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Oregon Wineries


ctay122

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My husband and I are going to take a 2 week trip out to the northwest and want to spend a week touring wineries in Oregon. There are 217 of them on one website I visited. Looking for some help here from a person who knows or sells wines. Would like recommendations of places/wines we shouldn't miss. I am totally lost! We love pinots and cabs.

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We went to a lovely wedding at Ponzi Vineyards. I am no wine expert, but we really enjoyed each of the glasses that were paired with each course. The Pinot was a fairly big red (I am generally not a pinot fan, but enjoy the zins and cabs.) Ponzi also has a restaurant in Dundee that was pretty good too.

We picked up a map that laid out all of the wineries and vineyards, and basically just drove along the main highways.

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I've never been to Oregon wine country (been to Bend, though - it was beautiful). I do know some professionals who've been to Pinot Noir camp who I'll ask for you.

Some places that I would, personally, like to visit are (in no particular order):

Archery Summit

Witness Tree

Coleman Vineyards

Westry

Scott Paul

I'm sure there are others that I'm forgetting. I'll try to add to this.

By the way, try and take advantage of the many Oregon brews that are unavailable here such as Full Sail and Deschutes, or even others such as Hale's Ales from Washington.

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By the way, try and take advantage of the many Oregon brews that are unavailable here such as Full Sail and Deschutes, or even others such as Hale's Ales from Washington.

And Rogue-- many of their great beers can't be found here. A stop at their tasting room in Newport, OR, which overlooks the water, was a highlight of a road trip up 101 to Canada that a friend of mine and I took a few years ago.

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A friend of mine (a wine and restaurant professional of over 25 years experience) has been to Pinot Noir Camp a few times, and has toured the region extensively.

I asked him to address your question, and here's what he came up with (forgive the formating - I copied this from a spreadsheet file, and I'm not very good at conversion):

very good

Archery Summit

Argyle

Beaux Freres

Domaine Serene

Penner - Ash

St. Innocent

Willakenzie

Soter

Ken Wright

Bergstrom

Hatcher

Rockblock Syrah

Roco (Argyle)

Siduri / also Calif.

good (maybe young)

Adelsheim

Gypsy Dancer

Belle Pente

Bethel Heights

Brick House

Cameron

Cristom

Domaine Drouhin

Evensham Wood

Hamacher

Anne Amie

Panther Creek

Patricia Green

Ponzi

A to Z

Brooks

Carabella

Carter

Coleman

Elk Cove

King Estate

Mc Kinley

Medici

Raptor Ridge

Andrew Rich

Sineann

Solena

can have moments

Broadley

Chehalem

Cuneo

Eyrie

Rex Hill

Willamette Valley

Dobbs Family

La Bete

Scott Paul

Shea

Torii Mor

NOTE: Some of these wineries require appointments. Always call ahead or check their websites for visitor info.

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I can't comment on which wineries to go to "for the experience" since I haven't been, but my normal strategy is to go to places that have excellent wines that I can't normally get here on the east coast. To that end, the one's I'd recommend are Beaux Frères, Bergström, Penner-Ash, Domaine Serene, and Ponzi. (While you can get some of their wines here, the better ones are allocation only or only available at the winery) I'd also suggest Argyle and Archery Summit just because they are so well known and have been around for a long time. Ken Wright is another good choice.

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Just got back from there (again)...those Oregon wine makers are just such wonderful people. I will say that alot of the wineries do not have tasting rooms or are not always open. Places like Brickhouse and Westry, for instance, are really just production facilities. If you can get an appointment, you can do well there, but alot of places arent open to outsiders. They just dont have the facilities and economies to run hospitality centers.

If you want to taste alot of good wine, you need to visit two places. The first is Female-owned Oregon Wines on Broadway in downtown portland (affectionately known as Oregon Broads on Wine Way). They pour some really great wines there, mostly from oregon, by the glass....they are a alot of fun to hang out and drink with.

The second is the Jay Mac tasting room. http://www.pinot-noir.com/. Jay Mac is the owner of the EIEIO label which is an outstanding group of wines to consume. He has a good selection of stuff.

Also, Dundee Bistro has a tasting room next door to it as well (I think thats just outside Newburg near Tinas).

Finally, You can also come to my place and we open some Brickhouse or EIEIO. It goes very well with Bresse chicken, Kobe, and Morels, so just bring those with you and I let you in.

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My wife and I are actually considering a trip to Oregon this fall (either this idea or fly to LA and drive up the coast to SF and CA wine country) so this is all good and useful info.

Being a wino, I should know this, but where exactly are the major wine growing regions of Oregon? in the north west and central west sides of the state closer to the coast?

Part of our decision making process is based on drive times to all of the places we want to hit in the state, including places in the south like Crater Lake and there is apparently a Shakespeare festical down there as well. Plus there is stuff up near Portland we'd like to see. But the reality of 'X' amount of time driving around is clear and present. So any advice as to foodie and wino type places are appreciated.

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My wife and I are actually considering a trip to Oregon this fall (either this idea or fly to LA and drive up the coast to SF and CA wine country) so this is all good and useful info.

