My friend Julie came to visit me in early August, she was in town caddying for one of her good friends who was playing in the US Women’s Amateur…more on that in an upcoming blog post…
When Julie is in town, we always make time for wine tasting! And this time, one of our destinations was Rex Hill Vineyards. I drive by Rex Hill every single day on my way to and from work, and am slightly embarrassed that it took me almost two years to finally do a wine tasting!? But then again, we have a lot of wineries in the Willamette Valley…
As we got out of the car and walked toward the tasting room entrance, this beautiful piece of artwork instantly caught my eye! The material type, corten steel a.k.a. weathering steel and the unique shapes, were like a friendly hello from an old friend. The artist, Lee Kelly, is a well know fixture on the Northwest Art scene and I had the chance to work with him on one of my very first engineering projects at American Plaza (see #2 on the map linked below) in downtown Portland. Kelly’s works of art can be found all over the Portland metropolitan area, check out this map.
After I took a moment to tell everyone about Lee Kelly and marvel at his artwork nestled in wine country, we headed into Rex Hill to do a tasting.
What’s neat about Rex Hill is they source grapes from all over the Willamette Valley. Their wines come from all of the major American Viticulture Areas (AVAs) in our local area as is shown in the map below.
Oh, and isn’t this neat, they had some root stock hanging in the lobby…just look at the gnarly roots of a grape vine.
The Rex Hill tasting room has some great charm, it once was an old fruit and nut drying facility. These long “tunnels” were used to dry the fruit and nuts. I love when old buildings get repurposed into modern uses. This “tunnel” is now used to showcase Rex Hill wine, and the next tunnel over was a bit wider and had room to accommodate larger wine tasting groups.
As I wandered around taking pictures, Julie and The Renaissance Man cozied right up to the tasting bar and started on the flight. The winner among the pinot noirs was the 2012 Rex Hill Roserock Vineyard Pinot Noir…Julie purchase a bottle and we all had a chance to enjoy it later that evening!
You may have noticed the wine barrel in the center of the room (pictured above)…I was equally intrigued trying to figure out what was going on with all the wine glasses. As a way to help wine enthusiast identify the flavors and attributes they enjoy in a particular wine, Rex Hill created this “Essence Table.” You can take a sip of wine and then try to smell and identify the flavors that you taste. As someone newer to wine, I thought this was a pretty cool idea and I was able to pick up a couple of notes in the wine that I’ve never really been able to identify before. Pretty creative, right?
Three cheers to another great winery in Yamhill County!