easytraveler

I've had an on again off again trip to the NW and it's on again at this stage.

A very good friend of mine is coming in from France. We need to go to some wineries in Oregon - yes, need to, absolutely have to, this is NOT voluntary.

We need to drink our way down from Washington through Oregon to the Sonoma wineries, otherwise, there is no point in driving through Oregon. (Just kidding, Oregonians!)

Any recommendations from you will be mucho appreciated. Good wineries, not rot gut. This is a discriminating palette (not mine, my friend's!). Please help! TIA!

montyw

I have visited the Willamette Valley on several occasions and have a few recomendations of the favorites:

Chateau Benoit (prefect for your French connection) - Good wines, fabulous views.

Ponzi Bistro in Dundee - or even the winery itself north of the town

Argyle - just across the street from Ponzi Wine Bar/Bistro above

Patricia Green Cellars -
Belle Pente - Favorite wines in Oregon - need an appointment
Sokol Blosser is also a nice stop.

Also my favorite stop in Portland is Wines on Broadway. They pour about 20 different Pinot Noirs and they are all great selections...

stormygirl

Ohhh fun! My husband and I go to the north Willamette to taste pinot noir every year. This site will give you contact info for making appts:

http://www.yamhillwine.com/

Our favorites include-

J.K. Carriere (Jim trained in France), Lange, Domaine Drouhin Oregon (daughter of Drouhin of France), Erath Vineyards, Torii Mor Winery, and Ken Wright (which you can only taste out of the barrel as they completely sell out in futures every year!)

I will say that I am a little less fond of Argyle than most, I think they have gone down in quality and the additions of their screw caps (Ponzi too) and plastic corks is hard for me to accept.

The area is just wonderful and has amazing restaurants also like Tina's and the Joel Palmer House. If you are looking to stay a night I highly recommend the Youngberg Inn B&B. Spectacular in every sense!!!!

By the way, the style of most pinot noirs in Oregon (Burgandy in French) is different so it should be interesting for your friend to try.

Please don't stop at Duck Pond! Your friend will never let you live it down! Just a little tip

beachbum

I'll add Brick House to what's already been listed. Tastings there are by appointment only (except for Thanksgiving weekend), and bottle prices in the $40 range.

Adelsheim is nice as a middle-of-the-road choice. I've yet to have a screw-cap bottle, but have generally liked Argyle wines. Ponzi, on the other hand... maybe give their Bistro a try.

Kal

:-? Where's "Pinot PammerSF" when ya need her???

We still love her for WesMar and Merry Eddie!

kimamom

Which area in Oregon are you interested in? I have lots of favorites! Then we can narrow it down a bit. I just spent six weeks in Oregon and found lots of good ones.

I also dined out 23 consecutive nights in a row in some pretty yummy places. ***kim***

Chico

Kim,

Maybe you can give me some suggestions for the Roseburg area. We will be in that area and Ashland next week and plan to do some wine tasting. Suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks.

kimamom

I have some great suggestions for those areas, Chico! I'll post tomorrow, for now it's nighty-night time! ***kim***

easytraveler

Wow! see what happens when you get all caught up reading about "gender confused mules" on Fodor's? Missed these wonderful responses.

Awesome! montyw, stormygirl, and beachbum: Thanks ever so much for the suggestions! Have downloaded the names and will set up a route.

Kal: you're so right! Where are you, PamSF? Maybe it's because of the typos in my header; sometimes my fingers move so fast they miss/transpose letters. That's supposed to be "all wine-os".

kim: my friend likes red and I like white, so fire away with your suggestions. Just your favorites will be fine. We can't possibly sample everything in one trip. See, you've just confirmed my suspicions: you don't really have a home. you just go and stay in the best hotels, eat at the best restaurants, and imbibe at the best vineyards. If you want to recommend some restaurants, that will also be very much appreciated!

Night, night! Sleep tight!

easytraveler

ttt

Calling Kimamom! Calling Kimamom! Come in Kimamom!

kimamom

Chico, my favorite is the Abacela, www.abacela.com We stopped there on our way home from Astoria in August. I love their Granache and they also have an award winning Syrah. Very nice wines there.

Near Ashland, I really loved the Paschal winery, they make a really nice Pinot Gris that I had tasted at the Peerless. When we visited their winery, I was very impressed. It's gorgeous, I wished we would have had more time there.

We ended up purchasing a really nice Pinot Noir from Paschal. I hope you get to visit this one, but plan on a nice chunk of time to really enjoy it.

There was a samll group that was in the lounge, having a party while tasting the wines there. It looked really fun, but we had a sleeping DD in the car and still had over an eight hour drive ahead of us.

These would be my two favorites for this area. But while in Ashland, stop in the Chatuealin wine shop. They are very informative. Enjoy Ashland! Where you will you be dining? ***kim***

kimamom

www.paschalwinery.com is the website. Another one we really wanted to visit, but didn't get a chance was Chateau Lorane. I loved some Marachal Foch that I picked up at the Wine Haus in Seaside, OR. Their winery looks really pretty, with a lake on the property.

Easytraveler, I some suggestions for you, also! Which part of OR will you be visiting? And where would you like restaurant suggestions?

Chico, do you like Mueller Thargau? I really enjoyed the Henry Estates MT that I first tried at Kalypso in Seaside, OR in August.

Abacela also makes a nice Viognier that I purchased, but they may not have that for tasting in the late fall months. ***kim***

Chico

Kim:
Thank you so much for the information re Paschal and Abacela wineries...we will be sure to visit both of them this week.

