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The outdoor patio in Summer
PINOT CAMP In June 2008
I attended 'Oregon Pinot Camp' in Willamette Valley. It's an invitation-only event for wine sellers around the country. For more info, check out www.oregonpinotcamp.com. Guests attend workshops, visit wineries throughout the region, and have wine dinners each evening. It truly was like "camp" since we rode around in yellow school buses. All I can say is those Canadian boys had a hard time showing up on time each morning at departure time!
Each tent had one or two different wineries in them and you walked around with your wine glass sampling all the Pinot Noirs.
Cristom Vineyards definitely had the most beautiful grounds with perennials everywhere.
And downtown Portland is beautiful. It reminds me more of a city like Ann Arbor than Detroit or Chicago, or NY.
In late August/early September '09 my family and I went to Spain. BARCELONA AREA
Unfortunately August is 'vacation' month in Spain (some stores close for the entire month) and Torres' fabulous restaurant was closed. I had been told it would be the best meal of our trip/my life. How disappointing! The tour guide took us here instead and we had quite the Spanish smorgasbord. The power went out briefly (very exciting) because of the lightening and HAIL! She said it's typical in late August to get hail -- not good for the grapes, though.
It's not a tour if you don't go into a 50 degree barrel room! I love the smell.
Tens of thousands of bottles just waiting and improving before being released.
On the road to Rioja-- located in central Spain from where we began in Barcelona. You see one small town after the other. Each town has its own church which is fairly identifiable in the picture below. You almost become complacent with the anitiquities all around you. It becomes 'normal' to you. When you look back at photos later, it occurs to you all over again how incredibly old, beautiful and interesting these small towns are. We drove a BMW which was built for speed on the open road (my husband loved that). Oh yeah, toll road costs exceeded $100. You lose track with the Euro after a while. The roads were beautifully smoothe and you can drive so fast because you can see for miles and there's no traffic.
Can you say 'windmill'?! Everywhere, everywhere there are windmills and photovoltaic solar panels. Everywhere!
RIOJA
Roda, located in Haro, is a very 'new world' winery. Of the two wineries we visited, this was very 'high tech' in its approach to winemaking. Gonzalo showed us around... not only the building, but on the grounds first...
This is Roda's logo. It's a thistle. It's on their label. This was down in the barrel rooms.
Here is their line of wines: Roda, Roda I, and then Cirsion. They also have olive oils that we sampled. Roda is a blend of Tempranillo, Graciano and Garnarcha; Roda I is 100% Tempranillo (Roda II hasn't been made in years); and Cirsion is their flagship wine of 100% Tempranillo. I can get the Roda and Roda I here in Michigan, but not the Cirsion since it has limited production. I'm not sure it warrants the $200ish price tag, but it's delish. The Roda I is quite good with a more reasonable price point around $50-60 retail.
After the tour, we went to the town of Haro. Very charming and exactly what you think a small European town would be like with narrow, cobblestone streets. Notice the winery banners above us for shade.
Montecillo located in Fuenmayor, Rioja, is the antithesis of Roda. It is run Maria Martinez Sierra who has been the winemaker for over 30 years. The owners of the winery are the Osbornes -- one of Spain's most distinguished wine and Sherry producers. What is different about Montecillo is that they do not grow their own grapes. By convincing the Osbourne family to sell off its own private vineyards early on, Maria has been able to keep her financial hands "free" to bargain for the best crops around. She is not limited by company vines, contracts and other components that easily entangle the grape sourcing process, and is subsequently able to focus on grape quality right from the start. This way, only the best of the best from each year’s crop are used to produce the Montecillo wines. Next, they oversee their own onsite private cooperage on the Montecillo grounds. Master coopers craft French oak barrels to Maria’s specific terms and standards, so that they are free from “toasting” and made of oak hand-sourced in central France by the estate themselves.
Photos from the in-house coopering.
Barrels ageing. We went to this tasting room underground and sampled a bottle from 1981. She still had tons of it. Now I had tasted an '86 Bordeaux before and was disappointed because it was 'gone'. It was actually passed its prime and beginning to degrade. This, on the other hand, was delicious and I would have drank more but we left to go to lunch. She took us to a restaurant in Fuenmayor. Of course, there we had a current release of Montecillo wine there.
We really enjoyed the Montecillo wine and its price point is far more approachable for everyday drinking than Roda. When we left Rioja and travelled to San Sebastian, we found Montecillo in the local markets and drank it. Here in Michigan it is well represented in Kroger and Busch's. As such, we do not carry it, but it is a good, solid Tempranillo at a good price. There is Crianza, Reserva, and Gran Reserva. The Crianza is quite good and would drink that over the Reserva considering price difference. On another note, we often think of only the red grape in Rioja, but the white counterpart is the Viura (aka Macabeo) grape. It's often used to make Cava and is found in Torres' Sangre de Toro white blend.
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Looking down from the upstairs mezzanine area 
From the front looking towards the bar 
One of the wineries
They dug trenches to demonstrate the different levels of soil. The soil varies fairly significantly throughout the Valley. They refer to a particular kind as "Willa Kenzie". Interestingly, that is the name of one of the wineries there. 
The weather cooperated and we had lovely evening dinners two nights. The tents were enormous and food delicious. During the dinners, winemakers brought out older vintages of their wine for guests to sample. A vertical tasting of sorts.
from the car
from the car again. 
We stopped along the road just to check out the grapes.
Next winery, Roda (
in his Land Rover.
My daughter and I are standing in the middle of Roda's vineyards and specifically on a rock area that was a gravity press centuries ago. We're elevated a little and once the juice was extracted from the grape, it would move naturally down the rock. Old school winemaking!
This is a 21st century fermentation room.
Everything about Roda was very modern.
Tasting the wines (Reilly wasn't interested)
Out a door from their barrel room is this little secret garden of sorts. 
You can barely see the river Tiron right outside the door and this bench and table. The perfect little getaway Gonzalo said no one really uses!
My husband took a photo of us from the upstairs of the restaurant. Being handicapped in Spain would surely be horrible. Nothing is wheelchair accessible! The bathrooms are in the basement and there are steps up and down everywhere.
Montecillo Winery
Lisa O'Donnell and Maria Martinez 
The Osborne symbol. You see this everywhere up in the mountains driving around Spain. It's kind of funny because there's just this random bull on top of a mountain like it's just walking around.