Oregon : Nine of the Best for

Here are nine of the many good pinot noir producing Oregon wineries we just visited on at 6 day visit to the Willamette Region. Any pinot noir from one of these wineries would be a safe good choice at a restaurant or shop. ( Future posts will identify more good pinot producers.)

Foris (Cave Junction in the Rogue River Valley). We bought a bottle of their 2008 pinot noir off the shelf in a supermarket. What a surprise. Berry aromas and an explosion of fruit on the palate. Price from the winery website: $19. A best buy.

A to Z Wine Works (Dundee). “Aristocratic at democratic prices.” A to Z became our “go to” pinot. We consumed several bottles of their 2009 ($20 on the website). Another best buy for those who want a little complexity. Another best buy.

Wine by Joe (Dundee). Who could resist? And why should we? My notes say, “pretty darn good.” Another bargain at $19. Trader Joe’s shoppers should look for VinTJs pinot noir from the Willamette Valley. Joe does the work for Trader Joe. No relation. Lange Estate Tasting Room

Lange Estate Winery and Vineyards (18380 NE Buena Vista Drive, Dundee, Oregon 97115). If you go to the tasting room, drive a Jeep or some other vehicle with high road clearance. Google maps shows Lange as 3.2 miles from downtown Dundee. However, the last 1.7 miles are on an increasingly rough gravel road. BUT it’s worth the trip. Their 2009 Reserve ($32) was cherry and soft tannins with mineral aromas. The 2007 Lange Estate ($60) started with smoke aromas, then mineral and plum flavors. The 2009 Three Hills Cuvee ($40) is fruit, fruit, and more fruit. As long as you’ve made the trip, stop at

The View from Lange and Torii Mor Torii Mor Tasting Room

Torii Mor on the way back. Their 2008 Chehalem Mountain Select ($40) is very nice. And the winery itself is spectacular. Like Lange, Torii Mor shares spectacular views of Mt. Hood on clear days. The architecture is rustic Oriental zen, complete with Japanese sand gardens (one of which was sorely in need of a Buddhist practitioner). The photo below gives a small sample of what you’ll find. By the way, torii is the Japanese word for the entrance to a garden. Mor is Celtic for earth. An interesting juxtaposition that gives the flavor of the .

The gravel roads here are one lane and pretty rugged. Drive slowly and be prepared to pull over to let cars get past. As we were leaving Torii Mor we stopped at the entrance to consult a map. Another brave soul coming from the direction of Lange was impatient to get in. We moved quickly.

The staff at Torii Mor is extremely friendly and encourages guests to explore the property. The photo above was taken at the edge of the deck overlooking the valley.

Twelve has a tasting room in downtown McMinnville. The winery itself is in Carlton, an absolute must visit if you’re in the area. More on Carlton in a future post. Twelve offered seven different pinots, three of which were labeled 144 (12 squared for non-math geeks). We liked the 2008 version of 144 ($35) best, but would not have turned down any of the seven we tasted.

Twelve Tasting Room

Chehalem Winery Tasting Room

Chehalem Wines (tasting room in Newberg) offers the 2009 3 ($27). Smoke and rose petals on the nose with lots of spice and a long, smooth finish. If you go, try to arrive around lunchtime. There is a food truck called “Uprooted” parked semi-permanently in their lot. This is a converted Airstream trailer. We had an arugula salad with an avocado bacon sandwich. Outstanding and highly recommended. (They are @uprooted1 on Twitter if they move.)

Uprooted Ambiance

David Hill Tasting Room

David Hill Winery and Vineyard (46350 NW David Hill Road Forest Grove, OR 97116). Another long dirt road. Make sure your cell phone is charged because you might have to call them for directions when you’re nearby. It’s easy to miss the small turnoff that leads down into a wonderful valley. We sampled their 2008 Estate ($16), the 2007 Estate Barrel Select ($22), and the 2007 Estate Reserve ($32). Any of them is a bargain. If you’re looking for a real deal try the Farmhouse Red ($11). The winery is a big old farmhouse in the middle of a large valley covered with grapevines. Even if you don’t like wine it’s worth the trip just for the views.

Elk Cove Vineyards (27751 NW Olson Road, Gaston, OR 97119). We encountered these folks at IPNC. Their pinots were so good we decided they deserved a visit. We were not disappointed. They poured their 2008 Willamette Valley ($27), a 2009 Mount Richmond ($48), and a 2009 Five Mountain ($48). The Five Mountain is notable for a hint of lime aroma. All three are excellent. The Willamette Valley qualifies as a best buy, even at the price.

That’s enough for today. More later.

Hartford Family Winery: August’s Featured Vintner

The travel section of the August 21 San Jose Mercury-News had a column on the town of Forestville, a village on the west edge of the . We know Forestville quite well because we visit regularly to see one of our favorite wineries: Hartford Family Winery. Hartford makes excellent pinot noir, and

The Merc’s columnist Carole Terwilliger Meyer described Hartford as having, “a pinot for everybody.” She must have missed their excellent chardonnays and (although the last few have topped 15% alcohol, a little high for us old folks). We’ve been proud members of the Hartford wine club for quite a few years. Last summer, my brother Tom and his wife Ginger were visiting. After tasting a few Hartford wines they signed up for the club on the spot!

