I headed out to Argyle Winery yesterday to take some photos of the vines and grapes. It’s still pretty early in the growing season, but things are looking pretty nice. Here are a few shots (out of 70+). Most of the photos were of Chardonnay vines.

As some people know, I’m a big fan of wine and port. I am close to and work with several Oregon wineries. Having such a close connection, I am used to getting some pre-release and ‘private stash’ wines every once in a while. Over the holidays, I got an awesome treat – one of the first and few Oregon-made port wines. It’s stunning. It easily rivals ports from Portugal and Australia. One of the fun parts of having this port is the fact that it’s very much a pre-release. In fact, it doesn’t even have a label yet! Label or not, it’s amazing.

Once the port is given a label, I’ll post a photo.

Boy, did I ever have a fun morning! I was out at Argyle Winery when a conversation turned to aerial photography. I’ve been itching to take aerials for years, so I offered to take some photos. Minutes later I was strapping in to a little two-seater Cessna, ready for take-off! Fortunately for me, the windows on this airplane opened up, so I was able to lean out a little and get some awesome shots. We were going about 100mph somewhere around 3,000 feet high, so the wind was very strong and very cold. It was totally worth it, though! So damn fun! I plan on repeating this adventure as often as possible!

I ended up taking over 470 photos. 350 of them looked great, with no wing or strut in the shot.

This is Knudsen Vineyard, the main source of Argyle’s tastiest wines.

This is a fun shot looking straight down. I thought it was fun how the landing gear was in the frame. It sort of adds perspective.

This is one of my favorite angles because it gives the impression that I could have been standing on the wing. (I wish!)

After a day of server config and other techie stuff, I got elbow deep in fermenting pinot noir at Argyle Winery.

This is harvest season and it’s a special time at Argyle. After harvesting vast amounts of vineyard property, grapes are brought to the winery for destemming, crushing and fermentation. Argyle is one of the few wineries left that still manually crush grapes and perform the ‘punchdown’ ritual – huge 500 gallon containers of fermenting grapes are mixed by hand (truly grueling work) to perfect the mixture of juice, sugars and yeast. After punchdown, the juice ferments and is then barrelled for fining and aging.

Willy (holding the grapes) is in charge of the lab at Argyle where all the wines are made.

Cathy (Argyle’s marketing director) and I had fun doing punchdown.

You can see the grapes and juices bubbling up to the top. The juice naturally heats up to 80° or more due to the fermentation process.

Next year this gorgeous mixture will be sitting in a bottle on my dinner table! Yuuu-uuum!

I went out to Argyle Winery this morning to take some photos and check up on things at the winery.

The pinot noir grapes are turning color this week. It’s a bit late, but they’re looking really good. I ate a few grapes and they were very tasty!

I was on the road early this morning on my way out to Argyle Winery again. After nearly 8 trips out there, I finally got a little spare time to take some photos. Of 111 taken, here are a few for sharing:

Knudsen Vineyard in the early morning light…

Rows of vines at Knudsen…

More rows of vines, though with a dreamy hazy glow (not photoshopped)…

Some grapes maturing on the vine…

Here I am, taking pictures as usual…

A baby thistle…

There were dozens, maybe hundreds of these flowers that create cup-like homes for ladybugs at night. This ladybug was just waking up.

I spotted a bee so heavily laden with pollen that it was having a hard time moving around.

A bit closer up – you can see the pollen spores attached to the bee, ready for flight… if the bee can lift all that weight!

I think this is a marigold…

Beads of water look great in the sunlight…

Cool color contrasts in this image…

I like the shadows cast by the water drops.