Wine – Riveted

More Fun in Wine Country

Laura Domela — Sun, 25 Oct 2015 15:42:20 +0000

Spots 11 and 12 at Willamette Wine Country RV. That's us on the right:

Yesterday we did some work in the morning here and then met up with our friends Lisa and George. They arrived early in the afternoon and the four of us headed first for Seufert Winery and then over to the Dominio IV winery to pick up our wine club shipments (we had about a year's worth!).

Dominio IV:

We met back up with the Hardersens when we returned to the RV park and everyone got together for a fun group dinner. The weather was beautiful and the moon was big and bright. (We also got to ride our bikes around a bit!)

The clouds moved in later in the evening while we were all still out visiting and then suddenly the rain came with those big fat raindrops so we quickly cleared the tables and moved inside. Fun evening!

It rained off and on all night, and this morning it's more of the same. We were going to go home today, but figured we'd get a bunch of work done here instead, cozy and out of the rain, and go home tomorrow.

Airstreamin’ in Wine Country

Laura Domela — Sat, 24 Oct 2015 14:49:27 +0000

We dusted off the Airstream on Thursday morning and headed down to the Willamette Valley wine country (only a little over an hour from our house in Portland) to meet up with some friends for the weekend.

When we got to our RV storage unit, everything was just as we'd left it and there were no big issues. Pretty good after sitting for a year in storage! The tires needed a little air, the clocks needed new batteries, and the fridge light needs a new bulb, but other than that everything was ready to go.

We are camping at the Willamette Wine Country RV Resort and so far, we have mostly remembered how to do everything. Campgrounds are definitely noisier than anchorages and mooring buoys, but it's still fun to be out in the trailer. (And there are no ferry wakes tossing you awake at 7am!)

Kevin and I had a reservation for dinner on Thursday night at the Joel Palmer House (thank you to Kevin's mom for the sweet gift card!)

The Joel Palmer House, in Dayton, Oregon:

Our table:

Because this is truffle country, we did the Mushroom Madness tasting menu, and because we're in pinot noir country, we shared a bottle of Methven Family Vineyards Pinot Noir. All was delicious and it was a nice evening.

In the morning, we met up with our friend Kathy Hardersen and her son Kyle. (Kyle just bought a new Airstream International 25' and is parked right next to us, and Kathy left her Airstream at home and is staying here in one of The Vintages.) We had breakfast at our trailer, and then went over to Sokol Blosser for some wine tasting on the patio.

Sokol Blosser has a gorgeous tasting room and patio, and we couldn't ask for better mid-October weather!

We were there for a couple hours just visiting and playing cards and tasting wine. Kathy is a wine club member at Sokol Blosser, so we got a nice complimentary charcuterie tray during our card game:

We brought back a deck of cards from the Trickster Company in Juneau, Alaska. This is the Tlingit language edition, and they're fabulous to play with!

We had some lunch at the Red Hills Market, then went to Penner-Ash Wine Cellars for another tasting (and met up with more of Kathy's family). I didn't take any photos at Penner-Ash, but they too have a gorgeous place up on the hill with a fantastic view of the valley. We really enjoyed several of their wines, and left with four bottles: a 2013 Willamette Valley Pinot Noir, a 2014 Viognier (served at the White House State Dinner a few weeks ago), a 2013 Oregon Syrah, and a 2013 Rubeo (70% pinot noir, 30% syrah).

We decided to finally let Kyle have something HE wanted drink, so we stopped at Deception Brewing for a bit. (Kevin and I didn't try any of their beer though…next time!)

Dinner last night with the entire Hardersen family (table for 9) was at Ruddick/Wood in Newberg and was a blast. We always have so much fun with these guys. So. Much. Laughing!!

We started with a Honey Badger and a Whiskey Sour, and shared the duck confit hushpuppies (the winner) and a grilled octopus salad for starters, and the Fishermen's Stew and the Chicken Roulade (the winner) for entrees.

Today, we've got some more friends (Lisa and George, in their Argosy motorhome) joining us here and we'll probably visit two more wineries today…maybe ride our bikes around a bit, and just spend more time visiting and catching up.

