Wine tasting in Oregon

We've done many wine tasting trips down in Southern Oregon's Applegate valley, thanks to the generosity of the Lind family allowing us to stay at their ranch each summer. We love wine tasting there (favorites are Wooldridge Creek and Troon Vineyards) becuase the wineries are mostly small, intimate and not crowded. You end up chatting with the wine makers themselves more often than not. We keep hoping that area will gain recognition, but it is constantly overshadowed by Oregon's more popular wine region: Willamette valley.

The top of the Willamette (Will-aaaaaaa-met, not willa-met) valley is only a half hour drive from Portland so Way, Jimin and I headed that direction on Veteran's Day (holiday!). We wanted to check out just how fantastic these wines are, and if they can rightly bully our fav Southern Oregon wines.

Our first stop was Argyle's tasting room to try out their champagnes. We were super impressed they serve these champagnes in the White House, and they have the menus to prove it! I don't know much about champagnes, but thought they were tasty (albeit pricey).

Next, we went to Erath winery. The server was delightful - very friendly and chatty, so thumbs up for good service! The wines were okay, but mainly due to her friendliness, we ended up buying a few bottles of white.

Lastly, we stopped at Torii Mor, mainly becuase it was open and down the road from Erath. The wine room is a cute little house with lots of Japanese influences (including a small garden). This was our most disappointing tasting though - out of the 6 pours, 4 were pinot noirs! None of us are big fans of pinot so it was a bit wasted on us. That, and the bottles were on the expensive side (~$60) and the wine pourer seemed a bit full of himself (referring to the winery as "I" when he was obviously not the owner, as evidenced by the picture behind him).

My verdict: I still love Applegate, but Willamette might edge out Woodinville (outside Seattle) for the 2nd place finish. I'm going to have to try more wineries in both areas before I can make the final call.