“Violets are great in my book,” verified Anna Matzinger, who makes red wine along with her husband, Michael Davies, under the label Matzinger Davies Red wine Business in McMinnville, Ore., about 40 miles southwest of Portland in the heart of the wine-growing Willamette Valley, as we nosed into a sample of her pinot noir. “I’m looking for fruit, flower, spice and earth in an excellent pinot noir.”
I was looking for an available red wine region– in regards to rate, transport and hospitality– when I went to the Willamette, which runs just over 100 miles from the borders of Portland to just south of Eugene. Here, in the mid-1960s, pioneering wine makers started growing grapes, especially the picky pinot noir range that has considering that thrived, drawing in more than 750 wineries today, many intimate adequate for the wine makers themselves to guide tastings.
“There’s an unique diurnal change in the Willamette Valley,” described Ms. Matzinger, noting that an 80-degree day can fall to 40 over night, a plunge that motivates grapes to maintain their level of acidity. “That makes it nervy-delicious, like the spinal cord of the white wine.”
So began my newest vocabulary lesson in red wine in the season most connected with sipping: fall. When the weather turns cool enough to recommend earthy reds over cooled whites, the harvest attracts fans to wineries energized by the selecting, sorting and squashing of grapes.Rare amongst American wine regions, the Willamette Valley is connected to a public transportation system that connects Portland to McMinnville, removing the”last mile “afflict of public transportation systems that tend to strand riders simply shy of their destinations. McMinnville is a pedestrian-friendly town of roughly 35,000 that acts as the location’s hub. Taking the bus there would enable me to avoid driving to wineries– a precaution, provided my lack of discipline to spit adequately at tastings– and to concentrate on the nearly 20 tasting spaces concentrated in town.Catching the bus By westbound light rail and southbound bus, getting to McMinnville is simple, if time consuming.From the Portland airport, I took the TriMet MAX Light Rail Red Line($2.50)connecting to
the westbound Blue Line, which crosses the Willamette River and threads past downtown landmarks to the city’s green residential areas, reaching the last stop, in Hillsboro, in about an hour.In Hillsboro, I wandered around the station looking for the Yamhill County Transit bus that runs between the residential area of Portland and McMinnville before a TriMet staff member directed me to a curb across the street. “It’s a Podunk little town,
“he laughed, when I questioned the absence of signage.”I’m not exactly sure they even charge a fare.” They don’t. Fares were dropped in the pandemic, according to the motorist of the bus, which looked more like an airport
hotel shuttle bus than a basic city coach.The advantage of taking mass transit, aside from the savings, was not having to browse, enabling
me– among four passengers on the run– to enjoy the hourlong flight along rural Path 47 to McMinnville with drop in other white wine towns, including Yamhill and Carlton.’
Connected to the crop ‘From the last bus stop, downtown at the McMinnville Transit Center, I walked four blocks to explore the Hotel Oregon, a 1905 revival run by the Portland-based brewing company McMenamins. Corridors filled with classic photos, folk art and hand-painted
homages to regional wineries set a cool tone for guests remaining in its 42 inexpensive rooms (I paid$125 a night for a room with a shared restroom)and a popular rooftop bar with continuous views of the surrounding hills.Outside, dining establishments, hotels, breweries and white wine tasting spaces were within simple strolling range. A Noah’s ark of downtown retailers suggested life pre-Amazon: a record store, organic grocer, bike shop, bookstore (with a table of” prohibited books” decorated in paper chains )and more attracting restaurants than a lot of towns could support.More than 250 wineries lie within
20 minutes ‘drive of McMinnville, historically understood for walnuts, turkeys and hazelnuts, prior to white wine. (Most of those wineries are not available by public transport, but with numerous tasting rooms in the area, you probably won’t see.)” McMinnville’s history has constantly been connected to the crop,”said Erin Stephenson, whom I fulfilled at her art-filled 36-room Atticus Hotel(spaces from$285)around the block from the Oregon.”Until grapes were planted about 50 years ago, we never had a crop that drew outdoors interest. “Biking red wine nation To get a sense of the nation in wine nation, I leased a hybrid bike one early morning from Mac Bike Rentals($45 a day)
for a rural trip with Remy Drabkin, the owner of and winemaker at Remy Wines, founder of the annual Wine Country Pride occasion and interim mayor of McMinnville, dressed in rainbow-striped sweat socks pulled over black leggings.Ms. Drabkin, who matured in the location, informed me she wanted to be a winemaker from the age of 8 as we got the 14-mile Youngberg Hill loop west of town.” We’re not the center
of the Willamette Valley geographically,” she surveyed,” but in many ways McMinnville has actually been an incubator for the white wine industry.”As we pedaled past farm fields, orchards and the periodic winery on gently trafficked two-lane roadways, stopping to forage for wild blackberries, Ms. Drabkin described growing up with the kids of the founding wine makers of the area, now next-generation vintners. She also explained her interest in the plummy lagrein grape variety from Northern Italy that she grows at her vineyard, which might be more durable in a warming climate.At one bend in the roadway, we stopped to take in a view she called”normally Willamette,” with stands of Douglas fir, hazelnut orchards, haystacks six to eight bales high and patches
of vines frequently planted at dizzy angles.In-town tastings I could have ridden to a number of peripheral wineries, but with nearly 20 to pick from in town, I prevented impaired biking and returned my bike, setting out on foot to reach among the farthest in-town wineries– simply shy of 10 minutes ‘walk from downtown– at the Eyrie Vineyards in the Granary District, a previous grain storage center newly hosting wineries, breweries, a coffee roaster and
an under-construction tiny-house hotel.A wood-clad previous turkey processing plant homes Eyrie, one of the valley’s oldest wineries. In 1965, its founder, David Lett, left Northern California for the Willamette– the Dundee Hills, particularly,
roughly 10 miles from town– where he believed, correctly, that pinot noir would flourish.Today, his boy Jason Lett makes Eyrie red wines, which are served at the just recently reopened winery. Tastings are seated and by consultation($40 ), legacies of the pandemic that numerous believe have actually improved the experience.” Some popular locations were simply throwing wine at individuals,”said Ed Gans, a longtime Eyrie staff member, pouring a splash of the velvety 2020 pinot gris.”It became a much better experience for visitors and more interesting for the servers.
