Wine Tasting in the West Hills

Ah, wine, how I love thee!

For my sister's birthday last weekend she decided she'd like to go on a tour of our local wineries. We've both done some wine tours in Napa and Sonoma wine country down in California, but hadn't really done a nice winery tour around our own famed Willamette Valley wineries.

We did a little internet research ahead of time and found that the tasting rooms just west of Salem are MUCH more reasonably priced for tastings than the ones to the north towards Yamhill and Dundee. Most of the wine tastings we did were in the $5 range for a flight of 5-10 wines. The Yamhill county wineries tended to be somewhere around $10-$15 per flight.

We found about 5 tasting rooms we wanted to try out and mapped out our journey. We hired a friend to drive us and my sister packed a cooler of snacks, which turned out to be the most excellent idea EVER. We got pretty hungry along the way and there is no place to stop for a bite to eat once you are out there in wine country.  There are, however, many vineyards and wineries that provide picnic tables, so it worked out well.

We ended up going to Orchard Heights, Cubanisimo, Redhawk, and Stangeland. We really wanted to try Bethel Heights as well because we had heard lots of great stuff about it, but we didn't make it there before they closed. Each winery we visited was unique, but they were all great and had delicious wines, so its difficult for me to pick a favorite. Orchard Heights had some great wines, Cubanisimo had a beautiful tasting room, Redhawk had amazing views from the tasting room counter, and Stangeland was a friendly little spot with a great Rose wine (which I normally don't like).

There were so many other wineries that we didn't make it to, that we all decided we'd have to do it again sometime. I figure by the time we get through all the wineries in the area, they'll have wines from a new year and we'll have to start over and try them all again. Oh well! I think I can handle that just fine.

A Pub Crawl, You Say? In Salem??

You know how sometimes you wander around downtown Salem and the place looks like a ghost town? Well, guess what? Tomorrow is NOT going to be one of those days.

Tomorrow is going to be rockin'! Tomorrow night downtown is going to be full of revelers. People will be laughing, drinking, meeting new friends, ringing bells. Tomorrow night is the Pub Crawl. That's right, people moving from bar to bar, eating, drinking, and having a good time. And yes, that will be happening right here in Salem.

And get this!! For the first time ever, there will also be a wine crawl. I think this is a great addition to this event. The wine crawl will go slightly slower and have a few less venues, but I think it will be a great, relaxing evening.

So come on down Friday night. Meet at 6 pm at Cascade Baking company and get your free wristband that allows you to participate in all the specials. If you can't make it at 6, wristbands will be handed out at the Rivers Condominuims on Front St. until about 10 PM, I believe. Either that or you can just look for the band of happy people parading to the next venue and tag along.

Oh, and don't forget to dress for the Back to School Fantasy Theme!

For more info, click here.

The Roxxy's New Vibe

Well, folks, there's a new dance club in town. I, for one, was very sad to hear that the new Roxxy would not continue with the great music that Lefty's did, but apparently it's hard to pack the house when you are booking bands, so they decided to try the dance club routine.

The great news? Comedy nights are still twice a month on Thursdays and the food is still pretty decent for a club/bar. They aren't packing the house yet, but I think that's because people don't know about them. Saturday there was an article about clubbing in Salem in the Statesman which should help get the word out.

Friday night I went out with some friends for some music and dancing and we decided to check it out. It had nice atmosphere, great music (some old, some new, mostly pop/hip-hop/R&B, and all quite loud!), and great service. It will be good to see if the service continues to be so good as they get busier, but for the most part, it seemed well-run. A lot of the same employees who used to run Moonbaker were part of the show, so they should know what they're doing.

I felt the prices were pretty low to average for drinks in Salem. We didn't order any food on Friday night because it was late and we had gone out to dinner earlier. I ordered wine, another friend ordered a beer, and another two friends had cocktails. Everyone was happy with their drinks, even me, and I know better than to order wine in a dance club. I actually asked the waitress only to bring me the wine if the bottle hadn't been open for days and she laughed and said they used small, one serving bottles. :)

There were only a few other people there throughout the night as well as some that came and went after short stays. It certainly wasn't packed, but it looked like the word might be getting out. I'm sure it will start filling up soon.

While we were there, they mentioned that they had a Happy Hour from 7-9 pm every night where everything in the house is half-price. Wow! I decided to try it out on Saturday night with a couple other friends. We showed up a little after 7 pm and asked if that was still the deal. Sure enough. So we ordered drinks and some Roxxy Fries with cheese and bacon topping. Mmmm. :)

The fries were a huge portion, the drinks were strong, but not overpowering (well-mixed) and the server was friendly and prompt. Our entire bill came up to $12 at the end of our snack. Happy Hour indeed! I did notice that this happy hour was not advertised. I do wonder if it is just temporary to get people introduced to the new place. At any rate, it was very good, the music wasn't too loud to talk (as it had been the night before after 10) and the atmosphere was fun. I would definitely go back to try their pizza.

Wine Country Trip

Well, I'm down in wine country this week, so things are a little slow here on the blog. Let me just tell you that the 8-9 hour drive from Salem to Sonoma County is well worth the trip. Especially when I hear it's raining up there, and I'm spending the day by the pool getting sunburned. :) Or valiantly trying not to get sunburned while still soaking up as much sun as possible to prepare for the long, rainy winter ahead.

The trip down here wasn't bad. It's completely doable in one day. Medford makes a good stopping point for a meal. Or Redding if you have a snack in the car on the way. If you need to get out and stretch there are some great rest stops with decent parklike areas, or you can stop at Lake Shasta if you need a real break and some outdoor time. Another option, which my sister and brother-in-law did on the way down, was to cut across to Hwy 101 at Grants Pass and come down through the redwoods. They said there were some pretty remote areas, but they got to see a lot of great sights.

So, if you have five to seven days, a drive down to wine country area is a great option for a relatively close to home trip. It's obviously not the kind of thing to do in a long weekend, but it's definitely driveable for a weeklong vacation like we're doing. It also helps if you like either wine or golfing as most of the activities around here seem to revolve around one of those two things. :)

Summer in the City Festival - Salem, Oregon

Something very good is happening in Salem. People are planning events and other people are coming out of the woodwork to check them out! It's exciting to see people in the streets of downtown Salem.

The festival goes all weekend and has a lot of great music and food to try out. There are three music stages, one whole block of wine tasting, a beer garden, and lots of great food from downtown restaurants. One of my favorite things about the layout of the event is that the beer and wine areas were set up near the stages so that you could enjoy music and drinks at the same time. The stages were not actually inside the drinking areas though, so anyone could get close to the music. Also, the children's area had its own street so the kids could go crazy and not disturb the music listeners.

There are also a lot of businesses taking advantage of the crowds downtown with sidewalk sales so there's lots to see, do, and buy down there this weekend. It takes me back to the days when the sidewalk sale downtown was a highlight of the summer.

Summer In The City was planned and organized by Go Downtown! headed up by Suzie Bicknell and I was very impressed with the organization and the layout of the event. One of the problems with events in the past is that no one would go out of the box and take on the likes of city council, OLCC and other entities to get things moving in a more modern direction. We were stuck in a small town mentality for too long. Thank heavens we are moving into big city mode. Or at least medium city mode. :) Thank you, Suzie and Salem.

I hope this event becomes synonomous with Salem in the summertime. We need fun events to bring people out to explore our own little city. This is a great start.