Day 2 in Willamette Valley

For our second full day in Oregon, we headed up to the Dundee/Newberg area to check out some more wineries. We started off with a very short nature walk at Crabtree Park before starting our day drinking bright and early at 10:00 AM!

I am so glad I reached out to Hyland Estates Winery, because they gave us such a great experience! I told them we were visiting for our anniversary, and they helped us celebrate so nicely!

Twyla made this cute little sign and spread for us (with mini macarons!)

These young vines were labeled by type of grape for each row.

It never occurred to me that wine barrels needed to be washed, and I had never heard of lees, which are the dead yeast cells left over after the whole aging process. So here they are washing the lees out of the barrels (although sometimes the lees are saved).

Brian, their winemaker, showed us ALL the barrels they have, and we even had tastes straight from the barrels!

They had these very large barrels, and because of the wood-to-wine ratio, the oak has less of an impact on the taste of the wine.

So not only did we have a wine tasting, but we got our own private tour of the facilities, too! We learned a lot, and their pinot noirs were exceptional. Such a great way to start the day!

Originally I had thought about visiting Furioso Vineyards next, but because our first tasting lasted nearly three hours (!), I pushed our schedule so we went to Knudsen Vineyards, where they allow picnic lunches. Unfortunately their wines were not good, and the pours were so small! We joked that we paid $35 for less than the equivalent of one glass of mediocre wine. 

At least the scenery was pretty at Knudsen!

But the day was not over! We finished our tastings with some Ransom spirits at Duck Pond Cellars, where we tried their Old Tom gin, some bourbon and brandy, and discovered génépi, an herbal liqueur, which is quite delicious!

The landscaping at Duck Pond was so pretty. The flowers were amazing! Here are a few:

After our tastings, we went back into McMinnville for the evening. We started off with ice cream from Serendipity, drinks on the rooftop of 1882 Grille, and dinner at Taste of India #1.

Just one more full day in wine country before we head up to Portland. But we're loving the cooler weather and countrysides out here in Willamette for now!