Kim Kolb
If you knew you were going to be faced with mass amounts of wine at 10am, would you prepare better?
This morning was our Brunch with Argentine Wines, but this was not an average Brunch. I was thinking some eggs, bacon, you know brunch type food.. Oh No...there was appetizer type foods paired with Argentine wines. Now, the food was good and paired nicely with the wines, but at 10am in the morning, I needed more substance! So, as a good trooper, I did my job and tasted both food and wines. I was doing well.
Now, if the Brunch was not enough to put you over the edge, there were vendors in the hallways showing us their stuff... WINE! Yes, at 10am, we were officially tasting wine. I think the whites are super easy to spit and still get the flavors, the reds are a little more difficult.
I have come up with a new method. I set out to try just 1 wine from each table so as to not over do it.
We had our Key Note Speaker Randall Graham Speak with us for awhile about his experience with Bonny Doon Vineyards. Randall is a very engaging speaker! He has that laid back attitude about him that just makes you want to listen to him.
After our Keynote session, we loaded our bus at 2:30pm for our Winery Tours... it was a crap shoot as none of us knew where we were going.. All we knew (my Salem Excursion Friends) was not to get on bus 2 or 3... Cynthia and I got on bus 4 and it was a GOOD choice! Off to Rex Hill Vineyards we went.. We had a great host on the bus.. they served us 3 wines on the way up to keep us going...as if the amount of wine we had prior wasn't enough. LOL!
Upon arriving at Rex Hill, in the Chehalem Mountain AVA, we were greeted with a sample of .... Wine! Then we got to taste 3 other wines from Ponzi Vineyards, Rapture Ridge Winery, and Le Cadeau Vineyard. It was really cool that we got to taste 4 wines in one location.. I only wish the tents were closer or it wouldn't have been so hot.
After tasting the wines we went to the Cellar where we got to hear from the winemakers and do a vertical tasting of the years 2009 and 2010 of Pinot Noir.
Now for the dinner! I was super hungry and ready to start gnawing on a barrel. Outside to the garden we went. It was absolutely gorgeous and had cooled down alot. Rex Hill did a great job at the dinner. We had 4 amazing courses.
The music, and company was superb! I couldn't have picked a better bus of friends to go with. Bus 4 definitely was the best!
The Chef did an incredible job. We of course had more wine. Mike, the Marketing Director of Rex Hill then disappeared and came back with a Salamanazar (9 liters) of a 1992 Pinot Noir. WOW! I think I like aged Pinot because this one was incredible.
After arriving back at the hotel around 9:45pm, we still had the "Night of 
Many Bottles" to attend. This event was where most of the attendees brought their favorite wine so that we could all taste it. I tasted a few but headed out early because I knew we had an early morning coming. I tasted some Canada Wines, Idaho Wines, New York, Virginia, and South Carolina wines. On the way back to the room we stopped in the Champagne room. Bubbles are not my thing, but I did try a few.
Tomorrow is our actual session days... See you soon!