Wine tasting at Montinore's winery!

Molly and I are members of 3 different wine clubs: Archery Summit (super high-end pinot noir), Phelp's Creek (inexpensive family-run wines near Hood River, OR near where we ski and hike) and Montinore (organic, biodynamc inexpensive wines that are wonderful, and close to our home in Hillsboro).

This weekend we were invited to a members-only event to pick up our October shipment. They were pouring all of their old favorites, including their Mueller, Riesling, Gewurztraminer (sp?), Pinot Gris, and of course their Pinot Noir (Pearson, Graham's block 7 and Reserve). In addition they have released some new wines that are also very tasty. One is Borealis (sp?) which is a blend of their whites. The other is a very nice Merlot for $19... obviously they grow the grapes elsewhere. The other wine in the shipment was a new, single barrel pinot. This is one-of a kind, and I think they were only able to produce 200+ bottles, so each member got a bottle.. and that's it. It's a 2007, so it won't be ready to drink until AT LEAST 2010... and probably should hold on until 2011. I hope I don't like it too much, because that's all there ever will be!

At the event they had a really nice selection of food.. including one that is a brownie with a brownie layer, with a pumpkin bread layer, followed by another brownie layer, then another pumpkin bread layer... Oh my god was it good.

It was just Lindsey and I there, because Josh Yoder was staying at home with his family in from out out town and Molly is in Vegas this weekend with her Mom, sister in law and step-sister. After sampling pretty much all of their wine, we decided to try the port and the pinot noir chocolate sauce... neither of which we had tried previously. The port was amazing... its made from 100% pinot noir, and not terribly sweet, but it is nice and strong the way you want a port to be. Probably the best port I've ever had. Will definately buy a bottle there someday. The chocolate sauce was also very good. I wanted to lick clean the plastic cup it was served it.

All in all, a very fun little event!