Being a wino, I should know this, but where exactly are the major wine growing regions of Oregon? in the north west and central west sides of the state closer to the coast?

Part of our decision making process is based on drive times to all of the places we want to hit in the state, including places in the south like Crater Lake and there is apparently a Shakespeare festical down there as well. Plus there is stuff up near Portland we'd like to see. But the reality of 'X' amount of time driving around is clear and present. So any advice as to foodie and wino type places are appreciated.

After Crater Lake, just aim the car north toward the Willamette Valley. If you want to make time, take I-5 to, say, the Salem area and then find 99W and continue to head north. If you want a more leisurely trip, pick up 99/99W nearer, say, Eugene. Lots of excellent wineries in the Willamette Valley, and it is surprisingly close to Portland and doesn't require a lot of driving around. You should be able to find lots of brochures (or some Internet sites) that have exact locations. But, as reported above, hours and availbility are sometimes quirky. Crater Lake takes you somewhat inland, but if you have the time you should try returning to the coast for a terrific trip up Route 101. After you leave the Ashland (Shakespeare Festival)-Medford area, Route 42 west is a possibility. Then do 101 north to 18 then east to the valley. It is pretty easy to get around Oregon, and all should be clear on a map. Travel is relatively brisk; even the logging trucks don't slow down for much.

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I had an entertaining and enlightening three-day visit in the Willamette Valley. Global warming seems to be taking a break out there. For the third time in four years, it's shaping up to be a cool year. In Dundee Hills, the vines were just beginning to flower when I visited on June 22, even later than 2005 and 2007, two of the coolest growing seasons in recent years. Here are some highlights from the visit:

Thomas

This guy is making great pinot noir.

Some of those out here who have actually heard of John Thomas doubt whether he really exists. He's not a member of any of the winery associations; his winery is not listed on any maps. He tends to keep to himself. As one winemaker put it, "If you walked in here with Sasquatch and John Thomas, people would say, "Is that really John Thomas?"

It was a little tricky finding the place. He's off a dirt road outside the town of Carlton. He gave me his address, but warned that there is no number or mailbox marking his location. He told me look for the two wood posts that mark his "driveway".

Thomas bought his property in Dundee Hills in 1982, which makes him an old-timer by Oregon standards. His four acres of vines is on a southern-facing hillside near Carlton. He says he spent three years looking for the site with specific criteria: altitude, slope, soil-type, etc. For his first several harvests, he sold his grapes to Domaine Drouhin. In off vintages, he bottles under a second label called "Acme."

This is a one-man show: Thomas planted the vines, built the winery and does everything himself, except on the one day a year he harvests, and he brings in a few people to help pick and crush the grapes. Last year, harvest took seven hours. He built his winery building into the hillside next to his vines. He crushes the grapes on the roof (by foot) and the juice flows directly into his fermenters. As Thomas says, "This is the only winery in Oregon without a pump."

Unlike most of the wineries out here, where the vines are planted in rows 12-feet apart to accommodate the tractors, Thomas' rows are 5-feet apart, and within the rows, the plants are separated by only about 3 feet. Thomas says he models this high-density planting after burgundy, where the planting is even more dense. As somebody later explained it to me, the close proximity forces the vines to struggle, competing with each other for water and nutrients. I spent an hour out in the vineyard with Thomas before going inside to taste some wine. He clearly loves his isolated hillside and is convinced he found an ideal spot to grow pinot noir.

Inside the winery, Thomas had barrels of two very different vintages. The 2007s: light in color, elegant and already tasty, although he'll keep these in the barrel for another year or so. This was a cool vintage, the kind of vintage Thomas prefers. He didn't harvest until the last week in September.

The 2006 looks significantly darker than the 2007, the higher concentration reflecting the hotter growing season, riper vintage.

In 2007 he also made a few barrels of an incredible rose that he plans to bottle in a few weeks. This rose was one of the best wines I tasted in Oregon.

Sineann

This was an entirely different experience. Sineann is a decidedly new world operation. They make a couple dozen different wines (or more, I lost count) from Oregon, Napa, Washington and even a couple from a venture in New Zealand.

This was an exhausting tasting. They lined up about 18 of their wines in the bottle and I tried at least that many out of the barrel. I liked some of these (especially the Oregon riesling, which is one of the best American rieslings I've ever had.), but a tasting like this can be hazardous to your health: none of the reds I tasted in the bottle had an alcohol level less than 15 percent. These wines are not donrockwellian (with the exception of the riesling).

One more thing: This year, Sineann adopted 100 percent glass closures for their wines (except for the Kiwi stuff, which, of course, is screw cap). The nifty little things cost them 75 cents a piece.

Brick House

I had a great time here. Winemaker/owner Doug Tunnell is a former foreign correspondent for CBS News. When he left the news business in the late 1980s and said he was going to start an organic winery in Oregon, his colleagues were convinced he had gone hippie and would never be heard from again. He did something right: He is making excellent wines and living and working in a stunningly beautiful spot. He has 28 acres of vines, about two-thirds of it pinot noir; the rest is chardonnay and gamay noir. Tunnell wines are now biodynamic.

