Lover of Wine – Travel along on our adventures – DAVID & JANEEN

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.

On Sunday, with Janeen driving, we left Fortuna CA, unrecognized sister to famous Ferndale CA (Victorian Gingerbread guardian of Avenue of the Giants, Redwoods Trails), we headed North along 101 coast route crossing the Klamath River Bridge. At each end of the bridge are gold painted bears.

The Golden Bears on the Klamath River Bridge weren’t always golden. Sometime in the late 50’s or early 60’s mysteriously the cement bears on the old bridge would turn golden over-night. Despite efforts of the State Highway Department with buckets of turpentine swabbing off that golden color, overnight the bears would be returned to their golden hue.

Midday, we stopped at Gold Beach along the Rogue River for a seafood lunch at the Port Hole Café.  

From there more redwoods, road construction and , ultimately ,to Coos Bay , Oregon for the night.

Monday morning, bright and early, we hit the road to Eugene to visit with Cousin Barbara Lee and her husband John Costello who hosted us for the evening.

After an afternoon snacks, we went out for a quick tour of the City including a visit to OSU campus, the neighboring town of Springfield (hometown of Ken Kesey author and LSD ‘hippy’ and Matt Groening the Simpsons creator) then an afternoon beverage along the Willamette River at a lovely spot outside McMenamins by the River.

After a wonderful breakfast – thank you John – we headed out on the next day of our adventure.

Our very good (and old) friend Joel raves about King Estate Winery all the time so we had to visit.

Although the winery is about 30 minutes out of Eugene, and not really on our route to Gleneden Beach, it was well worth the extra time to cycle past. It is on top of a hill surrounded by vineyards and rolling hills.

 

 

 

 

 

The lavender was in full bloom. Gorgeous!

We started off in the tasting room sampling most of their releases – including some not on the tasting menu.

  Apparently they are well known for their Pinot Gris – which seems to be one of the largest production wines. They also do Pinot Noir, Chardonnay from the estate and Cabernet Sauvignon, Riesling, Syrah and Viognier sourced from vineyards in the Columbia Valley. With an overall case production in the 350,000 range they are a very large producer and distribute to all 50 states and several foreign countries.

After tasting we went out to the patio for lunch. With a cold bottle of Viognier we enjoyed a starter of warm country olives followed by potato cakes with herb crusted pork belly with jam and herbs and a pulled pork shoulder with apple butter glaze, potato roll, sharp cheddar, coleslaw and sweet potato frites. Everything was quite delicious and, as we so often do, we had them split the items into 2 servings which was plenty.

After lunch we headed back north winding our way through the back roads ultimately getting to the Oregon Coast (again) and route 101 North to Gleneden Beach and The Beachcombers Haven for the gathering of Cousins.