Happy Hour Wine Tasting Featuring Kelley Fox, Bethel Heights and Foxen Winery

A mind of the caliber of mine cannot derive its nutriment from cows. - George Bernard Shaw on wine

We like cows but we like wine better!

It’s crazy that summer is almost over an that means only a few more Happy Hour wine tastings at the wine bar.  This tasting will feature two of the top wineries from the Willamette Valley and one of the iconic wineries from Southern California.

Bethel Heights has been around since 1977 and has become one of the landmark wineries of the Eola Amity ava of the Willamette Valley.  We have been big fans of this winery and have hosted several events over the years with the Casteel family.  If you are traveling to wine country in Oregon we highly recommend a visit to their tasting room as it is one of the best experiences we had on our last visit to Oregon wine country.

Kelley Fox is one of the new kids on the block compared to Bethel Heights they started in 2007 and have managed to source some of the best vineyards available and have an incredible portfolio of wines. 

And then there is Foxen Winery from the Santa Barbera area of Southern California.  Bill Wathen and Dick Doré (also known as the “Foxen Boys”) have been making wine together since 1985, when they founded Foxen Winery & Vineyard at the historic Rancho Tinaquaic in northern Santa Barbara County.  Their wines have become some of the most sought after in the region and we love their slogan, “If you don't know Foxen, you don't know Dick”. 

Join us as we experience some incredible wines from all three of these producers specializing in chardonnay and pinot noir but we also have some other varietals on the table tonight along with some tasty treats from Toni.  This is one of the last Happy Hour wine tastings of the summer.  The fee for this tasting is $75 + tax, for reservations call 954-523-9463 or e-mail andy@winewatch.com. 

Happy Hour Wine Tasting Featuring Kelley Fox, Bethel Heights and Foxen Winery
Thursday, August 22, 2024
6:00 PM

2020 Kelley Fox Willamette Blanc
2019 Kelley Fox Chardonnay Durant Vineyard Lark Block Dundee Hills
2023 Kelley Fox Chardonnay Willamette Valley
2022 Kelley Fox Wines Pinot Noir Mirabai Willamette Valley
2018 Kelley Fox Pinot Noir Maresh Vineyard Dundee Hills
2021 Kelley Fox Wines Carter Vineyard Pinot Noir, Eola-Amity Hills
2022 Bethel Heights Chardonnay Estate Eola Amity
2014 Bethel Heights Chardonnay Casteel Willamette Valley Magnum
2022 Bethel Heights Pinot Noir Aeolian Eola Amity Hills
2019 Bethel Heights Justice Vineyard Pinot Noir Eola Amity Hills
2020 Foxen Chenin Blanc Ernesto Wickenden Vineyard Santa Maria
2020 Foxen Vineyard & Winery Chardonnay Block UU Bien Nacido Vineyard Santa Maria Valley
2019 Foxen Pinot Noir Julia's Vineyard Santa Maria Valley
2019 Foxen Syrah Williamson-Doré Vineyard Los Olivos District

Menu
Avocado Tartar Served on Parmesan Toast
King Salmon in Fried Wonton with Hoisin Sauce
Pizza with Goat Cheese, Balsamic, Bacon and Figs
Beef Sliders with Gruyere and Truffle Mushroom Aioli
Chicken Quesadilla with Avocado Cilantro Sour Creme

The fee for this tasing is $75 + tax, for reservations call 954-523-9463 or e-mail andy@winewatch.com.

A bit about the wineries at the tasting tonight and a complete list of wines available.

Anyone who avers that New World Pinot cannot match Burgundy for finesse and complexity has clearly never tried anything from this small, impressively consistent producer. Kelley Fox Wines is a small winery created in 2007 along with her father, Gerson "Gus" Stearns. The first vintage (2007) started with just over 100 cases. The annual case production is now between 2700 and 3000 cases, all from the historic Maresh Vineyard, the Demeter-certified biodynamic Momtazi Vineyard (both since the beginning) along with Hyland (1988 Coury Clone Pinot), Freedom Hill (barrel-fermented Pinot blanc), and beginning in 2018, Weber (1983 and 1988 Pinot), and Durant Vineyard (Chardonnay). Both Weber and Durant are family owned and farmed old vine vineyards in the Dundee Hills.