It's definitely nice to be back in the Airstream, but I miss the boat and the water a little bit (and the rocking!). I think we're going to need to revisit the boondocking side of RV travel a bit more next time we set out for a longer trip…get away from the traffic noise and the leaf blowers and lawn mowers.

LaConner to Langley

Laura Domela — Sat, 17 Jan 2015 22:00:34 +0000

We left LaConner early this morning around 9am. I know, that's not super early, but by the time we left we'd both showered and cooked breakfast and made coffee and topped off our water tank, so considering all of that, it was early!

On our way through the lower part of the Swinomish Channel we saw many, many geese flying in cool formation overhead:

And then just out from Maple Grove Beach on the northwest tip of Camano Island, our sonar was picking up SO MANY FISH! For about 10 minutes we had solid lines of fish showing up at about 75 ft, like this:

Wouldn't it be cool if it just showed you the orcas, like this, just once?

We got into Langley (on Whidbey Island) at around 12:30pm, washed off the boat, paid for two nights, and headed up into town for some food and some wandering. We had lunch (and delicious espresso drinks) at Useless Bay Coffee Company. Look at Kevin's latte art:

We shared a jalapeno burger and some fish tacos and both plates were excellent! After lunch we stopped at Callahan's Firehouse to watch some glass blowing. Next we stopped into The Star Store and picked up a few things: a nice pair of wool fingerless gloves for Kevin, a pretty sweater for me, a new tea towel for the galley, and a proper captain's hat for whoever happens to be manning the helm. Score!

Next we stopped in at the Ott & Murphy Winery Tasting Room for a little wine tasting (with a view!):

We shared one tasting and brought 4 bottles back to put in Airship's wine cellar: a viognier, a syrah, and two bottles of their red blend called L'Entente (syrah, petite syrah, mourvedre, and viognier).

Here's a quick snap of the (full!) wine cellar:

Now we're just chillin at the boat (watching Deadliest Catch, heh). It's rainy and a bit windy outside and we plan to stay put and wait out what is supposed to be a windy day tomorrow.

Tomorrow we'll go back up into town and explore some more, and probably hit Kalakala for lunch. When we passed by today it looked like they had a couple of ramen specials that sounded perfect for a gray rainy Sunday.

Gray marina at Langley:

Tonight we're going to use some of the pulled pork we made and froze at home last week in some Cubano sandwiches. (Kevin brined the meat for 4 hours, smoked it for 4 hours, cooked it in the sous vide for 60 hours, then finished it on a hot grill to get a good bark on the outside. I made a Carolina vinegar sauce for it — apple cider vinegar, red chili flakes, sugar, soy sauce, ketchup, and pepper.) It came out so good and works wonderfully on a Cubano.

Oh yeah, I forgot to post these shots from yesterday. This is as we were about to enter the Swinomish Channel, between Anacortes and LaConner:

Here's a map of today's route (about 30 nautical miles):

No whales today, but we did see a few seals and some porpoises. They're out here though…we'll see some this trip…I just know it.

Hanging with the Lummi Locals

Laura Domela — Sun, 13 Jul 2014 01:25:26 +0000

After our day exploring Lummi Island on our own, we met up with Leigh & Brian and headed over to their friends' place Artisan Wine Shop for some wine tasting (and some wine buying).

Rich and Pat are the owners of this place (Ryan was behind the bar pouring) and they're all great folks. This place is definitely worth a visit if you're on Lummi Island and like wine. They carry a bunch of interesting wines at great prices, and pour 5 different wines at a time for tasting.

After the wine shop, we headed over to the Beach Store Cafe (also owned by The Willows Inn) for dinner. The six of us grabbed a picnic table outside and ordered pizzas, salads, grilled asparagus, mussels, and some sweet potato fries. The food was great! The sun was still blazing, and since Brian and Rich didn't have hats they used their napkins until the sun went behind the trees:

Garden entertainment at the Beach Store Cafe was provided by a band called Bent Grass and they were a lot of fun:

At this point, Leigh and Brian said we'd now eaten at every single restaurant on Lummi Island…all three of them.

