Willamette Valley Wineries Trip (25 Jul 2009)
Willamette Valley is a place suitable to grow grape in Oregon, where creates a lot of wineries in this area, and our plan for 25th of July was visiting some wineries in Willamette Valley. Well, I could say that SL and I are not a good wine taster and we don't really like to drink alcohol neither, but for me, I would like to have at least once experience for wine tasting if I am in US, because that is what they are famuos at. But, to be honest, we are really not good tasters :P
This wineries trip is special because I was the trip planner for it, as all trips in US was planned by SL, therefore I did a lot of study on location and their specialist. There were six stops in total for our wineries trip, they are just in a loop, so that we weren't travelling too much and will be returned to our house after a circle trip. Originally, I thought it would be too much and would take our whole day, but it was just right and I could have sometime in home for some personal sharing, honestly I like it.
Actually, our first stop is Hoover-Minthorn House and it was not a winery location, but it was on the way of our trip, therefore I decided to take a stop and look around there. Hoover-Minthorn House actually is a museum, where is used to be a house of US 31st president, Herbert Hoover, who is an orphan and stayed with his autie at there during his childhood. However, the museum is only opened at noon time, therefore we didn't visit inside by just taking some pictures of the out front of the house, but their admission fee wasn't expensive with USD2 for adult.
Picture taken at outside of Hoover-Minthorn House.
Originally, we planned to visit Argyle Winery as our second venue as it was just on the route of all stops, but it was only opened after 11 am and we were too earlier, therefore we changed our plan to visit Sokol Blosser Winery first, which was our third location and it wasn't too far from Argyle Winery. Haha... there was some funny joke happened on our way to Sokol Blosser.
Before we went to a place, SL would search for route from Google Earth and we fellow the direction from Google Earth but we couldn't find our place, there were all grape plantation with some unmanned houses, we were doubt if we really could find a tasting room there. At the first place, we decided to give up our search and turned back to Argyle Winery by just taking some pictures of the beautiful grape plantation. Well, I need to say that our car was full with mud after we drove around the plantation.
After we decided to give up Sokol Blosser and drove until the roadside, we saw there was another route just next to our road, then we just took another tried to that road and saw it was the road from Google Earth direction, we realised that was some changes on road construction made us took a wrong way. Anyways, we were still successfully to get to Sokol Blosser Winery and I like this winery, as they got some self walk through for us to learn on their plant and wine. Also, those plantation view makes me felt there is really a place for winery.
After a walk-through at their vineyard, SL and I proceeded to their tasting room, it was USD10 for 5 wines, 2 white, 2 red and 1 dessert wines. From my personal thought, I think our bartender is really professional as she could explain to us on their products very well.
Well, we are not really good in wine tasting and we don't have any knowledge on wine tasting, therefore we just tasted them according to our favourite. To be honest, I didn't like dry and bitter wine, therefore I like the dessert wine the most as it is sweet :P Yes, just what I told you that we are really not a good wine taster.
Anyways, the second wine will come later of dessert wine, which is NV Evolution, Lucky Edition, it suited our taste the most. And, there we just learnt that NV is the wine from some mixture of grape from different places and years, so that winery can make the best wine. While if there is a year indicator, means they got the grape from the specific year, which is purely produced by the same grape.
Wine tasting menu.
Our favourite in Sokol Blosser Winery - 2007 White Riesing Dessert Wine, while this is not a pure wine as they also mixed with some other food and sugar.
After we visited the Sokol Blosser Winery, we returned to Argyle Winery, there was not plantation visit, but they got a Victorian style tasting room in a beautiful garden. When we stepped into the tasting room, we found a lot of people inside and it was noisy to me, Argyle tasting room was totally diffent with Sokol Blosser's to me, they look like more comercial.
Well, they menu is just for either white wine or red wine tasting and mixture is not allow, therefore we only chose for individual tasting, which is about USD2.50 to USD3 per taste, this consider more expensive than taking a flight, but we just didn't want to take it too much.
Finally, we chose a white dessert wine (2007 Minus Five) and a red wine (2006 Spirithouse Pinot Noir) for our tasting. Actually, SL and I prefer Argyle wine than Sokol Blosser as their dessert wine doesn't taste alcohol and sweet enough and the Spirithouse Pinot Noir tasted better than Sokol Blosser's, but we didn't like the tasting room becuase there was too crowdly and bartenders were too busy to serve every customer and they weren't abled to explain us on their products properly.
Argyle Winery Menu.
Later, we just proceeded to our third stop, Anne Amie or Chateau Benoit, it was really confused me at first because I wasn't sure if it is Anne Amie or Chateau Benoit, and I am still not really sure now, but I found both brands in their tasting room.
