A view from the tasting room

Continuing our story of Oregonian Pinots

I am Full of Pinot...hear me roar!

I spent the whole day wine tasting in Oregon two Saturdays ago (I am behind on my posts!). As I remembered, it was quite divine. Luckily enough, the 2008 Pinots from the Willamette Valley had the opposite, more fortuitous fate than 2008 Northern California Pinots. In fact, Oregon Pinots had a great 2008! (YAY!)

Grapes Plump and Ready for the Plucking: Before we left Archery Summit, I took this quick snapshot of pinot noir bursting with juicy goodness.

My friends and I took a limo to four different wineries:

The first was the best. Archery Summit Winery offered true Oregonian Pinots ranging from $50 to $120 for non-wine club members. We got one of the Archery Summit Renegade Pinot Noir to bring home. Anna Matzinger is Archery Winery’s winemaker, and according to the website, Ms. Matzinger has been making wine for this label since 1999. Her career began as a lab technician at Beringer Vineyards in Napa Valley, and continued on to take part in the full production in New Zealand, Australia and California. One of our friends, Mr. Burke, commented on how much he’s beginning to enjoy the touch of women winemakers. This is definitely a hypothesis I’d like to explore!

Interior of tasting room at Domaine Drouhin Winery in Willamette Valley, Oregon

The interior of the tasting room: Domaine Drouhin Winery was our second stop on a winery tour of Willamette Valley, Oregon. Testing out the photo power of my new iPhone4.

Moving onward to Domaine Drouhin. The winery had a lovely spacious tasting room with rustic windows overlooking the grounds. I was about to write that I didn’t find the wine too memorable, but perhaps it was because we had a very LARGE tasting at Archery. I just looked in our wine box, and it seems that the Hunny Bunny bought TWO bottles of wine from Domain Drouhin. Hmmm…. One 2008 Chardonnay called Arthur and the other, a 2008 Pinot Noir called Laurene. I will let you know how they taste when we open them.

New Label at White Rose reminds me of Waiting for Godot

New Label at White Rose or Waiting for Godot?: Affordable good pinot noir at White Rose, with new label. Glad they ditched the dragon label.

I do remember tasting at White Rose, which I tweeted about that day. They had just released their new label. The previous one had a dragon. This was the second winery during our Road trip to Oregon that a winery chose a dragon as a label. Why on earth? I will not name the winery (it was in Anderson Valley after we tasted at Breggo) because I don’t want to be rude or mean. So glad that White Rose replaced their fantastical lizard with a sort of Waiting for Godot label of a tree and white rose. Ahh, so peaceful yet mysterious. Our group split a case of the White Rose 2008 Pinot Noir because it was priced nicely (~$30 a bottle) and tasted superior to its price. I mark it, BEST VALUE of our Oregonian experience!

Finally, we reached Sierra Vista. We decided to opt out of the tasting and instead get a round of Pinot for everyone. My taste buds were numb. My brain was numb. I could no longer differentiate between a hot dog and a glass of Cabernet. I fell asleep on the ride home in the limo. Too much Pinot for this Filipino!