Anxious to get on the road and put some miles on our new Porsche, Susan and I decided to head to the Willamette Valley AVA for a week to enjoy beautiful mountain scenery on the way to tasting the country’s best Pinot Noir. The Willamette River valley extends south of Portland for 150 miles and is bordered by the Cascade Range to the east and the Oregon Coast Range to the west. A land of “milk and honey” it was the primary destination for wagon trains heading west on the Oregon Trail.
We stayed in McMinnville which is centrally located to hundreds of wineries and offers luxurious downtown accommodations that allow one to walk to dinner and shopping after a day of wine tasting. McMinneville’s central location also allows easy exploration of the regions six distinct AVA’s within a 20-minute drive in any direction. While we have our favorites from past visits it was fun to discover new wineries and meet the interesting and inspired people who are making some of this country’s best wines.
Because this was a driving trip, we carefully planned our route to take the most beautiful and curving 2-lane highways. We crossed multiple mountain ranges, drove along beautiful lakes and worked our way through the Lava Beds National Monument and six national forests. This has been and remains one of our favorite road trip destinations. Fine wines, great dining, and legendary 2-lanes make this a trip we are already talking about doing again.
All images were taken with Fuji X100f with 23mm f2.0 lens in RAW format, processed in Lightroom Classic 9.4