Tasting and Touring Oregon's Wine Countries

A Winery for Everyone!

What kind of wine do you like - red, white, pink ... dry, kind of sweet, really sweet ... still, fortified, sparkling?

Whatever your vinous fancy, someone in Oregon is making a wine you'll love - and somewhere there's a winery you can visit to discover it.

In fact, wine touring is one of Oregon's most pleasurable - and unheralded - activities. This is as true for natives as it is out-of-state visitors.

With more than 220 different wineries throughout Oregon, the state offers a vast variety of grapes and styles - enough for almost any palate preference. And one of the great things about Oregon is that our wine countries - unlike some other states I might mention - are remarkably crowd-free, friendly, relaxed and accessible (fees for tasting wine, for instance, are uncommon).

It's Really Wine Country
only real drawback to visiting Oregon's wine countries is the fact that most of our wineries are located outside of the state's population centers. This means that to fully experience Oregon wines in their "natural habitat," you'll need to have some extra time - and a car - at your disposal.

Of course, this rural nature of Oregon's wine countries is also one of its greatest strengths. Visiting our wineries is usually a relaxed and civilized affair with lots of rolling green hills, distant snow-capped mountains and plenty of fresh unpolluted air.

To help you plan a satisfying Oregon wine touring experience, I'm profiling each of Oregon's major wine touring areas-plus some "insider tips" on how to get the most out of your visit to our wineries.

I'll make some winery recommendations as guides because some aspect of the winery and / or its wines are noteworthy.

But don't limit yourself to just these wineries. There are many other wineries open for visits and it's always worthwhile exploring.

Planning Your Oregon Wine Tour
In order to enjoy your wine touring to the fullest, it's important that you start out with a good plan that reflects your own personal interests, and the natural flow of the seasons. Most wineries, for instance, are very busy during harvest time - late September and early October - and are often closed in the winter months from November through March.

The best time to visit is in the spring or summer, when the vines are growing green and the winemakers are less pressured by the demands of the field. Often at the smaller wineries you can have a chance to meet the winemaker this time of year, or at least savor a more relaxed visit.

On the map of winegrowing areas, Oregon is currently divided into five American Viticultural Areas (commonly called "AVAs" or "appellations"), each one with its own appeal and personality (a number of new AVAs have been proposed, but they haven't yet been approved).

To help plan your visit, it is useful to understand that each of these appellations can also be thought of as being primarily in a cool-climate or a warm-climate region (For more on this, click here.)

Choosing a Region to Visit
Which wine region you choose to visit should be based on two key criteria: what kinds of wines you like and where else in Oregon you want to visit.

For help in determining which wines are produced in which regions, consult this chart.

For instance, if you really like cabernet sauvignon and merlot (both warm climate wine varieties) and have your heart set on visiting wineries that produce these kinds of wines, then don't plan on visiting Oregon's North Willamette Valley region.

The North Willamette is a cool-climate region and neither cabernet sauvignon nor merlot are grown there, nor are these wines made in any volume in that area. For these wines, you should visit Oregon's southern appellations, primarily the Applegate Valley and Rogue Valley appellations.

Of course, it is also important to factor in the surrounding areas in planning your visit. If you are only going to stay in the Portland area, for instance, then it won't be practical for you to visit the warm-climate appellations. In that case, you will be better off taking an adventurous attitude and experiment with Oregon's cool-climate wines.

When to Travel
The other thing to consider is travel times. Nearly all of Oregon's wine regions are rural, which means they require a minimum of about an hour's drive from any population center. So consider where you want to visit and plan your wine country tour accordingly.

Here is another handy little chart that maps wine appellations with population centers in Oregon.

Ideally, you should plan for a weekend stay (or better yet, a three-day weekend) if you really want to get the full flavor of a wine region. This allows for visits to three or four wineries per day in a leisurely manner.

The northern part of Oregon's Willamette Valley appellation is so large, for example, that it's convenient to divide it into north and south halves. It's also the best known, most visited and most highly populated part of Oregon's wine countries - a great place to start.

To help you further learn about Oregon's world of wine and to provide a useful companion to this series of articles, I suggest you order a free copy of "Vintage Oregon" from the Oregon Wine Advisory Board. You can order online at www.oregonwine.org. This booklet will give you maps, complete winery descriptions and contact information.

Cole Danehower publishes the Oregon Wine Report, writes for Northwest Palate magazine, and is a member of the Oregon Wine Advisory Board. He can be contacted at cole@harborside.com.