Seattle, Vancouver Island, Willamette Valley, Portland the long way round

[TheRealTMA]

The serious end of the trip now in the Willamette Valley for Pinot and Chardonnay. First day tasting today. After late start we covered four wineries centred around the Dundee Hills area. All interesting small wineries and lovely wines. Owners were very accomodating and some private and some public tastings. Next weekend is Memorial Day and big open event here for the weekend. Given the traffic on the i99 through Newberg today we are glad we will not be here. However, this weekend is the time wine club members visit the wineries and taste new releases and collect their allocation so many if the smaller wineries are open and gave good selections on taste.


Starting with Native Flora situated on the top of the Dundee Hills area and made by Scott Flora. Nice Burgundian style Pinots, unusual and interesting Riesling and very drinkable Pinot based Rosé.

 

[TheRealTMA]

Second winery the Anderson Family vineyards also in the Dundee Hills with Cliff and Allison Anderson showing off new releases and talking to wine club members. Cliff was very interesting to talk to about the area having been in the Willamette Valley since the '70s, after working for tech companies such as Microsoft etc.




Unfortunately this one was not for sale yet. Delicious.

Probably my picks of the Pinots fur the day. Dijon, 115, 777 and other clones from the estate vineyards outside tasting room. Great depth and character with excellent fruit, spice and slight fruit peppers.

 

[TheRealTMA]

Third winery on next range but not far away. Colene Clemens in the Willamette Valley Chehalem Mountains. Beautiful spot on top of hill with lovely area to sit out and drink wines. By law, no winery restaurants in this area. Seems crazy!

 

[TheRealTMA]

Final vineyard Utopia on Ribbon Ridge has tastings in the barn and by the time we arrived at 5:30 a small lively crowd most willing to swap wine and travel stories. Owner Dan was pouring the wines. All again very nice wines.

 

[TheRealTMA]

Then back to the Allison Resirt with our spoils.


Loverly Resort hotel (spas and the like) with exceptional grounds.

 

[Freq Flier 2013]

Really like your report and pics!
Showed the report and pics to my parents who want to go to Canada later this year.

 

[irv]

Burchart Gardens
This is a magical place, the fountains, the topiary's, the layouts are superb. And the blooms are enormous.

 

[irv]

For someone who is definitely not into gardens I still managed to spend 4 hours walking around Butchart Gardens in October last year, very relaxing.
Most people take the ferry, but a float plane is great to try between Vancouver Island and Vancouver, and you can land at either the airport or harbour.

The ferry is superb. The Georgia Strait has many interesting thing to see, from the plankton blooms, the sea lions and the Orcas. On the top deck they do a discussion on the wildlife that inhabit this great part of the world.

 

[irv]

Craigdarroch in Victoria is also worth a look, a home from a era long gone.

 

[ellen10]

Enjoying your trip report and photos.

 

[TheRealTMA]

Apologies to subscribers but there's too many photos to edit and post and not enough time to catch up!

We had a very pleasant three days more in the Willamette Valley visiting another 15 or so wineries. Tasted a lot of the '10, 11' 12 and 13 Pinots and there's something special about the '11s. It was a difficult year which often brings out the best in a winemaker. Lovely fruit, white pepper and spice on the palate.

There are five defined AVAs - designated wine appellations - in the Willamette so we tried to cover all of them but got stuck mainly on the wines from the Dundee Hills and Chehalam Mountains areas. Nice gentle slopes with many different valleys hence many many different microclimates or terroirs. South toward the Eola-Amity hills the land is initially very flat with wheat fields and the hazelnut trees are all over the valley.

Managed to squeeze in the fabulous Evergreen Aviation Museum and get to the coughpit of the amazing Spruce Goose as well as seeing a Titan II missile and moon landing rockets, plus another SR71 complete with original photographic and radar detection gear.

Stopped off at a three wineries on trip north to Portland and had some more great Pinots plus the best Chardonnay of the trip from WillaKenzie vinyards. Annoying Ponzi wines were serving a 20 yo Pinot that was very heavily oxidised. The pourer didn't seem to realise it. Sigh... Other wines were good And we found a very interesting Tokai Fruilano from Cooper Mountain Vineyards. ( This is the white wine grape from Collio in the FVG area north of Venice.) It's a bit of an obsession with them and they do an excellent job with it.

Drive to Portland was quite easy and uneventful although we hit traffic for the first time in some days. Weather has been good, dry with day temps around 12-20, perfect for travel. As we were leaving White Rose vineyard on Wednesday evening around 6, a large storm swept across the valley bringing very heavy rain and hail. Being Brisbanites we are used to such but it was quite unexpected here. Rain was so heavy we had to pull off the road for some 10 mins.