Anne Amie vineyard is located at a hilltop of Willamette Valley, therefore could oversee the view of Willamette Valley and their vineyard, it was beautiful.
Of course, we do take a walk in Chateau Benoit tasting room, it is a big and quite hall, I felt comfortable in the room, but we didn't take the tasting flight as we just didn't want to take it for this time, SL's face was turned red after the second and third stops. Anyways, we were really enjoyed at there with their beautiful scenery.
There was some path finding before we got to stop 5, until we decided to have our lunch while we could research on the direction. And, we went to Panda Express for our lunch, it was a Chinese food restaurant, there we could choose dishes from the variety of choices, we shared a set of dishes as it was really big to me and it costed us USD7 for three dishes with fried noodle.
Shop of Panda Express, which I liked to call it Kungfu Panda :P
After some researches in the restaurant, we finally found the direction to our next stop, Eyrie Vineyards, this is a pioneering winery of pinot in Willamette Valley since 1970, I was long waiting to this first ever winery, but I was a little dissapointed when I saw it was just a wooden barn on the road as it doesn't look too much special as a pioneer winery to me.
However, Eryie Vineyards is totally different when I entered to the house as they are well-decorated and look elegant and classic inside, the tasting room is just after exhibition hall and there is only a female bartender with a quite environment.
As I told SL that I surely wanted to taste Eryie wine for their name as pioneer and SL allowed me for tasting, it costs USD5 per flight (5 wines taste), I think their wine should be the best among our tasting but I just didn't like it, because they all are too bitter to me, I prefer sweet dessert wine :P
Finally, we were at our last stop, Sake One, it is a Japanese winery and just close to our house at Forest Grove, I got known this winery through BM, who visited it before, then I just wanted to visit it too. This winery also provide a guided tour to their factory which held at 1pm, 2pm and 3pm. I think Sake One provided more tasting for customer, there we took the Toji flight with six wines tasting at USD5, but they allowed us to taste until seven wines :D
At first, I need to tell you that I was totally fine before Sake One wine tasting, I wasn't drunk at all before this, my face even didn't look red neither. However, I got drunk at Sake One, just right after a few wine tasted, SL saw my face turned red after second or third wine and I felt that I lost of balance after tasting :S This is my first time to get drunk in my life, I was feeling blur and week, so that I always lean against SL to make sure I could get balance of my body, I think I was really look funny that time.
Among all wineries, I think Sake One is the strongest one and I found really hard to drink it (except Plum Sake), they all are too dry and bitter, even bartender also can read my hardship :P After all, I didn't like Sake One wine except the Moonstone Plum Sake, which is sweet enough to me :P Also, I was attracted by Tsubaki Grand Shrine Junmai Ginjo Genshu, due to its special smell, their smell made me felt comfortable, but their taste was too dry for me.
My favourite in Sake One, Moonstone Plum Sake.
After sake tasting, we went to a factory guided tour at 3pm, it was meaningful that we could get known about how they produced the sake. However, I was too drunk and couldn't pay much attention during the tour and need to lean against SL to balance myself :P
Anyways, I found that people would still aware on their action when they get drunk, they won't totally fool by alcohol, this helps me realised that my drunk father actually only let himself lost of control only, drunk was an excuse to him to conduct violation action, this even dissapointed me what he had done to my family.
At last, we did some shopping at Sake One, there we bought our favourite Plum Sake for our retreat. Also, we found an on sale sake Murai Family Tokubetsu Honjozo at USD3, bartender told us it is only suitable on cooking only as it was expired on drinking period. Well, I am looking for rice cooking wine since I was in US, and how would I not to buy it at cheap price as USD3, this is what I really want :D And, I cooked my dinner with it, it really tasted good, yippie!!
Our favourite - Plum Sake.
Our tasty cooking sake - Murai Family Tokubetsu Honjozo.
This day, we had our trip ended early before 5pm, then we could enjoy our sharing time at home, the trip didn't make us too tired and we could enjoy our weekend happily.
Detail on our Willamette Valley Wineries Trip
Stop 1 (Hoover-Minthorn House)
Web: http://www.planetware.com/newberg/hoover-minthorn-house-museum-us-or-nbh.htm
Address
Hoover-Minthorn House Museum
115 South River Street
Newberg, OR 97132-3153
United States
Phone 1 (503) 538-6629
Tasting Room Hours
March 1 to November 30 : open 13:00 to 16:00 from Wed to Sun
December 1 to February 28: open 13:00 to 16:00 from Tues to Sun
January 1 to January 31: Closed
Cost
Adult $2.00
Senior $1.50
Students $1.50
Child 6-11 $.50
Stop 2 (Argyle Winery)
Web: http://www.argylewinery.com
Address
691 Highway 99W,
Dundee,
Oregon 97115
Tasting Room Hours: 11:00AM to 5:00PM daily, except major holidays
Tasting Fee - $10/flight, refundable with purchase of three bottles of wine.
