Willamette Valley Vineyards
A lot of people my age are either just now getting married or have been married for about a year or two. Meanwhile, here I am at 30 years old newly single for the first time in nearly a decade.
Feels weird. Feels…oddly liberating. On my own for the first time since my Junior year in college, I’m free to live my life exactly how I want it.
Diving head first into the dating scene as a newly single bachelor, I have been lucky to meet people that have exposed me to cool new places and experiences I may have never have found interesting otherwise.
One of my new favorite hobbies has been visiting vineyards and wine tastings. As luck would have it, Oregon is one of America’s top wine producing states and Pinot Noirs from the Willamette Valley have a stellar international reputation.
In addition to being able to try several different wines, vineyards are just flat out gorgeous. Massive fields lined with rows of of grape vines usually surrounding a beautiful complex designed for literal wining and dining. It’s a great way to get a taste of the bourgie lifestyle.
This year, thanks to my friend Melissa, I’ve started really getting into the Oregon vineyard scene. Considering there are literally dozens of different wineries within a one- to two-hour drive away from my home in Springfield, I figured it made sense to start writing about my experiences and I can’t think of a better way to kick off this series than by writing about my recent tour of the Willamette Valley Vineyards located just outside of the state’s capital Salem.
After finding a parking spot, Melissa and I entered the “Tasting Room,” where we checked in at the host desk for our tour of the winery. We were soon greeted by Danielle who would be both our guide around the complex as well as the curator for our tasting.
Danielle welcomed us with a glass of the Estate Rosé of Pinot Noir as a palate cleanser to get us ready for the tasting to ensue. Melissa and I were both asked for our preference in wine so that we could get the tasting tailored specifically for us.
We left the tasting room and walked towards the first stop on our tour: the fermentation tanks. Fortunately for us, at least as far as our tour goes, May is a relatively slow time of the year at the winery as most of the grape harvest and subsequent wine making process does not really ramp up until later in the year. Danielle explained that during the peak of the wine manufacturing period, hundreds of workers will be hired to help with the process, working in shifts around the clock, 24 hours a day, seven days a week for close to two months.
With little foot traffic in the area, Danielle took us down to the production and bottling floor. During the peak of production season, wine is bottled at an astounding rate. Melissa and I were allowed an up close look at the bottling machine. This Italian-made contraption can bottle 55 bottles per minute and will work around the clock to keep to the production schedule. I was a little disappointed that we couldn’t see the machine up and running but if it were we probably wouldn’t have been allowed to get as close to it as we did.
We were next moved into the barrel storage room where the wine ages for a few months in French oak barrels. Each of these barrels are made by hand in France and cost the vineyard $3,000 a piece.
These barrels each hold around 300 bottles’ worth of wine and are each used roughly 8-10 times before they no longer contribute any flavor and are sold as decorative pieces for $25 a piece whenever available.
The barrels are each inspected individually multiple times during the aging process. Samples are taken and analyzed to check for any potential bacteria that could ruin the batch, levels of acidity, and many other things above my level of understanding.
Danielle was kind enough to write out all the wines we tried that day
