Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Oregon Wineries


5 days after I put the Willamette valley into the Garmin (back on 9/14)  I am actually made it to Oregon Wine country today.  It’s funny how things just work out on this trip,  but the incredible thing is having time to explore those little diversions that occur along the way,  and how much fun they end up being.

I started the day with Firesteed,  I have had their wines before,  but I did not know about the Citation line.  Wow!  Deb was a great host and she helped me pick a route for the day.  The picture of the Pinot Noir grapes are from their estate vines.



Next was Nameste’ Vineyards.  I stopped mainly for the name but they had some very interesting wines.  I bought their 2007 Big Red Reserve,  which is a merlot that was barrel aged for 3 years.  Next was on to Van Duzer (the fall grape picture) and then to Red Hawk.  Red Hawk would have had tremendous views,  of 3 mountains,  but I could not see anything due to the haze of the fires, oh well maybe next time.

 
The last stop was Bethel Heights.  They had a number of very good wines,  and I ended up buying the 2009 Libertine very reserve Pinot Noir.  I have never tasted a Pinot quite like this one.  It was produced only because they had a very large harvest in 2009,  and picked the best of the best grapes for this wine.  Well 5 wineries and a number of tastes and I was done,  so I wanted to continue my wine region tradition of spending the night overlooking the vineyards.  The owner of Bethel Heights was gracious enough to grant my request and I got to see a beautiful sunset over the vineyards.

The 3rd wine region on my trip,  3 nights over looking vineyards, don’t know how it can get much better than this….   Off to see the Oregon Coast tomorrow!


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