DAY-17 The Wines of Dundee, Oregon

Day-17: Saturday, September 19, 2015

Starting Location: Best Western, Wilsonville, OR

Interim Location: Dundee Hills Wine Region, Dundee, OR

Ending Location: Best Western, Wilsonville, OR

Our laundry exercise finished this morning with all parties now decked out in clean clothes. Breakfast was served in the hotel lobby along with left over fruits we had from our grocery visit of several days ago.

We met around 11 AM to head into Dundee, a center of Oregon's wine making region. At noon we met with Suzanne and Dave for lunch at the Dundee Bistro. Dave was a USNA grad who worked with Jack on the USS Ouellet. Dave was a native Oregonian and had grown up on farmland in the region. Suzanne and Dave are vineyard owners and have produced wine with their personal label.

For lunch at the Dundee Bistro (LINK) we sampled oysters, pizza, burgers, fish and a variety of other dishes along with an opener wine service for our wine tasting afternoon as proposed by Suzanne and Dave.

Following lunch with a short walk across the street we visited the Argyle Tasting House (LINK), a new age structure built with materials from an old winery. Here our tasting consisted of three wines one of which was a bubbly Chardonnay working our way to a Nuthouse Pinot Noir. Interesting point being that the "Nuthouse" label refers to a past life of the property when Filbert nuts were the major crop in the Dundee area.

At Domaine Roy et Fils (LINK) we were given a tour of this very new facility, actually yet to have it's grand opening. The location overlooks the valley toward the mountains with Mount Jefferson visible on the horizon. We sampled several wines and here learned much about the various Pinot grape varieties and "clones". The staff at Domaine Roy were energetic, enthusiastic and totally engaged with us their customers.

At Bella Vida Vineyard (LINK) we experienced first hand just how engaged the "farmers" are with their vineyards. Today was a harvest day and the owners had earlier in the morning been in the midst of gathering the grapes actually toting bucket loads from the field workers to collection points. We sampled several varieties at Bella Vida with our consensus favorite being the Gris-Ling. We enjoyed the wines and actually purchased a case for delivery to Kitty Hawk later in the year.

Next we visited an operation owned by family members of Suzanne and Dave. The Arterberry Maresh Red Barn Tasting Room (LINK) is a small operation but provided a warm and amicable atmosphere for sampling another series of wines. Here we saw pictures of Dave's family and placed personal pins on the USA map for Kitty Hawk, St. Pete Beach and Carlsbad. By the way, the "Brownie Brittle" was a nice touch and worked well with the Pinot varieties we tasted. Again we purchased what we liked and walked away with bottles of Arterberry Maresh Pinot Noir 2013. The family property and most notably the "red barn" makes for a great setting.

Our last stop was more personal, a visit to the Baptista Maresh Vineyards (LINK), the personal vineyard of Suzanne and Dave and the site of their new home. The house sits atop a ridge line with an awesome view of the valley and Mount Jefferson and Mount Hood on the eastern horizon. The property is in the midst of their vineyard with grapes literally at the front door. As a special treat Suzanne and Dave had set up a tasting of their soon to be released Baptista Maresh 2013 Pinot Noir; all very nice, icing on the cake for our day of tastings. Many thanks to Suzanne and Dave for a great afternoon, their introductions to some great wine makers and a sampling of so many varieties of locally produced wines.

By 6:30 we were back in Wilsonville and dined Italian at Abella Italian Kitchen. After making a few plans for Sunday we were back at the hotel in time for a couple of Saturday night NCAA football games.