Yesterday we had a lovely breakfast the Lobenhaus B&B where we were staying for the weekend, in Carlton, Oregon. There were belgian waffles with fresh-picked strawberries, an egg frittata, sausage, juice and coffee (I probably forgot something). Everything was delicious! Lobenhaus is a fabulous home base for exploring this area and we highly recommend it — one of our best B&B experiences to date, actually.
The vineyards at Lobenhaus:
The winemaker at A to Z / Rex Hill winery in Newberg, Oregon, purchases all of the fruit grown on the property.
Across the street:
Our list of wineries for Sunday included: Coeur de Terre, Anne Amie Vineyard, and Monks Gate Vineyard. (Maysara was closed on Sunday, so that one is on our list for next time.)
We headed to Coeur de Terre first since it was the furthest. It was raining off and on (mostly on) all day, but it was gorgeous. Coeur de Terre is a ways off the beaten path and it was just lovely. Great tasting room with a spectacular territorial view:
Lisa, one of the owners, was there working and chatting with us and it was a fun and informative tasting. (We even ran into someone we knew from Portland but hadn't seen in about 10 years — right there in the tasting room. What a surprise!) Coeur de Terre practices sustainable farming, and they specialize in estate grown Pinot Noir.
Next stop was Anne Amie Vineyard.
As we drove up the narrow road and saw the steep hill up ahead, Kevin said "We've definitely been here before." I was positive we'd never visited Anne Amie before…they haven't been around all that long…but he was right. The driveway and that hill looked super familiar. Pretty quickly we realized we'd visited this vineyard back when it was Benoit, during a ride around this area on our tandem, and we'd tried to get up that hill and ended up walking to the top.
The other time we were here we tasted outside (it was summer, I think) but the view off the patio is still nice, even on a stormy day:
Third and final vineyard for the day was Monks Gate Vineyard. We had a delicious 2008 Pinot Noir with dinner on Saturday night at The Joel Palmer House and were looking forward to sampling more of their wine.
There's a great old barn on the property:
We chatted with Linda, one of the owners, who poured for us while she told us a bit of their background story (I love the background stories of the winemakers!) We brought home a 2012 Classic Pinot Noir and a 2012 Trinity Pinot Noir. (We're getting more and more versed in this pinot thing!)
We had a late lunch in between Coeur de Terre and Anne Amie, so when we finished up at Monks Gate we decided to stop at a market and just grab some snacks to have for dinner later on. We set up a nice plate of meats and cheeses and berries out on our deck and sipped some complimentary Argyle sparking wine and just relaxed for the rest of the evening. (We also caught up on Mad Men and Orphan Black, via the iPad/Slingbox/home DVR.)
We're home now and getting ready for our trip to Italy. I plan to blog through our tour as often I can, so stay tuned for that!
