The hangars and metal-sided barns outside Walla Wall Community Airport hardly looked like the epicenter of the area wine industry. But the names and decor gave it away - some even displayed sample vines (growing grapes next to a dusty road is not desirable terroir), with the best offering rows of the Bourdeaux names - Carmenere, Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Malbec, Petit Verdot and Cabernet Sauvignon.
Dunham was among the first to call his wine park home, because as Jordan, their marketing manager explained to me, you can't house your whole wine-making operation downtown. Indeed, they had turned the World War II aircraft hangar into a stylish yet comfortable home, with Eric Dunham's art highlighted on the walls of the larger tasting room. His artwork graces many of their releases. A week earlier I hadn't contemplated such a trip, but quick action from the fine folks at Aleksey's Wine & Spirits (Dunham's TN distributor) and Josh Johnson at Horizon Wine & Spirits (Woodward Canyon) got me a little extra face time with the wineries' staffs.
Their standard blends, Three-Legged Red and Four-Legged White, honor dogs of the winery - and they go down easily as well. Also excelent was the Trutina blend (Latin for "balance"), which combines Cabernet, Merlot and Syrah, but varies year-to-year based on what grapes Dunham has available. Single-vineyard syrahs and cabs both radiated the perfumed, floral characteristics exhibited by the region's best reds. The clear standout among the white's were the rieslings, both a standard crispy, dry version and a late harvest version taken from the vines too early for an "ice wine" classification. Late harvest Riesling clearly stood out, thanks it its massive honey and apricot flavors. I couldn't leave without one, and the Dunham crew had a signed bottle of Three-Legged Red waiting for me.
Jordan took me through the facility, its giant de-stemmer and juicers, its barrel house and its bottling operation. Underground pipes connect them all, allowing the wine to flow between stages in a climate-controlled environment - temperatures can vary in the valley from below freezing to triple digits. The smell of barrel-fermenting grapes served as a comfortable backdrop to the barrel room, where stacks of recent vintages matured. Although Dunham only produces 18,000 cases a year, it has a high-tech bottling line which handles 40-50 bottles a minute. Next to the bottling room sat a chemistry lab in which the winemakers ensured the right mixes on their blends.
The 12 miles between Dunham and Woodward Canyon Vineyards flew by. Arriving prior to my scheduled time, I discovered the tasting room was a circus, packed with a crowd to rival those in the busy seasons. Keep in mind, Washington's elegant wines have not yet attracted the notoriety of California's Napa Valley, so 20 people constitutes a crowd in March.
Luckily, the valley's second-oldest winery shared a parking lot with its third-oldest, L'Ecole 41, housed in an old French schoolhouse. While I had no appointment, L'Ecole staffer Brandon navigated me through a few whites and a series of powerhouse reds, including some single vineyard gems. The blends too had their moments, although the Seven Hils Vineyard Perigee surpassed the Pepper Ridge Vineyard Apogee, not too surprising considering Perigee came from L'Ecole's oldest blocks of grapes.
After the unexpected detour, I headed back to an empty Woodward Canyon tasting room, where Shari, their guest services director, thanked me for missing the lunch crowd. Woodward Canyon only sits behind Leonetti in longevity, and it shows. They have the expertise, and even took chances on some Italian grapes seldom seen outside of Italy, barbera and dolcetto. They don't distribute those wines beyond Washington, so an Estate Dolcetto (WA wine law says "estate" must be 100 percent of the advertised varietal). Shari led me on quick tour of the wines
Since I chose more seasoned wine-makers with decades of experience and vineyard control, I didn't sample a disappointing drop. All three produced top-notch wines that represent a different path than American's better known wine regions.
Heading back to U.S. 12, I opted for the mountain pass which ended in the logging town of Elgin, what some called the Tollgate road. The road had been plowed, although heavy drifts still clung to the roadside and to the hills. I could imagine how bad it could get at these heights when I saw orange road markers that easily cleared 10 feet. It climbed steadily till gaps in the trees showed the road on the level of the fir-covered peaks I glanced from afar.
My urge to get a photo from these heights would nearly prove my undoing. I saw a scenic overlook covered with snow, and haphazardly turned in. I never found out whether or not a thin layer of packed snow covered the lot, because a dense layer of gravel and icy snow covered the first five feet from the road, stopping the car dead. A little flooring produced no results.
I was stuck in the snow on one of northeast Oregon's highest, most desolate roads without a cell phone signal. Only good samaritans would get me down now. Luckily, after five minutes of waving at drivers, a man and his wife stopped so we could try to push it out. No dice.
Then, we flagged down Steve and his son, who had a tow cable in their pickup truck. Unfortunately, I entered the lookout at a bad angle - he couldn't pull me straight out, and cars whipped around this turn, meaning we could end up in a major wreck if we didn't do it properly. The other gentleman grabbed an orange jacket and one of the orange road markets and flagged the traffic to slow down. In 10 minutes, we massaged the Elantra back onto the road. Steve refused my offer of wine in exchange for help, only insisting that I help someone in need.
My Samaritans left, then I finished an uneventful drive to Elgin and traced my course back through Le Grande and Baker. I gave what cash I had to the homeless vets at the off-ramp back in Boise, but I'm not counting that as a good deed. I felt like I was neck-deep in it for doing something stupid, so I still owe some stranger a big favor.
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