Each summer we try to make one or more trips to our former home of McMinnville over in the Willamette Valley, about 3.5 hours from Bend, give or take, depending on weather and traffic. We go on Wednesday, stay the night, and after breakfast, go to the McMinnville Downtown Farmers Market and then drive home via Newberg to shop for seafood at Northwest Fresh Seafood. Good produce and seafood are hard to come by in the high desert.
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| Cheers from our McMinnville Favorite, Two Dogs Taphouse |
Crossing the Cascades is always a crap shoot based on weather and traffic. Our prior crossing in June coming back from Bellingham went without a hitch, so this trip over, we were due for pretty much all the entries on our traffic bingo card: slow-ass hooptie RV about to tip over in the road, idiot's day out, and 10-miles following a baler and two hay rakes out of Amity, the baler tractor wider than a lane of the highway. We were really only lacking a tandem gas tanker with three miles of traffic behind it to score big.
Our Wednesday plan this trip was to leave late morning, grab lunch and a beer at Two Dogs Taphouse, see some of our old neighbors, check-in to our room at Douglas on Third, then have a light dinner and wine downstairs at HiFi Wine Bar.
After the incredibly slow trip over the mountains and the long, slow crawl into McMinnville behind tractors taking up both lanes of 99-W, we finally pulled into the parking lot behind Two Dogs on a mission to use the restroom, then get a beer and a burger. We were able to catch up with our friends on staff there before returning to our former neighborhood to harass Barb (who was out of town) and Pat and Mary Jo.
We were some of the first customers at Two Dogs when it opened when COVID was in full rampage and we were some of the last customers at their former location on 3rd Street before their landlords booted them out. Just days after they closed, we moved to Bend. In the intervening years, they moved into a new building at 4th and Evans across from the Yamhill County offices. We have been visiting the new building regularly as it has undergone a slow build-out. It is finally starting to acquire its own personality now, but we really do miss the old location. It was a fantastic space.
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| At Two Dogs: Detect a Dog Theme? |
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| Directly Across from the Clerk's Office |
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| Photos of Customers' Dogs |
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| Twin New Yorkers |
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How Often is Someone Taller than Me?
Brady is Now Coaching Basketball at Mac High |
After visiting with Pat and Mary Jo and getting introduced to their new dog, we made our way back downtown to our room at Douglas on Third, on the second floor above our destination for the night, HiFi Wine Bar. We were some of the first customers at HiFi when they opened and we go back regularly where we trust that Ben will find great wines for us to drink from their massive inventory of great wines.
HiFi is where the industry gathers to taste wines that are not local. After days of working with and tasting Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, wine industry folks really appreciate tasting something different. After tasting barrel samples and doing blending trials for days on end, your palate does get worn out. Mine certainly did. We call it cellar palate, a real fatigue than can make you immune to faults in your own wines compared to wines of other regions.
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| Tasting Chenin Blanc at HiFi |
When we walked in (unannounced; we did not tell Ben we were coming), Ben greeted us effusively with a splash of Champagne while we pondered the list. As we were sitting on the couch up front, we noticed our insurance agent and his wife, Michael and Estelle, sitting at the bar. We caught up with them for a few minutes, not having seen them since we moved to Bend 3.5 years ago.
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| We Love the Grapevine Chandelier and Live-Edge Bar |
We tasted some phenomenal wines. I selected the first wine, a beautifully crisp Anjou Blanc (Chenin Blanc) from Thibaut Boudignon, a master of Chenin and maker of killer Savennières. With food, we asked Ben to pick a Nebbiolo with the instructions, less extracted (more like Barbaresco than Barolo) and highly aromatic. He surprised us with a Valtellina. Most Valtellina is second-rate to Barolo and Barbaresco, but the 2017 Arpepe Valtellina Superiore Inferno was dynamite. I could wax poetic about the 2022 Domaine Fourrier Gevrey-Chambertin that tasted 100% like what it should, a stunning wine. Ann's favorite of the night and a revelation to her about how well Sauternes ages was the 1998 Château de Fargues, once the sister property of Yquem which now is in the LVMH portfolio.
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2023 Boudignon Anjou Blanc
Beautifully Crisp and Affordable Chenin Blanc |
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2017 Arpepe Valtellina Superiore Inferno 'Fiamme Antichi'
Absolutely Top-Class Nebbiolo |
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2022 Domaine Fourrier Gevrey-Chambertin
Mind Blown! Such Classic Bourgogne |
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| 1998 Château de Fargues Sauternes
Drinking Perfectly Now |
After all these brilliant wines, we took leave of HiFi and walked upstairs to our room to call it a night. In the morning, we decided a big, late breakfast was just the thing because we would not be eating lunch. Ann suggested The Diner, a McMinnville favorite, and far enough off the beaten path (at the hospital) to be away from the tourists jamming the downtown restaurants. We always go there to get our tot fix: locals know to order tots there.
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Breakfast at The Diner
My Usual: Chicken Fried Steak and Tots |
Ann became ill during breakfast, so we scrapped going back into town to the market, instead continuing on to Newberg to get seafood before heading back south to Salem and home. We did not score all those delicious blackberries, marionberries, and blueberries that we hoped to at the market, but we did get some great fish and scallops for a moqueca on Saturday night with Michelle and Andreas.
