The "Napa-fication" of the Willamette Valley

[Bob_Wood]

@Gordon Fitz

For those of you that have never been to Domaine Serene, the picture tht Bob shows would come from the very lower back side of the vineyard looking up at the winery. About 99.9% of visitors would never see that view. It is also very dated, in that DS has done extensive landscaping, which has grown a lot, and even that view is not representative of current conditions. As far as your hilarious fixation on Grace’s ring. Having once lived in Texas for four years the audacious display of wealth by many of the residents there is such that anything Grace wears would seem conservative. But maybe for a young Oregon boy with few life experiences, it does seem large to you.

A 5-carat (or larger) stone is big anywhere, Gordon, but is considered REALLY flashy here, like it or not.

As for the view, it’s true that most people won’t go out into the vineyard to look back up the hill. But the view 99% of the people who visit the winery do get - on the drive out - is even more disturbing than the one I’ve pictured because from that close the facility’s mass is much clearer. The one from the front, which 100% of visitors see, is bad enough.

And the landscaping? You’re really reaching for your excuses now. The building is a travesty landscaping or not. Face it. And it’s known around these parts as “Domaine Obscene”. No, I didn’t make that up, either.

[Sean_Moore]

@Bob Wood

Which prices are those, Sean? The 200 acres near McMinnville?

Both examples, that and the Hyland lots seem very reasonable and very attractive. If only…

[R_yan_C_omaz_zetto]

@Gordon Fitz

For those of you that have never been to Domaine Serene, the picture tht Bob shows would come from the very lower back side of the vineyard looking up at the winery. About 99.9% of visitors would never see that view. It is also very dated, in that DS has done extensive landscaping, which has grown a lot, and even that view is not representative of current conditions. As far as your hilarious fixation on Grace’s ring. Having once lived in Texas for four years the audacious display of wealth by many of the residents there is such that anything Grace wears would seem conservative. But maybe for a young Oregon boy with few life experiences, it does seem large to you.

I don’t want to get in the middle of this, but I have to agree with Bob here - DS is every bit as ridiculous and gaudy as he suggests (in my opinion).

[Richard_T_r_i_m_p_i]

@Gordon Fitz

…the audacious display of wealth by many of the residents there is such that anything Grace wears would seem conservative.

Or builds too? Gordon, the place is gaudy = “ostentacious and tastelessly ornamented”. Honestly, do you get any sense of “place” looking at this?:

as compared to say this?:

[Jim_Swayze]

Once again Bob Wood is right. It’s a simple matter of taste, honesty, and fidelity to the spirit of the place that’s being slowly eroded by some up there. I guess some people can’t help but see an opportunity to “improve” a place. Leave it as it is!

[Bob_Wood]

Thanks to all of you who agree with me. I couldn’t let this subject go any farther without posting a pic of the “home” that “Papa Pinot” established for his work, now being ably carried on by his son, Jason. Palatial, no?

See, Gordon, this is what you don’t get. This is where the wines have been made for 40 years from the first pinot noir planted in this valley. It’s our heritage and not to be sneered upon by people who like to show off their wealth.

It’s not that the Evenstads are wealthy, it’s that they like to remind us. Dick Shea, to use one of your examples of another wealthy “outsider” who has come to the valley to make wine, does not. His new facility, which you’ve no doubt been to, is a working winery - not an Italianate villa with Roman columns and acres of travertine floors, and it fits into its place quite nicely. Pic below Eyrie’s.

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[Gordon_Fitz]

No time to argue now. Waiting on plane to Germany on business.

I am very assured that you preferred Eyrie. He only opened at Thanksgiving for many years and maybe later for MD too. He, like you, had an eat shit and die attitude toward visitors to the Valley. Each to his own. His son is not carrying on his tradition, he is now running a tasting room, with hours, so that people can try their wines. I buy their wines now that I can get in to taste them on visits.

Seems to me I remember Oregon having this huge battle with jobs, outsiders, and the environment. The majority wanted no in to come into the State and largely shut out new companies, except maybe software. As many of the residents started starving the death and unemployment soared, attitudes started to change. Duh! I guess there are still a few hippy diehards, like Bob, that wouldn’t let Tony Soter in the State and would have run off the Evanstads(his earlier post) but the State as a whole has moved on. I can truly say that I liked DS’s wines just as much when they operated out of the buildings down in Yamhill, as I do now with them working out offt he hill. But their market is larger than me and the local yokels and they do, like any business , what think is best for their image and business. In Burgundy, I have tasted great wines from palatial estates and dinky small cellars under houses, and most everything in between. All these wonderful places, imo, make up what is very special about the place. Same as with Oregon. You have everything from the Domaines and AS, to small little hole in the walls. It’s all part of the flavor. If you prefer one over the other to me that’s fine. Just enjoy the wine, and let the next guy enjoy what he does. Guess that sounds too much like "can’t we all just get along.

