Month: July 2017

We started the day at Walter Scott Winery.

This small producer in the Eola-Amity Hills area of the Willamette Valley. We were there to taste through their current releases with Andy Steinman. Andy and his wife Sue became major investors in the Winery in 2012. We have know Andy and Sue for some 15 or more years having met them at World of Pinot Noir which is held around Janeen’s birthday (March) on the Central Coast of California and then again at various Pinot Noir events in Oregon. Ken Pahlow and wife Erica Landon started Walter Scott wines in 2009 sharing faculties with others until they could have the size and stability to have their own facility. In 2011 they moved to a leased facility in the Eola-Amity Hills AVA. Production has grown from a beginning of 650 cases to over 5,000 now. With the help of Andy (now the CFO) and Sue (legal council to the team), Ken who’s background included working with Mark Viossak at St. Innocent Winery working various harvests at Patricia Green Cellars and a position at Evening Lands Vineyard gives him the background to work the wine making magic to produce some wonderful Pinot Noirs and Chardonnays.

A small production area, barrel storage and work space limits their production at this time but there are plans to expand the exterior portion of the facility to allow equipment storage outside – thus increasing both barrel and case storage inside.

 

We tasted two of the Pinot Noirs – 2015 Sojourner vineyards and 2015 Freedom Hill plus two chardonnay’s Freedom Hill vineyard and X Novo Vineyard.

We found the wines pleasant but the Chardonnays more drinkable now while the Pinot Noirs need a few more years to mature.

 

 

 

 

 

After tasting the wines we had a delightful lunch in McMinnville and then decided to visit the Willamette Valley Cheese plant close to Amity. This small producer is making artisanal cheeses from local dairy cows.

While a delightful visit there wasn’t any cheese that really said ‘take me home’ but we enjoyed the exposure to alternative cheese taste just the same.

It’s been several days since we updated our blog. During that time we left the Oregon Coast and travelled inland to my sisters place in Portland. This was a scheduled stop for laundry duty, pick up stuff we had shipped to her place and get organized for our stay in the Willamette Valley. During our stay with Marilynn, we visited Cindy and Jon where our son Ryan and his husband Chris joined up for a visit. They (Ryan and Chris) are on a 2-week trip, which included a stop in the SF Bay area before joining us at the Cousins Reunion on the Oregon Coast. They are now in Yellowstone prior to heading to Wyoming to visit a relative of Chris before they head to Salt Lake City and home. We won’t see them for several months and not even sure where we will see them again.

This morning, after repacking the car, we drove to the Willamette Valley and more specifically Stoller Winery. We had arranged, through Melissa Burr, Director of Winemaking, to stay on property at Stoller in one of their cottages. This lovely 1 bedroom place is just right for our needs. It comes with a full kitchen, nice living room and bedroom.

Couldn’t ask for a better place to stay.    Prior to hooking up with Madison (who took us to the cottage) we had a lovely sandwich from Red Hills Market and a Stoller Rosé on the lawn outside the tasting room. A nice spot, lovely view and delicious sandwich.

Now it is off to McMinnville and do some shopping for our meals in the Cottage.

 

 

For dinner, we hooked up with Emily Bachand and went to her husband Paul’s restaurant Recipe, part deux.   This small place in Newburg doesn’t have a real kitchen and all the ‘hot’ stuff comes out of a food truck they have parked behind the place.

Paul’s first restaurant, Recipe, had a fire and this place lets him keep going until the old place is rebuilt. When we arrived, I had brought a lovely bottle of burgundy from 2005 – Savigny Les Beaune from Josephn Drouhin but we started off with a lovely Chablis. This parried well with our Oysters   on the half shell, Lemon Wagyu steak tartare and the Torchon of foie gras. We followed this with other stuff which I didn’t write down and a couple of great desserts.

Here’s a picture taken of our family while visiting Domaine Drouhin yesterday.

Wine Tasting! Something we actually know something about was the theme for the day on Friday with the Family. With an early start, 8:15 AM, we headed out to our first stop at Domaine Drouhin Oregon. This wine producer uses the theme “French Soul, Oregon Soil” as they are from France with a very long history producing Burgundy wines and came to Oregon in 1987 and set up shop. After 30 years they have produced a number of really interesting wines with the focus on Pinot Noir and Chardonnay (really Pinot is the main thing in my opinion).

Our group of 43 folks were met at the winery and taken to an outdoor area with lovely shade trees overlooking the vineyard and tasted through 5 different wines.

All in all a wonderful way to start the morning.

After finishing our tasting, we headed over to Stoller Vineyards for another delightful tasting where we all had a sack lunch from the Red Hills Market.

 

From there off to Roco Winery and our final spot for the day.

After a leisurely drive back to Gleneden Beach a nice dinner and family sing along was part of a birthday celebration for several of our group.

The last couple of days have been focused on family. A gathering of cousins and their kids had been in the planning for the better part of a year. This involved joining three branches of the family on my (Neyman) mother’s side. My mother had two brothers – Ted and Bob. Between them they had a total of 8 kids. These “kids” are my cousins and we have gathered together to catch up, share stories and photos and have a good time.   This includes my three siblings – Georgia, Richard and Marilynn and their grown children and grandchildren. During a head count at dinner tonight, we totaled 47 people!

Several have come from great distances: Kathee N. from New York state, Bill N. and Jason L. from Virginia, Roy N. parked his boat in Tahiti and flew in to join the group.   All in all we are a great bunch of people. It is really neat to get to know some of the second and third generations who have joined with us here on the Coast of Oregon, the oldest being 78, and the youngest, 2.