Oh, and if you're interested, the Lummi post office is for sale:

After dinner we headed over to a gorgeous place on the beach belonging to some of Leigh & Brian's friends, Judy and John, where we had some wine and met a handful of new people, then decided to stay for the sunset and bonfire on the beach. A little while later, they convinced us all to stay for the full moon too, so we ended up catching the 11pm ferry back to Bellingham (way past Leigh's bed time!)

Beautiful view from Judy and John's yard:

At the bottom of the 107 (or was it 104?) stairs to the beach where some of the crew had already built a roarin' fire:

Judy bringing an armload of blankets down in case anyone got cold:

Sunset:

More visiting around the fire:

I love this silhouette of Leigh:

Full moon:

It was such a fun evening and so nice of Leigh & Brian (and their friends) to give us the full Lummi Island experience! On the ferry home we learned from Leigh & Brian's friend Cash who works on the ferry, that we missed one restaurant on Lummi (a new one) called Sausburger. Damn! Next time, Lummi Island. Next time.

Bicycling in the Tuscan Countryside

Laura Domela — Mon, 26 May 2014 18:39:09 +0000

Our last booked tour of the trip was today: a cycling trip from Florence out into the Tuscan countryside. It wasn't a ton of cycling (just over 11 miles total) but it was still fantastic. I booked this through Artviva tours in Florence (this is the tour) and I would book again with them in a heartbeat (as long as we had Stefan as our guide!).

We started in town and met up with Stefan, and two other couples going on the tour/ride. We (as you already know) had our own bikes, and after we were given the "OK" that our bikes were suitable for the ride (specifically: the hills getting out of the city) we headed over to the bike shop to get everyone else's bikes, while getting a bonus walking tour of Florence from Stefan.

Here's the map of our day (click for larger version if you want):

We headed across the Arno and up the hill, stopping first at the Basilica di San Miniato atop a hill at one of the highest points in Florence.

In this shot you can see some of the old city wall that used to surround Florence, running up the hill, toward the right of the photo:

The front of the basilica:

Inside:

Then we rode on up the hill to the top, where we stopped and checked out Galileo's pad. Apparently when Galileo was politely asked to stop talking science to students and other gullible folks in Florence and perhaps even to leave the city, the Medici family gave him this nice hillside villa in which to live.

Next we headed into a beautiful restaurant called Trattoria Omero. Incredible views from this place in the Florentine hills.

We sat and dined on Tuscan meats, cheeses, Chianti, and some incredible pasta (one with a yellow pepper sauce, and another with a spicy tomato sauce) and finished with a nice espresso. Then, back on the bikes we went! (Stefan in front, then Kevin…nice path huh? This is a two-way road!)

Our next stop was Villa Le Piazzole where we'd been before on our 500 Touring Club day, but what was interesting is that this visit was completely different. So different, we weren't even sure we were at the same place until we were in the cellar! We came in through the back, so we saw the olive grove, the garden, and the bunnies!

We met the owner, his wife, one of their dogs, and tasted two wines: a white, the Bianca Toscana (Chardonnay 50% , Pinot 30% , Trebbiano 10% , Grechetto/Malvasia 5%) and the Rosso Toscana (Sangiovese 60%, Cabernet Sauvignon 20%, Merlot 20%). Both were fabulous and we brought home one more (the Rosso) So now we have four bottles (it's Monday, and we leave Friday). Good thing we have friends coming over to our Florence apartment tomorrow night to help us with the wine (and the prosciutto, and salami, and formaggio) that we need to consume before we head home on Friday!

Here is Stefan, teaching us stuff about wine:

The villa, out back:

One of our roads home:

It was a really great day. I was worried after we got to Florence (after riding our bikes through Italy for a week) that I'd overplanned and overbooked us for tours we'd no longer enjoy. I was wrong. We've enjoyed every single tour we've done and neither of us would change a thing about this trip and the schedule. We've learned so much!

