My wife and I were invited to a wedding in St. Paul, OR a few months back, so we decided to leave the kids with the grandparents and make an “adult” weekend out of it. I haven’t been tasting in the valley since around 2008, so I was eager to get back. We stayed at Wine Country Farm B&B in Dayton (beautiful views, great breakfast and very nice hosts…rooms were just o.k.), which is literally right across the road from the entrance to Domaine Drouhin. The location is fantastic. We tasted at DD (I mean, come on, it’s right there…) as well as White Rose. The White Rose property is breathtaking, but a non-refundable $20 fee to taste three wines that are $80-$100 per bottle left a bad taste. Views are top rate, but we won’t be back.
However, on an exceedingly positive note, the two highlights of our weekend were tastings at Belle Pente on Friday and Goodfellow on Saturday. While I didn’t take detailed notes, I still have some pretty clear impressions of the wines, many of which we purchased.
Belle Pente - we tasted with Kristin, who was very enjoyable. I’m a huge fan of this winery, and the wines were all outstanding. The Riesling was chock full of petrol notes and great acid, and the Pinot Noirs were all delicious. We tasted:
2014 Belle Pente Belle Oiseau Willamette Valley
2010 Belle Pente Riesling Willamette Valley (this was killer!)
2014 Belle Pente Cuvee Contraire Willamette Valley
2015 Belle Pente Pinot Noir Willamette Valley
2014 Belle Pente Pinot Noir Yamhill-Carlton (amazing QPR)
2014 Belle Pente Pinot Noir Belle Pente Vineyard Yamhill Carlton
2013 Belle Pente Pinot Noir Belle Pente Vineyard Yamhill Carlton
2014 Belle Pente Pinot Noir Murto Vineyard
2013 Belle Pente Pinot Noir Murto Vineyard
2013 Belle Pente Pinot Noir Estate Reserve
Goodfellow - we were very graciously hosted by Marcus. The poor guy had been up to 2:30 a.m. that morning, and still was happy and willing to pour for us at 10:00 a.m. With a new baby (which is tough on its own), and complications with bottling trucks, construction on the street outside…we were amazed he was still standing! It was a very educational and thoroughly enjoyable tasting. The wines were fantastic, too, of course. I think they all need some age, but it’ll be hard to keep hands-off what we bought. Thank goodness for offsite storage. We tasted:
2016 Goodfellow Ramato Pinot Gris Oregon (delicious, only two weeks from bottling)
2014 Goodfellow Chardonnay Durant Vineyard
2014 Goodfellow Chardonnay Richard’s Cuvee
2015 Matello Whistling Ridge Blanc
2014 Goodfellow Pinot Noir Durant Vineyard
2014 Goodfellow Pinot Noir Whistling Ridge Vineyard
2014 Goodfellow Pinot Noir Bishop Creek Vineyard (our fav’ of the three single-vyd. PN)
2015 Goodfellow Pinot Noir Heritage No. 4 (not yet released – amazing wine)
2013 Matello Fool’s Journey Deux Vert Vineyard
The food highlight of our trip was our Friday night dinner at Thistle, in downtown McMinnville. We started with, “Bread & Fat” which was some great baguette aside a dollop of delicious compound butter and a lump of fantastic lardo. Then, I had rabbit liver parfait with spring onion marmalade, and my wife had a salad with oak leaf, duck egg, croutons and green goddess dressing. My main was roasted pork with braised greens, wheat “grits” and bacon. My wife had fresh gnocchi with sunchoke and romesco sauce. We enjoyed a bottle of too-young-but-still-great 2015 Walter Scott Pinot Noir Dubay Vineyard Eola-Amity Hills.
We had a great weekend and, at two tastings per day, we were able to enjoy ourselves without rushing around too much.