So after hours at Red Ridge Farms, Domain Drouhin, and White Rose, we were hungry and headed towards Carlton.

We went to Cuvee and despite showing up at nearly 2:30pm, they sat us for lunch anyway. Cuvee is a fantastic place to have lunch or dinner. It's run by a Alsatian who makes incredible French dishes. We all started with mushroom-in-bree-sauce appetizers that were as rich as they were delicious. Caleb and I had Crepes avec Fruits de la Mer — basically shrimp, scallops muscles and other goodies with cheese inside a crepe. Yum. Denise and Cheryl had the Salomon salad that was more like Nicoise salad — eggs, tomato, potato, dill and other goodies. Our 4 year old ordered the most memorable dish: the French pizza (if you can call it that). Goat cheese, bacon and onion (sans onion for the kid). Wow! Rich and yummy stuff on almost a pastry crust.

But our Carlton plans were twofold, we also wanted to visit The Tasting Room in Carlton as our final wine destination. And helpfully, it's only about a block or two from Cuvee.



So Carlton is this quaint little town. Lots of wineries, antique shops and other interesting (if not touristy) destinations. However, it wasn't always this way. They used to have normal small town amenities: stores, shops and banks. And the Tasting Room is literally the old bank:



It's not like it's a big place. It's a nice size. Yet, there's no tables to sit and hang out. It's just bar, and a lots of wine bottles and cases.



The good stuff gets special treatment in the vault, literally:



And be careful, they don't actually know the combination to the vault (I asked). They purposefully put all those cases in front of the door to impede any chance the door could actually be shut and locked. But still, it's fun to see wine superficially treated with such reverence.

The neat thing about the Tasting Room — beyond the wine of course — is all the neat old wine stuff you just can't see elsewhere. Christie — the proprietor — knows a lot about Oregon wine. And she has this old map from 1997 of the vineyards back then:



The same map today would have many more times as many vineyards. Some of those were penned in on the map. Nysa here, something else there. And then there was this treasure:



Boy-o-boy, if only I had an extra $800! This set included Beaux Freres wines from 1995 through 2002. Wow. Apparently, it's the last set she has. And at about $135 per bottle — funny to say — but that's not too bad actually. Needless to say, I had to pass; so if you're interested, high-tail it out to Carlton ...

Anyway, we were there for the wine tasting. So we paid the fee and tried a number of wines. I hate to say it, but they were not all that memorable. Though, admittedly, we had been tasting all day, so maybe I just ran out of steam.

 

I came pretty close to picking up some of that Ayres Ribbon Ridge, yet I had spent way too much that day already at White Rose and Cuvee.

The sad part, I suppose, was when I asked about the economy and its affect. Christie admitted that it had, and that she was now pouring wines that cost up to about $50 per bottle, instead of up to $75/80 that she had last year. Consumers just aren't buying the higher-end wines. Wines under $30, and especially under $20 are much more popular these days. And that's just talking about Pinot Noir.

In fact, a number of wine producers are now cheating a bit with their brands in order to cope with the economy. Take EIEIO for example. In fact, we tasted a couple of the EIEIO wines (hint: don't try and pronouce that, just read each letter and you'll get it). They now have a "Swine Wine" offering. This is essentially a re-brand of their bottom-end wine. And instead of $35 per bottle, it's $25. Yes, I did pick up some of that (and it's quite good; I'll have a more formal review soon).

And I think a lot of producers are doing things like this. It's a little safer to re-brand at the lower price, than hurt the brand itself with the price reduction. Sad, but true. And worse, I hear that many producers are sitting on more wine than they'd like. Apparently Domaine Serene has a ton of their 2006 wine. In fact, I noticed it was a recent addition to a local restaurant we frequent, so perhaps they're doing deals to get this stuff out there because those 2006 won't last too long — not like the 2007 can (assuming it's necessary).

Anyway, not to end on a depressing note. On the other hand, now's a great time to pick up some great deals on wine. Especially Oregon Pinots. That is, assuming you can afford to do so.