Forks in Our Road: Wine Country Thanksgiving

Thursday, November 23, 2017

Wine Country Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is a big thing out in Oregon wine country: most wineries have open houses and special events, ours included. And for us too at home it was special, given that this is the first time that we have seen Don and Terry since we moved to the Left Coast. It was also our very first Thanksgiving (and any kind of meal) in our brand new home in McMinnville. Ann had been struggling mightily for a week to try to make it look like a home.

I was fortunate timing-wise in that I have Wednesdays and Thursdays off so that I could spend some time with Don and Terry. They kidnapped Ann on Tuesday and made her do all kinds of terrible things such as visit Soter and Maysara and they even made it to Coelho where I happened to be in the tasting room. After work, we all met up for a very late dinner at Pura Vida on 3rd Street in downtown McMinnville. I can't believe we don't have any photos of that debauchery as we killed several bottles of local Tempranillo.

Don and Terry are members of a lot of wine clubs and so one of their missions while down from Seattle for a few days was to collect their wine at any number of wineries. We tagged along, starting with Trisaetum on Ribbon Ridge bright and early on Wednesday morning, bright being an Oregon euphemism for overcast and raining lightly, which is pretty much our average winter day. And as for early, well, the boys were 15 minutes ahead of us from their B&B in Dayton because we couldn't get ourselves together on Wednesday morning after a late evening on the town. Never fear: sparkling wine helps everything!

Pashey Sparkling at Trisaetum

After tasting through wines at Trisaetum and buying some 2013 Pinot and some Pashey sparkling, we headed back down Ribbon Ridge. As we were going along the dirt road, a coyote stepped out of the woods, walked across the road and turned to face us, its yellow eyes gleaming in the gray and gloomy morning. I have never seen such a beautiful coyote before. This one had an abundance of long, black guard hairs over its coat, giving it a very dark cast. It turned and trotted off into the woods as we approached.

After Trisaetum in Ribbon Ridge, we headed down to Eola Hills and climbed the hill from Hopewell up to Brooks Winery near the top. Brooks is always a circus, but the tasting room seemed pretty subdued on the day before Thanksgiving. We sat at one of the high tops and had lunch.

Lunch at Brooks

Enjoying Rastaban Pinot

A Plug for our Neighbor Winery

Terry's Salmon

My Charcuterie Plate

Charcuterie and Pinot, Does it Get Better?

View East from Brooks, Note the Starlings

Look at the Crazy Birds!

After Brooks, our mission was to head further south to St. Innocent so the guys could pick up more wine. It was fun in tasting through their Pinots which were made from some of the most famous vineyards in Oregon such as Shea and Temperance Hill.

St. Innocent Winery

Afterwards, we headed back up 99-W into McMinnville where I stopped off at Roth's to pick up some cheese and salame for dinner, while the rest of the gang headed back to the house. Back at the house, we might have opened one or several bottles of 2013 Wahle Pinot made at Carlton Winemaker's Studio from Eola-Amity Hills fruit.

Finishing Off the Day with Cheese, Salame, and Wahle Pinot

We said our goodbyes to the guys with a plan to meet about midday on Thursday for our traditional Thanksgiving meal, one we have missed for the last few years while the guys relocated to Seattle and we remained behind in Virginia.

Thanksgiving in a brand new kitchen and without knowing any local suppliers is tough. The very first time I used my new oven was to cook a turkey. And while gas ovens are super finicky with hot spots and cold spots, still I managed to cook a decent looking bird. Too bad it sucked. We took a gamble on a "natural" turkey out of California and it really turned out to be dry, despite all my tricks of the trade: 48-hour brine, compound herb butter under the breast skin, and frequent basting. Next year, we have got to find a better turkey.

The Guest of Honor

It was pretty much a miracle that we got our stuff moved in from storage 6 days beforehand and that we managed to pull of Thanksgiving. All the credit is due to Ann who worked tirelessly to get us unpacked. We still couldn't find half the stuff we needed in the kitchen, but it managed to work. Ann made the roasted garlic mash and her usual great stuffing. I made the bird and gravy. Somehow the green beans got roasted and Donald brought a fabulous pudding for dessert. He always outdoes himself with his pastry confections.