We just booked our flight to Portland, July 21-27! I’ve been scouring some of the threads about Willamette Valley wine trips and found much useful information. I need more. What are the cannot miss wineries to visit. We are not interested so much in beautiful tasting rooms and hoity toity experiences. Who is making really good wine?
Depends on what you want but I think at least two threads including mine cover this in detail…
and Tim’s thread here…
Sean
Another good thread:
Big Table Farm, Winderlea, Ayoub, Lingua Franca, St. Innocent. So many more. I will be there for a week of tasting meetings in late Fall, can’t wait.
And so it begins. We did not plan to visit Domaine Serene but they have a tasting room/wine bar in downtown Portland. We stopped in, twice. They have many fantastic offerings from Oregon and France. We purchased and drank with a late dinner of cheese and crackers a beautiful Meursault. I’m not at all good at tasting notes but will just say that this wine was among the best Chardonnays that I have ever experienced. Chateau De La Crée Meursault Les Tillets. The real Willamette wine adventure begins tomorrow morning but this wine will be difficult to best.
A good friend of mine who worked in Portland on and off consulting in healthcare for a couple of years highly recommends this Portland wine tasting shop for a place to become educated about the nearby pinot noirs.
The threads are great. One I would add is Valley Wine Merchant. Not a winery but a fantastic selection and you probably will see Cameron and Thomas in stock. Two places you can’t taste but are top tier wineries. Shop is in Newberg and not too far away is Et Fille tasting room and they have a viognier and Maresh vineyard Pinot that makes it worth the stop.
We visited last September. Our favorites were 1789, Privé Vineyard, Walter Scott, Brick House, Kelley Fox, Bergström, Lenné Estate, and of course Thomas. Nothing fancy at any of them. Some very basic but great wines and good visits. I was able to buy some back vintages at several of them which was a goal for the trip.
We stayed in a very nice Airbnb https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/16192126 that was well located for travel in all directions.