Kelley has been a full-time, year-round, on-the-floor Oregon Pinot noir winemaker since 2000. Her education includes a B.S. in Psychology and a minor in Biology from Texas AM University. She graduated Magna Cum Laude with dual degrees in Biochemistry and Biophysics from Oregon State University and was admitted to the PhD program in Biochemistry.

Before completing her doctorate, She changed my path to pursue winemaking.  Kelley learned winemaking not from a classroom or textbooks or from other regions, but directly from Oregon winemakers who had put in some serious time.  She was deeply influenced by her dear friend and former employer, the late David Lett of The Eyrie Vineyards.  David was the ultimate iconoclast who pioneered the Oregon wine industry in the 1960’s.

Kelley’s winemaking experience includes Torii Mor, Hamacher, and Eyrie, and ten years as winemaker at Scott Paul Wines (August 2005 to about mid-April 2015). kelley now happily work for her own winery exclusively.

Starting with the harvest of 2019, Kelley is producing her wines at the winery of dear, longtime friends, Ann and Dean Fisher of ADEA Wine Compa.

The wines are made to reflect the land, the vines, the fruit of the vines, the year, and everything else unknown and unseen that comes with those things. They are Oregon wines, and hopefully, they are wines specifically of their vineyards. That said, the wines are not really "made" at all.  She has no end result in mind each year for the what the wines will be. Kelley is not Pygmalion. What she is doing still takes a lot of inner and outer work- by responding to the essence of the fruit from each block, which is carrying the essence of the earth that bore it, along with the details of the year ( the weather, the stars and the planets, etc. etc.).

In the spirit of not being heavy and serious, the wine label honours the pariah of Oregon Pinot: the humble and mysterious earwig. While they are certainly not pests, these persistent little creatures sometimes dwell between the berries inside the grape clusters here. They can live inside the must for an impossibly long time, too.  Kelley is always tring to rescue them when doing pigeage, and has developed quite an admiration and genuine affection for them. There is no deeper meaning. The label was designed by Peter Ballman.

United by their interest in wine, in 1977 Ted Casteel, Pat Dudley, Terry Casteel, and Marilyn Webb abandoned the academic life and, together with Pat’s sister Barbara Dudley, bought 75 promising-looking acres northwest of Salem, with 14 acres of newly planted cuttings in the ground.   They moved to the vineyard in 1978 (except Barbara, who was in California working as a lawyer for farmworkers with the Agricultural Labor Relations Board) and started a new life.  In 1979 they cleared and planted 36 more acres.  In 1981 they harvested their first crop and started home winemaking in Terry’s basement.  In 1984 Bethel Heights produced their first commercial vintage of 3000 cases: Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, Chenin Blanc and Gewurztraminer, all Estate Grown.

For the first thirty years Ted was responsible for managing the vineyards and Terry made the wine.  Pat and Marilyn shared responsibilities for marketing and business management. Over thirty years they grew their wine production to 10,000 cases, and made common cause with our fellow pioneers to establish the Willamette Valley as the home of New World Pinot Noir.

Meanwhile, five cousins grew up knowing the tidy rows and wild hidden places of Bethel Heights as their backyard playground, science lab and adventure park. Now they have taken their places as co-owners, co-workers, and stewards of this place.

In 2005 Ben Casteel (son of Terry and Marilyn) took over from his father as Winemaker at Bethel Heights.  In 2007 Jon Casteel (second son of Terry and Marilyn) launched Casteel Custom Bottling, a mobile bottling company that serves wineries throughout Oregon, including Bethel Heights of course.  Mimi Casteel (daughter of Ted and Pat) worked with the family at Bethel Heights until 2017 when she started farming her own vineyard at Hope Well and launched her Hope Well Wine project. Jessie Casteel grew up among the vines at Bethel Heights, but now lives in Chicago. Jessie brings a creative outlier perspective to the direction of the family business and serves as our ambassador in Chicago and points east.

