Food, Wine, and Waves in the Northwest

Carmen:



We had an excellent day of rest in between Eugene and Seattle. We spent the day tasting wine, shopping for food, and playing around on the Oregon coast. Before we left Eugene we went to a wonderful natural grocery store called Sundance Natural Foods. Amazing produce and even more amazing bulk section. I could probably get away with no packaging waste if I bought all of my food and toiletries from this store.

The best find were the fresh Oregon white truffles! Oregon is known around the country for its fabulous mushrooms anyway. in addition to one very small white truffle (about the size of my thumb nail, only $3.50) we bought the most beautiful blue tinged oyster mushrooms, and a half a dozen white trumpet mushrooms. We ended up making truffled mashed Yukons for dinner (mmmmmmmmmmmmm!!!! Anyone who know me, knows that I am the queen of yummy noises:)

After shopping, we stopped at two different vineyards outside of Salem, Bethel Heights and Stangeland, two places that specialize in Pinot Noir, which is of course what we ended up buying. The most interesting thing about Bethel Heights is that they have different blocks of their vineyards that are sectioned off individually so that different bottlings can be made. So, the block of Pinot Noir that is up on the hill ends of tasting completely different from the block that is down next to the road. We ended up buying "Southeast Block" which is was the vineyard with the lowest elevation. We thought it was the spiciest tasting, probably because it gets the most sun.



Stangeland (NOT STRANGEland) was completely different than Bethel Heights. Their Pinots were crazy and wild!