Thus fortified, I head out for the day. Before I do any wine tasting, I've got some shopping to do. First, I need an adapter that will allow me to connect my little Vizio 22" TV to the cable at my RV Park...Radio Shack takes care of that issue. And, next, I need a small length of hose and a shutoff nozzle to connect to the water line at my camp...Tru Value Hardware solves that problem.
Now I can taste some wine. I have a plan this morning...I'll visit a few of my "favorite" wineries today and, while I'm tasting, I'll ask for recommendations of other wineries where I can taste in the days ahead.
First, I drive up to Elk Cove Winery which is located in the Yamhill-Carlton District of the Willamette Valley. I drink a lot of Elk Cove's Pinot Gris at home, and today I'll get a chance to sample their other wines as well. As expected, all of the wines (red and white) are good. I leave with a bottle of Pinot Blanc and a recommendation to visit Bethel Heights Winery.
My next stop is at Willakenzie Estates, a winery perched high atop a hill with a commanding view of the countryside. They were one of the early "pioneers" of Oregon winemaking, and their Pinot Noirs are excellent. I leave there with a bottle of Pinot Noir and a recommendation to visit Cristom Winery.
My last stop is at Four Graces Winery...I bought a bunch of their white wines back in 2008, and they were really good. And, when I'm done tasting, I've bought a bottle of Pinot Gris and a bottle of Pinot Blanc. Just visiting three wineries has taken up most of the day because the tastings might stretch out over an hour (including the tour), and it might be a half hour or more drive between wineries.
I feel like staying close to camp tonight, so I stop at Red Hills Market to pick up something for dinner. They have a nice variety of upscale "takeout" food, and I end up getting a wood-fired pizza with extra cheese, local Coppa ham, and fresh basil. Back at camp, I enjoy my pizza with that bottle of Willakenzie red while watching television for the first time since I left home in mid-June.
Before I know it, it's almost midnight...time for bed.
As you might expect, the folks at the tasting rooms out here really know their wines. As a result, I've had a number of really interesting discussions about how soil, type of grape, climate and winemaker's style all combine to produce a unique product.
The "father" of Oregon wine-making was a guy named Dick Ponzi. He loved French Burgundies and, back in the late 60's, decided that he wanted to make Pinot Noir in Oregon. He brought back soil samples from Burgundy and had them analyzed. Then he traveled Oregon looking for soil that matched that of Burgundy. He found it here in the Willamette Valley. The soil here is a mixture of volcanic and flood sediment. There's a range of volcanic activity out here that stretches from British Columbia down through Washington, Oregon and northern California (think Mt. St. Helens, Lassen Volcanic National Park, etc.). The flood sediment came about as a result of something called the Missoula Floods which occurred during a two thousand year period between thirteen and fifteen thousand years ago. Ice dams would form something called the Glacial Lake Missoula in what is now Montana. Every one hundred years or so, the force of the pent-up water would break the ice dam and send hundreds of billions of gallons of water cascading down the Columbia River Gorge and into the Willamette Valley. Then the ice dam would reform, and the process repeated. This flood water carried with it sediment which deposited all over the Willamette Valley.
This mixture of volcanic and flood water sediment soils is almost an exact duplicate of the soil in the Burgundy region of France. So, in considering what makes Oregon a great place to grow Pinot Noir, it's the soil that is, perhaps, most important.
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