We came home, chilled and did some work for a few hours, and decided this was our night to try the traditional Bistecca alla Fiorentina (basically, a very high quality T Bone steak, grilled over a hot fire and served rare/medium rare, seasoned with salt and garnished with extra virgin olive oil at the table).

We showered and got dressed up a little and walked down the street (oh man, high heels on cobblestones) to All'Antico Ristoro di'Cambi.

Traditionally, Bistecca alla Fiorentina is served with white beans, but we ordered a side of sauteed spinach instead because I've been seriously missing my veggies while traveling in Italy. We also tried the pappa al pomodoro (tomato and bread soup) and theirs was a little spicy, and fabulous!

Our waiter was great and gave us spot-on recommendations, including his recommendation for a wine we'd never tried: a Villa Donoratico Bolgheri from an area on the Tuscan coast just south of Livorno (apparently one of the most prestigious vineyard areas). Anyway, it was great and paired perfectly with our Bistecca alla Fiorentina.

Night shot on the walk home along the Arno River:

Tomorrow we'll be sleeping in!! It's the first day in a while that we don't have anything planned that has us getting up at 7:30am. I plan to stop at the shoe shop down the road where Francesco makes custom leather sandals, and we will met our soon-to-be-wedded friends at their palazzo at 2pm for a walking tour around Florence, and then tomorrow night as I said we've got some friends coming by for a visit and a glass of wine. Should be a pretty chill day!

Touring the Chianti Countryside

Laura Domela — Sun, 25 May 2014 08:44:35 +0000

So, there are a couple types of tours: (1) the tour in a giant brightly colored and tour-branded bus full of people, and (2) the small group tour in a nondescript van with a maximum of only 8 people. While in theory this smaller group tour might sound much more inviting than the giant bus tour, everything about the personality of the small tour depends on those other 6 people. The giant bus full of people does not have a personality (other than the "tourist" personality). You are anonymous and can float around chatting with different people who might match up with you nicely…and move on if they start talking about how much they miss a real pizza with freeze-dried parmesan on top.

Yesterday we did a small group tour of the Chianti area of Tuscany with 4 other people and our guide Giancarlo. Giancarlo was wonderful: soft-spoken, very informative, patient. Also, Giancarlo loves American tourists. He said that American tourists are his favorite, because they enjoy things the most and seem to have the most fun. Most other tourists seem unhappy or depressed and it's not as enjoyable to take them on a tour. (Clearly, phrases that make us bristle…like "All these Italian names are starting to sound the same!" don't seem to bother him.)

We began the tour from the Piazza Repubblica and headed out in our silver VW van with air conditioning into the Tuscan countryside. We stopped first in Impruneta, at a small family run terracotta studio called Forcace Masini.

We got to watch a work in progress:

Pots like this can only be added to in increments of about 12cm of terracotta at a time (structural reasons) and as you can see, the pots don't spin on a wheel/base, the artist walks around the pot and works in circles.

Until fired, the pots are a dark gray color.

The famous "terra di Impruneta" is a clay mixture of sand, calcium carbonate and iron oxide. It feels like a super fine powder in your fingers:

Outside the kiln:

Workspace:

Finished terracotta in the sun:

We left Fornace Masini and headed toward Montefioralle, a small village in Greve in Chianti said to be the birthplace of Amerigo Vespucci. We wandered around a bit and took a few photos while Giancarlo talked to a local man who has lived in Montefioralle all his life. There are between 40-80 people who live in Montefioralle (Giancarlo said 40, the internet says 79…either way, it's not that many).

Next stop: the town of Greve in Chianti. It used to be just Greve until 1972 when the words "in Chianti" were added to many small towns in the Chianti region as a marketing campaign to increase tourism and awareness of the Chianti region (which totally worked, apparently).

Giancarlo dropped us off just outside the town center so we could explore the Saturday market for an hour or so. There were people in booths selling produce, fish, meat, clothing, shoes, tools, kitchen gadgets, and much more. It was fun to wander through here with the locals as they socialized with their once-a-week neighbors.

We stopped and had an espresso, then went into the Macelleria Folorni, a deli/butcher shop that Giancarlo said was one of his favorites.

