Welcome back to Willamette, dammit (a little reinforcement of a previously introduced idea – I read somewhere it helps people remember things). When we last left off, Mrs. Chump and I had just returned to our hotel in Willamette, The Dundee Hotel. I’m not going to spend a lot of time talking about it other than to say it was very nice and I would definitely recommend it. There is a very nice restaurant located inside of it (Wooden Heart Kitchen) – they offer both breakfast (which we were able to partake in) as well as dinner (which we could not but the pizza smelled absolutely delicious) and is conveniently located within 15 minutes of a large number of wineries. The other item I would mention is that they have three tasting rooms located inside the hotel! Unfortunately, they all close by 6 pm so if you spend your day out visiting wineries, you will likely not have the opportunity to visit them as well. Not that we didn’t have enough wine, but it would have been nice to able to visit them after we got back to the hotel. Enough whining (yes, even I groaned at that), on to Day 2 in Willamette!

One of the advantages of flying from the east coast to the west coast is that for the first couple of days, it is really easy to wake up early and get your exercise in. And so it was with me. My eyes popped open at 4:30 a.m. and by 6 a.m., I had already finished Wordle, Connections and Octordle. Whew, what a workout! After breakfast at the previously mentioned Wooden Heart Kitchen, it was off to our first stop, Archery Summit (https://www.archerysummit.com/). Archery Summit is a bit unique in Willamette in that they are one of the only wineries with cave cellars. We decided to splurge and take their Legacy Cave Tour and Tasting ($125/person). They also offer other tastings including an Arrow Flight ($65), Apex Tasting (all of their single vineyard wines, $95), and Precision Pairing (wines paired with small bites, $95). Jacquelyn was our host/tour guide and proved extremely knowledgeable, having been at Archery Summit for over 10 years. She started us off with a glass of Chardonnay while we began a tour of their barrel-lined cave cellars and production facilities. All I have to say is that if this is what caves were like in the old days cavemen, cavewomen, cavepeople had it made! The caves/facilities were absolutely stunning and Jacquelyn shared an incredible amount of information, from barrel management (a typical wine barrel costs on average around $2000) to the wine production techniques (Archery Summit typically uses whole stem fermentation which adds additional body and tannins to the wine). We also learned that Archery Summit is a “gravity flow” facility, which I still haven’t fully grasped, but means that they use gravity to help move the wine from one stage of production to another. There are some smart people out there that figure these things out. I can safely say that I am not one of them (with sadly more people willing to vouch than I care to count). As we moved from one part of the tour to another, we were presented with various wines from their offerings. At one point we were able to view the vineyards the wine was coming from, only to realize that the tasting room we would finish our tour in was right below that vineyard! Jacquelyn finished our tasting/tour by allowing us to try a vertical tasting of their Red Hills wine (2021, 2022 and 2023). 2021 and 2023 were warm vintages and 2022 was a cooler vintage – while I do not have the most talented palate, I was still able to tell the difference (my preference was the 2022). Overall, it was a very enjoyable and educational tour with delicious wine thrown in as a bonus. We left with a bottle of the 2022 Red Hills.

After a brief stop at Red Hills Market (a local favorite) for a bite to eat, we were on our way to Bergstrom Wines (https://bergstromwines.com/ ). Fortunately, we had Waze to help us as there is no sign outside of the Bergstrom Tasting Room to identify it. Being of curious ilk, I of course asked why. Ashley, our tasting host, explained that as a smaller producer, they do not have the quantity of wine to handle drop-ins. They offer tastings by appointment only and do not want to encourage people driving by to come in when they will only have to inform them that they cannot accommodate them. By no means the last interesting answer we got from Ashley. Before I get too far into the tasting, a quick note on the Bergstrom tasting facility. It is actually the former home of the founders of Bergstrom wines and is very quaint, with several tasting rooms available within it. Being a former “home”, you immediately feel at ease and it is an enjoyable environment to receive a tasting in. We had chosen a hosted Ekollon experience ($85/person, waived with 3 bottle purchase). Given the founder’s Swedish heritage, Ekollon (part of a Swedish proverb meaning a might oak grows from an acorn) is aptly named as Bergstrom is quite a powerhouse when it comes to Pinot Noir. After having been greeted with a glass of Riesling, Ashley transitioned into tasting their single-vineyard (single-vineyard means that all the grapes used to make a bottle of wine came from the same vineyard) Pinot Noirs. As she began telling us about the production of the wines, and I would occasionally ask questions, it became abundantly clear that Ashley was incredibly knowledgeable not just about Bergstrom wines, but the art of winemaking itself. Whether it was the maintenance of the vines, the initial fermentation of the grapes (I had no idea that when wines are fermented whole-cluster, they are not pressed first, it is just the weight of the grapes that helps press the juice out), to the racking processes, use of yeasts. If you asked it, Ashley knew it. And was eager and willing to share her knowledge. Without question, it was one of the most enjoyable and educational tastings I have ever taken part in. And that is before I even get to how good the wine was. While it tends to be a bit on the pricier side, it was so well balanced between the earthiness, fruit, body and tannins, we walked out with three bottles. I like to think that we saved $85 by buying those three bottles but the math may or may not work out.

Our last stop of the day was to White Rose Estate (https://whiteroseestate.com/ ). As we approached White Rose, it had some of the most beautiful views we had seen in Willamette. It had a bit higher elevation, so your view over all of the cascading vineyards was truly glorious. Unfortunately, the tasting room facility, while nice, did not have windows so we were not able to take in the view while receiving our tasting. That said, we did enjoy our tasting (“Discovering Your Emotional Connection”, $60/person). It started off with a Chardonnay, moved to several Pinot’s and ended with our first taste of Syrah from Willamette. Our hosts were very welcoming and spent a good amount of time educating us on their production techniques and the impact/use of various yeasts. They continued the trend of Willamette hosts being incredibly knowledgeable and eager/wiling to share their knowledge, which for me, adds so much to the tasting experience. I enjoy the stories behind the wines and am constantly amazed at the litany of decisions that have been made by everyone involved in the process that took the grapes from the vines and transformed them into the wine in my glass. I was not disappointed in any of the stories I heard over our two days in Willamette. If you are a Pinot Noir fan, it is well worth your time to make a trip to Willamette – while we managed to visit five wonderful wineries, you could easily spend a week out here and not run out of interesting places to visit.

Once again, having tasted so many incredible wines on our second day in Willamette, it is truly hard to pick just one for this week’s wine. However, if pressed like a grape and forced too choose, I would have to go with Bergstrom’s flagship wine, the Bergstrom Vineyard Pinot Noir. Sourced solely from the vineyard that bear’s their name, this Pinot Noir has power, finesse and elegance, all in one bottle. On the nose you might sense smoked meats, black cherry, wood smoke and, from their website, chocolate cosmos flowers. Yup, had to google that one myself. Turns out it is a flower that emits aromas of chocolate/vanilla, which turns out to be accurate with this wine. Kudos to whoever knew that Chocolate Cosmos flowers were a real thing. On the palate, it is a medium-bodied wine with lush tannins, giving flavors of logan berries, oak spice and cocoa nib. Yup, had to google that last one as well. Cocoa nib are apparently small, crunchy pieces of fermented, dried, and roasted cacao beans, often described as “nature’s chocolate chips”. You can apparently learn a lot from reading talented winemakers/tasters’ descriptions. New flavor descriptors aside, this wine is simply phenomenal and, at a price of $150, is probably one you might want to save for a special occasion. But then again, every day is special now, isn’t it? Cheers!

Wine Stat Sheet