I took a road trip Sunday. Drove in a big circle from Portland, the first half of which was through Tillamook to Pacific City where I stopped and shot the breeze with Sean Carlton in the Twist Wine Co. tasting room and had a “Vinnie beer”, a Pliny the Elder double IPA. I then headed up the Little Nestucca River (pic below) for Bethel Heights and Witness Tree.
I also tasted '06 pinots at both places - the Flat Block and West Block at BH and the Vintage Select at WT. None were to my taste, though it’s interesting that almost every place I went the past two weekends I got asked whether I agreed with the early panning of the '07 vintage by some critics. I don’t.
Sunday must have been about a perfect day for that road trip. We sort of happened onto Witness Tree a couple of years ago and enjoyed the ambiance about as much as the wines. I think we bought one bottle of the '04 Claim 51 (?) bottling. Agree with you that the '07s are getting a bad rap.
Both Bob and Geoff have previously mentioned them, but I just wanted to share Sean and Chenin’s website: http://www.basketcasewine.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
They’re both fun and fresh (as you can tell from their website), and they offer some great QPR wines that some of you might want to seek out.
Disclosure: I consider them friends of mine and they’re also fellow cellarmates at the custom crush winery we both use. I can see there’s a potential conflict of interest there. I just wanted to add this last bit for transparency.
It WAS a nice trip, but the shorts, t-shirt and flip-flops weren’t exactly the thing for the coast portion of the trip. It was 57 degrees when I left around 12:30. I was very glad to get back inland.