Happy Labor Day, folks! As usual, I’m a little slow on the update, but that’s because I’ve got a lot of good material to narrow down. To start, Lea’s cousin, Krissy, got married in Oregon this weekend! Not only did she get married, but she did it on her uncle’s vineyard. Sound cool? It was. So, since we were already going up for the wedding on Sunday, we thought we’d make a little vacation out of it! With home base in Portland, we ventured out to explore Willamette Valley wine country and “The City of Roses.”

We caught a 7AM flight on Saturday morning and landed in PDX by 8:45AM. Lea’s parents, Don and Judi, picked us up from the airport – they went the roadtrip route and drove from IA – and after a short stop to drop our bags at the hotel, we were on a fantastic voyage to and thru Willamette Valley…

Willamette Valley Wine Country

Our travels today focused on the Dundee Hills Appellation, with a stop in the Yamhill Appellation on the way home. Here’s THE map to help you get your bearings: http://www.willamettewines.com/map.shtml

Winderlea. Our first stop of the day was Winderlea Winery (pronounced, “Winder-lee”). I’d read good things about this place in Sunset Magazine nearly 6 months ago, and only remembered it because of the pictures of the view. I decided that if I ever get to Willamette, I would have to stop here. And wouldn’t you know it, we did! First stop, in fact.

It was a little rainy/overcast when we first showed up and had the tasting room to ourselves. The building is only about a year old and owned by a husband and wife, Bill and Donna, who had successful careers that afforded them the opportunity to move from the East Coast to Oregon to make world-class Pinot Noir. Kudos! This is a blossoming business, and I get the impression that they know every last detail of what goes into it – from the history of the property where they’re located, to the winemaker’s pedigree, to the negative 10 degree slope of the bottom half of the bottle’s silhouette. Yeah…perfectionists.

For wines, the goal for them is to produce Chardonnay and Pinot Noir similar to what you would find in Burgundy, France. And…they’re good!

Monty – 10 month old Chocolate Labradoodle

Farm to Fork. Donna recommended we try a restaurant for lunch in Dundee called Farm to Fork. As the name suggests, all (or most) of the ingredients are grown/produced locally. In some cases, the diet of a Locavore (Merriam-Webster: “one who eats foods grown locally whenever possible”) could be rather limiting. But in this part of the country, they seem to be able to grow anything and everything.

I had the roasted golden beet soup with goat cheese creme fraiche, housemade chippies, and the prosciutto di parma sandwich with asian pear on baguette. Totally low-cal. 🙂

Everything grows. After lunch, we took a short detour down a side road because…Don took us captive? It turned out to be great! On one random Willamette Valley side road we saw orchards for plumbs, hazlenuts, Christmas trees, and growing wild, we saw more blackberries than you could shake a stick at and even holly! Have you ever seen wild holly? It instantly put me in the Christmas spirit.

Archery Summit. OK, I’m sorry, Judi, but I have to… So this day so far has gone from great to fantastic with no signs of slowing down. Until…

Exhibit A. Mud.

Exhibit B. Muddy toosh.

That’s right, Judi bit it in the mud next to the parking lot at our next wine stop of the day. And she’s only had the equivalent of about 3 sips by this point, mind you! So no foul play here, just a flower fanatic risking it all for a close-up shot of these beautiful roses. Don’t worry, Judi, I’ve got you covered!

No worries, though. Judi is a terrific sport and happened to have a pair of shorts in the trunk to change into. Thanks for the laughs (sorry about that, by the way), but it’s time to realign our focus on the reason we’re here. Archery Summit winery is one of the most well-known wineries in the valley, and they make extraordinary Pinot Noir. Actually, they make 6 different variations of Pinot Noir, each with grapes sourced from 1 of 5 different vineyards, plus one cuvee that blends grapes from each.

The tasting started in the caves, where the wine is aged. Many wineries dig tunnels (i.e. – caves) into the hillside because they serve as natural refrigerators for the wine while it ages. While the walls of the caves are sprayed with concrete, here they left some of the original rock wall exposed.

Here’s Lea explaining the finer points of cooperage (making of wine barrels). She’s such the expert.

And these are just of some big clouds on the drive to the next winery, but I like ’em.

Elk Cove. OK, last stop of the day, and I’m so glad we found a route that allowed us to fit this one in. Elk Cove has long been my favorite Pinot Gris, and you just can’t beat it for the price.

Elk Cove is also argued to have the best tasting room views in the valley.

Driving in:

Looking north:

Looking south:

I was having a heck of a time with the tripod, timer, composition piece of taking this photograph. So, if the smiles look tired it’s because this is about try number 20. Thanks for humoring me, guys!

Whoa boy. What. A. Day. I’ve literally been dreaming about visiting the Willamette Valley wineries for years. And now I can finally say that I know what it’s about. I’m looking forward to the next trip! Any takers?

Portland

the Nines. This hotel is sick (in a good, healthy way). Just look at these pictures of our room. I could’ve taken pictures of this room in a million different ways if I had the time. It’s located in the heart of downtown Portland, above the Macy’s and across from the Courthouse. It’s also a Starwood Property, so you can use your points!

View from our room looking down into the lobby:

Note: we ate at Isabel’s Cantina for dinner, which was good, but not worth writing home about; so I’ll give you back the time you would’ve spent reading about it. Had I written it. Which I didn’t.

Departures. Yow Ming, what a bar. Located on the top floor of our hotel is Departures. Krissy arranged drinks here after their wedding rehearsal, and if the photos of the room are any indication, this was one of the coolest contemporary bars I’ve ever seen – that includes places I’ve seen in pictures but have never been to. It’s a pretty hip crowd, so I tried to keep my camera in my pocket, but was able to snatch these little gems.

These are fried calamari. Lea’s Aunt’s close friend, Roger, was ordering plates of food as if this were our last supper. And drinks. Come to think of it…I really miss you guys! 🙂

That’s going to be a wrap for this post. If you made it all the way through, congratulations to you, good friend! I still have more to tell about the weekend, and I make no promises that tomorrow’s will be any shorter. Until then…

Cheers!