If you missed the beginning of my wine country journey you can read about it here. Part II is continued here.
The tasting and tour at King Estate was something I was very excited for. After tasting other Willamette Valley wine I was looking forward to tasting wine from a larger winery and see what went on behind the scenes. As with every other aspect of this trip I was not disappointed.
We sampled some Pinot Gris first, both the oak and stainless steel aged and not surprisingly I loved them both, but enjoyed the stainless steel one slightly more. Kevin, who poured for us, also took us on a tour. Being the wild women we are one of us dropped the f-bomb which broke the ice with Kevin (and I believe got us some preferred treatment, see the tower shot of us)
Kevin told us all about the size of the property and the organic growing of the grapes.
The inside of the building was just as impressive as the outside.
How cool is that door?! There were a few of them throughout the winery. The whole place was immaculately clean, I was impressed.
We were told about the making of the wine, the pressing, the fermenting, the transferring to oak barrels. It was all rather fascinating.
The next place we went was to see where they store some of the barrels of wine. We learned all about "toasting" of the barrels (the inside of the barrels are charred to give the wine different flavors). I thought this was the prettiest room in the winery.
Can you believe the size of those barrels?
We went back to the tasting room to sample a few more wines, then we went to the tower where we met some fun people and drank more wine (shocking, I know).
We headed back to the house to prepare for dinner, this involved drinking more wine! The journey back might have included some mooning and flashing done by someone in the car to the brave souls who were walking, this might have caused one of the brave souls to jump in the car to avoid peeing her pants was uneventful.
Dinner at the main building was beyond words. The food was perfect, the wine was perfect and the company was perfect. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves!
Appetizers:
The main course:
Completely forgot to take pictures of the desserts. We ordered five and passed them around the table taking a bite of each until they were gone. One of us might have latched on to one and refused to let go We all shared nicely.
The wine obviously consumed:
The loud, gluttonous pigs happy diners!
I started the telling of this epic journey with Sherri and I'm ending it with Sherri. I can't thank her enough for putting this trip together for us. I had the best time and I can't wait to do it again!
What a great get away! Now that is a lot of wine! Glad your trip was amazing.
Posted by: Tracey of These Nine Acres | February 17, 2011 at 06:14 AM
Great photos and write-up, I laughed out loud a few times. That first photo is hilarious, looks like everyone was acting serious to avoid looking tipsy, we all know how that ended up.
Posted by: Jen | February 17, 2011 at 09:12 AM
Aww what a wonderful adventure! It looks like a good time was had by all.
Posted by: Meg | February 17, 2011 at 10:32 AM
I've decided I will live the rest of my life vicariously through you because you do all the fun stuff ... and take great photos to prove it!
Posted by: Lisa | February 17, 2011 at 08:17 PM
Your whole trip looks amazing. Great friends and gorgeous photos--two of my necessities.
Posted by: Jenn @ Juggling Life | February 18, 2011 at 07:02 PM