Stop 3 (Sokol Blosser Winery)
Web: http://www.sokolblosser.com
Address
5000 NE Sokol Blosser Lane
Dayton, OR 97114
Phone: (503) 864-2282 Toll Free: (800) 582-6668
Fax: (503) 864-2710
Email: info@sokolblosser.com
Tasting Room Hours: from 10:00am - 4:00 pm.
Tasting Fee: $5.00 - $15.00 depending on what you'd like to taste.
Scheduled tours on Friday, Saturday and Sunday at 10:00am and 12:00pm.
Stop 4 (Chateau Benoit)
Web: http://www.catchwine.com/wineries/oregon/chateau_benoit_winery
Address
6580 NE Mineral Springs Road
Carlton, OR 97111
Phone 800-248-4835, 503-248-4835
Wine Web: www.chateaubenoit.com
Wine Tasting
Tasting offered: Unknown
Mon-Sun: No hours specified
Stop 5 (Eyrie Vineyards)
Web: http://www.eyrievineyards.com/journal
Address
The Eyrie Vineyards winery
935 NE 10th Avenue @ Alpine,
McMinnville,OR 97128
Tasting Room Hours: Wednesday through Sunday, 12:00 - 5:00
Tasting Fee: $5 per flight, refundable with purchase of two bottles of wine.
Phone:503.472.6315 or 888.440.4970
Email: emily@eyrievineyards.com
Stop 6 (Sake One)
Web: http://www.sakeone.com/sakeone/index.jsp
Address
820 Elm Street,
Forest Grove,
Oregon 97116
Forest Grove
Tasting Room Hours: 11:00 am to 5:00 pm, seven days a week.
Phone: 1-800-550-SAKE (Ext. 235)
Flight Options:
The Kura Flight includes four sakés from the Momokawa, G or Moonstone lines for $3.00
The Toji Flight includes the Kura flight plus two additional reserve sakés for $5.00. Our Saké Shock offers 5 wild and wonderful food and saké pairings for $10.00.
Kura (Brewery) Tours
Complimentary tours are given at 1:00, 2:00, and 3:00 pm, seven days a week.
This wineries trip is special because I was the trip planner for it, as all trips in US was planned by SL, therefore I did a lot of study on location and their specialist. There were six stops in total for our wineries trip, they are just in a loop, so that we weren't travelling too much and will be returned to our house after a circle trip. Originally, I thought it would be too much and would take our whole day, but it was just right and I could have sometime in home for some personal sharing, honestly I like it.
Actually, our first stop is Hoover-Minthorn House and it was not a winery location, but it was on the way of our trip, therefore I decided to take a stop and look around there. Hoover-Minthorn House actually is a museum, where is used to be a house of US 31st president, Herbert Hoover, who is an orphan and stayed with his autie at there during his childhood. However, the museum is only opened at noon time, therefore we didn't visit inside by just taking some pictures of the out front of the house, but their admission fee wasn't expensive with USD2 for adult.
Picture taken at outside of Hoover-Minthorn House.
Originally, we planned to visit Argyle Winery as our second venue as it was just on the route of all stops, but it was only opened after 11 am and we were too earlier, therefore we changed our plan to visit Sokol Blosser Winery first, which was our third location and it wasn't too far from Argyle Winery. Haha... there was some funny joke happened on our way to Sokol Blosser.
Before we went to a place, SL would search for route from Google Earth and we fellow the direction from Google Earth but we couldn't find our place, there were all grape plantation with some unmanned houses, we were doubt if we really could find a tasting room there. At the first place, we decided to give up our search and turned back to Argyle Winery by just taking some pictures of the beautiful grape plantation. Well, I need to say that our car was full with mud after we drove around the plantation.
After we decided to give up Sokol Blosser and drove until the roadside, we saw there was another route just next to our road, then we just took another tried to that road and saw it was the road from Google Earth direction, we realised that was some changes on road construction made us took a wrong way. Anyways, we were still successfully to get to Sokol Blosser Winery and I like this winery, as they got some self walk through for us to learn on their plant and wine. Also, those plantation view makes me felt there is really a place for winery.