He got off to the right start by getting help from Steve Doerner of Cristom, who he says helped him make his first few vintages.

Tunnell is a traditionalist. No glass closures or 15 percent alcohol wines here. He uses oak sparingly. The chardonnay was in 500 liter barrels, none of them new and some 10 years old. About 1/3 of his pinot barrels are new French oak. For the first time, I did a barrel cross-tasting: the same 2007 juice from the same block but aging in barrels from two different coopers. There was a clear difference. The wine in one barrel (Cadus) was vibrant with no obvious oak overtones. The wine in the other barrel (Mercier) was considerably more tannic and duller. The barrel saleswoman had convinced Tunnell to try a single barrel of the Mercier, but he won't be using it again. The only explanation he could come up with for the difference was that the wood in the Cadus barrels is open-air aged for 30 months before it is used; the Mercier wood is aged 24 months.

I can't imagine there is much of a market for Oregon gamay, but Tunnell is quite passionate about it. His beaujolais inspirations are Desvignes and a Fleurie producer named Yvon Metras, who Tunnell calls "the John Thomas of beaujolais."

Out of the bottle, I liked all of Brick House's wines, especially the "Evelyn's" 2006 pinot noir and the 2006 "Cascadia" Chardonnay, which is made from his older vines. Before we left, I asked him when he last tasted his first vintage. As he thought about the answer, he got up, went to the cellar in his old Brick House (built in 1925) and came back with a dusty bottle of 1993 pinot, his first vintage, a wine made by Steve Doerner. It had been a while since he last tasted it and we were all happy to see that the 1993 Brick House is still doing just fine.

Others

Unfortunately, the folks at Evesham Wood were out of town, although I did get a chance to taste two of their very good pinots over dinner in Portland and, just last week I opened up a bottle of the 2003 Evasham Wood Cuvee Jay with Mr. Don Rockwell. It's an enticingly elegant wine.

I had a great afternoon with Jim Anderson at the Patricia Green winery (located next to Beaux Freres). These folks are making some good terroir-driven pinots marked by sparing use of new oak and reasonable alcohol levels (think Ken Wright with less new oak and lower alcohol). Out of the barrel, I especially liked the 2007 Ana vineyard pinot noir.

Chehalem had some good, restrained wines as well. I especially liked their Inox chardonnay, which, as the name suggests, is oak-free. By Chehalem's standards it is also mass produced (4000 cases) and costs 18 bucks a bottle.

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Our annual Oregon trip is coming up next month, and I'm always torn trying to choose which wineries to visit.

You may want to stop by Penner Ash. They've recently built an impressive hill-top tasting room and the wines are quite good. Patricia Green is definitely worth a visit too. If you go there, tell Jim Anderson I said hello.

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Thanks for this! I grew up just up the road from Dundee, but sadly moved away before turning 21. Our annual Oregon trip is coming up next month, and I'm always torn trying to choose which wineries to visit.

I'd recommend a short visit to J.K. Carriere if they are open. Jim Prosser, the winemaker, is a very good friend and produces some decent pinots (and a few cases of Chardonnay which I found to be particularly good). It's an interesting set up in a barn and he's a very charismatic person, so it makes for an entertaining tasting if he is around.

I also like visting Lemelson. I think their wines are quite good, but the facility itself is quite interesting and more of the highlight for me.

I would also agree with Jon's review of Brick House. Doug Tunnell is a a great guy making superb organic wines. He is very friendly and is always willing to spend a few minutes or a few hours for a tasting. We also enjoy our visit there, sitting on his porch and drinking a bottle or two and having him tell us interesting stories of when he was a TV correspondent. I highly recommend a visit.

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Just got back from Oregon. Visited Willakenzie and Penner-Ash, both drop-dead gorgeous wineries (where do these people get the capital for such facilities?) with pretty good wines, at that. Also visited Maysara, which was low-key but put on a really good tasting. Finally, stopped in at the Carlton Wine Studio, an interesting business arrangement in which small producers can avail themselves of shared winemaking facilities. It was really fun trying pinot noirs not available on the east coast and exploring some really interesting pinot blancs and a pinot meunier. Our available time was short, but we compiled a list of places we want to visit on the next trip, too.

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J.K.Carriere is pretty good too.

Their now-several-years-old place is gorgeous. Have been a fan for years of Jim's Pinots and the "Glass" is always popular for parties or with anyone irrespective of wine fandom.

http://www.jkcarriere.com

Not sure if already mentioned upthread but another small Wilammette producer we like is Felix Madrid at Carlo & Julian, named for his two boys. Cool video here:

https://vimeo.com/13507390

Finally, I'm also glad that Michael Landrum keeps Ken Wright on his wine list.

http://www.kenwrightcellars.com/kwchome.shtml

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Ha!  We were one of the first people to the new place - it was not even really ready yet, but they had us come over there anyway, even with all of the dust and unfinished business. We were the ony people in the joint and bought a case of some of their 2007 - long since drunk since it was so darn good.

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