One Vine Day - Chicago Sun Times

Take Oregon's gorgeous Willamette Valley, add a lot of delicious wine and sprinkle in some 'Sideways' thinking, and you've got a vintage vacation

October 17, 2007

Lori Rackl

'We're gonna drink a lot of good wine . . . We're gonna eat some great food and enjoy the scenery and we are going to send you off in style, mon frere."

That's what Miles promised his buddy Jack before they invaded California wine country in "Sideways," a film that forever changed the way I'll look at a spit bucket.

I had pretty much the same simple wish list as Miles and Jack when I visited Oregon's wine country earlier this month: Take in plenty of good food, views and wine -- especially pinot noir.

Unlike the disaster-prone duo in "Sideways," I didn't want to drive from tasting room to tasting room, exercising only my taste buds and bad judgment. So I signed up for an "active wine vacation" with Zephyr Adventures. Zephyr has been in the active group travel business for more than a decade but only recently launched a line of wine-inspired adventures around the world.

For the five-day Oregon trip, we'd focus largely on the Willamette Valley, an embarrassingly fertile wedge of land in western Oregon that stretches from Portland south to Eugene. Often likened to Burgundy, France, the valley's rich soil and cool climate make it perfect for growing the state's prized pinot grapes.

The trip was designed so we'd spend the better part of the day immersed in wine country, not just wine. That meant plenty of time for canoeing, cycling, horseback riding and taking walks through the vineyards with the winemakers themselves.

The treks took on an added air of excitement thanks to the occasional bang of propane-fired cannons -- an explosive sound designed to keep birds' beaks off the grapes. The noise didn't work the same magic on human hands; we plucked plenty of sweet fruit as we hiked our way through rows of trellised grapevines.

Some of those vines belong to former Chicago suburbanites Kari and Tim Ramey, owners of Zenith Vineyard, about 60 miles south of Portland.

"I used to be the quintessential suburban housewife," said Kari Ramey, who hiked with us one afternoon. "Four years ago, we sold our house in Hinsdale and bought a 135-acre vineyard -- for the same price."

Our walks and other outdoor adventures kept us moving, but they never crossed the line into "strenuous." That's probably a good thing when your primary form of hydration is alcohol-infused grape juice. Each day, we'd visit at least two wineries to sample copious quantities of their product, sometimes straight out of the French oak barrel.

During an especially tasty dinner at the Carlton Winemakers Studio, kind of a co-op for vintners, our group took turns pushing a giant plunger into a vat of fermenting grapes. While we churned the grape concoction, the vintner walked us through the winemaking process. It wasn't the first time we'd heard it: All the vintners we met seemed to enjoy talking shop even though we happened to be visiting at harvest time, the winemakers' equivalent of early April for CPAs.

Our wine tastings also felt a lot more intimate than the ones I've had in Napa and Sonoma. That's probably a function of size. Most of Oregon's 300-plus wineries are extremely small -- or boutique, as marketing majors would say -- compared to the heavy hitters in the "C" state. (You quickly pick up that Oregonian vintners aren't big fans of their wine-making juggernaut neighbor to the south.)

After a luxuriously long wine tasting at the family-owned Winter's Hill Vineyard, I climbed back on my horse for the ride home. Snug in the saddle of my Tennessee Walker, I sauntered past fields of plump grapes and through a forest of hazelnut trees until my horse delivered me to my secluded B&B. And he did it in style, mon frere.

Copyright Chicago Sun-Times 2007