Willamette Valley

July 24 – August 3, 2021

Travel to our next destination took us along the Oregon coast on US 101 through Coos Bay until we reached Reedsport near the Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area. There we started driving east on Oregon 38, a lovely drive along the Umpqua River for quite a while. At the junction with I-5 north we started north into the Willamette Valley.

The Willamette Valley is 150 miles long and up to 60 miles wide making it Oregon’s largest AVA. It runs from the Columbia River in Portland south through Salem to the Calapooya Mountains outside Eugene. Named for the river that flows through it, the Willamette Valley has the largest concentration of wineries and vineyards in Oregon and includes seven appellations within its borders: Chehalem Mountains, Dundee Hills, Eola-Amity Hills, McMinnville, Ribbon Ridge, Van Duzer Corridor and Yamhill-Carlton. The valley is recognized as one of the premier wine producing areas in the world. It is most widely known for its award winning Pinot noir, but consistently earns top honors for other such cool-climate varieties as Pinot gris, Chardonnay and Pinot blanc.

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From the description above, I bet you know why we stopped here (even though it was about 30 degrees warmer than on the coast).

Salem

Since our first choice RV park was already full when we made our travel plans, we opted to stay at the Phoenix RV Park in Salem. This was actually a very nice park with paved roads – no dust! – concrete and grass sites, trees and landscaping. They had a very effective sprinkler system that ran on various nights around 10:30 – something I frequently forgot when taking the dog out.

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The park was situated directly behind a Safeway Supermarket so getting groceries was easy. For an added plus, there was a pizza place (Odd Moe’s Pizza) in the same shopping complex that had great pizza and delivered to the RV park. Civilization!!

How About Some Dinking Practice?

Prior to our first wine excursion, we decided it would be prudent to get some exercise. We found some tennis courts with Pickleball lines a few miles away from the campground. There we practiced some dinking (that’s right dinking not drinking), third shot drops, and serves before playing a couple of games (which Bill won).

Willamette Valley Vineyards

Our first Oregon wine tasting experience was at Willamette Valley Vineyard.

Our approach is to grow, by hand, the highest quality fruit using careful canopy management and yield balance, to achieve wines that are truly expressive of the varietal and the place where they are grown. We ferment and barrel each vineyard lot separately and display the best of these in our single vineyard designate bottlings. Our stylistic emphasis is on pure varietal fruit characters, with attention to depth, richness of mouthfeel and balance. The wines are truly a collaborative effort of the entire vineyard and winemaking staff.

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Once seated in their Estate Tasting room, we chose their Reserve Flight tasting and added the Chef’s Artisanal Platter (cheese, meats, pickled grapes, and 5-spiced almonds). We had an amazing server who went out of her way to make our visit memorable. She started us with a taste of Pinot Gris just to cleanse the pallet and cool us down as the day was very hot. Then she led us though the flight consisting of Chardonnay, two Pinot Noirs, Malbec, and Cabernet Sauvignon providing information about where the various grapes were sourced. She had us taste one of the wines in two differently shaped wine glasses (one specifically designed for Pinot Noir) to highlight how the wine glass can change the taste. That was amazing!

When we told her that we were going to be in the Tri-Cities, Washington area later in our journey, she let us taste a Cabernet Sauvignon from one of their sister wineries there. Then, when she found out that we liked Riesling and Port she let us taste those as well. Needless to say, we had a great time and purchased several bottles for our “wine cellar” closet.

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Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum

After a couple of “recuperation” days, we drove to the McMinnville area to visit the Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum.

With displays ranging from the elegant aeronautic designs of two bike mechanics – Orville and Wilbur Wright – to an actual Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird that can fly at speeds of over 2,000 miles per hour – the Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum located in McMinnville, Oregon, has a little something for everyone.

The centerpiece of these aeronautic breakthroughs is the original Spruce Goose. Built entirely of wood due to wartime restrictions on metals, this massive airplane stands as a symbol of American industry during World War II.

Founded in the memory of Captain Michael King Smith, our exhibits celebrate the lives of innovators, pilots, and veterans who courageously pioneered flight in these remarkable machines. Plan a visit and learn more about the museum as you immerse yourself in history with our ever-expanding attractions and amenities.

