Willamette weekend recap

We're heading home from a lovely weekend in Oregon and I thought I'd share some of our experiences.

Logistics
We stayed at the Compass in McMinnville, two blocks away from the main drag. It took a little more than an hour to get there from PDX. The Compass bills itself as a mix between a hotel and a b&b – the rooms are laid out like a b&b, and there are common areas downstairs, but there was no reception or anything. You had a code to get into the building and your room. We highly recommend it; everything seemed new and clean, our bathroom was enormous, and it was very convenient to just walk right in (especially after our flight delay had us arrive in the middle of the night). We'd definitely stay there again.

For transportation, we rented a car and had Dan from Main Street Drivers drive us around in our rental for our tastings. Not cheap, but way cheaper than a DUI. He was very nice and had some great suggestions. I came up with most of our itinerary, then he called me a few days before and helped streamline it.

Both mornings we had the breakfast sandwiches from Union Block coffee shop. Very tasty and a great way to get a good base before we started drinking.

Wine
On day 1, we went south from McMinnville to the Eola-Amity Hills area. We did:

Evening Land
Lingua Franca
Brooks
Cristom
R. Stuart & Co

Evening Land and Lingua Franca were our favorites. The woman who led us through our tasting at Evening Land was very knowledgeable, and their Pinots had some real substance to them. The Chardonnays had great balance to them. We got the small plates at Lingua Franca and got to meet Archie the Scottish Terrier. He was a charming little gentleman. The tasting room was a modern glass cube, basically, and the vibes were great. Dan helped us pick Brooks because they have an actual lunch menu and great views. By the time we got to Cristom and R. Stuart (which is a tasting room back in McMinnville), we were less discerning about the wine, so to speak, haha

On day 2, we went north and did the area between Dundee and Carlton. We stopped at:

Domaine Drouhin
Haakon/Lenai
Dominio IV
Lemelson
Ken Wright

Domaine Drouhin had the best views of the weekend (pictured), but we were wildly underwhelmed by the wine. Everything tasted thin, like it was watered down almost. Haakon/Lenai is affiliated with Purple Hands and has a tasting room on the vineyard property (as opposed to the Purple Hands tasting room in Dundee). They had Purple Hands wines, but our flights were just Haakon/Lenai. They were great and we took home two bottles of Chardonnay. There's really something special about drinking a wine while looking at the specific vines that produced the grapes. Dominio IV was another Dan suggestion, in part because they allow outside food. He picked up sandwiches for us from Red Hills Market (very tasty, but enormous. My wife and I could have split one easily). Dominio had a wider variety than the standard Pinot/Chardonnay mix we got at most of the vineyards. I confess that Pinot is not my favorite varietal, and though I had some great ones this trip, I really enjoyed their Tempranillo and big red blend. We ended up joining this wine club. Lemelson and Ken Wright (Carlton tasting room) were also very nice, but not the most memorable.

Overall it was a great trip. The weather was perfect and the people were very nice. Even though probably 85% of the wines we tasted were Pinot Noir or Chardonnay, it was fun to taste the differences that winemaking techniques and location made. The tastings were cheaper than Napa, but the bottles seemed to be more expensive. We were happy to support smaller operations, though, and look forward to our next trip back!