Down in the cheese cave:

This is a beautiful shop and we ended up taking some goodies back to the apartment (prosciutto, salami, cinghale, bresaola, some pecorino, and more fresh eggs).

Next up was our first vineyard/winery: Castello Monterinaldi in Radda in Chianti.

We got to tour the cellar and learn some things we didn't know (which is fabulous after all the cellar tours we've been on). This is Vin Santo ("holy wine", a traditional Tuscan dessert wine usually made from Trebbiolo and Malvasia grapes), aging in these chestnut barrels since the 1980s:

Chianti Classico:

There's all sorts of stuff we never knew about Chianti.

The grounds of Castello Monterinaldi are gorgeous:

Can you believe this building (below) used to be a chicken coop? Like, you know, for chickens??

After our tour of the grounds we went inside and got to taste four five wines plus the vin santo, plus a little grappa (!!!), along with a light lunch of traditional Italian cold cuts, cheese, sundried tomatoes, bread, honey, estate-produced extra virgin olive oil, and this incredible pear/mustard compote that I must find jars of to take home before we leave. Spicy and sweet, it's perfect drizzled on Parmigiano-Reggiano (or probably on anything).

The owner (Daniele Ciampi) was informative and generous and everyone had a lovely time here. They have a nice saying: Chi ha furia, faccia piano, which basically translates to "Those in a hurry, slow down" (or as Google translate says: Those with fury, face up).

Our next stop was the town of Castellina in Chianti.

We wandered the narrow streets, stopped for gelato, and then headed to our second vineyard: Casa Emma.

Paolo was our guide and gave us a tour of the production and aging areas, and taught us a few more things we didn't know.

After the tour, we went upstairs onto the patio to taste some of Casa Emma's wines. This is Paolo:

And this was our view:

We tasted some Chianti Classico, a single vineyard Chianti Classico, a Chianti Classico Riserva (our favorite), and two Merlots. Very nice wines! We brought home a bottle of the Riserva. We now have 3 bottles to drink in 5 days. I think we can handle that!

Yes, I know I never really told you anything about the other four people in our tour. Let's just say we had a little lesson of our own about patience and tolerance, and overall we enjoyed the tour very much.

Day Two in the Willamette Valley

Laura Domela — Mon, 05 May 2014 22:49:42 +0000

Yesterday we had a lovely breakfast the Lobenhaus B&B where we were staying for the weekend, in Carlton, Oregon. There were belgian waffles with fresh-picked strawberries, an egg frittata, sausage, juice and coffee (I probably forgot something). Everything was delicious! Lobenhaus is a fabulous home base for exploring this area and we highly recommend it — one of our best B&B experiences to date, actually.

The vineyards at Lobenhaus:

The winemaker at A to Z / Rex Hill winery in Newberg, Oregon, purchases all of the fruit grown on the property.

Across the street:

Our list of wineries for Sunday included: Coeur de Terre, Anne Amie Vineyard, and Monks Gate Vineyard. (Maysara was closed on Sunday, so that one is on our list for next time.)

We headed to Coeur de Terre first since it was the furthest. It was raining off and on (mostly on) all day, but it was gorgeous. Coeur de Terre is a ways off the beaten path and it was just lovely. Great tasting room with a spectacular territorial view:

Lisa, one of the owners, was there working and chatting with us and it was a fun and informative tasting. (We even ran into someone we knew from Portland but hadn't seen in about 10 years — right there in the tasting room. What a surprise!) Coeur de Terre practices sustainable farming, and they specialize in estate grown Pinot Noir.

Next stop was Anne Amie Vineyard.

As we drove up the narrow road and saw the steep hill up ahead, Kevin said "We've definitely been here before." I was positive we'd never visited Anne Amie before…they haven't been around all that long…but he was right. The driveway and that hill looked super familiar. Pretty quickly we realized we'd visited this vineyard back when it was Benoit, during a ride around this area on our tandem, and we'd tried to get up that hill and ended up walking to the top.

