Great big things happen in tiny Dundee, a town of roughly 10,000 home to scores of Oregon’s most renowned wine producers. It’s rare you get to see many of them all in one place. Normally you’ve got to drive all over the Red Hills (which has its allure), but if you want to taste wines from nearby all in one setting, the Taste of Dundee event is a great option.

Here are four things I learned there :

1. Producers stepping into sparkling: Sokol Blosser and Mellen Meyer .
   I finally got to try Sokol Blosser‘s new NW Evolution Sparkling, the first such release from one of my favorite Oregon wineries. It’s pretty much tastes like a nice spring day, all bubbly and pinkish and so much fun. And then, to discover a smaller producer joining the fray: Mellen Meyer, who has been producing sparkling for a while. It’s a small operation, but that’s what’s so exciting about sparkling right now. So many experimenting and figuring out how to make a PNW-style in the category.
2. Oregon vermouth rising: Interrobang.
   I’ve loved Imbue’s entries into the American vermouth categories and was excited to discover a new producer, Interrobang, who makes a sweet vermouth based on an old German recipe involving 10 botanicals. I’m not much of a spirits drinker, but this one I could imagine sipping on ice.
3. The best reason to skip traffic.
   How many times have I waited in the Dundee traffic when I could have just pulled off right before it gets bad to visit Duck Pond Cellars? Had a fantastic conversation with winemaker Trevor Chandla. There are two types of Oregon winemakers — the kind who who really just wants to be working on the wine, and the types who love the conviviality of talking to people about it. He’s one of the latter. At the Taste he was pouring a Pinot noir blanc that knocked my socks off.
4. Real Campagne at Chapter 24.
   It’s no secret that I adore Chapter 24, at the very least for its marketing focused on the last chapter of the Odyssey (you know, the one where Odysseus comes back and slays all the suitors!). Also, I lusted after the winery’s building in Dundee for several years before they turned it, with the help of Cellar Ridge Construction, into a showstopper of a tasting room. So I was delighted to discover that the winery is actually making Champagne. Not just sparkling. Champagne, from the Champagne region of France, under the Chapter 24 label. Why not?

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