They’re calling my seats. Ein Prosit!

[Todd_Hamina]

Come visit my glamorously industrial facility on Highway 18, just South of McMinnville, next to Washington Roofing and the D’Stake mill and prepare to be mortified.

[Rick_Allen]

@Gordon Fitz

No time to argue now. Waiting on plane to Germany on business.

I am very assured that you preferred Eyrie. He only opened at Thanksgiving for many years and maybe later for MD too. He, like you, had an eat shit and die attitude toward visitors to the Valley. Each to his own. His son is not carrying on his tradition, he is now running a tasting room, with hours, so that people can try their wines. I buy their wines now that I can get in to taste them on visits.

Seems to me I remember Oregon having this huge battle with jobs, outsiders, and the environment. The majority wanted no in to come into the State and largely shut out new companies, except maybe software. As many of the residents started starving the death and unemployment soared, attitudes started to change. Duh! I guess there are still a few hippy diehards, like Bob, that wouldn’t let Tony Soter in the State and would have run off the Evanstads(his earlier post) but the State as a whole has moved on. I can truly say that I liked DS’s wines just as much when they operated out of the buildings down in Yamhill, as I do now with them working out offt he hill. But their market is larger than me and the local yokels and they do, like any business , what think is best for their image and business. In Burgundy, I have tasted great wines from palatial estates and dinky small cellars under houses, and most everything in between. All these wonderful places, imo, make up what is very special about the place. Same as with Oregon. You have everything from the Domaines and AS, to small little hole in the walls. It’s all part of the flavor. If you prefer one over the other to me that’s fine. Just enjoy the wine, and let the next guy enjoy what he does. Guess that sounds too much like "can’t we all just get along.

They’re calling my seats. Ein Prosit!

I can’t let this go. You remember incorrectly. In the 40 years I’ve lived here, the people of Oregon have never been “anti-business”. In fact, despite recent increases we still have some of the lowest business taxes in the country. As far as shutting out everything but high tech, really? When unemployment was an issue it was mostly because a) we have less federal government presence than most states (basically no military), and b) Tektronix, a high tech company, downsized and moved jobs off-shore, reducing their employment in Oregon by some 18,000 workers between 1980 and 1995. Take out those anomalies and we track national trends pretty closely.

As far as Hyland Vineyard in concerned, if they can make it work, more power to them. Given the current grape supply environment, maybe it’s one way to keep the vineyard going. While I’m not really big on McMansions, the money their owners bring to McMinnville helps make us one of the “fooodiest” small towns in the U.S., and makes it a great place to live.

[Mark_Cooney]

@Rick Allen

@Gordon Fitz

No time to argue now. Waiting on plane to Germany on business.

I am very assured that you preferred Eyrie. He only opened at Thanksgiving for many years and maybe later for MD too. He, like you, had an eat shit and die attitude toward visitors to the Valley. Each to his own. His son is not carrying on his tradition, he is now running a tasting room, with hours, so that people can try their wines. I buy their wines now that I can get in to taste them on visits.

Seems to me I remember Oregon having this huge battle with jobs, outsiders, and the environment. The majority wanted no in to come into the State and largely shut out new companies, except maybe software. As many of the residents started starving the death and unemployment soared, attitudes started to change. Duh! I guess there are still a few hippy diehards, like Bob, that wouldn’t let Tony Soter in the State and would have run off the Evanstads(his earlier post) but the State as a whole has moved on. I can truly say that I liked DS’s wines just as much when they operated out of the buildings down in Yamhill, as I do now with them working out offt he hill. But their market is larger than me and the local yokels and they do, like any business , what think is best for their image and business. In Burgundy, I have tasted great wines from palatial estates and dinky small cellars under houses, and most everything in between. All these wonderful places, imo, make up what is very special about the place. Same as with Oregon. You have everything from the Domaines and AS, to small little hole in the walls. It’s all part of the flavor. If you prefer one over the other to me that’s fine. Just enjoy the wine, and let the next guy enjoy what he does. Guess that sounds too much like "can’t we all just get along.

They’re calling my seats. Ein Prosit!