After all that wine time MrsTMA was deprived of shopping, we sent her hunting and gathering on Thursday while I went to the OMSI and did the tour of the USS 581 Blueback. Fab. Interesting Portland Art Museum in the afternoon.

Staying at the Nines in Portland (Starwood) and it's very comfortable with interesting Departure Asian food inspired restaurant on the roof, with great views and great food, plus a steakhouse The Urban Farmer in the ground floor atrium. Last time we were in Portland we ate at Le Pigeon so last night we tried their sister restaurant Little Bird. A French bistro. Was excellent.

Today we went to the International Rose Test Garden and the Japanese Garden. These were very good with the Roses in full bloom in time for the Portland Rose festival and party starting this Memorial Day weekend.

Tomorrow back to Seattle and SEA-DXB-BNE on EK.

Will update TR with pics once we get home and I have time to edit!

 

[TheRealTMA]

DXB lounge so sine tine to edit photos.

As I mentioned , as a break from the intensive winery visits, we went to the fabulous Evergreen Aviation museum, mainly to see the Spruce Goose, but it's a great museum with many many aircraft, helicopters, rockets and bits of space exploration gear, not forgetting Titan II ballistic missile. Highly recommended to anyone passing to take a few hours out and visit. It's about 30 mins south of Newberg.

I could post tons of images, I'm obsessed some say, but I've managed to restrict myself to the following set.


Actually the Evergreen water amusement park!

Spruce Goose fuselage.

Giving some idea of the size of the wooden flying boat.


Aircraft engineer seats and equipment

 

[TheRealTMA]

coughpit with Howard Hughes hat one gets to put on for a photo in the pilot's seat. He seemed to have a very small head, or as a friend suggested, mine was inflated.

Engine controls for the eight engines and engineer panels.

Overall it's big.

Of course we would have bought one of these for every AFF member if we didn't have so much Pinot to bring home.

And before we leave the SG hanger, upstairs is one of those truely inspiration American institutions - the NRA exhibit on bonding with children and other such heartwarming pursuits.

 

[TheRealTMA]

Apart from the Soruce Goose building, there are two other large buildings about 100 mts apart with a scattering of fighter aircraft from US and Russia around the grounds plus a tank exhibition and other things we didn't have time to explore.

The Evergreen Space museum building is again vast with lots of interesting exhibits.




Titan II ballistic missile and half silo.

 

[TheRealTMA]

Space museum cont...

Moon landing exhibit with multi-stage rocket, engines and associated moon and Skylab gear.

SR-71 Blackbird with drone, photographic and radar detection gear.

Extensive historical helicopter exhibits.

X15 and dual coughpit SR-71

Spruce Goose building with fighter jet in front, one of 6.

 

[JohnM]

I agree that the Evergreen museum is a cracker.

 

[TheRealTMA]

Now back to the purpose of the the trip - Pinot! We did a few more wineries after the Evergreen museum. Some we had to make appointments for.


Was a great small winery to visit. Knowledgeable staff. Winery is partnership of Robert Parker Jr who explicitly does not review his own wines in the The Wine Spectator. Beaux Frères Online Storefront

Excellent wines.

Penner-ash just up the road with fab views over valley and nice wines.


Penner Ash

 

[UpInTheAir:)]

Thanks for the TR TheRealTMA.. I do like the plane pictures also but as other AFFers (those that have met me) know.. I generally lose interest if there isn't space for the champagne service

 

[TheRealTMA]

There's a lot of money in these wineries in the Willamette. Excellent tasting rooms with many are on the top of hills with great views over the valleys, very nice. Then there are the smaller more boutique wineries, which often make the best wine.


View from Penner-Ash.

View from White Rose tasting room.

White Rose tasting room.

All yum!


Just as we were leaving White Rose, we watched this storm coming across the valley. We were surprised at the speed and it hit more like a tropical rainstorm, with some hail. Rain was so heavy we had to pull off the road because we couldn't see and wait it out. (Thinks - hmm. Is hire car covered for hail damage? Not something one normally thinks about in North West America.)

 

[TheRealTMA]

The wineries tend to have storage built in under their tasting room and winery. Such as this one at White Rose.


Nicely layed out and tended vines around the facility.

Occasional art work mixed with the vines.

Many if not most have extensive cottage gardens around the tasting room or approach to the winery, as this one at Cristom in the Eola-Amity hills.