The other time we were here we tasted outside (it was summer, I think) but the view off the patio is still nice, even on a stormy day:

Third and final vineyard for the day was Monks Gate Vineyard. We had a delicious 2008 Pinot Noir with dinner on Saturday night at The Joel Palmer House and were looking forward to sampling more of their wine.

There's a great old barn on the property:

We chatted with Linda, one of the owners, who poured for us while she told us a bit of their background story (I love the background stories of the winemakers!) We brought home a 2012 Classic Pinot Noir and a 2012 Trinity Pinot Noir. (We're getting more and more versed in this pinot thing!)

We had a late lunch in between Coeur de Terre and Anne Amie, so when we finished up at Monks Gate we decided to stop at a market and just grab some snacks to have for dinner later on. We set up a nice plate of meats and cheeses and berries out on our deck and sipped some complimentary Argyle sparking wine and just relaxed for the rest of the evening. (We also caught up on Mad Men and Orphan Black, via the iPad/Slingbox/home DVR.)

We're home now and getting ready for our trip to Italy. I plan to blog through our tour as often I can, so stay tuned for that!

A Birthday Surprise!

Laura Domela — Sun, 04 May 2014 15:58:19 +0000

Yesterday (May 3) was my birthday (yay, birthdays!). Kevin told me on Friday that he had a surprise planned starting the next morning. He also told me to pack a bag for a couple days that included biking stuff and something to wear to a nice dinner out, and to be dressed like I might be going on a hike (with shoes that could get muddy) — oh, and that we needed to leave the house by 4:30am.

!!!!!

We had an opening night play to attend the night before (where we were shooting environment/audience shots before the show and during intermission for their brochure and publicity stuff) so as soon as bows were taken, we hightailed it home and went to bed by 11pm, because, um, 4am.

Alarm sounded, espresso was consumed, and off we went into the pre-dawn darkness.

We ended up at Sportsman Airpark in Newberg, Oregon at 5am and we were apparently a little early. Well let's see…we were at an airport, but not OUR airport. (It had occurred to me we might be flying somewhere with the bikes, but we'd need to be at the airport where we keep our plane, and we weren't.)

Kevin: Any guessses?

Me: Hmm. A glider ride? No, they don't do gliders here. A helicopter?

Kevin: Nope.

Me: A float plane?

Kevin: Do you see any water?

Me: (stumped)

At some point a few other cars trickled in, and eventually one of them pulled up next to us on my side, looking like they wanted to chat. We rolled down the window and the woman driving said "Is this the place for the balloon rides?"

Aha! A balloon! I didn't know they did that here either! Sweet! Apparently we were going to help set up the balloons, go up for a hot air balloon ride over the Willamette Valley, land, help take balloons down, and then finish with a champagne brunch there on the field. How fun!! And what a great surprise!!!

We waited with the other cars for another half hour or so. Seems the balloon people were a bit late. After a little while longer, the same woman who chatted with us before came walking over holding her phone, looking kinda pissed. We rolled down the window and she informed us that (1) she was impatient and had called the balloon people, (2) they apparently weren't going to fly today, (3) they were supposed to have called us all the night before to tell us (!!!) and had not, (4) it was her daughter's birthday present and they'd gotten up at 4am too. She gave us the number so we too could call too if we wanted, then she walked on over to the next car to continue the stream of bad news.

Kevin called in and the balloon people were very nice and apologetic, but no, they weren't flying. They were very sorry no one had called to tell us the night before.

Well, shoot. So there we were at 6am on a Saturday, at a little airfield in Newberg Oregon, with nothing to do until the 3pm check in time at the B&B Kevin had reserved for us in the Willamette Valley wine country.

I figured Kevin was far more disappointed and frustrated that I would be (I wasn't, actaully…it was a very sweet thing to plan) so I got out my iPhone and looked around at the map and found what looked like a park along a river with some trails. Great! We could get in an early morning hike (since we were dressed for it and all).

This is Joe Dancer Park in McMinnville. There's a nice trail along the river, as well as giganic well-manicured soccer fields and other sports facilities. The river trail is 1.5 miles each way so we did a nice 3 mile hike.

