After a weekend in Seattle, I decided to embark on a little road trip around Oregon. First of all, the roads around Washington and Oregon are gorgeous. Its like Christmas farms all around. The first stop was Cannon Beach.
Cannon Beach
I stayed one night at the Stephanie Inn and could not recommend it more highly. It’s adorable, the rooms are beautiful and the view of Cannon Beach is spectacular. It has a great in house tasting menu restaurant that also does a wonderful breakfast. Additionally they had a pre dinner wine happy hour and post dinner digestives in the Library that were included and firepits in the beach. I wanted to stay longer than my one night as a pit stop in my way down to Williamette so I think you can put it on your list not just as a pit stop but a destination in and of itself.
The hotel is a great local to experience all the beauty of Cannon Beach. These are a quick sampling of the many hundreds of pictures I took, either from the hotel beach or my room.
I also ventured into Town, super cute and small and adorable. Highlights were the crepe place (that had gluten free crepes and the most adorable color segregated store called Love & Hemlock
Williamette Valley
The next stop in the Oregon Tour was Williamette Valley (and trust me it took me a while to pronounce it properly!). We stayed at the Atticus hotel and it is a perfect spot to do some touring. As a travel note, uber is not the most reliable, but they also will recommend wine guides that will charge an arm and a leg, when really I knew my wine I just needed transportation. The solution for me as M&H Transportation, they were great, did both airport pickups for some of out party and drove us around!
Which wineries did we visit?
Abbot Claim has a gorgeous space. It was my second favorite space that we visited and their wines were also my second favorites their pinots were delicious. Additionally I loved how the tasting moved, champagne outside, a glass in the tour and then on to the most beautiful little tasting table in the middle of the cellar. you need blankets but very worth it. Their caviar and potato chip bite was also dreamy.
My favorite visit of the trip. First of all if you can get into one of the lunches. Their chef is amazing. We were not able to get a seat at a lunch but still the spread in the tasting was to die for so i cant even imagine what brunch is. The space is gorgeous, the wines are divine and I love that you get a mix of both their wines and their favorites. A must. I loved the botanico and the Antikythera equally but if forced to choose I might have to go with Botanico.
Its a lovely house and with a great tradition, but I have to say it was my least favorite of the four visits, both because it was the wine I liked the least and also because it was the building that was the least impressive so on both they were not as high up there for me. I do have to say the lady who was serving us was a wealth of knowledge and so nice.
This place is beautiful especially on a nice sunny day like we had. I really enjoyed all the wines and appreciated that they gave me some out of the box selections to replace the whites that I did not have. unlike Abbot and Antica where i left with significant orders, here I did not purchase any but still enjoyed all of them!
Where did we go for dinner?
We decided to go Monday and Tuesday, and as a suggestion I would say that’s not very smart. Less people and probably cheaper hotels but a lot of the restaurants are closed. The top ones I wanted to go were closed but we still had dinner at two great places: GRounded Table & Thistle
Drive to Portland
On our way to Portland airport we drove around Oregon some more and this were my two highlights:
- Multonomah Falls – it is absolutely beautiful and also if you are like me who does not hike, so easy to access! you have to et a 2 dollar pass for your car in advance to be able to park and get in so plan a little bit ahead.
Powell Books – absolutely gorgeous bookstore in Portland, a must if you pass by the city!
Tati's Tidbits 