Wining Through Oregon
An Adventure April 29-May 6, 2008
What’s it like to spend a week in Oregon? My spousal unit (SU) and SU sibling (SUS) decided to give it a try. Our basic plan was to drive north on the eastern, mountainous side to the Columbia River, spend some days in Portland, then return first along the coast, then down I5. We set out on a warm (about 70 F in Menlo Park) Tuesday for the Oregon border, tooling up I5 to Weed, then Rte 97 to Klamath Falls. The last hour or so it was snowing pretty hard, but no snow on the ground. There is a Klamath Lake, quite large, but no falls. The city looks a little tired. Apparently a big draw is nearby Crater Lake. We had a not-memorial dinner at a local brew pub. It dropped down to the low 30s during the night.
Wednesday we decided to have a look at Crater Lake. The rim road doesn’t open until sometime in June, but Rte 62 to Park Headquarters with presumably a view of the lake is suppose to be kept cleared all year. It’s about 75 mi round trip to get back to 97. Klamath Falls is about 3000’ elevation, the lake about 6000’. As we advanced east, there was more snow until about 10’ was stacked on the side of the road. Soon the road itself was covered with ice and snow. The outside temperature had dropped to 28 F. Road signs said carry chains or snow tires. There was not only no snow removal equipment in evidence, there were absolutely no other vehicles. This began to look like a potential problem à la Kim family[a], so we turned around, probably just short of the park entrance, and beat a retreat back to Rte 97.
Our next stop was for lunch in Bend. The historic part of downtown Bend is clearly a yuppie draw, maybe because of the nearby ski area. We had lunch in a very upscale attractive place, Merenda Restaurant and Wine Bar (photo above), on the main drag, Wall St. The drive from Klamath Falls to Bend was exceedingly boring--an absolutely straight road through the high desert with no signs of civilization. The traffic was totally dominated by huge trucks. We decided to cut our losses and go east through a mountain pass (Rte 20 and then 22) to Salem, the state capital. We again ran into a fair amount of snow, but the temperature stayed in the 30s and the road remained clear. This time there was a fair amount of vehicular traffic to keep us company.
Salem is a nice small city. We chose to eat at the Willamette Valley Grill, which is in the Red Lion Motel. It was a fairly large restaurant, but was nearly empty. Nonetheless we had an excellent meal and enjoyed a couple fine Oregon wines.
The next day, Thursday, we decided to do some serious vineyard exploration. We headed south a few miles on I5 to The Willamette Valley Vineyards. This turned out to be a fortuitous choice. We were in the lobby when the tasting room door opened at 11 am. The staff was very friendly and helpful and the wine above average. Pinot Noir is the big seller in this area. The winemaker, Forrest Klaffke (photo above) dropped in and we had an interesting conversation with him. WVV, a publicly-owned company, has been making wine about 20 years. It now produces 100K cases a year, about half of which is Pinot Noir. Oregon Pinor Noir is said to have gotten a big boost in popularity after the movie Sideways. More recently, it has been shown that the high level of resveratrol found in red but not white wine has numerous health benefits including protection from cardiovascular disease and Alzheimer’s, boosts memory, anti-carcinogenic/anti-cancer, and more. See www.brainready.com/blog/redwinebutwhichkind.html. Pinot Noir generally contains more resveratrol than other red wines, and it turns out Willamette Valley Pinot Noir contains up to 10 times as much resveratrol as red wine from other areas. Perhaps it’s the cooler growing climate combined with the soil. The result is prices are soaring. For people who don’t particularly like red wine, the wineries make a whole-cluster version that is released early. It is light, almost a rose, and is something like a beaujolais noveau, and is the cheapest version of Pinot Noir, typically $15. The regular Pinot Noirs from the better wineries seem to run about $25. The Reserve Pinot Noirs, which are generally much more complex, go from $40 up, $100 being not uncommon. Klaffke signed a bottle of the WVV Reserve for us to take home (or to a restaurant).
Portland Information Center and Theater
We next headed north to the Dundee Hills area. We tried Ponzi, which we had experienced a few years ago at a Pinot Noir wine dinner at BayWolf in Oakland. Their tasting room on Seventh St has The Dundee Bistro next door, where we had an excellent lunch. After lunch, we crossed the street to visit Argyle, another excellent winery. Then up the hill to Archery Summit Winery. This winery produces only 10K cases a year, mostly high-end. The wines we tasted go up to $100 per bottle. It’s hard to capture how the wine improves with price.