So where did the name Bethel Heights came from?  They found the answer in a small booklet written in 1941 by John E. Smith called Bethel, Polk County, Oregon. According to Smith, “One of the earliest settlers in this vicinity was Rev. Glen O. Burnett who came to Oregon in 1846 and built his house half a mile or so north of the present location of Bethel School.  To the heights eastward, he gave the name ‘Bethel Hills’, Bethel being the name of the church in Missouri that he had recently served as pastor.”

The property now known as Bethel Heights Vineyard was originally platted in 1909 and recorded under the name Bethel Heights Walnut Groves.  A number of the original walnut trees and their children still flourish around the edges of the vineyard.

Since 1984, both the Estate Pinot Noir and Estate Chardonnay have been the most transparent statement of Bethel Heights terroir that they produce, the sum of all its parts.  Old vine storytelling delivered with tension and energy – these wines are the foundation of this producer and a statement to the terroir of their vineyards.
 

Bill Wathen and Dick Doré (also known as the “Foxen Boys”) have been making wine together since 1985, when they founded Foxen Winery & Vineyard at the historic Rancho Tinaquaic in northern Santa Barbara County. Since that time, their dedication has remained the same—the creation of very small production, sustainably-farmed, vineyard-focused wines using a "minimalist" approach to winemaking.

Life has come full circle for Dick Doré. Born and raised on the family-owned Rancho Tinaquaic, this sixth generation Santa Barbara County resident returned to his roots in 1985 where he established FOXEN Vineyard & Winery with Bill Wathen.

After working as a banker in the late sixties and seventies, this University of California at Santa Barbara graduate gave up his nine-to-five job and moved his family to Europe. Over the next year and a half, Dick traveled the back roads of France, Italy and Spain, where he developed his love of wine. Dick returned to the Rancho Tinaquaic in the late seventies, just as the Santa Barbara County wine industry was emerging. With his passion for great wines firmly established, he initially worked to support his family, which included working for the Tepusquet Mesa Vineyard. It was here that Dick and Bill’s paths crossed and a life-long friendship and partnership was established.

Born and raised in San Luis Obispo, Bill Wathen is a true Central Coast native.  He chose to attend Cal Poly University where he graduated in 1975 with a degree in Fruit Science, specializing in vineyard management.  After graduation, Bill’s first job was to work for two Santa Barbara County viticultural pioneers -- Dale Hampton and Louie Lucas, at the Tepusquet Mesa Vineyard (now owned by Cambria Estate) and the Nielsen Vineyard (currently owned by Byron Vineyard.)

In 1978, Bill went north to become vineyard manager at Chalone Vineyard, where he was mentored by California wine pioneer and Chalone founder, Dick Graff. It was here that Bill learned traditional French winemaking techniques and appreciation for great Burgundies. Graff’s influence inspires Bill’s winemaking philosophy to this day. Bill’s approach to winemaking is straightforward as he explains, “It goes back to my roots as a viticulturist. I make every effort to make the perfect wine in the vineyard. Maximized viticulture equals minimalist winemaking.”

Returning to Santa Barbara County in the early eighties, Bill joined long-time friend, Dick Doré, and began making plans to make wine together.

The winery was named in memory of William Benjamin Foxen, an English sea captain and Dick's great-great grandfather, who came to Santa Barbara in the early 1800's.  In 1837, this Santa Barbara County pioneer purchased the Rancho Tinaquaic, a Mexican Land Grant that originally totaled nearly 9000 acres and comprised most of what is now known as Foxen Canyon.  Captain Foxen adopted the distinctive "anchor" as his ranch cattle brand, which has become a trademark of the winery.  It is very fitting that FOXEN has made its home on the 2000-acre Rancho Tinaquaic, which remains in family hands.

With the completion of FOXEN’s new solar-powered winery and tasting room in 2009, the historic and beloved “tasting shack was renamed “Foxen 7200”, where Bill and Dick now feature their Bordeaux and Cal-Ital-style wines, under a newly designed label. FOXEN Pinot Noirs, Chardonnays and Rhône-style wines are showcased in the new solar-powered tasting room at 7600 Foxen Canyon Road.