We decided to make Saturday a city day, which was perfect. The weather was ideal. We went to Kenny & Zuke's for a big, delicious breakfast. After realizing that we were insanely full, we tried to walk it off a little bit by heading south to the Portland Saturday Market - a good-sized farmer's market with tons of local fresh flowers, fruit and veggies, chocolate, and some other random, but cool, things. After poking around there for a bit, we moved on (using our handy Streetwise Portland map) to check out the retail area, not knowing what that would be like. On our walk, we were passed a few times by pairs of frantic and sometimes running people, who were apparently doing some version of The Great Race around downtown Portland. We never quite figured out what that was all about... BUT, we made it to Pioneer Square (said retail area) and realized that it was basically like one of the upscale malls at home. We easily decided to bail on this idea in favor of something more original and authentic Portland - The Pearl District. We made it back to our hotel by early afternoonish... below is a little fun map of the loop we made in the first part of the day:
We were kind of tired following this first outing, but really wanted to catch some more sights, so we decided to continue on for a bit and check out the Pearl. Now, I wanted to see if we could do some good (souvenir) shopping, but figured out after a bit that the shops in the Pearl District are not inexpensive! There are tons of very nice art galleries/shops and boutiques... just not in our price range. There are also a ton of cool looking restaurants, which was exciting, even though we weren't looking for a meal at the time (we'll come back to this).
One of the places that we wanted to hit was the Rogue Brewery pub. So we did. We both got a sampler, which gave us the choice of 4 beers each. I don't remember which ones we chose, but it was a cool little spot. It did, however, also put us over the edge in terms of needing naps. So, on finishing our 2oz. pours, we headed back to the Ace to recoup and get ready for the evening.
Fast forward to dinner that night - we chose to go to Jake's Famous Crawfish, a block away from our hotel. We enjoyed a nice cocktail before sitting down. The restaurant reminded me a lot of a Boston seafood joint in terms of decor... which makes sense as Jake's is now owned by McCormick & Schmick's. Jake's has been around for over 100 years and definitely had a great selection of fresh caught fish. Our waitress very kindly gave us a free dessert after learning we were newlyweds - our first freebie of the trip!
Dinner pretty much closed out our Saturday night in Portland... all of the fresh air must have tired us out during the day!
Sunday
On Sunday, we made the exciting drive into the Willamette Valley of Oregon - a rapidly growing (and not exactly new) area for great wine production. As wine tasting was one of the main things we were looking forward to on this vacation, this was a very exciting day! Our stops included:
August Cellars
Duck Pond
Erath
A to Z
Sokol Blosser
Penner Ash
One of the tricky things about doing a wine trail is that not all of the wineries have the same business hours. This can be interesting when you make your stops based on geographic location, not realizing that closing time might make more sense! We did ok for ourselves, however...
August Cellars wasn't as exciting as we had hoped, for our first stop at 11:00am on a Sunday. They had an interesting setup, in that they actually share a building with - and lend equipment to - 4 or 5 other winemakers (with very small production). We did buy a bottle of wine... hey, why not?!
Duck Pond was a stop that Mike convinced me to make (thanks, honey), as I was on a pre-set mission for the day. It turned out to be pretty good! We bought a nice bottle there, as well, and were also able to pick up a few gifty things. The winery keeps a slew of ducks on the premises, which is kind of cute.
Erath was a very pretty spot up on a hill, with a nicely sized tasting space. We did not buy wine here! No particular reason - they were all fine. We realized very quickly that we could easily spend $40+ per stop, which would add up way too quickly! Somehow, at least I (not sure about Mike) had the crazy idea that wine would be cheaper out west at the actual wineries. Guess not.
Our fourth stop was one of my favorites - the A to Z tasting room. Apparently, the downtown tasting room is about to be closed in favor of moving all tasting operations up to Rex Hill, which now owns A to Z (or vice versa). No matter, it was a cute little space, and the wines were great. Yes, we bought some. And a glass. Had a nice chat with the tasting woman about I don't even remember what... and then we were off to -
Sokol Blosser. AWESOME place. Another nice tasting room... but the wines were really nice. Even moreso were the staff doing the tastings. We had a lot of fun chatting up the winery staff and learning a little bit about the place. One of them was kind enough to make some dinner recommendations for us and print out a bunch of information. Definitely a recommended stop.
Not as recommended is Penner Ash... the wines we had heard are very good (probably an understatement), but they are also pretty expensive. A tasting of 4 wines was $15pp. The winery grounds and building are very nice, and probably worth the stop if you have more time than we did. Would not recommend coming here at the end of your day, though, as it just isn't the relaxing, lingering visit you're looking for at the end of the trail. Nevertheless, it was a good experience to wrap up with and head back into town for dinner!
Dinner was a fun time... We started with appetizers at Oba!, a funky Latin restaurant with great flavors. Definitely a recommended stop, and I'm sure that dinner is just as tasty as apps and cocktails. We almost stayed for dinner, but instead wanted to cover even more ground, and took up a recommendation for the Bridgeport Brewery and their funky menu. We weren't let down. Although it was a tiny hike from where we were, it was worth it. The food was great, as were the bevvies and atmosphere. We were refreshed enough to head back to the hotel and take advantage (finally) of Clyde Common, a trendy restaurant and bar adjacent to our hotel lobby. They had a huge chalkboard grid menu on the wall of scotches and bourbons - they must have known we were coming! I tried some of the different bourbon, and Mike explored some scotch. What made it more fun was that the bartender turned out to be from a nearby town in CT to where I grew up, as did the people sitting next to us. They, however, weren't as interested in chatting as we were, so, oh well. We still had fun - and had a great last night in Portland!
Next stop...Crater Lake!