On to Portland. We stayed at the University Place Hotel on the southern end of the downtown region near Portland State University. The Portland downtown is near perfect for a medium-sized city: clean, green and pedestrian oriented. Most streets have very wide sidewalks with detailed paving, mature trees, frequent parks, urban art, coffee houses everywhere, and the bus and trollys are free. Perhaps the best amenity is that the downtown parallels the left bank of the Willamette River. Along the bank is a park and very popular boardwalk. We quickly found a wine bar and café, Thirst, on the boardwalk, which we visited several times during our 3-day stay.
Looking south at Mt. Hood
Friday was spent walking the downtown. We found an excellent small restaurant on First St near Madison, Vertable Quandry (VQ), on 1st Ave. at Madison, where we had lunch. We later had dinner at The Heathman, which is in the hotel of the same name on Broadway near Salmon. Satuday was a day trip along the Columbia Gorge using the Historic Columbia River Hwy and then a loop going up the Hood River to Mt. Hood and then back to Portland using Rte 26. The Gorge is really spectacular. At Hood River[b] there are a number of wineries, several of which we visited. The most interesting was a small, 2500 cases, winery south of the city called Wy’East Vineyards. Wy’East is what the Indians called this area. Their ’06 Reserve Pinot Noir (the first year they’ve produced a reserve PN) is excellent and modestly priced (for this type of wine in Oregon) at $35. After this we drove on south on US 35 to Mt Hood, then returned to Portland on US 26. From a distance the mountain looked quite majestic, but as we got close we entered thick fog and could see nothing. There was dirty snow on the ground, but the road was dry.
Patrick McElligott at Oregon Tasting Room
Sunday we left Portland and drove to the coast, stopping for some wine tasting in Amity and McMinnville. It was a warm sunny day, so we chose to picnic for lunch outside of Amity. We got to Yachats on the coast in time to meet SU-sister friends (from Eugene) for dinner at a coastside restaurant, Yachats River House.
The next day we drove on down the coast, stopping at Cape Perpetua (photo below) and then the Heceta Lighthouse. We decided to cut east to I5 at Reedsport following the Umpqua River. The river near the coast is like a mini-gorge. We happened upon a delightful roadside picnic area right on the edge of the river where we had lunch. We made Ashland about 6 pm and settled into a suite at the Adobe Inn right on the Ashland Creek. After putting away a bottle of WVV PN Reserve, we made our way to a nearby excellent restaurant, Beasy’s on the Creek.
Stone hut atop Point Perpetua
The long drive home on Tuesday was uneventful. We skipped lunch and had an early dinner in Davis, finally home about 6 pm.
Jym Clendenin, retired
1. Wineries of note:
Willamette Valley Winery (WVV)
8800 Enchanted Way SE
Turner, OR 97392
Forrest Klaffke, Winemaker
Wy’East Vineyards Tasting Room
3189 Hwy. 35
Hood River, OR
Christie and Dick Reed, Proprietors
Oregon Wine Tasting Room and Bellevue Market
19690 South West Highway 18
McMinnville, OR 97128
Patrick McElligott, Tasting Room Manager
Wine Works Oregon – Walnut City Wineworks
475 NE 17th at Evans
McMinnville, OR
2. Notable wines:
’06 Eola Hills Vineyard Pinot Noir “Le Creole” enjoyed at Thirst.
’04 Cliff Creek Syran, Joe Dobbes, www.cliffcreek.com, grapes from Rogue Valley. Enjoyed at Beasy’s.
3. Restaurants of note:
Merenda Wine Bar and Restaurant
Wall St.
Bend, OR
Thirst Wine Bar & Bistro
315 SW Montgomery St (on the waterfront)
Portland, OR 97201
Veritable Quandry (VQ)
1220 SW 1st Ave (at Madison)
, OR 97204
The Heathman Restaurant & Bar
1001 SW Broadway at Salmon
Portland, OR 97205
Beasy’s On the Creek
51 Water St. #333
Ashland, OR 97520
1
[a] In winter of 2006-07, Kim family—mother, father, child—turned off road into Rogue River Canyon and eventually their SUV got stuck in the snow. The father died trying to get help. The mother and child, who stayed with the SUV, were eventually rescued.
[b] The city of Hood River is at the mouth of the Hood River where it flows into the Columbia River.
Portland