The bear and I were musing about how we USED to do the wineries.   Our first wine trip outside of Texas was for our honeymoon in 2007.  We would get up and start at 10 AM and taste until 4PM:  open to close for the wineries.  We STILL do that.   Back then, however, we’d hit six or seven a day… often just standing at the bar and going through the lineup.

That was okay,  but doesn’t compare the the EXPERIENCES we have now.  I LOVE the education part of wine.  To be honest, it doesn’t really stick with me.  I have teflon brain when it comes to wines which is very frustrating to me.  I don’t remember the tastes, and I don’t remember all of the stories, but I sure like being there.  Now, instead of six or seven, three is about our limit.  Even then, we don’t have time to stop for lunch.

We do have an advantage when it comes to tastings, most wineries do free or discounted tastings for “industry.”   Because Richard cooks up food pairings and I do some paper work for our friend’s wine bar, we are “industry.”  If you know people in the industry, and want to save some money (for us, it gets close to $1,000 in savings per trip between tasting fees, which range USUALLY $20-$50 per person and discounts on wine which is usually between 20 and 30 percent), you might want to talk to your industry friends.  If they can set up tastings for you, that can be quite a bonus.

So, our first tasting was at Argyle wines.  They are the premier sparkling wine house in the Willamette.  I’m surprised by how few do sparkling…  Champagne is made from pinot noir, pinot meunier, and chardonnay… so I would think that there would be a lot more sparkling in the valley since most of the wineries focus on chardonnay and pinot noir…  but there really wasn’t much.

 

I’m not going to describe the COVID precautions over and over because they were all basically the same, but it was that patrons wear masks while up out of their seats, they take them off while they’re seated.   Most tastings were outdoors.  All tastings were spread very far apart.  Most places limited tastings to an hour to accommodate for other guests.   All hosts wore masks, and most didn’t handle our glasses at all.  Many places poured the wine in a carafe which we picked up and poured in our glasses.  None of this felt particularly weird or impersonal.

 

We did both the sparkling and the mixed flights.  We each did one and switched and shared.   When we travel, we usually ask the first winery for a case box, and we just collect our wines along the way, and ship back to ourselves at the end of the trip.  (More on that on the last day.)   I’m glad we started at Argyle.  First of all, starting with sparkling is a always a good idea.  Secondly, it was so pretty, but I may not have noticed how lovely it was if we had gone to the other truly spectacular venues first.  Argyle is in the center of downtown Dundee, not on a vineyard at all.  Its grounds are quite pretty, and I thought maybe that’s what Oregon tasting would be like as opposed to Napa.  I was wrong…

We stopped by our vacation rental and had some quick cheese and crackers before going off to spectacular view number one at Adelsheim.   Our fabulous Austrian host sat us outside on the edge of a gorgeous vineyard.  We were surrounded by cabanas.   All of the wines were set up on a barrel… and they JUST. KEPT. COMING.   Each time we said we liked something another new wine would show up…  chards and pinots galore.   There was even one syrah thrown in there for good measure.  You could feel the Pacific breeze coming in through the Van Duzer corridor on the amazing day.

After our tasting, I looked up the hill at the top of the vineyard and saw a garden, Richard warned me that it was a bigger hike than I was expecting.  He was right, but I’m still so glad we trudged up.   The views were so phenomenal.  I truly wish I had the photography skills to capture them.   Instead of mulch, much of the ground cover was hazelnut shells.  The weather was spectacular and the perspective of looking back down at the winery from the top of the hill was breathtaking.

From there, it was back to downtown Dundee and Evening Land.  If you ask many people in the wine industry, they will say that Evening Land is making the best wine in the valley right now.  It is a project between VERY famous sommelier Rajat Parr and Sashi Moorman.   This was a very intimate and fun tasting.  It was just us in the tasting room in Dundee.  Our wine host let us try the lineup along with some very fun experimental wines.   We had a great time, and I would have to agree the wines were likely the best we had the whole trip.

Then, it was time for a quick trip home to clean up before the Joel Palmer House for dinner.  The restaurant is famous for its mushrooms and has been in the Willamette Valley for four generations.  We had found out the day before that my former student’s girlfriend Alexis is the sommelier at the restaurant, so we were very excited to see her again.

We say out on the patio for a lovely experience with the mushroom madness menu.  There were two options on the menu, so Richard and I each ordered a different option and then shared.  They were all wonderful.

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After our meal, Alexis surprised us with a tour of the wine cellar.   We walked back through the kitchen and met the chef, then down the basement steps to a cellar packed with some of the best wines out of Oregon, including a wine made at Beaux Freres by Robert Parker (wine critic) himself.

When you travel for wine and food, you get to learn so much about the people and the regions where you travel.  You get to meet and speak with some of the kindest, smartest, and most interesting people around!

Our first full wine day in Oregon was behind us, and we were more than excited to enjoy day two!