We stuck to the trail along the river, with one exception: the skate park! This place was gorgeous in the early morning light:

And here's Kevin shreddin' sans skateboard:

We finished our hike, looked for a breakfast spot (Yelp) and settled on the Crescent Cafe in downtown McMinnville — good food, made fresh from scratch (delicious breads and house-made sausage).

Okay! Three-mile hike…check! Breakfast…check! Time…9am! Hmmm.

So guess what we did? We went down the street and had manicures and pedicures at Thumbs Up Nail Salon while we sat in massage chairs, watching The Incredible Hulk on a big screen television. After all that we still had a few hours to kill, so we decided to go over to the Airstream (in storage about 30 minutes away) to pick up Kevin's bike lock cable.

I was feeling pretty tired (I'm not the greatest on too little sleep) and so I thought (and said): "Hey, we could also…while we're at the Airstream…take a NAP!!" So that's exactly what we did. We got the bike lock cable, crawled into bed, and took a two hour nap (in the Airstream…in the storage garage). It was lovely!

Now we were rested and finally it was about time to head over to the Lobenhaus B&B! We arrived a little early (their office opens for check-in at 3pm) so we got out the iPad and sat in the car in the garden parking lot and watched the Kentucky Derby (via Slingbox and our cable box at home). Ahhh, technology!

Lobenhaus is in Carlton, Oregon. It's a lovely bed & breakfast with 6 rooms and a vineyard on 28 acres. Our room has a deck overlooking Millican Creek and the woods, and the owners Joe & Shari Lobenstein are wonderful. Here's the view from our room (yes, it's raining, but look how GREEN!):

We got all checked in and situated and decided we had enough time to do a little wine tasting before 5pm closing time for most wineries. We headed to The Eyrie Vineyards first, in McMinnville:

The tasting room was packed, and we liked the wine (we brought home two pinots). Next was Domenio IV Wines, not too far from Eyrie.

We loved the wines at Dominio IV, and came home with two bottles each of two different temperanillos and a pinot. Ryan (our pourer, and also the wine club guy) was pouring to a pretty full tasting room there as well. He was super helpful and gave a great amount of information about each wine to everyone. 5pm in the tasting room is usually a little…um…rowdy (or can be, anyway). We were some of the only patrons who hadn't been tasting wine all day.

We headed back to Lobenhaus to hang out a bit and shower, and then it was time for dinner. Kevin had a 7:45pm reservation for us at The Joel Palmer House.

From the Joel Palmer House website: "The Joel Palmer House is on the National as well as Oregon Historic Register. Joel Palmer was one of Oregon’s preeminent pioneers leaving Indiana in 1845 to make his long way west. As leader of one of three wagon trains headed for the Northwest, Palmer soon exhibited the leadership qualities for which he became famous.

Joel Palmer co-founded the town of Dayton in 1848 and built this home in 1857. It is said that it is named after the hometown of Chris Taylor, a close friend."

View into the back door of the kitchen:

The service here is wonderful, and spot-on. It's formal and elegant, while at the same time being completely friendly and down-to-earth. We arrived early so our table wasn't ready (no big deal) but they apologized and brought us a glass of sparkling wine to sip while we waited, and we were seated about five minutes later at the same lovely table by the window where we dined the first time we visited. We opted again to do the "mushroom madness" tasting menu (so good!)

The sommelier showed us the wine list and pointed out a section called "Orphans" — these are wines where there is only one bottle left. The bottles on this list are crossed out by hand as they are ordered. Love this! We chose a 2008 Monks Gate pinot noir and it was delicious and went well with all of the courses (minus the palate cleanser of dueling gazpacho soups). This fabulous meal ended with an extra dessert of some kind of chocolate truffles, and they were good but what was far more interesting to me were the accompanying candy cap mushroom POP ROCKS (because I'm 12!) Mushroom-flavored pop rocks!! I need a jar of those.

Such a fun day!!

Bear Creek Greenway Trail, and Two Wineries

Laura Domela — Sat, 05 Apr 2014 21:25:37 +0000

This morning after breakfast we headed into town with a plan (and our bikes). We parked at the Market of Choice (where we planned to do grocery shopping post-ride) and hooked up with the Bear Creek Greenway Trail and rode from Ashland to the South end of Medford and back (about 29 miles).