After a walk-through at their vineyard, SL and I proceeded to their tasting room, it was USD10 for 5 wines, 2 white, 2 red and 1 dessert wines. From my personal thought, I think our bartender is really professional as she could explain to us on their products very well.
Well, we are not really good in wine tasting and we don't have any knowledge on wine tasting, therefore we just tasted them according to our favourite. To be honest, I didn't like dry and bitter wine, therefore I like the dessert wine the most as it is sweet :P Yes, just what I told you that we are really not a good wine taster.
Anyways, the second wine will come later of dessert wine, which is NV Evolution, Lucky Edition, it suited our taste the most. And, there we just learnt that NV is the wine from some mixture of grape from different places and years, so that winery can make the best wine. While if there is a year indicator, means they got the grape from the specific year, which is purely produced by the same grape.
Wine tasting menu.
Our favourite in Sokol Blosser Winery - 2007 White Riesing Dessert Wine, while this is not a pure wine as they also mixed with some other food and sugar.
After we visited the Sokol Blosser Winery, we returned to Argyle Winery, there was not plantation visit, but they got a Victorian style tasting room in a beautiful garden. When we stepped into the tasting room, we found a lot of people inside and it was noisy to me, Argyle tasting room was totally diffent with Sokol Blosser's to me, they look like more comercial.
Well, they menu is just for either white wine or red wine tasting and mixture is not allow, therefore we only chose for individual tasting, which is about USD2.50 to USD3 per taste, this consider more expensive than taking a flight, but we just didn't want to take it too much.
Finally, we chose a white dessert wine (2007 Minus Five) and a red wine (2006 Spirithouse Pinot Noir) for our tasting. Actually, SL and I prefer Argyle wine than Sokol Blosser as their dessert wine doesn't taste alcohol and sweet enough and the Spirithouse Pinot Noir tasted better than Sokol Blosser's, but we didn't like the tasting room becuase there was too crowdly and bartenders were too busy to serve every customer and they weren't abled to explain us on their products properly.
Argyle Winery Menu.
Later, we just proceeded to our third stop, Anne Amie or Chateau Benoit, it was really confused me at first because I wasn't sure if it is Anne Amie or Chateau Benoit, and I am still not really sure now, but I found both brands in their tasting room.
Anne Amie vineyard is located at a hilltop of Willamette Valley, therefore could oversee the view of Willamette Valley and their vineyard, it was beautiful.
Of course, we do take a walk in Chateau Benoit tasting room, it is a big and quite hall, I felt comfortable in the room, but we didn't take the tasting flight as we just didn't want to take it for this time, SL's face was turned red after the second and third stops. Anyways, we were really enjoyed at there with their beautiful scenery.
There was some path finding before we got to stop 5, until we decided to have our lunch while we could research on the direction. And, we went to Panda Express for our lunch, it was a Chinese food restaurant, there we could choose dishes from the variety of choices, we shared a set of dishes as it was really big to me and it costed us USD7 for three dishes with fried noodle.
Shop of Panda Express, which I liked to call it Kungfu Panda :P
After some researches in the restaurant, we finally found the direction to our next stop, Eyrie Vineyards, this is a pioneering winery of pinot in Willamette Valley since 1970, I was long waiting to this first ever winery, but I was a little dissapointed when I saw it was just a wooden barn on the road as it doesn't look too much special as a pioneer winery to me.
However, Eryie Vineyards is totally different when I entered to the house as they are well-decorated and look elegant and classic inside, the tasting room is just after exhibition hall and there is only a female bartender with a quite environment.
As I told SL that I surely wanted to taste Eryie wine for their name as pioneer and SL allowed me for tasting, it costs USD5 per flight (5 wines taste), I think their wine should be the best among our tasting but I just didn't like it, because they all are too bitter to me, I prefer sweet dessert wine :P
Finally, we were at our last stop, Sake One, it is a Japanese winery and just close to our house at Forest Grove, I got known this winery through BM, who visited it before, then I just wanted to visit it too. This winery also provide a guided tour to their factory which held at 1pm, 2pm and 3pm. I think Sake One provided more tasting for customer, there we took the Toji flight with six wines tasting at USD5, but they allowed us to taste until seven wines :D
At first, I need to tell you that I was totally fine before Sake One wine tasting, I wasn't drunk at all before this, my face even didn't look red neither. However, I got drunk at Sake One, just right after a few wine tasted, SL saw my face turned red after second or third wine and I felt that I lost of balance after tasting :S This is my first time to get drunk in my life, I was feeling blur and week, so that I always lean against SL to make sure I could get balance of my body, I think I was really look funny that time.