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Due to a closed ferry crossing that our GPS didn’t know about, we arrived at the museum 30 minutes later than we planned. That delay forced us to choose between the museum tour and the Spruce Goose cockpit tour. We decided to tour the museum on our own and scheduled the cockpit tour.

Hughes H-4 Hercules

The largest wooden airplane ever constructed, and flown only one time, the Spruce Goose represents one of humanity’s greatest attempts to conquer the skies. It was born out of a need to move troops and material across the Atlantic Ocean, where in 1942, German submarines were sinking hundreds of Allied ships. Henry Kaiser, steel magnate and shipbuilder, conceived the idea of a massive flying transport and turned to Howard Hughes to design and build it. Hughes took on the task, made even more challenging by the government’s restrictions on materials critical to the war effort, such as steel and aluminum. Six times larger than any aircraft of its time, the Spruce Goose, also known as the Hughes Flying Boat, is made entirely of wood.

The winged giant made only one flight on November 2, 1947. The unannounced decision to fly was made by Hughes during a taxi test. With Hughes at the controls, David Grant as co-pilot, and several engineers, crewmen and journalists on board, the Spruce Goose flew just over one mile at an altitude of 70 feet for one minute. The short hop proved to skeptics that the gigantic machine could fly.

Perhaps always dreaming of a second flight, Hughes retained a full crew to maintain the mammoth plane in a climate-controlled hangar up until his death in 1976.

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The original plan for the aircraft was to have huge clam shell doors in the nose (not uncommon in large transport aircraft that were starting to be used during World War Two). Hughes was worried though that in the event of an accident the mighty flying boat could well fill with water through those doors and sink. As such he re-designed it to have a solid nose and came up with a rather unique (and unusual) method to increase the buoyancy of the H-4 by filling the void spaces in the lower hull and wing floats with inflatable bladders and beach balls.

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Although overshadowed by the Spruce Goose there are lots of smaller craft on display in both sections of the museum. Here are just a few.

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Our time at the museum was limited as we had scheduled a tasting at a winery about 15 minutes away from the museum.

Archery Summit

Gary Andrus launched Archery Summit in 1993, infatuated by Pinot Noir and the capacity the Willamette Valley seemed to have for it. The Dundee Hills in particular caught his eye, because it shares similar growing conditions with Burgundy, France, and some of the most acclaimed Pinot Noir vineyards on earth.

A veteran winemaker with a résumé full of award-winning Napa Valley wines, Andrus sharpened his craft at sister winery Pine Ridge Vineyards. He founded that label in 1978, going on to specialize in vineyard-designate wines, tied tightly and evocatively to the sites they pulled from.

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Since the indoor cave tasting wasn’t available when we made our reservation, we opted for the Estate Tasting on the terrace which we enjoyed despite the heat. The tasting consisted of a Chardonnay and 4 Pinot Noirs of increasing intensity and body. Of course we found several that we liked which we added to our growing “cellar”.

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St. Innocent Winery

The next day we headed out for a tasting at St. Innocent Winery.

St. Innocent began as an idea conceived in a moment of passion and inspiration in 1983. Mark Vlossak spent the next five years studying, taking classes, and apprenticing with Oregon wine pioneer, Fred Arterberry. In 1988, St. Innocent Winery was founded. Our goal is to produce wines that respect the quality and tradition of the Old World in one of the newest and most exciting wine growing regions on the planet: Oregon’s Willamette Valley.  

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Here we chose their 5 Pinot Noir Discovery with Bistro Board and took an inside table overlooking the production floor. The differences in the vintages highlighting the 5 vineyards (Justice, Temperance Hill, Momtazi, Shea, and Freedom Hill) were amazing especially as we tried different bites from the Bistro Board (cheeses, meats, fruit, olives and a spiced caramel popcorn. Popcorn? It really worked to bring out the flavor of some of the wines.) OK, so our cellar grew a bit more.

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Leaving St. Innocent, we decided to finish the day with dessert and some Pinot Noir port style wine at Willamette Valley Winery. After all, it was on the way back to the RV. What a sweet ending to our stay in Oregon!