The Severed Cortex

Today we are headed south to the Willamette (rhymes with dammit) Valley to check out some wineries. Because the tastings won't start until around noon, we decide to lounge a little this morning before taking our time eating a large breakfast. Today's breakfast starts at Besaw's which is conveniently located a mere 5 blocks from our hotel. Nancy has scrambled eggs and smoked salmon. I have apple french toast with pork apple sausage. The breakfast is fantastically good.

After we grab a coffee from the Dragonfly (mentioned yesterday), we head towards the rolling hills along highway 99W. There are literally hundreds of wineries in the Willamette Valley and most of them are located on the northern end of the valley. We decide our first stop will be Erath. Dick Erath was one of the first growers in the valley and coupled with UC-Davis educated winemaker Gary Horner (aren't all the good ones from UC-Davis) makes very good affordable wines. The general public stuff was good, but I preferred the premium 2004 Fuqua. Nancy preferred the premium 2004 La Nuit Magique. Both are around $400 per case. Our 'sommelier' was actually a transplant from Rolla, Mo and has been living in Oregon for about 5 years. Small world.

Next on the list was the Laurel Ridge winery. Although the staff was pleasant here, the wines weren't all that spectacular. Basically they were good, but not anything of note.

Our next stop was Anne Amie. Anne Amie does not grow their own grapes, but they do know how to choose grapes and make wine. Our 'sommelier' was very nice and very friendly, but she did have a bit of a mustache. (Hey, it's a little unnerving to me). In addition, I was able to eat hazelnuts which are also grown in the region. The view from Anne Amie is one of the best of the valley and produces our pic of the day. The 2004 Cuvee A (which is no longer available for purchase) and the 2003 Yamhill Springs Pinot Noir were the standouts here. The Yamhill Springs is a single vineyard wine and is fan-freakin-tastic.

The next stop, which turned out to be our last, was Domaine Serene. The grounds here are very nice but there isn't a whole lot of a view. They make up for it in wine. The wines here are very, very extraodinary and as far as I'm concerned there wasn't a bad one in the bunch. I kind of balked at the $15 tasting fee, which is really steep, but it was definitely worth it. The 2004 Jerusalem Hill Pinot Noir was my favorite, but the 2003 Rockblock Syrah was outstanding too. I usually am not a big Syrah fan, but this one is very good. Both are single vineyard produced wines in limited production which explains their $75.00 per bottle price. If I were a collector, I would buy a case of each. On a side note, Nancy said not to shake hands with the horse-faced woman in the herringbone suit. Apparently she didn't wash her hands in the bathroom. On a second, more humorous side note, the 'music' being played on the PA was Muzak versions of rock and roll classics. At one point I said to the 'sommeliers', 'Is that a cover of AC/DC's Back in Black?'. It was. I got extra wine for guessing Bon Jovi later. I could have stayed there and played all day.

I have never claimed to know a lot about wine, but I did learn a lot about it this time. What I discovered is that if you are going to buy Oregon wine, follow these simple rules:

1. Stick to the Dundee Hills area because it produces the best
2. Stick to the Pinot Noir for red or Pinot Gris for white
3. Single vineyard wines are simply the best

After all this wine tasting we decide to head to McMinnville for a late lunch. McMinnville is a little hokey town with about a 4 block downtown. There are a couple of places to eat, but we settled on the restaurant in the McMenamin's Oregon Hotel. (Yes, the same McMenamin family from Portland, Day One). It's a great old hotel. The mens bathroom even had stand up urinals and the old timey linen hand towels on a loop machine. I hadn't seen one of those in years. Our waiter was very friendly and efficient and everything would have been perfect if I hadn't spilled my IPA on Nancy as we were getting ready to leave. She was very nice about it.

From McMinnville we headed south to Salem to check out the Oregon state capital. Just so you know, it's not worth it. This is the ugliest state capital building we've seen and even if it weren't a state capital it would still be an ugly building. On the mall area in front of the capital building there are small plaques with interesting facts about Oregon. Ok, maybe they aren't all that interesting. If you have the chance to skip past Salem I have to heartily recommend that you do.

Now that it's getting dark we drive the hour back to Portland. I catch a 30 minute nap before we decide to head back over to 23rd to eat sushi. There are a couple of sushi restaurants and we settle on Yuki. I made the joke that it might be yucky. It turns out that they have very good sushi and absolutely terrible service. The Red Heat roll was very spicy; maybe even too spicy for me. I can't remember the last time that I considered leaving less than a 15% tip. We decided to leave less than 10% if that gives you any indication of how bad the service was.

After dinner we headed back to the hotel to pack our bags and prepare for the long plane ride(s) home. At least we get an extra hour of sleep for the daylight savings time thingy.