Oregon Wine Country
November 26, 2009 | No Comments | Oregon Wine Tours
Oregon wines take second place at state dinner
WASHINGTON, D.C. – The President’s first State dinner featured the fruits of labor for the late Jimi Brooks, a Portland native and founder of Brooks Winery.
Brooks’ 2006 Ara Riesling – honed in Oregon’s Willamette Valley – was served along with the second, soup course at Tuesday night’s inaugural Obama administration State meal. Guests of honor were the Prime Minister of India, Dr. Manmohan Singh, and his wife, Mrs. Gursharan Kaur.
President Barack Obama told the Associated Press Tuesday that U.S. ties with India will be “one of the defining relationships” of the 21st century. The United States is India’s largest trading partner.
“Our nations are two global leaders,” Obama told the Associated Press, “driven not to dominate other nations but to build a future of security and prosperity for all nations.”
About the winemaker
The founder of the Brooks Winery label is Jimi Brooks, who was born and raised in Portland. According to the winery’s Web site, Brooks developed his passion for winemaking while working for the Deschamps Family, in the Beaujolais region of France. There, he said, he “learned one of the most valuable lessons in winemaking: the quality of any wine comes from the care taken in the vineyard.”
Brooks returned to Oregon in 1996 and began working at WillaKenzie Estate in Oregon’s Yamhill-Carlton wine region. He started the “Brooks Wines” label while still an assistant winemaker at WillaKenzie and oversaw production of 3,500 cases of Brooks-label wine.
Brooks died in 2004, at the age of 38, at his home in McMinnville, Ore. He left the winery to his son, now age 13.
Industry insiders tell KATU that continuing wine production after he died has been a labor of love: “Dozens of folks from the Oregon wine industry jumped in to keep his business going,” said one.
And Brooks Winery in Amity, Ore., lives on.
About the Nov. 24 dinner
A rush order for six cases of Brook’s Riesling was being chilled Tuesday afternoon in the White House kitchen, waiting to be uncorked to serve roughly 300 guests expected for Tuesday night’s event. Among the expected guests were singer Jennifer Hudson, who will perform; CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta; actress Alfre Woodard; and actor Blair Underwood.
In a break from tradition, this 2009 State dinner was scheduled out of the White House and into a tent on the Capital’s South Lawn. However, an Associated Press report notes “chilly, damp weather” that may move the dinner back indoors.
Obama said the U.S and India are natural allies. “We both recognize that our core goal is to achieve peace and security for all peoples in the region,” he told the Associated Press, “not just one country or the other.”
Recent Comments