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Bated Breath – Vendange 2021

June 5, 2022 Posted by Mimi

View of Mt. Hood

‘New beginnings are often disguised as painful endings’
~Lao Tzu

We ended how we started, by singing on the land.

That vintage 2021 marked the beginning of yet another decade in this millennium was a truth I only appreciated in retrospect. That it was the last harvest for me at 12345 Oak Road (seriously, that was the address) was an abstraction, and I confess my throat aches with the words to describe the last grape I tasted from there, the last brushing of tall grass on my hand, the last view of Mount Hood from the top.

The season was already charged for all the reasons you already know, and climate distress laid down a gauntlet to challenge every decision I had made in my tenure there. There could be no greater reward for all the work we did on that land than what we were gifted in parting.

Our soils carried our most generous harvest ever to ripe perfection; as picking days booked in I tried to prepare myself for the feelings that would accompany the final bucket full. And then the day arrived, and I only felt the kind of intense gratitude you feel when you are wrapped in the embrace of your most trusted, your most unconditional love.

On the land, in the work, we are beauty; we are the perfection that surrounds us. The music is a byproduct of joy, it crushes out of you in giddy waves.

So, you will hear the usual words about the 2021 vintage: growing degree days, heat dome, early harvest, high quality, mmmmmmm…….and those words are fine. But they do not belong to this story. The wines made from those moments in our hands were imbued with the very special energy of beginnings that start with endings. Listen close, closer. Close your eyes. Come along. We’re just beginning.

-Mimi

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All “Letters from the Edge”

  • “Is this thing on?” In which Mimi gets a Microphone November 23, 2022
  • new Hope Well, and new wines! October 15, 2022
  • Bated Breath – Vendange 2021 June 5, 2022
  • New Release 2021 wines from Hope Well June 1, 2022
  • Trees in Viticulture? Podcast with Mimi Casteel May 19, 2022
  • Mimi Casteel Revisited – Is Wine Big Enough, Organic Wine Podcast March 13, 2022
  • Silver Linings January 19, 2022
  • The Nitty Gritty on No-Till December 2, 2021
  • No Time Left October 8, 2021
  • Hope Well Journey July 9, 2021
  • Seeking an Optimum and Never a Maximum – Slow Wine Manifesto March 25, 2021
  • The Regenerate Forum: Regenerative Methods in Viticulture January 20, 2021
  • Outcasts January 4, 2021
  • “Controversial and even Incendiary” Interview with Organic Wine Podcast October 12, 2020
  • Vendange 2020: The Hardest Lessons Yet September 7, 2020
  • Mimi Casteel of Hope Well Wine in Oregon is Crusading for Regenerative Agriculture September 5, 2020
  • NYT: “From Good Wine, a Direct Path to the Wonders of Nature” July 23, 2020
  • Mimi interviewed by Levi Dalton on “I’ll Drink to That!” February 6, 2020
  • Tractor Time Podcast: Mimi Casteel on Regenerative Wine February 5, 2020
  • Mimi Casteel: Imbibe 75 2020 Wine Person of the Year January 22, 2020
  • Who’s Really Trampling out the Vintage? November 27, 2019
  • In Oregon Wine Country, One Farmer’s Battle to Save the Soil October 30, 2019
  • Mimi Casteel Is Betting the Farm August 23, 2019
  • An urgent conversation about the power of regenerative agriculture June 18, 2019
  • An Earth Day Letter to my Friends, for my Friends April 22, 2019
  • Over the Moon: Contemporary Biodynamics & Beyond April 10, 2019
  • New Year’s – Letters from the Edge January 24, 2019
  • A Lively Conversation about Soil Health August 29, 2018
  • Complexity is Stability June 13, 2018
  • Invitation to join the Willamette Valley Oak Accord December 14, 2017

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