Italian Cooking & Language Blog

Fare La Scarpetta means to wipe your plate clean with a piece of bread.

What else could you ask for?

Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Willamette Valley, Oregon: Wine Country


The Willamette Valley in Oregon is Wine Country. One afternoon during our visit to Portland, we took a drive and visited a few wineries. It didn’t take more than an hour to arrive.

Our favorite winery was De Ponte Cellars. We tried a few Pinots, the grape of choice in the region. These wines were fuller and more developed than the other wines we tried in the area.

Ok, I’m not sure if that’s true. I’m a terrible wine taster. I know what I like and what I don’t like, but I’m not sure that I can really explain why I like something or describe the taste properly. I remember taking a cooking class at Trattoria Zibibbo in Florence and the final class included a wine tasting led by a sommelier. When he started talking about the complex flavors in the wines that disclosed that the vines ripened close to wildflowers, I scrunched up my forehead. I couldn’t taste it and couldn’t imagine that anyone else could (he announced that the “americana” didn’t know the words in Italian and needed a translator. In that case, the words were not the problem.)

Regardless, it was a great afternoon driving through the valley. The scenery throughout, if you put aside from the large, beautiful Northwestern trees, reminded me of Tuscany.

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