Forest Grove Uncorked!

When we first moved to Forest Grove many years ago, the best restaurant in town was a toss-up between the Dairy Queen and the Mexican place on Main St., and if you wanted wine, you could buy whatever the Safeway was selling. How things have changed! We now have a nice selection of restaurants including a brewpub, middle eastern food, and Thai, and we have not one, but 2 great wine shops. Forest Grove is also attempting to position itself as a destination for wine tourism, being at the northern end of the Willamette Valley and surrounded by at least 5 or 6 pretty good wineries. In fact, some of the oldest, if not the oldest, Pinot Noir vines in Oregon are planted at David Hill Vineyards just outside of town, hence our new slogan: "Forest Grove, the birthplace of Oregon Pinot Noir."

To celebrate all of this, the City Club of Forest Grove along with several local businesses put on an event to show off Forest Grove's food, micro brews, and wine called "Forest Grove Uncorked" on Saturday, Aug. 15th. Rachel had to miss this one, but I went with our friends Rhonda and Tracy and we had a wonderful time.

Most of the wineries that were there are old friends, but there were a few new ones and a couple that we don't really care for. Rhonda and I arrived just after it opened at 5pm and Tracy joined us about an hour later. They had blocked off the downtown section of Main St. just as they do for the farmer's market.

We tasted at the following wineries: A Blooming Hill Vineyard, Apolloni, Artisanal, David Hill, Laurel Ridge, Raptor Ridge, Bodhichitta, and Ardiri. The standouts for me at this event were the Gypsy Dancer Pinot Gris (sold by Ardiri who bought the vineyard from Gary Andrus), the Raptor Ridge Pinot Noirs, the David Hill Blackjack Pinot Noir, and the Apolloni Pinot Gris and Rosé. Most of the others certainly had some good wines too. The big disappointment was a new winery, Bodhichitta, whose wines just weren't very good.

This is likely to become an annual event, and I look forward to it next year.