I can’t let this go. You remember incorrectly. In the 40 years I’ve lived here, the people of Oregon have never been “anti-business”. In fact, despite recent increases we still have some of the lowest business taxes in the country. As far as shutting out everything but high tech, really? When unemployment was an issue it was mostly because a) we have less federal government presence than most states (basically no military), and b) Tektronix, a high tech company, downsized and moved jobs off-shore, reducing their employment in Oregon by some 18,000 workers between 1980 and 1995. Take out those anomalies and we track national trends pretty closely.

As far as Hyland Vineyard in concerned, if they can make it work, more power to them. Given the current grape supply environment, maybe it’s one way to keep the vineyard going. While I’m not really big on McMansions, the money their owners bring to McMinnville helps make us one of the “fooodiest” small towns in the U.S., and makes it a great place to live.

Perhaps he is thinking of Tom McCall’s (OR Governor from '67-'75) classic quote?
"We want you to visit our State of Excitement often. Come again and again. But for heaven’s sake, don’t move here to live. Or if you do have to move in to live, don’t tell any of your neighbors where you are going. "

[Rick_Allen]

Yeah, I thought of that quote too. He said that before I moved here in 1971, so it’s over 40 years old. At the time, California was merrily paving over some of the most productive farmland in the state - the Santa Clara Valley. Since tourism was (and still is) the largest industry in Oregon, paving over what people were coming to see in order to accommodate a bunch of new residents wasn’t such a good idea.

[Bob_Wood]

@Gordon Fitz

I am very assured that you preferred Eyrie. He only opened at Thanksgiving for many years and maybe later for MD too. He, like you, had an eat shit and die attitude toward visitors to the Valley. Each to his own. His son is not carrying on his tradition, he is now running a tasting room, with hours, so that people can try their wines.

News flash: The tasting room was open at least on weekends long before David passed away and before Jason took over the winery.

And, for your edification, it wasn’t an eat shit and die attitude. It was a matter of affording the staffing for tasting rooms that caused most wineries not to have one and to only open on the two holiday weekends. Now that traffic is way up over what it was when I first arrived because of out of town vistors and yahoos on tour busses, it’s possible to make some money from a tasting facility. In the late 90s, you might see two or three people all day if you were lucky.

You could have tasted David’s wines back then. All you had to do was pick up the telephone.

@Gordon Fitz

I can truly say that I liked DS’s wines just as much when they operated out of the buildings down in Yamhill, as I do now with them working out offt he hill.

Another news flash. It was in Carlton and the wines were just as overdone.

[Bob_Wood]

@Rick Allen

I can’t let this go. You remember incorrectly.

Gordon remembers a lot of things incorrectly when he’s not just making things up. And Gordon, you need to know that this is my major beef with you and why I continue to hound you. You’re unclear on your facts so you just make shit up as you go along, and you continue to do so even after you’ve been corrected by people with much more intimate knowledge of the situation - as you’ve recently done with your myth about why the Evenstads purchased the property that was proposed as a fancy hotel (or B&B - same difference).

[Bob_Wood]

Even the folks behind the Hyland Vineyard development - the ones who are establishing a “private club” where you can have your own barrel of wine for $20,000 per year - didn’t build a monstrosity like Domaine Obscene. Note the “barn look”.

[Jim_Swayze]

I’m ok with Serene’s facility – in Tuscany. Build to fit in with the surroundings for goodness sake! It’s an obscene monument to architectural ignorance.

[Steve_Thode]

@Bob Wood

@Greg Malcolm

@Bob Wood

Interestingly, of my favorite wineries, there are only 3 that maintain regular hours and they did ten years ago, too - Bethel Heights, Cristom and Witness Tree. They’ve also undergone the greatest price creep.

A bit of thread drift. I would agree with you, with regards to Bethel Heights pricing. However, based on my purchase records, the Witness Tree Vintage Select has only increased $5 over the past 7 vintages.

In thinking about it, you’re right. I was thinking more of BH and Cristom - and longer than 7 years ago, too. I think my first Cristom Marjorie was $40 at the winery. I’m pretty sure the “ladies” are now $55, but I’m too lazy to look it up.

Bob,

The “ladies” are available, in decent supply, here in the PRP for under $40 a bottle. No need for me to order from the winery, though I detest giving any more money to the PLCB than I absolutely have to.

[Bob_Wood]

@Jim Swayze

I’m ok with Serene’s facility – in Tuscany. Build to fit in with the surroundings for goodness sake! It’s an obscene monument to architectural ignorance.