For the most part, four nights is plenty long enough for me for a vacation anywhere. The bear is the same. This is ESPECIALLY true when it comes to wine vacations. You can only drink all day so many days in a row before your palate and your liver both cry, “uncle!”
Day four was Sunday, and Randy had arranged with me earlier in the week to meet him out where he takes some of his own grapes. He has several experimental barrels of his own wine and one amphora of rose. First, we got to taste his white pinot noir. All grape juice is basically white; it gets its color from its time on the skins. This was my first taste of a white pinot ever, and I really enjoyed it for how clean and refreshing it was. Next up was the rose of pinot. I LOVED the one from his amphora. It was absolutely delicious. I could have finished it all myself!
He also let us taste two different pinot noirs–one with the grapes destemmed before barrel, once with the stems. I, sadly, couldn’t tell which was which, but I definitely tasted a difference between the two. We ended with the blend of the two. I have never had a pinot that young out of the barrel. Spending time with a former student AND getting to taste his wines was an absolute highlight of the trip.
While at Craft Wine Company we also had a chance to taste some of the other wines sourced from his vineyard (Vitae Springs) along with a few others. This is definitely one of our favorite types of places to go. Smaller production winemakers have banded together at this facility. They buy wines from a variety of grapegrowers. It’s the best way to geek out and try something other than just chardonnay and pinot noir , which make up the bulk of the valley. Here, we bought a Gruner Vettliner made from before Randy’s family purchased Vitae Springs. Note on the tastings: I wasn’t surprised that everything, including the chardonnay, was served at cellar temperature (warmer than cool). They want you to really TASTE the wines. What WAS interesting is that most places served the chardonnay LAST. In general, when I’ve tasted before, it’s lightest to heaviest. In the valley, however, they love the acid in their wines, so they like to go from least acidic to most acidic. I thought that was super interesting!
It was time to say “ta ta for now” before we headed off to our last two tastings. The first was one of the best known in Willamette, Domaine Serene. This is one of those giant facilities complete with gift shop and rewards points based on number of purchases. During the non COVID days, this is one of the types of places that would have the tour buses pulling up all day long. That does not, however, take away from how gorgeous the building is or how tasty the wines were. This place probably had the biggest variety in overall taste of pinots. They ranged from the ultra BIG heavy pinots to very delicate and elegant. We chose to taste outside, and I’m glad we did… but it was time to say goodbye to the cool Oregon days. It had been in the 70s the previous two days. It got up to 100 for us on our last day. I suppose it acclimated us back to Texas…
Our final tasting of the trip was at Penner Ash. I am running out of words to describe places that are “breath taking,” “stunning,” “beautiful,” and “gorgeous,” but Penner Ash was all of those. Part of its drama comes from the VERY long and narrow road you take from the valley floor all the way up a winding road to the top of the hill. Their own vineyard is actually quite small. They primarily buy from other vineyards in the Willamette valley and sell mostly single vineyard offerings. Then, they have one final wine “Pas de Nom” which blends the best of each vineyard together. This was a lovely way to end the trip–tasting pinots from all over the valley.
From there, it was time for our second and last dinner reservation. We LOVE tapas and had seen great reviews for La Rambla in McMinnville. It most definitely did not disappoint. Our server told us to start with 2 or 3 starters if we were ordering the paella. The paella took almost and hour, but it was worth the wait. Had we known how huge it was, we would have ordered less tapas to begin, and would have skipped the lamb/blue cheese nachos, but I’m almost glad I didn’t know because they were AMAZING!
We pretty much had to roll ourselves home after all that! We saved the paella for breakfast the next morning.
The next day was just a travel day. When we wine travel, we collect our wine in a box and ship it back. It’s easier than trying to check it and cheaper than having it sent from the wineries. Newberg Mail Room had a deal for half price one day shipping for a case, so we stopped on the way to the airport, and dropped it off.
Went to the gas station (where someone pumped our gas–so cute, Oregon), and we were on our way. Our flight to Denver ran late and was nearly sold out. We just BARELY made the flight from Denver to Austin which WAS sold out… but we landed in time and ran to the gate.
Now, we’re home safe… I’m certainly not craving any wine any time soon, but the trip was amazing! I recommend it to ANYONE!
Part-Time Teacher; Full-Time Human 