Photo Essay: McMinnville, Oregon

This past summer we stayed at McMinnville, Oregon, an impossibly cute town in the Oregon Wine Country. We tasted wine and ate too much.

This past summer AJ and I took to the road and wound our way from San Francisco through the Pacific Northwest. We eventually ended up in Vancouver to take a cruise up to Alaska, but before we did that, we visited Oregon and traveled down the Columbia River Scenic Highway from The Dalles to Portland. But before we headed up to Canada, we stopped for a couple of magical days in McMinnville, an adorably quirky little town about an hour west of Portland in the heart of the Oregon wine country. Our cute bed and breakfast was basically an entire in-law apartment and the town itself reminded me of a Pacific Northwest version of Stars Hollow (you KNOW how much I love my Gilmore Girls) nestled in the Oregon Wine Country.

We dined at fabulous restaurants like the Crescent Café where their breakfast was unbelievably good and I still crave their blueberry coffee cake. Valley Commissary had a gorgeous open kitchen and local seasonal focused menu of which I still dream of their deep fried cheese curds. And I can’t rave enough about our dinner at Thistle, which at one point was named the best restaurant in Portland. Which is hilarious because it’s not even in Portland. Their bread and fat starter (don’t you love that name) was the sort of thing you just can’t stop eating with crusty sourdough bread and a spoonful of lard and herbs along with cultured butter. Of course, I had to leave room for the pork rillette with pickles. So much good food! Of course, we wine tasted between dining, tasting fabulous reds and whites and bubbles at Elizabeth Chambers Cellars, R. Stuart & Co., and Coeur de Terre Vineyards. There was an even a local coffee roaster, Flag and Wire, that served coffee in pretty much any manner you wanted it. And we didn’t even scratch the surface. One local tried to give me an three day itinerary of places to eat and wine taste, and none of them were the ones that we tried! I can’t wait to go back. Just thinking of it makes me miss being on the road.

Special thanks to Travel Oregon and Visit McMinnville for providing lodging and meals. Though our two nights at the Galloway Place and the meals at Crescent Café, Valley Commissary and Thistle were all paid for by Travel Oregon and Visit McMinnville, all opinions above are my own.