Oregon Part III

Day four we took it easy – and after the previous two days of one winery after the next, let me just say that this is the way to do it. Our first winery stop was at Rex Hill – also known as the place that makes A to Z wines. Our tour guide, Mike, was fantastic! We spent close to three hours with him. We walked through the entire winery – from the barrel rooms to the bottling section to the huge vats where the mix the wine, etc. Of course, it was raining so we didn’t venture too far into the vineyards.

 

Funky sculpture in the Rex Hill vineyard.

This is where we tasted the Rex Hills wines. When you walked in to the main building there is a round brick hallway that used to be an old coal tunnel. The tasting bar is at the other end.

 

That afternoon we headed to Domaine Serene which was less than thrilling. It’s beautiful, but I didn’t like the wines so much. And it’s extremely expensive wine – take a look at a wine list next time you’re out to dinner. They’ll have at least one bottle of Domaine Serene but it probably isn’t what you’re looking for (I’m talking about price range and quality, people). I didn’t even take any pictures of the place.

For dinner we headed to Tina’s – and we were only the second table in the entire restaurant. Oregon was just absolutely dead this week – which was kinda nice to get away from hoards of people.

That night (and the night after) we stayed at the Inn at Red Hills (which is above the Farm to Fork Restaurant we stopped at earlier in the week).

The next day we headed south to the Benton-Lane Winery in Monroe. This was by far my favorite winery visit. Steve, the owner, gave us a private tour of the facilities, and his pours were very generous. You can probably see in this glass I’m holding:

Me and Michael in the Benton-Lane Tasting Room

 

Benton-Lane Winery

 

Monroe is about twenty miles to Eugene so we decided to make the short trip. And of course, Michael had to drive by at least one football stadium.

 

And Eugene had these funny looking ducks everywhere…

On the drive back from Eugene to Dundee the GPS route made us take a ferry, which is just good old fun.

 

For dinner that night, we ate at Dundee Bistro, and again we were like only the third table in the entire restaurant.

Thursday morning we woke up and started our drive to the coast. For someone who gets motion sickness, not the best drive to take… This is what the coastal drive looked like.

Beautiful, but windy. And long. So long that Michael didn’t expect it to take as long as it did and we almost ran out of gas. Probably the only time we got irritated at one another all week – which is pretty good I think. Eventually we landed in Cannon Beach on the coast. And yet again it was another cold, rainy, cloudy day in Oregon – so it’s not the beach I was quite expecting. But it was gorgeous even in the yucky weather.

Cannon Beach is quaint little town – we explored Thursday afternoon, walked all three miles of the town, took pictures like these:

Thursday and Friday night, we stayed at a place called the Stephanie Inn which I highly recommend.

Reason 1 – they don’t allow children – hee hee! Reason 2 – they have a happy hour every day from 4 – 5:30. During one happy hour Michael and I put together this puzzle – cause we’re dorks like that. But hey, this was a hard one! No straight edges!

Reason 3 – they have a night cap from 9 – 9:30 every night. Reason 4 – they have heart shaped Jacuzzi tubs, no lie.

Thursday was our anniversary and several people told us to go to the Wayfarer Restaurant. It was a total bust – seriously, it’s like the Back Porch in Destin. Don’t get me wrong, I like the Back Porch but not for my anniversary dinner.

Friday we woke up and it was absolutely gorgeous!! Best weather of the entire trip – 75 degrees and SUNNY! Which after a week of bleak, rainy weather was wonderful. Seriously – look at this sky!

In the morning the tide is so low that you can see all the sealife on the rocks – pretty cool.

And Friday night dinner was at EVOO – a cooking school/dinner theatre restaurant in one of the cottage homes in Cannon Beach.  Oh, and EVOO stands for the Chefs favorite ingredient - Extra Virgin Olive Oil.

Not only was it delicious, but extremely entertaining. The Chefs cook in front of you and interact with the 30 people in the room. Very fun! I wish I’d gotten pics of all the entrees (three total – so much food!) but I only got these of the Ricotta Cheese Cake – YUM!!

Me and Michael after dinner

On Saturday we packed up and headed back to Portland. But not before attempting to take a picture on Cannon Beach – notice it was another beautiful day! Though a tad bit windy if you can't tell by our hair.

On the drive back, we finally saw the snow capped mountains that had alluded us all week – can’t remember which one this is… Mount Hood? Bachelor? Oh, whatever, I can’t remember.

Super fun trip. Lots of driving, lots of wine, lots of quality time with my hubby. Lots of rain, but it can’t all be good I guess. Honestly, it was a great time – I highly recommend it to any wine lovers out there.

Total winery count: 15!!!

Oh, and party at our house sometime in October/November - all the wine we bought and wine clubs we joined will ship wine to us as soon as the weather cools down!

