Lewman Vineyards
Today’s winemaker guest was Dennis Lewman of Lewman Vineyards. Lewman has been growing grapes for many years, and selling most of them to wineries like Bethel Heights. He has held back enough for about 100+ cases each year, and today we did a vertical tasting of the 2003 and 2004 Pinot Noir. The 2003 was the big hit with most customers, but I favored the 2004 for the more intense flavor and lingering finish.
Lewman is a school teacher who will be devoting all his time to winemaking after retirement. He has lived in Borneo and New Guinea, and his wine labels have artwork from those exotic places. His tasting room is open on weekends now – just look for the sign. You can visit his website at www.lewmanvineyard.com. He’s a congenial guy and the wine is wonderful. One of the things I enjoy most about owning a wine store is supporting small winery owners such as Lewman.
It was a treat to meet Dennis’ wife – Kaoru Lewman – and I gave her my very bad Japanese greeting hajimemashite (roughly translated, “it is nice to meet you for the first time”). She strolled around Yachats all afternoon and really enjoyed the shops. She has her own website www.yaplog.jp/kaoru which has some beautiful pictures of Oregon, and some amusing pictures of American life including a drive through menu, supermarket cookie aisle, and an ATM. I must confess that when I traveled in Japan, I took pictures of iced coffee vending machines, pedestrian caution signs, construction worker's shoes, and room service trays in a fancy hotel where our waiter had used colored pencils to draw pictures of today’s weather forecast. So Kaoru’s pictures of American life made me smile.
Let’s see if I can pull out another word from my little-used Japanese vocabulary, and say that Lewman wines were oiishikata (delicious).
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