Vineyard Visits

The "Your Town" Travel Guide

How to travel without leaving your town

Vineyard Visits

Wine is not merely grapes that ferment into alcohol but a feeling, romance. Even if you visit the vineyards solo.

The vines stretched on the hilly terrain of Oregon's Willamette Valley. The sun filled the blue skies with warmth, a breeze tossed through the thin spring air. The day was perfect for wine tasting! I cruised out along winding roads, scenery of farmlands to hillsides flowered with endless vines. The little country houses perched in the middle of pastures, the pace of life promoted nothing but time. My windows rolled down filled the car with an airy sensation, the sun heating my core.

Twisting and turning, I glided the car through the mesmerizing pathway to the vineyards to experience the beauty of wine tasting. I know much about wine, due to living in France and Bordeaux, which is the wine capital of the world. Yet, this is not a claim to my expertise because woe am I far from that, rather this is merely to show the complexity there is to wine and to intimately understand the world of wine and conisseuring.

I finally reach the chateau of King Estate Winery, situated in the midst of the Willamette Valley; vineyards laced over the grounds and pear trees ripening with sweet fruits. I was the only person in the tasting room – I must've been the only one with this idea today. I would enjoy the pleasure of wine tasting alone, but that didn't last for long as after a few minutes more people drifted into the small tasting room.

The walls were filled with shelves of wine, displayed as to entice the eye of the masterful and novice connoisseurs. Acoustic guitar played on the radio, whose speakers were sprinkled throughout the small space, soothing and enhancing the serene moment. I stepped up to the counter where Erica was serving the wine for degustation. The wine was neatly set out on the counter in front of the taster. There where roughly eight wines of different variance that were up for tasting, and I was going to taste every one of them!

I started with the white wines. This is part of wine etiquette when tasting because white wine is lighter and leaves a cleaner and easier palate to continue tasting other wines. Erica poured sips of wine into my glass. I held the thick bottom of the wine glass, careful not to touch the bowl of the glass, as the heat of your hands actually changes the chemical makeup of the wine, therefore altering the taste as well. So, to keep the wine as pure as possible it's a rule to hold the wine glass with your hand as far from the wine as possible.

I picked up the glass and examined the color and "legs" that it left as I swirled the wine in the glass. The legs translates for the amount of sugar in the wine. These are the tear drop reminisces that crawl down the glass after each sip. I sunk my nose into the bowl of the wine glass and breathed in the aromatic flavors that danced in the glass. The "nose", as it is called, is the most important part to tasting wine. Smell is the central sense in which we experience wine and food. So, don't take this lightly! Take time to really sink your nose into the aromas – just don't get too close or you may be drinking through your nose!

Okay, finally: the tasting of the wine. The build-up to the sip creates a yearning for the wine on the tongue. The rituals of wine tasting build up to the grand finale. I slowly pour a bit of the sweet wine into my mouth, while inhaling the essence of the vine odors. I gently swish the wine inside my mouth, filling every section of my mouth with the deliciously sweet wine. The wine burst with flavors of peach and cedar, light and crisp, so thin in the mouth that it easily tangoed from cheek to cheek, perfect for a warm spring day such as this.

After tasting each wine (as I was sure to taste all of them), I proceeded to tour the workings of the winery. Erica now served as the tour guide for the small 5-person groups. She led us through large steel gallon tanks and cedar barrels where wine was fermenting and aging. The vaulted ceiling was a work of art itself, soft lighting painting a pattern of shadows above head. An angelic loud humming grew intensely loud and magical. A woman in the group sung an overpowering note that froze all of us in our place as the melody captured the moment. The group grew comfortable with each other after the many toastings of wine and the singing to close the tour.

The cloudless sky had now filled with white pillowing clouds and the sun was descending. I forcefully pulled myself from this heavenly place (and no, it was not because I was drunk). There is something magical and romantic about vineyards, something completely unexplainable. The vines must emanate a scent that is undeniable, and scenery that is inescapable.

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Uncork Your Hidden Conisseur

The world of wine is a complex and intricate web of knowledge and history. So, even if you don't live in France that doesn't mean you can't enjoy magnificent vineyards! In states such as Oregon or California, for example, the Willamette Valley and Napa Valley produce some of the most renowned vintages in the world. Do yourself a favor and intoxicate yourself, if not for the juice at least for the serenity of the vines.

Here's a good resource for learning more about wine, from the pairing of certain foods with different wines to the process of fermentation. It's part of the novelty to wine and conisseuring.

As my friend Julien, who is French, says, "It's not wine that you sell, it's the romance and beauty captured in the image of what is in the bottle."

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