As I mentioned during my last post, I traveled to Portland for the Thanksgiving holiday. It was a fantastic mini-vacation with my sister and her husband. Although I still had to do some work (yes, even on my vacation), we packed a lot into the short week. We cooked a delicious Thanksgiving feast, did some Black Friday shopping, hung out at the neighborhood bar and played some pinball, among other things. Everything was fun, but one of the highlights had to be the wine tastings we went to on Saturday.
Much to my delight, the weekend after Thanksgiving is when Oregon vineyards open up their doors for tasting specials and deals. My sister had thoughtfully researched the various vineyards we could visit, and on Friday night we sat down to chart our course for the next day. My brother-in-law graciously volunteered to be the designated driver so my sister and I could partake in as many of the five dollar tastings as we wanted (Thanks, Nick!). We tried numerous pinots (I even grabbed a couple bottles of pinot gris to bring Oregon back to the big apple) and stumbled upon a cider tasting to boot. As much as I loved the pinots, the scenery was pretty amazing, too.
(Salem, Oregon, photographed November 2010)
