pre-moon, day four
Time for another chapter in the days of preparation before our awesome, epic wedding. On Thursday, the out-of-town guests and I set out across the Tualatin Valley in search of fantastic wine. We did it all: small private vineyards, big corporate places, and everywhere in between.
We started at Beran Vineyards, quite literally a mom ‘n’ pop shop a few miles south of home (and you wonder where I live where I do?!?). Sharon and Bill put up this place when they retired, and they were making Pinot decades before Sideways made it fashionable. They make super-small batches from their fields overlooking a brilliant view of the valley. Their 2004 Estate Pinot Noir has it all: apricot, cherry, and mineral—all in a deceptively clear body. They also gave us cask tastings of their next release, in between bouts of fetch with their rubber-ball-obsessed dog, Karma.
The visit at Beran was like a nice, long chat with family. By the time it was over, we were getting hungry, so we headed to Maggie’s Buns, a staple of Forest Grove collegiate funky eclecticism. Brilliant quiche and even better sticky buns.
Did you know Forest Grove has basically the nation’s only real sakéry? I had no idea until I planned this wine tour! Saké One led us by their fermentation room and tanks. We even got to taste the koji, the sweet, breakfast-cereal-like moldy rice that’s the secret of good saké. Everything we sipped here was lovely, but the G Joy genshu (cask-strength) saké was simply incredible. It began with smooth, cantaloupe roundness, and then exploded into kind of a mental movie of rice fields in the sun, milled grain pouring into burlap bags, the clank of the tank room, and all the other sweat that goes into making this elixir. You could (and should) spend the afternoon on just one sip.
From there, we wound uphill and west of Forest Grove to David Hill, with a gorgeous view and an almost-too-cute house / tasting room. If you can overlook all the kitschy wine accessories, David Hill has some solid wines here. The most pleasant surprise is their Farmhouse Red, an inexpensive table wine that tastes like a hell of a lot more than nine bucks. Value for the money, I’m tellin’ ya.
How could we follow that up? Not with Frass Canyon, that’s for dang sure. (Incidentally, is it mean to tag a real-world vineyard with the name of the cheesy corporate place from “Sideways?”). No, we passed that one by.
We had to find a place that had dogs-in-residence, the way Beran did. We found it in Elk Cove, a source of overpriced reds, but super whites. Each one was a surprise: a Riesling that doesn’t give you insulin shock, a Pinot Gris hiding a burst of pear, and a Viognier that—look, I don’t know what the hell a Viognier is, but today it was fruit and minerals all in one.
At the end of the day, it felt like I’d fed my guests half of Oregon. Awesome.