After strolling across the river to check out the diverse offerings at Portland’s Saturday Market, Brian and I headed out of the city for some wine tasting. While I bounced the car over gravel back roads, Brian selected worthy vineyards based on their winery map descriptions. We had to leave a few trying to charge $15 tasting fees, and instead had a much better time with wine makers who were more interested in chatting about the wine. Of course, that went doubly so when cute women were doing the pouring.
On one of their recommendations, we stopped for lunch at the Dundee Bistro and enjoyed a full meal made from local ingredients. Back on the wine trail, we checked out several on steep slopes, and one with “gravity flow” processing. Touring their barrel room, we learned this meant it was setup to move the grapes and wine through gravity instead of disturbing them with extraneous pumping and transfers.
The warmth of the Willamette Valley (hitting 96 during our trip) meant almost all of the wines - and certainly all the good ones - were pinot noirs. Places and wines we enjoyed:
- Rex Hill
- Torii Mor, which had a Japanese garden
- Lange
- Domaine Drouhin, home of the “gravity flow”
del.icio.us/mbotos
