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Today I discovered something about the Willamette Valley…it’s friggin’ big! I left the Willamette Valley today to begin my pilgrimage to the Rogue Valley of Southern Oregon, and after driving south for 3 hours, I saw a billboard proclaiming wine and music at a winery off the next exit. Ignoring the pleas of my GPS system, I headed towards the mystery winery. Continue Reading »
There are a lot of exceptional Pinot Noir wines coming from the Willamette Valley, and I’ve been fortunate enough to try a great deal of them, some of which I’ve ranted about on this blog. That said, Eyrie Vineyards, in my humble opinion, is the crown jewel of the Willamette Valley. These wines are RIDICULOUS! I’d go into more detail here, but if I get going I’ll never stop, so look for a piece on Eyrie in the upcoming issue of Mutineer Magazine, and in the meantime, hunt down a bottle of Eyrie for yourself…you’ll be glad you did.
The fine people at Freixenet know how to market a product. It’s simple, you drink a bunch of Freixenet Cava and then you have rock star sex on a big, psychedelic bottle of Freixenet while roses rain from the sky!
Freixenet is the largest Cava house in Spain. What is Cava? Cava is a sparkling wine (think Champagne) that can only be produced in Spain using the same method used to produce Champagne. Most Cava comes from the Spanish region of Penedes near Barcelona. Continue Reading »
Check out this little guy. He is a robot Sommelier created by the fine people at NEC System Technologies. I haven’t been able to find an official name for him, so I shall dub him Box the Somm after the coolest robot ever from Logan’s Run. Continue Reading »
It’s hot and a little sticky, you’ve just finished washing the car and you come inside for a refreshing drink. All you have in the fridge is cola and an lmperial Porter. Don’t get me wrong I love porters, but on a hot summer day its not my choice for a thirst quenching beverage. Continue Reading »
10. Sustainability, like much of Oregon, is a priority throughout the region.
9. The wine industry is relatively young and undiscovered in the mainstream.
8. There is a strong culture of collaboration between Southern Oregon and other Oregon wine regions, paving the way for continued improvement.
7. Many of the pioneers who got the region started are still active in wineries.
Continue Reading »
Soter Associate Courtney Shields is my host today, and we start off by heading into the vineyard to sip some Soter sparkling wine affectionately referred to as “Soter Pop”. Sparkling wine represents a relatively small amount of Soter’s production, but both the Rose and Blanc de Blancs are great if you can find them (rumor is the Blanc de Blancs is pretty impossible to find).
Powell’s Books is the largest independent bookstore in the world, and as such, has become my ultimate destination for wine books. Powell’s is more than a book store though, it is a “City of Books” (really, it’s so ridiculously big that they had to color code the different sections of the store). Continue Reading »
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