If you haven’t sipped at the SE Wine Collective yet, move this urban wine destination located just off of SE Division in Portland to the top of your list. Since opening in the fall of 2012, the winemaker incubator has continuously expanded offerings—what began as an urban winery with stylish tasting room now includes community and collaboration dinners, special events (like Drink Chenin Day), occasional lectures (Biodynamics 101), and a wildly successful annual Gamay Nouveau celebration.
While the Tasting Bar (with more than 60 glass pours) entices alone, you can truly experience the ethos of the collective at one of the Community Dinners by Cuisinière—the catering company run by chef Althea Grey Potter and Kate Monroe, co-founder of the SE Wine Collective. The name translates fittingly to “lady chefs.”
Like other dinners at the winery, the scene is set with long wooden tables running between gleaming fermentation tanks, and stacks of oak barrels. A brightly-hued forklift often perches at the far end of the room. Candles mingle with bottles of wine, and the conversation at the community tables reverberates as the evening unfolds. At a recent dinner, our table talk swayed from chance meetings in Paris to moped adventures in Cambodia.
Part of the novelty in the dinners is found in the ingredients. All of the produce is sourced from a nearby urban farm, (BUFA) Beginning Urban Farmers Apprenticeship, a state-run program for up-and-coming small-scale farmers. The seven-month program teaches students basic skills in vegetable production, fruit production and the field of small-scale agriculture.
“They had been on our radar when we first opened and we really wanted to support not only local farms but that idea of urban farming,” says Monroe. The winery began sourcing a small amount of produce from the farm last year, and the partnership expanded to the student farmers planting specific vegetables for the collective this year.
The pairing between the two is a natural fit. Both share a vision for fostering passion, and creating pathways to growth. “BUFA is about apprenticeship and learning and getting people on their own two feet,” says Monroe. “That’s what we do at the collective too.”
The only difference is instead of nurturing parsnips from the soil, it’s Pinot Noir. Mark your calendar with the remaining 2015 schedule for Community Dinners by Cuisinières at the SE Wine Collective:
- July: Early Summer and German Beer & Wine & Local Cider
- September: Late summer in Piedmont
- October: Harvest in Burgundy
*At the upcoming dinners, guests will also be able to pre-purchase a basket of seasonal veggies grown by BUFA to pick up at each dinner, which will include that dinner’s Cuisinières Catering recipes to take home. Dinners (excluding the Burgundy dinner in the fall) are a deal at $50 with wine pairings.