I haven't decided for sure on a restaurant for dinner (Saturday) in Ashland. Thinking of Chateaulin, Beasys or the Plaza Cafe. Any thoughts on these? Thanks to your previous recommendation we will be staying at The Ashland Inn & Suites.
I enjoyed your review of the Post Ranch in Big Sur. We haven't stayed there, but have visited. My brother who could stay anywhere, insists it is the best spot in the world.
Many thanks

kimamom

We loved Chateaulin, we dined there during the holday season. It was so cozy and wonderful. We had the prix fixe menu that included two glasses of wine. There was a guitarist playing Christmas songs but the highlight of the evening was when the carolers walked in and sang to all of us.

It literally was like something out of a storybook. Brought a girl to tears, I like that kind of thing, ya know!

The Plaza is very nice, we usually book the jacuzzi suite that is great. The Ashland Springs Hotel is also very nice. We have stayed there many times and have always enjoyed it. I'm a bit intrigued with that place.

I would also recommend the Peerless, it is wonderful. Haven't tried Beasy's on the Creek, it's right next to the Plaza, but it isn't in the same league as Peerless or Chateaulin.

We had a bad experience at Cucina Biazzi, but the owner has offered us a complimentary meal. I recently heard from another diner that they too had a bad experience there, so I'm begining to wonder if the place is slipping.

Sierra Mar was quite the experience, one I'll never forget. I hope my hubby liked it, it was his BD present! (I kind of think he rather enjoyed it, also.) ***kim*** Feed the swans for me in Lithia Park! Will you be seeing a play?

PamSF

Here I be..just home from work! I have only tasted wines in the Willamette Valley and those of the valley. Ponzi was a nice tasting room although I wasn't that impressed with their pinoteven though the reserve had gotten a 91 from Wine Spectator. We did eat at their bistro in Dundee and it was a nice stop. I'd say Google Broadley and see if they are open for tasting. This is,by far, the best pinot noir I've had from up in those parts.We just had a bottle of their 2002 Reserve Pinot Noir with grilled salmon and it was sublime. It was not as heavy as the California Pinots(which are actually my favorite) but it was great. It's about $30 a bottle. I have some down in the basement and will try to remember to check out the bottle for the address. I'll just list some of the others I can remember off the top of my head: Elk Cove Pinot Gris and WillaKenzie Pinot Gris are both very good in my opinion. I think Willakenzie is up in the Willamette part of the state.Both are less than $20 a bottle. For good old stuff(I know they are in the Willamette area I just don't remember if their tasting room is open) A to Z both their Pinot Gris(less than $12 a bottle) and Pinot Noir (less than $20 maybe even less than $15). I think the Willamette is supposed to resemble the climate conditions of Burgandy. I wholeheartedly agree to skip Duck Pond and I might skip Sokol Blosser as well
although the view from their tasting room is lovely.

PamSF

Oh and stop in Portland for certain. There is some very good food to be had. I'd recommend Bluehour in a heartbeat!

kimamom

Easytraveler, I was also going to recommend Broadley to you. Their 1994 Claudia Choice Pinot Noir scored a 97 with Wine Spectator, the highest score yet! I didn't see any Oregon wines over a 91, so this must be VERY good.

When we were at the Chateaulin wine shop, we asked for the best Pinot Noir and Pinot Gris, we bought a Broadley Pinot Noir and a Raptor Ridge Pinot Gris. My DH drank all the Broadley before I could taste it (wine-hog, lol) but I'm assuming it was VERY good.

We took the bottle of the Raptor Ridge Pinot Gris to the Sanctuary in Chinook, WA for dinner and drank the whole thing! It was excellent. www.raptorridge.com and www.broadleyvineyards.com will save you from googling it, unless you still want more info on their wines.

Around the Portland area, go to www.winesonbroadway.com Portland has some cool wine bars. 750 ML, the Wine Down, Table, Noble Rot are all fun.

We also like the Willamette Valley vineyards, they have a beautiful winery, up on a hill on Enchanted Way. They make a really nice wine for the holidays that is good served warm in the chilly weather.

I'll keep thinking of more as they come to mind, but this is a good start for you! The Bluehour in Portland is excellent and Paley's Place was also top-notch.

Sorry it took so long to respond, we were in water polo tournaments for two days. The team came in 2nd out of 16 schools. Very intense, I lose 3lbs. each tournament, they are so exciting! My DD made two girls cry (they are really rough with her) and got ejected the last game twice, our best player was majored (3 ejections.)) The semi-final game went into sudden-death but we ended up winning and went to championships. Whew, I'm glad that's over! ***kim***

kimamom

I'd have to disagree with PamSF on the Elk Cove wines. A had a couple of glasses of their Pinot Gris in some restaurants we were in and they just didn't seem right. The Henry Estates also makes a decent Pinot Gris.

And Chateau Benoit is also nice. We tasted their pinots at the outlet malls, where they have a small wine shop there. I'm not sure where the winery is located, tho. ***kim***

kimamom

www.chateaubenoit.com is the website. I checked my supply and we also purchsed a nice Muller Thurgau from Chateau Benoit. The Pinot Noir is already gone! LOL ***kim***

PamSF

Here is Broadley information: Broadley Vineyards 25158 Orchard Tract Road Monroe, Oregon 97456
(541) 847-5934 FAX (541)847-6018
I'm assuming the following is their e-mail: [email protected]
I absolutely say you should try some of this stuff. The full on name is Broadley Vineyards Estate Pinot Nopir Illamette Valley Oregon 2002.

Regarding the Pinot Gris: I'd definitely try to taste at WillaKenzie.