I will post tasting notes from this trip including a few surprises like Blueberry wine, Goodfellow Blanc de Blanc sparkler and Oregon Whiskey from Oregon grapes and heritage grains. We tasted lots of great wines, no, they were awesome wines but here’s the story first.
I scheduled a trip up to Portland to visit with family and reached out to Megan and Marcus at Goodfellow as well as Jim Anderson at Patricia Green Cellars and they both graciously agreed to host the crew. Although I’ve interacted with both winemakers over the many years on Wineberserkers I’ve never had the opportunity to meet them in person. I’m excited.
The crew consisted of high school and college friends, my sister, my wife and myself. Since the crew all live in the Portland area they have experience with tasting in the Willamette valley with all the usual suspects. I thought it would be interesting for them to meet, talk and see the type of people I think are driving excellence in the valley. People that are truly passionate. True Wineberserkers!
Goodfellow
Marcus and I swapped emails trying to find a time that worked best for him. He and Megan were really busy with bottling and a host of other activities but managed to squeeze us in. We showed up at the warehouse which was a former fertilizer building in McMinnville. It had the whole retro farm vibe thing going on. We rolled in by snaking between the bins, the bags of corks and lots of barrels to a table of wines surrounded by 3 barrel high racks. Soon Megan was off gliding across the racking topping off barrels and we started the tasting with Marcus.
Marcus grew up in east side of the Willamette valley and spent time in the restaurant industry before making the plunge. We ran through a bunch of his wines and he graciously shared lots of details and philosophies around his and Megan’s wine making. He was pulling no punches so occasionally I had to jump in and translate from winemaker terminology to layman’s terms for the crew. For example we jumped into details around the types of French oak and from which forest matches best to which varietal and vineyard. Let’s just say Goodfellow is focused on the details and the results are proof. The big takeaway for the crew from this visit was making wine isn’t just about picking grapes, fermenting them, and then putting them in a bottle. If you’re focused on the details then it’s exponentially more sophisticated.
Patricia Green Cellars
There’s a joke about “what’s the difference between a friend and a good friend?” A friend will help you move and a good friend will help you move a body. Jim Anderson would be a good friend.
As we pull up the driveway to Patricia Green Cellars the crew can tell this is a more traditional tasting visit with a converted ranch home, a couple of winery buildings, barn with equipment, with the estate vineyards running up the slopes behind. It really is a beautiful property.
Jim was also busy this day as they were moving barrels preparing to bottle so I was hoping he would break away so I can introduce myself. Our host had mentioned that Jim asked to be notified when we arrived. Wow, that’s great. We started our tasting with Ryan and then Jim came by and we all introduced ourselves. I was assuming he would only be able to spend a few minutes with us but he ends up sitting down and spending way too much of his valuable time entertaining us. Jim is fascinating to speak with because he’s obviously very intelligent, but also has many interests which he refers to himself as “side hustles”. Besides owning and running a very successful winery he found time to purchase a distillery because he doesn’t have enough stress in his life already. As a treat for the crew he pulled the corks on a couple of bottles from his two favorite Pinot Noir vintages with 10 and 20 years of age on it so they could contrast and compare to the current vintage. Great experience for everyone.
Additionally he poured his new project which is a blueberry wine and his newest “side hustle” which is an Oregon whiskey. More on those later.
You can just tell that all the employees really enjoy working there and if you ask them what they do here they respond with “whatever needs to be done”. All for one and one for all.
