wine, orange zest, and ginger in a large saucepan and bring to a boil over high heat. Cook until the sugar has completely melted, a minute or two. Add half of the cranberries and cook, stirring occasionally, until the berries have popped and are very soft, about 10 minutes. Stir in the remaining cranberries and the soaked figs and cook for 5 minutes longer. Season lightly with salt and pepper.

3. Discard the orange zest and scrape the chutney into a serving bowl. Serve at room temperature or chilled. The chutney can be prepared 24 hours in advance and stored covered in the refrigerator. Bobby Flay's Bar Americain Cookbook 2011

Thanksgiving Weekend!

Del Rio Vineyards & Winery invites you to our annual Thanksgiving Open House celebration. Escape to wine country, where friendly services and delicious wines await. This post holiday weekend is filled with something fun each day:

Friday: Black “Mystery” Case Special
Our doors open at 11am, but be sure to line up early for this amazing deal. All thirteen case boxes of our current releases from Rose Jolee to our 2008 Estate Reserve Petite Syrah will be wrapped in black paper and available for only $100.00. Limited to one case per customer and all sales are final. We hope to see you bright and early on Friday – we will have hot cocoa!

Saturday:
Escape to the warm tasting room where we will offer three new wine releases: 2010 Pinot Gris, 2009 Syrah, & the 2009 Merlot. Enjoy samples of light food pairings and delicious warm spiced wine. Be rewarded for participating in the nationwide event of shopping local! Bring in a receipt, proof of a local purchase (chain stores do not apply) and enjoy a discount of 15% off any Del Rio product from wine to t-shirts. As a wine club member enjoy the discount on top of your wine club discount.

Sunday:
Bring your family and friends to learn a little bit more about wine. Stop in for one of our quick and fun “Wine Tasting 101” courses taught by Jen. Classes will take between 30-45 minutes and are located in our upstairs ballroom. Three time slots will be offered: 12:30pm, 2:30pm and 4:30pm. To participate in a course there is a $5.00 tasting fee, however, it will be waived with purchase of wine.