We passed through Talent, Oregon and Phoenix, Oregon, and on the way back stopped in Talent at the Avalon Bar & Grill for some lunch. Food was great! We shared an Italian panini and a chopped salad with chicken, cheddar, and bacon, with a homemade basil honey viniagrette that was fantastic! (Basil, red wine vinegar, salt, pepper, honey, and extra virgin olive oil…I'm gonna try that at home!)

We rode the rest of the way back to the market, shopped, then headed up the hill to check out two wineries we'd read about: Dana Campbell Vineyards (a fairly new winery here in Ashland) and its neighbor Grizzly Peak Winery.

The view of Ashland from Dana Campbell:

The wine at both wineries was good and interesting, and the people were all fabulous. We bought a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc from Dana Campbell to go with dinner tonight: grilled halibut and asparagus salad, and a Syrah from Grizzly Peak (maybe for tomorrow with the pulled pork). Should work out perfectly!

I took ridiculously few photos today, but the trail was great! Yeah, it runs along I-5 some of the way, past a run-down trailer park and another run-down mobile home park, but still…you can ride on a mostly tree-lined paved trail from Ashland all the way to Central Point. It's pretty great if you ask me.

Now we're just chillin' at camp, happily tired.

Last Day in Calistoga

Laura Domela — Fri, 28 Mar 2014 22:00:13 +0000

Today we rode our bikes over to Chateau Montelena.

If you've seen the movie Bottleshock, or if you know about the 1976 Paris blind tasting upset (also known as the "Judgment of Paris") when a California Chardonnay won first prize over its French competitors (unthinkable!), then you'll probably have heard of this winery.

The Paris Wine Tasting of 1976 or the Judgment of Paris was a wine competition organized in Paris on 24 May 1976 by Steven Spurrier, a British wine merchant, in which French judges carried out two blind tasting comparisons: one of top-quality Chardonnays and another of red wines (Bordeaux wines from France and Cabernet Sauvignon wines from California). A California wine rated best in each category, which caused surprise as France was generally regarded as being the foremost producer of the world's best wines. Spurrier sold only French wine and believed that the California wines would not win. [Wikipedia]

The grounds are spectcular.

The Chardonnay they make today is apparently made in the same style as the 1973 Chardonnay that won the Paris tasting, and it was very good! We also really liked the 2010 Montelena Estate Cabernet Sauvignon.

Cute sticker on the bike rack:

From there we headed back to camp, worked some more, then went to our 2pm tour appointment at Reverie, up on Diamond Mountain.

Reverie is one of Napa Valley’s smallest estate wineries. The vineyard is nestled on a steep, 40 acre parcel high up in the Diamond Mountain appellation (we did not ride bikes up here), and the wine they produce is wonderful. We started our tasting outside with Sara (She's awesome! Hi Sara!) and then headed into the caves.

A French oak barrel. These cost about $1200 and can be used once or twice:

Kevin in the caves with oak and temperanillo:

Our favorite wines of this tasting were the Petit Verdot, the 2008 Cabernet, and the Reserve Cabernet. The tour was fun and educational and I would highly recommend making a reservation here at Reverie if you're in Calistoga. It was one of our favorites!

Next was a wine and cheese pairing/tasting at The Von Strasser Winery (right next door to Reverie, also up on Diamond Mountain).

John was our guide and gave us a nice tour and took us into the caves and to a small table for our tasting.

It was just the three of us so we had a time for some fun casual conversation, as well as learning about the Von Strasser wine and winemaking. Our favorites here were the 2009 Sori Bricco Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon and the 2009 Spaulding Cabernet Sauvignon.

Back at the Airstream now. I think we're going to grill some salmon and some veggies, and then ride bikes to the market later to get some groceries before heading out tomorrow morning. We've had such a nice time here in Calistoga and it definitely feels like it's going to become of the "regulars" now. (You know, the places you return to over and over again.)

Happy Friday everyone!