Author Archives: Cathy Gartley

Domaine Serene

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Domaine Serene Winery

Domaine Serene Winery

6555 NE Hilltop Ln, Dayton, OR 97114

Website: http://www.domaineserene.com/

An outdoor patio at Domaine Serene

An outdoor patio at Domaine Serene

Domaine Serene is located in Dundee Hills off Breyman Orchards Road near several other wineries. The entrance is directly across from the entrance to Domaine Drouhin.  This is probably the most prestigious winery I visited in Oregon. As my friend and I drove up to the winery we had a beautiful view of row upon row of vines.   The winery is housed in a Mediterranean style building. There is a nice outdoor patio in front of the entrance to the tasting room with a few tables and umbrellas. There is another outdoor area and wine bar to the side of the building. One of the defining features of the winery is a large sculpture of a wooly mammoth that looks like it is made of sticks. Our hostess explained to us that it represents the history of the area where wooly mammoth bones were once found.

Sculpture of a wooly mammoth

Sculpture of a wooly mammoth

Ken and Grace Evenstad started Domaine Serene in 1989 and named the winery after their daughter Serene. They have been receiving 90+ scores for their Pinot Noirs since they produced their first wine in 1990. The five-level gravity flow winery was completed in 2001 and opened its tasting room to the public in 2005. Domaine Serene has helped to bring recognition to Oregon wines in the media and to the rest of the wine world.

This winery is one of the more popular wineries in the area. When I visited, both the indoor and outdoor tasting bars were full and there were a couple of group tours coming through while we were there.

Tasting bar at Domaine Serene

Tasting bar at Domaine Serene

The indoor tasting bar is not very large fitting about 6 people side-by-side. The rest of the room can seat several groups of people. The room has wood flooring and wood paneling on the ceiling with several tables and chairs for seated tastings. Since it was so crowded when we came in and there was no space at the tasting bar, one of the servers behind the bar offered for us to take a seat and she came to our table to do the tasting. We were offered two tasting options, a Classic and a Reserve tasting. The Reserve tasting is a little pricey.  It was double the price of the Classic tasting, but I chose to pay the higher price because I wanted to try some wines I wouldn’t find back home. I was pleasantly surprised when the server brought over a dish of food to sample with the wines. It made the Reserve tasting more worthwhile in my opinion. Plus, I ended up only paying the price of the Classic tasting because I purchased a couple bottles of wine.

Their wines are excellent. The Evenstad Reserve Pinot Noir is their flagship wine and has won lots of awards. I have tried this wine before and think it’s a great Pinot Noir. I enjoyed the white wines as well. My favorite wine from the tasting was the Rockblock Syrah. I was sad to hear that they are going to stop producing it, so I took a couple of bottles home with me. The hospitality we received was great despite the number of people there! The girl who served us was very friendly and did a nice job explaining each wine to us. This winery is well worth the visit but expect a crowd.

Andretti Winery

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Andretti Winery

Andretti Winery

4162 Big Ranch Road, Napa, CA 94558

Website: http://andrettiwinery.com/

Fountain inside the courtyard at Andretti Winery

Fountain inside the courtyard at Andretti Winery

Andretti Winery is named after the champion race car driver Mario Andretti. The winery and tasting room is located off the southern end of the Silverado Trail. The outside décor gives a feeling of being in a small Italian town. From the parking lot, an archway leads to a small courtyard with an Italian-style fountain in the center.

I have visited this winery a few times and the hospitality has always been great.  I was told that Mario himself sometimes drops in the tasting room but I haven’t had the opportunity to meet him yet. This winery has a fairly large selection of wines to choose from.  They offer a few white wines and a larger selection of high quality red wines, including some Italian style ones. There are some sweeter selections as well, like Riesling, Moscato, and Port.  The tasting room also includes a small shop that has race car souvenirs, clothing, and wine accessories.

Thieving wine from a barrel at Andretti Winery

Thieving wine from a barrel at Andretti Winery

There are several different tasting experiences available from the classic tasting at the wine bar to sit down tastings in the Tuscan House or barrel tastings in the Barrel room.  The special tastings require reservations.  Check out their website for details and a 2 for 1 tasting coupon.

This winery often hosts special dinner events.  As wine club members, my husband and I were invited to attend a charity dinner at the winery. Tables were set up in the back of the winery along the vineyard. White lights were strung around the dining area to provide soft lighting as the sun went down. The chef cooked an Italian dinner that included “Nona’s” authentic meatballs. It was a relaxing evening of eating and sipping wine, and we made some new friends from the area.  It is not necessary to be a wine club member to participate in all of the events.  You can view upcoming events and purchase tickets on their website.

Oregon

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I recently visited Oregon wine country with my friend Denise. We are both big fans of Pinot Noir and had talked about visiting for several years. Any time I mentioned wanting to visit Oregon to people who had been there they would tell me it is a beautiful state. After finally making the trip out there, I am in total agreement. The best description I can provide from the areas of Oregon that I visited, outside of the city of Portland, is that it is very rural with lots of wide open land and farms. Driving through the state in many areas we would see fields of green that stretched far out with mountains off in the distance.

There are several different valleys that make up Oregon wine country. We spent our time in a couple different areas of the Willamette Valley. On our first day of exploring wineries we headed to Southern Willamette Valley to Monmouth and Monroe. Our must see stop on day one was Benton Lane even though it was out of the way from where we were staying. Benton Lane was the first Pinot Noir I ever tried from Oregon and I fell in love with it immediately. Their wine is what got Denise and me talking about visiting Oregon in the first place. Over the course of the day we also visited Airlie, Emerson, Tyee, and Willamette Valley Vineyards. We enjoyed each one for different reasons.

On day two we spent our time in the more popular Dundee Hills area. Unlike the wineries in the southern part of the state, the tasting rooms in Dundee Hills were much closer together. It was easy to hop from place to place over the course of the day and there were bigger crowds to go with it. Some of the more well-known Oregon wineries like Domaine Serene, Domaine Drouhin and Erath can be found here. Even though this area was more populated, each place that we went to still had acres of vineyards surrounding it and the views are amazing.

Before I visited Oregon I had preconceived ideas of what the wineries would be like based on my experiences in Napa and Sonoma. It’s human nature to compare new experiences with past experiences. However, I realized pretty quickly that it’s an unfair comparison. Napa and Sonoma have become iconic to the US wine industry but unfortunately a lot of the wineries are commercialized because of it. Other states have taken a back seat to California, but there is really some spectacular wines that can be found in the other states for a lower cost and much less fanfare. I found that the atmosphere of the Oregon wineries was much more laid back. At some of the places we stopped at we had the owners conducting our tastings and educating us about the wine. It was easy to see that their heart and soul went into making the wine. It made me happy to get to be a part of it, and I’m so glad I visited.

As I am able, I will post additional blogs about the different wineries I visited.