Category: Gap Year Adventure 2017

IPNC – The International Pinot Noir Celebration – is held each year over the last weekend in July. This is a time when wine makers, consumers and industry and media for the wine world of Pinot Noir gather together in McMinnville Oregon to drink, eat and hopefully learn something useful. The host site is Linfield collage in the middle of McMinnville. We have been coming for over 10 years (don’t really remember the first year we came) and have enjoyed it every time. The weekend starts with what is called pre-IPNC dinners. This year, as we have done for the last 4 years, we have gone to the Salud dinner.

 

Salud is an organization that was formed some 30 years ago to provide free healthcare for farmworkers. The dinner is both a chance to acknowledge the vital work they perform but also to offer some support financially to the organization. It is a great cause so we have gone for the last 5 years to this event.

Other pre-IPNC dinners are sponsored by various wineries in the Valley with celebrity chefs from various restaurants preparing great meals

 

The following day starts the actual IPNC experience. The entire group – usually about 800 people – are divided into two groups. One group stays on campus while the other goes out to a winery via a chartered bus. Included in the registration are all meals – again most prepared in temporary kitchens set up on the Campus grounds or at the Wineries.

Our first day was off campus. So, after the introduction of all the wine makers, we headed over to bus 4A. One of the things that happens is you don’t know where you are going until you are on the bus and in most cases not until you actually arrive at the winery.

Each bus has a host winemaker and ours was Lynn Penner-Ash.  Our bus headed into the Dundee Hills and stopped at Archery Summit, site of a pre-dinner the night before. After a brief presentation & Q & A with the vineyard manager, we divided up into five groups of 10 and sat down in the winery to try our skill at blending a

cuvee using wines from three different Archery Summit vineyard site wines. We were assisted by one or two wine makers from different wine regions (ours were from Russian River CA) and made at least three or four differently proportioned blends before deciding as a group on “Migration Oregon”. This kind of hands- on experience is what makes learning at IPNC such fun.

After making our blend we moved to the patio for lunch.

There were three different courses – really all main dishes – starting with Halibut followed by Salmon and finally Lamb Ribs.  There was WAY to much food and not enough wine!

There was a nice dessert but I failed to take a photo.  Must not have been very lovely.  After lunch, back on the bus and back to Campus for the afternoon walk around tasting before the Grand Dinner.

Recently I had a fellow wine taster mention a small winery located in Dundee called Ayoub Wines. As I had never heard of it before I did a little checking and it seems that Mo Ayoub spent time at Stags Leap in Napa working with Robert Brittan and after a few years decided to relocate to Oregon and craft Pinot Noir under his own label. When he arrived, and purchased several acres of vineyard land on a east facing slop above the small town of Dundee. Planting about 4 acres in 2001, on Jory soils, he planted various Pinot Noir Clones (for those who care, he put in 667, 777, 114, 115 and Pommard 4).

A small producer he is only making 2,000 cases a year. Working out of his home/winery above Dundee he feels that winemaking should reflect a combination of tradition and innovation. Ever evolving, like the wines, Mo’s winemaking approach includes experimentation with a commitment to bottling only the most successful, elegant lots from the barrels. As an appointment only property, I reached out hoping we might get a few minutes for a tasting.

So, on Thursday afternoon we drove up the hill and landed at his home/winery. Mo met us at the door and proceeded to take us out the back patio that overlooks his vines. It’s unusual to have an east facing vineyard in the area – most have a south or west facing planting style. Mo feels the warmth of the morning sun and the cool, shade, of the afternoon is best for his approach to winemaking.

On his kitchen counter were 9 bottles of wine. It seems that last evening he had a major reviewer at the house and wanted to make sure he (the reviewer) got the full treatment of his wines. While the wines had been opened for 24 hours the all showed extremely well. Starting with his Mosé (his approach to a Pinot Noir Rosé) we found our way through a lovely Chardonnay and several different years of his Pinot Noir. We particularly liked his 2015 Estate Pinot Noir, 2015 ??? Vineyard Pinot Noir (he is not allow to say what vineyards he has sourced the fruit from but they are all well known), his 2015 Memoirs Pinot Noir and the 2016 Chardonnay. We were so taken that we ordered wines for shipment later this year! And took 2 of his Mosé (Rosé) with us for later.

Nice wines presented well with great age potential. I was pleased to find this new producer even though I have repeatedly said I don’t want to “find” a new Pinot Noir I need to have in my cellar.

For dinner, we went to Thistle –

while it may be small in table numbers and Spartan in design, it is memorable , this is a great restaurant. We got a table for two near the menu, which is a the black board on the wall, and proceeded to order from the cocktail list while we decided on starter and entrees.

 

 

 

 

Emily, our server was friendly and prompt.

Janeen started off with the field greens salad with preserved lemon, filberts and goat cheese and I had the Summer Squash with carrots& creamy herb dressing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This we paired with some rosé bubbles from Portugal.

For our main Janeen had the Albacore with artichoke, olive and remoluade while I had

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rabbit shank with potato, salsa verde and fava greens. This was paired with a lovely Vouvray Everything was delicious – and while I haven’t had rabbit more then a couple dozen times, this ranked right up there as the best. Janeen’s comment about the Albacore was she wished she know how to make it as great as she was tasting.

We passed on dessert and talk a walk around the block before heading back to our cottage.

It’s been WAY to long for Janeen to have been away from a garden.  So, today we headed east to Oregon Gardens.   This is an 80-acre botanical garden in Silverton Oregon. It opened in 199 and is home to over 20 different gardens included the Rose Garden, Children’s Garden and many others. The City of Silverton created a series of ponds to cycle the reclaimed wastewater prior to it being allow into the river. This series of terraced wetlands located in the garden allows it to have access to a free water supply to support the operation.

 

Of course, Janeen’s must see garden was the Medicinal Garden displays.  This has the closet varieties of medicinal plant species that are most like the herb garden where she has spent so much time.

 

 

After spending a couple hours touring around we went to the town of Silverton and had a really nice lunch at the 3 Ten Water restaurant.  

The dining room has a large fireplace along one wall and a great looking bar at the end.  We had a simple lunch of Halibut Fish & Chip and a Caprese salad.  of course we had a glass of wine and a beer to go with our meal.

 

Tonight we go into McMinnville for dinner at a new place (for us) called Thistle Restaurant.  More about that later.

The last couple of days have been restful – without much stress and nothing really planned.  It’s been nice to take a deep breath and relax.  On Tuesday we drove out to Melissa’s home and had a great evening at their outdoor patio and lovely dinner which Simon had cooked on the BBQ.  I had been here before, staying in the ‘chateau’ (a 5th wheel trailer you can see by the ‘barn’) but Janeen has not.   It was a nice evening with lovely people and nice wines.