Among all wineries, I think Sake One is the strongest one and I found really hard to drink it (except Plum Sake), they all are too dry and bitter, even bartender also can read my hardship :P After all, I didn't like Sake One wine except the Moonstone Plum Sake, which is sweet enough to me :P Also, I was attracted by Tsubaki Grand Shrine Junmai Ginjo Genshu, due to its special smell, their smell made me felt comfortable, but their taste was too dry for me.
My favourite in Sake One, Moonstone Plum Sake.
After sake tasting, we went to a factory guided tour at 3pm, it was meaningful that we could get known about how they produced the sake. However, I was too drunk and couldn't pay much attention during the tour and need to lean against SL to balance myself :P
Anyways, I found that people would still aware on their action when they get drunk, they won't totally fool by alcohol, this helps me realised that my drunk father actually only let himself lost of control only, drunk was an excuse to him to conduct violation action, this even dissapointed me what he had done to my family.
At last, we did some shopping at Sake One, there we bought our favourite Plum Sake for our retreat. Also, we found an on sale sake Murai Family Tokubetsu Honjozo at USD3, bartender told us it is only suitable on cooking only as it was expired on drinking period. Well, I am looking for rice cooking wine since I was in US, and how would I not to buy it at cheap price as USD3, this is what I really want :D And, I cooked my dinner with it, it really tasted good, yippie!!
Our favourite - Plum Sake.
Our tasty cooking sake - Murai Family Tokubetsu Honjozo.
This day, we had our trip ended early before 5pm, then we could enjoy our sharing time at home, the trip didn't make us too tired and we could enjoy our weekend happily.
Detail on our Willamette Valley Wineries Trip
Stop 1 (Hoover-Minthorn House)
Web: http://www.planetware.com/newberg/hoover-minthorn-house-museum-us-or-nbh.htm
Address
Hoover-Minthorn House Museum
115 South River Street
Newberg, OR 97132-3153
United States
Phone 1 (503) 538-6629
Tasting Room Hours
March 1 to November 30 : open 13:00 to 16:00 from Wed to Sun
December 1 to February 28: open 13:00 to 16:00 from Tues to Sun
January 1 to January 31: Closed
Cost
Adult $2.00
Senior $1.50
Students $1.50
Child 6-11 $.50
Stop 2 (Argyle Winery)
Web: http://www.argylewinery.com
Address
691 Highway 99W,
Dundee,
Oregon 97115
Tasting Room Hours: 11:00AM to 5:00PM daily, except major holidays
Tasting Fee - $10/flight, refundable with purchase of three bottles of wine.
Stop 3 (Sokol Blosser Winery)
Web: http://www.sokolblosser.com
Address
5000 NE Sokol Blosser Lane
Dayton, OR 97114
Phone: (503) 864-2282 Toll Free: (800) 582-6668
Fax: (503) 864-2710
Email: info@sokolblosser.com
Tasting Room Hours: from 10:00am - 4:00 pm.
Tasting Fee: $5.00 - $15.00 depending on what you'd like to taste.
Scheduled tours on Friday, Saturday and Sunday at 10:00am and 12:00pm.
Stop 4 (Chateau Benoit)
Web: http://www.catchwine.com/wineries/oregon/chateau_benoit_winery
Address
6580 NE Mineral Springs Road
Carlton, OR 97111
Phone 800-248-4835, 503-248-4835
Wine Web: www.chateaubenoit.com
Wine Tasting
Tasting offered: Unknown
Mon-Sun: No hours specified
Stop 5 (Eyrie Vineyards)
Web: http://www.eyrievineyards.com/journal
Address
The Eyrie Vineyards winery
935 NE 10th Avenue @ Alpine,
McMinnville,OR 97128
Tasting Room Hours: Wednesday through Sunday, 12:00 - 5:00
Tasting Fee: $5 per flight, refundable with purchase of two bottles of wine.
Phone:503.472.6315 or 888.440.4970
Email: emily@eyrievineyards.com
Stop 6 (Sake One)
Web: http://www.sakeone.com/sakeone/index.jsp
Address
820 Elm Street,
Forest Grove,
Oregon 97116
Forest Grove
Tasting Room Hours: 11:00 am to 5:00 pm, seven days a week.
Phone: 1-800-550-SAKE (Ext. 235)
Flight Options:
The Kura Flight includes four sakés from the Momokawa, G or Moonstone lines for $3.00
The Toji Flight includes the Kura flight plus two additional reserve sakés for $5.00. Our Saké Shock offers 5 wild and wonderful food and saké pairings for $10.00.
Kura (Brewery) Tours
Complimentary tours are given at 1:00, 2:00, and 3:00 pm, seven days a week.
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