I started getting serious about wine in 2008 when a long vacation from San Francisco to Seattle had 2-day stopovers in both the Napa and Willamette valleys. Since that time I’ve been in Napa 4 times, but this will be my first trip back to Oregon.
We have two full days on Memorial Day weekend Saturday and Sunday (getting a driver). Fortunately, it seems many wineries are open to the public only twice a year, of which Memorial Day weekend is one. My VERY tentative itinerary looks something like:
Saturday
Kind of all over the place, heading from east to west
Sineann
Owen Roe
Domaine Serene
Soter
Tyrus tasting room
Sunday
Patricia Green
Beaux Freres
Brick House
Penner Ashe
Torii Mor
Antica Terra, St. Innocent and Evesham Wood have special open house events that day but seem to be a bit far out of the way given our limited time, but I suppose it’s possible to sub them in for a big chunk of Saturday. Sunday seems to be in a nice tight efficient area.
FWIW, my cellar is full of Beaux Freres, Sineann, Domaine Serene and Ken Wright. I’ve had and enjoyed Penner Ashe and St. Innocent. Have yet to try Torii Mor, Patty Green, Brick House, Antica Terra, Evesham Wood or Soter.
Thoughts, recommendations, criticisms, suggestions? Some offer extended tours as an option vs. “just” a standard tasting.
Try to end the day at Lemelson, its a packed house there for “last orders” and you get the feeling it could quickly become a clothing optional arena!
The wine is decent too!
Suggest you drop Serene. The wine is widely available, and will be overpriced (please Bob Wood leave this alone) relative to what you will pay elsewhere. I know these trips aren’t about buying wine, but I like to concentrate on small places where you can’t get the wine elsewhere. DS will also like be packed, and you’ll be like cattle in the tasting room.
If you like Ken Wright, go there. He’s only open 2x/year, and is right in Carlton, not far from many other places. Was doing barrel samples last year.
Don’t waste your time with a single tour.
Last year I also enjoyed Eyrie (had a Chard and PN from the 70’s available for tasting), St, I, Vidon, and Roco.
You could go into Carlton and spend the entire day within a few hundred yards. Ken Wright, Scott Paul, Solena, Seven of Hearts (shameless plug), Wild Aire, Noble Pig, J. Wrigley and the 10 or 12 producers at the Carlton Winemakers Studio. That’s just the places where they make pinot noir. Then there are Tyrus Evan, Troon, Folin, Cana’s Feast and the rest of the Bordeaux/Rhone producers.
For your first day, do Brick House, P. Green, Beaux Freres and Penner-Ash in that order. Otherwise you’ll be doing too much backtracking.
I have some other recommendations but don’t believe they’ll mesh with your preferred style based on the contents of your cellar.
Of those you were planning on visiting I would suggest that you may want to rethink Torii Mor; it’s off the path from the others on your itinerary and probably not worth a detour.
If you are a Ken Wright fan, it is worth a visit and Luminous Hills is only 1 block away and offers a great style contrast.
Half a block, but what’s a small rounding error among us blockheads?
Good advice about Torii Mor. I was wondering what it was doing in there . . . sort of like one of those “which of these doesn’t belong” tests with a horse, a cow, a chicken, a goat and the Space Shuttle.
Look at it differently. If you committed a whole day to the Eola-Amity Hills you could:
Zip down I-5 and avoid the crawl and I do mean very slow crawl on 99W
Visit Bethel Heights, St. Innocent/Zenith, Witness Tree, Cristom, Redhawk and Evesham Wood and never spend more than 5 minutes getting from one to the other.
Mark Vlossak, my partner in the winery, makes the most amazing Cassoulet. The Stop at St. Innocent/Zenith is more like your lunch stop.
If you DO visit Torii Mor (I like their Pinots), Lange is right next door and both tasting rooms look over the valley from the Dundee Hills–great view on nice days. The Dundee Bistro and Ponzi Wine Bar in Dundee has other producers’ wines to try alongside the Ponzi product.
On any other day I’d second this. Over Memorial Day weekend, though, not only will the place likely be packed, getting there on 99W will be near-impossible. Coming from Worden Hill Rd. works but it takes some local knowledge. The only way anyone should ever get on 99W in Dundee is if they’re going AWAY from the light at 5th. From the Dundee Bistro, that means headed toward Lafayette and McMinnville.
This seems like a great plan of attack that lets us try a lot of different juice and is easy to coordinate. My wife loves Ken Wright so that’ll make her happy. I’m not as familiar with the others you named other than Scott Paul, but that’s all the better as I love trying new stuff so the ability to sample a dozen producers sounds delightful.
Thanks for letting us know what order to BH, PG, BF and PA.
Definitely comfortable dropping Domaine Serene. Have had a lot of their wine and refuse to join their mailing list as the stuff is so frequently available fur substantially below their retail price.
I would also recommend the Eola-Amity day vs. your proposed Saturday. But that’s just me (or some of us I guess).
Your Saturday has a very different set of wineries which may be your preference.
I remember the first time zipping down I-5 and cutting over to Eola Hills. Didn’t know about a ferry, and then suddenly - there it was. Very quaint and fun.
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