Oregon Part II

Believe it or not we actually woke up on Monday, the day after we visited 6 wineries and ate at a four course wine pairing dinner, and did it all over again. I mean when you’re in Oregon – visiting wine country – isn’t that what you’re supposed to do? However, we learned from our mistakes on the first day – (1) we stopped and bought bottled water so as to stay well hydrated throughout the day and (2) we stopped a bought sandwiches to go, because Day 1 we totally did not eat lunch. We grabbed lunch to go at Farm to Fork Restaurant before heading on our merry wine drinking way.

Then our first stop at 10 am was at Sokol Blosser. They’re mostly well known for the white table wine, Evolution.

Then on to Lange:

Next we branced outside of the Dundee/Newberg area and made our way to Coehlo Winery. Coelho means rabbit in Portugese and they have the cutest labels on their wines (I know that’s really important when it comes to wine – just kidding). Michael had ordered some of their wines through Wines Til Sold Out and we really liked them.

Then even further away was Brooks Winery. Delicous wines and there was a great story in Imbibe about the owner who is 15 years old.

Next stop – and you now 6 weeks later, I can’t even remember the name of it. I do remember at the time that it wasn’t that memorable… (Edit: Michael has since reminded me that this place is called Eveshaim Wood.)

Us hanging out in the barrel room.

Michael demonstrating the fine art of wine tasting.

Then last but not least Witness Tree. This winery got its name from the tree below that was used as a survey marker waaaay back when.  The tree is also on their wine label.

By the end of our second day, we were so dang tired that we headed back to our lovely B & B – the Lion’s Gate Inn – and totally crashed. We didn’t even get up for dinner.

Day 3 Count of Wineries Visited: 6

Total Count: 12 (who do we think we are, rock stars?)

Oregon Part 1

For our 4th anniversary, Michael and I travelled to Oregon for a week. A lot of people ask “why Oregon?” And our response is for multiple reasons: (1) We feel in love with Oregon Pinot Noirs (2) Neither of us had ever been to Oregon (and for Michael this is a big deal as he has only a handful of states left that he has not visited) (3) We wanted to do something different – since our honeymoon, we’ve gone to the Caribbean every year (not that I would've complained about going somewhere sunny - so let's just be frank, number 3 was Michael's reason).

Oregon truly is a beautiful state – and I can attest to that since we drove ALL over it while we were there. We flew into Portland on the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend and spent the rest of the day and night in the downtown area. Due to the time difference, we landed in early afternoon in Portland but it was close to dinner time in Nashville so we snacked at a place called Noble Rot. I’ll give you one guess as to why we went there. See below the balcony that overlooked downtown Portland – which is where we enjoyed a glass of wine and a cheese plate just to tide us over til dinner.

That night we ate at a wonderful little French restaurant called Little Bird Bistro.  It was located right on the street downtown, and one side of the windows was the kitchen that you could look into and watch the chefs.

How well-done is the sign? It’s like a bird cage…

To this day, Michael has not stopped talking about the Duck Confit he had. And yes, he is a total snob.

Sunday we headed out to Oregon Wine Country for wine tastings. Because it was Memorial Day weekend, many of the wineries that are typically not open to the public were hosting special wine tastings – our fees included the tastings (and most places had at least 5 different kinds but sometimes they had like 12!), our glasses and some munchies that they laid out. And man, did we drink some wine.

Our first stop was at Sineann/Medici – neither one of us particularly liked the wine there, so if you’re travelling to Oregon Wine country you can skip this one.

Next we headed to Adelsheim – highly recommend this one.  They have a wine they produced called “Elizabeth’s Reserve.”  You would think I like it because of the name (and, you would be right!), but it’s also a delicious Pinot Noir.  We bought a bottle – I plan on opening it for my birthday.

Next we drove up the road to Bergstrom.  Isn’t the view beautiful?

Next stop, Beaux-Frères.

Second to last stop, Penner-Ash.  Notice how dark and gloomy the sky is… it was like that pretty much all week until we got to the coast.

Last and final wine tasting stop was Shea.  Most of the wineries in Oregon buy grapes from this vineyard – they’re that good.  So needless to say the wine was fantastic.  We even got to try 2010 wines that were still in the barrel.  We ordered three magnums of Lot 7 wine – one magnum to open on our 7^th anniversary.  The other two I guess we’ll open whenever – who’s coming to dinner at our house soon?  Wines on us, my friends.

After a much needed nap, we went to the Painted Lady for a four course dinner with wine pairings (cause we needed more wine).

Michael told them it was our anniversary and this is what they did:

Cheesy? Yes.  But I still took a picture.

Day 1 and 2 total count:

Wineries visited: 6

Wines tasted: already lost count

Number of people that apparently live in Oregon: 3.8 million (what??!?! that's like nobody!)

More to come!