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Haber Travel Report–Portland and the Willamette Valley

Posted By irene Posted on June 18, 2009
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Dear Readers:
Good to hear from some of you; would love to hear from the rest of you.
The second part of this trip was dramatically different from the first part (and Marty was dramatically happier).  We spent 3 days tasting wines in the Willamette Valley which is the wine country south of Portland, Oregon.  Marty had made appointments for private tastings in 6 wineries.  They were remarkably different.  We went to very small wineries (e.g., Et Fille which means “and daughter”; it is owned and operated by just 2 people; Howard Mozeico and his daughter Jessica; they rent space from August Cellars where they make the wine), medium sized wineries and large ones.  We went to wineries where we were just given wine to taste and to wineries where we were also taken on a tour of the winery (where the wine is made) and sometimes even to the vineyard (where the wine is grown).  Sometimes the wine was tasted by itself, sometimes we were given crackers (to clear the palate in between tastings) and at one winery we were actually given cheeses and even chocolate to taste along with the wines. 
While most of the wines we tasted (and there were at least 5 tastes per winery) were pinot noirs (not my favorite wine), we also tasted pinot gris, viognier, rose, riesling, chardonnay, etc.  One of the wineries (Archery Summit) is partially owned by a client of Marty’s; they bent over backwards to make us feel welcome and even gave us a bottle of their best pinot which retails for $100 a bottle; we took it along to dinner that night; it was terrific.
Portland has become a culinary haven and the food has been very good.  We had really fine dinners at Sel Gris and at Paley’s Place.  Tonight we are eating at Ten-0-1 which was rated “restaurant of the year in Portland” last year; really looking forward to our “last supper”!  In between we ate at a neighborhood Chinese restaurant which was quite good and an Italian one which was the least exciting of the lot.
On 2 of the days when we went to the wine country, we got back early enough to do something in Portland.   On one of those days we went to a Japanese Garden and a rose garden; both of which were lovely.  On the other day we went to one of synagogues in Portland; it was listed in my guide book;  turns out there are 20 synagogues (of every persuasion!) in Portland;   who knew?  It was a huge reform temple; the cantor came from NY as did the prior rabbi.  The woman in the office who we spoke with gave us the name of a deli where we had lunch today; gotta keep Marty fed and happy!
We spent today touring Portland itself; a day was sufficient; there’s not that much of interest here (besides the food and wine!)  We went to the usual suspects:  City Hall, the Oregon Historical Society, the Wells Fargo history museum (that was fun and different), Chinatown (which had an incredible Chinese garden–the largest outside China) and Powell’s City of Books (which is the largest independent book store in the world with over 1.5 million new and used books).
And we did a bit of shopping.  I had previously bought a lovely glass and metal vase (in Yosemite!) which I know will look fabulous on my dining room table; I had it shipped home.  I also found a really nice perfume bottle yesterday.  (Hedy:  it reminds me of the one you bought me; very contemporary).  On our way back to the hotel this afternoon we passed a jewelry (I can never say that word right…) store that Marty insisted on entering.  I made him happy by allowing him to buy me a necklace; it’s gold with little gold “boxes” on it and one of the “boxes” is pave diamonds.  Like I said:  need to keep him happy!!
Thus ends another successful Haber Tour.  We fly home tomorrow.  We’re thinking of going somewhere in September for 4 or 5 days; (I have babysitting responsibilities after all!)  We’d like to go somewhere where it will be warm enough to just lie by a pool and close enough so we can get there and back fairly quickly.  If any of you have a suggestion, I’d be grateful.
Hope you enjoyed traveling along with us.
Much love,
The Writer
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