Willamette Valley tour

Thanks for the notes, Larry. That's a real shocker about Chehalem, which has been one of my "must" visits for the past 5 years or so. Good to hear that Torii Mor is still doing good things, and no real surprise about Lange (about half the positive comments I've heard about it are for the view and the best wine I've had there was a Reserve Pinot Gris).

Mark Lipton

I've always found that the Torii Mor folks were a little full of themselves, in general their PN is not to my taste, and I balk at $10 tasting fees. In fact I balk at all tasting fees, but that is another story... I much prefer the Elk Cove and they have a nice Pinot Blanc, too. If you seem like a serious wine drinker, they don't charge for tasting their single vinyard PN's either.

I really don't like paying $5 to taste plonk, and that feeling of getting ripped off ruins my whole day. (that's the other story.)

in article 4638dbc9$0$505$ snipped-for-privacy@news.qwest.net, Broadwell at Broadwell wrote on 5/2/07 11:43 AM:

Torii Mor isn't to my taste either but, after 30 years of Napa/Sonoma/Central Coast winery visits, I don't fault wineries for charging a reasonable fee. $10 seems reasonable in today's world. So many people do tastings at popular wineries that it's difficult to see how it could make good fiscal sense for them to not charge at all..... especially the smaller ones.

Not sure I understand the fairness of . What makes you "seem like a serious wine drinker"? Seems like it could be capricious and arbitrary. It'd be much more fair to comp the tasting if you buy $X at the winery, or are a club member. If I were tasting and saw someone get comped for just "seeming more serious" I think I'd be really pissed off. Not that I haven't been to tasting rooms where they'll bring out library wines, reserves or offer barrel tasting if you seem interested and reasonably knowledgeable. But they offer it to everyone there at the time, not selectively.

It is at the bartenders discretion. I've been to many wineries that normally charged for tasting. If it was clear our party were wine drinkers and not just there for a sunday drive they often waived the fee. If their policy was to taste 5 wines for $5 plus $2 extra for premium wines they'd often pour us whatever we wanted. Sometimes a winery has opened a bottle thats not on their tasting list if we showed an interest.

I've had exactly the same experience as you, but I've found that often times the staff doesn't charge me for tasting those library wines. Whether they charged anyone else, I couldn't honestly say, but I do feel that most tasting room staffs do make the distinction between partygoers with no serious interest in the wine and someone who knows the winery and the wines and is interested in learning something (and/or making a purchase).

Mark Lipton

Well, it was an older gentleman and he was quite nice and hardly full of himself. That said I wasn't enamored of the high tasting costs throughout the valley. Elk Cove was closed the day we toured.

My only experience in Oregon was at Adelsheim, and it was a very good tour and tasting with a detailed visit to the operation. There was IIRC no charge but they are appointment only.