Weekend Wine Tours

Ok, so my last post covered my love for fishing and my first big Oregon fish. Today's post leads us to one of the many other things in my life that I really enjoy, wine and wine tours. Oregon is home to some of the best soil in the world, soil for growing grapes , yep wine grapes. The Willamette Valley is just a short drive for me and is a favorite place to escape to after a long week. The Willamette Valley is a couple of hundred miles of beautiful river valley nestled between the Cascade and Oregon Coast range, the Willamette river runs the entire length of the valley. This valley is home to many wonderful places but is famous for it's ability to produce some of the best wine grapes in the world. One of the most popular grapes grown in the valley is the Pino Noir. It's a beautiful grape who's name is derived from the French language and translates to pine black. Anyone that knows me well knows that I love wine, especially red wine, the darker, heavier, the better. I have always enjoyed a heavy, full bodied Cabernet, the Napa type but I have made a special effort to explore Pino's. I've got to confess that when I started down this path I was a bit skeptical of this grape, I saw it as thin and light. Over the past few months, I have had the opportunity to visit a few of our wineries and take a few wine flights. There are over 500 wineries in the Willamette Valley, I have lots of choices so these weekend getaways will be noted here often. I am learning a lot about the Pino Noir grape and the wine making on these trips. I learned this weekend that not all Pino Noir's  are red, I tried a wonderful white Pino Noir this past weekend while visiting a local winery. So, there I was driving down the highway near the Southern end of the Valley looking for a winery to visit and I saw it, the sign said it all, Left Coast Winery. This sign spoke to me in many ways, the look of the sign, it's location, the rolling hills covered in grape vines but the fact that it was called "Left Coast" sealed the deal. You see, I love politics and I tend to lean,, scratch that, I tend to lay to the left, we will touch on politics in future posts I'm sure but for now back to that left turn. I drove up that winding driveway which opened to a beautiful winery. It was a family run operation and apparently has been a labor of love for many years. It was perfect in many ways, warm, comfortable with pathways thru the vineyards, places to sit and relax and enjoy. Left Coast had many nice wine varieties and an offering of cheese and meats to snack on. There are special dinners from time to time that are set on a great patio overlooking the vineyard, they were preparing for the annual Fall Harvest Dinner when I arrived, next year for sure...That's it for now my friends, until next time. I leave you with pics from my weekend visit to Left Coast Vineyards in the Willamette Valley.