You can have a conversation about red wine.”Pinot noirs came next– complex, interesting, tough to spit– but as at several wineries, talk segued to other varietals, particularly chardonnay, which Anna Matzinger at Matzinger Davies, my next stop about 6 blocks away, described as a creative difficulty specified more by fermentation and aging choices made by the vintner after harvest and less about farming variables. “It can be more of a blank canvas, more winemaker-y in such a way,”she stated, as we drank her variation, more tight, refreshing and flower than my grocery-store associate with the varietal.”It’s a wine print or thumbprint to express your design. “2 blocks south, on the shop -and restaurant-lined 3rd Street, I stopped into Pike Road winery, a town newbie and brother or sister brand to the more recognized Willamette winery Elk Cove. Prepare for a tasting space among the grapevines won’t supplant the downtown tasting space, according to Dane Campbell, its director of retail sales.”There’s a lot going on here, we wished to belong of it, “he stated, pouring a juicy 2020 pinot noir, and proclaiming the area as a valley hub.An obstruct down 3rd, at R. Stuart & Co. White wine Bar, one of McMinnville’s pioneering urban tasting spaces, I succumbed to the gleaming rosé recommended by my ebullient server, Nora Angus.”If I have one desire in life, it’s to be embalmed in Rosé d’Or,”she declared, describing the red wine.”It’s rich, soft, glamorous and romantic, like a velvet teddy bear.”Food pairings As the Willamette is to pinot– upstart, refined, friendly– McMinnville is to food, a little gamer with a big appetite fed by chefs and restaurateurs drawn to the abundance of location farms.Before my very first tasting round, I downed a generous BLT ($14)– with treasure tomatoes from local Even Pull Farm– about a block from R. Stuart at Community Plate. Later, at the thronged Pizza Capo across the street, I over-ordered with a wood-fired Valley Unique pizza studded with locally grown purple potatoes, Calabrian chiles and pesto($18)
.”You can’t show wines without something gorgeous to combine them with,” said Courtney Cunningham, a partner in both restaurants.
We met the next early morning over dark roasts at Flag & Wire Coffee in the Granary District. “I’ve been to plenty of red wine suppers where farmers appear, too,”as included guests, she added.Tastings, significantly, integrate food. The wine maker Evan Martin, who runs Martin Woods Winery, opened HiFi White wine Bar on 3rd Street, in 2015, which he calls his”Covid task, “a 1916 store with vintage-appropriate touches including Meadow Design stained glass windows alongside a custom-made
chandelier made from pinot noir vine trunks and a D.J.-ready noise system.As John Coltrane spun, we sampled Mr. Martin’s unforeseen white wines (tastings from $35 )accompanied by tinned fish($ 13), local cheese( $11)and a Castelvetrano olive tapenade($11) that echoed the green notes in his syrah.”Mainly this location is not about showcasing my white wines,”he said of his global cellar.” What this neighborhood wants is a wine bar. “”Neighborhood”is something of a rallying cry in McMinnville, where winemakers speak about sharing forklifts and chefs praise competitors. At the 10,000-square-foot Mac Market, an all-day dining establishment and meeting place in the Granary District(and my farthest walk, at 10 minutes ), I fulfilled the co-owner Diana Riggs and the chef Kari Shaughnessy, likewise a partner in the business, over shared plates of thick sourdough($5 ), Turkish fermented zucchini fritters ($15 ), intense lamb curry ($17) and, for dessert, mouthwatering fermented cornbread with peaches( $11). We consumed Cho champagne from the only Korean American wine maker in the valley and talked about the partners’viewpoint of low-impact dining, consisting of tap red wines, zero-waste butchery and a market on-site to offer excess fruit and vegetables and sauces.” When we talked about what we wanted, it was complete tables, friends eating dinner, full bottles of wine, “said the chef.”That was the goal: community.”Every thriving community requires a public transit system,
and even if my return bus carried just six other travelers from the nation toward the city, it’s a sustainable start.Elaine Glusac writes the Prudent Traveler column. Follow her on Instagram @eglusac.