Throng of wine club guests at the Hartford Winery Xmas party Ms. Meyers mentioned two specific pinots: theFar Coast vineyard 2007 and the Arrendell Vineyard 2008. Either Hartford or the Merc must have been picking up the tab. The Far Coast page doesn’t list a price, but the Arrendell goes for a cool $85 per bottle. We’re lucky enough to have a couple of bottles of Arrendell in our cellar so we can say from experience that it’s fairly priced. We were also pleased to see the return of the Fog Dance Vineyard 2008 on the pinot list. At $55 it’s about the lowest-priced Hartford wine you can get.

The scene at the Hartford Winery Xmas wine club party

We try to attend the Hartford Christmas party every year. Good food, good wine, and great company. Don Hartford is actually the and the son-in-law of the late Jess Jackson. He really knows his stuff and would rather refuse to release a wine than sell you something less than excellent. Highly recommended. The Hartford Wine Club Xmas party takes place indoors and on the patio at sunset

California Wine Month – Favorite 1-day Sonoma Winery Tour

September is Wine Month. There’s a ton of travel information on the Discover California Wine web site. While you can easily design your own winery tour, we thought we’d offer a favorite one of our own, the Sonoma Russian River pinot noir 1-day tour. Click here to link to a page that includes winery names, a map, and even a nice place to stay. We do this circuit at least once a year.

Go to the live Map Oregon Wineries Road Trip: Overview

We spent a couple of weeks on an Oregon wineries road trip at the end of July. The first week we were on the coast. We spent the second week in the heart of the Willamette Valley. By my count we sampled wines from 49 Oregon wineries — probably more, I stopped writing the names of those that weren’t at least a little interesting. The aroma of Oregon pinot noir

The motivation for the trip was the International Pinot Noir Celebration (IPNC) in McMinnville. I’ve written about this previously so won’t go into details here. I will add that IPNC is a juried show. Wineries have to submit samples and only the top 75 are selected. Plus there’s a rule that says a winery can’t be there for two consecutive years.

Coast or Oregon from a 2000 foot mountain

In some ways Oregon pinot noirs are a throwback. The cooler climate and earlier rainy season mean the grapes don’t get the extended hang time vineyard managers in California seem to be striving for. The result: wines that are still in the general vicinity of 12.5% alcohol. Very food-friendly. The Oregon coast has many rocks all along it. Here’s the most unusual.

We discovered a new wine cluster near Cave Junction down on the Rogue River. The clear winner was Foris Vineyards Winery. Their pinot noir featured berry aromas on the nose followed by an explosion of fruit on the palate. Unfortunately, we ran out of time and could not visit the winery, but this region shows real promise. If you’re looking for a place to stay, the winery offers a five bedroom house for $150 per night.

Stay tuned. Blogging for this trip should take us well into September.

Winery Owners: Don’t bake my wine in the parking lot

We have visited a couple hundred wineries over the years. Although there are always trees around the often sumptous architecture housing the tasting room, on a sunny day the parking lots are broiling asphalt deserts. Think of the typical wayfarer… after visiting a few wineries, he or she probably has some wine purchases in the car. Parking in the hot sun in your parking lot will damage most of this precious cargo.

Putting Expensive Wine into a Sizzling Hot Trunk

Winery Asphalt Desert – Ruins Visitors Bottle Purchases

And the wayfarer may like your wine and buy a bottle or a case. At the next stop, your lovely wine gets cooked along with the wayfarer’s previous purchases. When the wayfarer opens your bottles in a few weeks or months and takes a taste – Ugh! Not the way the wayfarer remembered it. No customer delight, no brand loyalty. Thumbs up for shade trees in parking lots

Give us gas-guzzling winery visitors some shade where we need it! Most wineries have trees Sadly, the parking lot is often placed in such a way that the shade falls outside the lot — often on the grapevines. This is not ideal. Wineries – please consult with your arborist to select trees appropriate to your climate, able to thrive near pavement and without droppings harmful to car finishes.

How to Protect your Wine Purchase

Even if wineries took this advice and started modifying their parking lots tomorrow, it would probably take at least 10 years for those trees to produce shade. So when you plan a winery tasting roadtrip, get prepared. Take an empty cooler and some well-frozen reusable blue ice packs. Real H2O ice will damage your labels as it melts. You could slip each bottle into a plastic vegetable bag for added protection. Use blue ice packs and a cooler to protect your winery purchases

Plastic Igloos work fine for a day. We are thinking of upgrading to a metal Coleman or even a Yeti for future multi- day trips. Cabelas, the purveyors of gear to hunters, fishesr, campers, sells them at its store in Springfield, OR and also online.