May is a beautiful month in the Willamette Valley, filled with wildflowers and trees blooming in shades of pink and white, warming weather and blue skies, and the promise of summer on the way. It's also Oregon Wine Month, and our local wineries will be re-opening tasting rooms and getting ready to welcome you back to Oregon Wine Country.
We'll cap the month of May off with our annual Memorial Day Weekend Winery Open Houses, when our local wineries (as well as wineries all around Oregon) throw open their tasting room doors to celebrate the holiday and the beginning of the season with special tastings, deals, and sales, and events like concerts and more. Stay tuned to our blog and events calendar for more details on these tastings as Memorial Day approaches.
It's a great time to visit the Heart of the Valley and tour the tasting rooms of our boutique wineries, enjoying award-winning Oregon wines. We've included some resources and trip inspirations here to help you get started exploring our local wineries and vineyards.
This year thirteen of our local wineries are participating in the Heart of Willamette Wine Passport, which can make for difficult decisions when it comes to planning out an afternoon of wine tasting. To help out, we have a few suggested Sip Trips here, offering two or three stops each.
Wineries make great cycling destinations and the Corvallis area offers some diverse locations for those who prefer to pedal their way to some fine wine.
Benton County wineries are located north, south and west of Corvallis so one route looping passed them all would be a long and winding road. Instead, we want to call you attention to a few wineries and the primary road to get there.
We have nine wineries on the Mid-Willamette Valley Food Trail and they're all excellent places to settle in for a relaxing afternoon with a glass of Oregon's famous Pinot Noir. With nine stops on the list, it might be hard to know where to start. We've got four suggestions here that offer excellent wines and amazing views, as well as a chance to see a bit of the stunning scenery along our back roads.
My sense of wanderlust beckoned me to flee the clamor of the big city for a weekend journey in search of treasure. No, I wouldn’t be diving for ancient doubloons nestled in the crushed hull of some sunken ship. Nor would I scrounge for a trunk filled with gem-encrusted goblets used by some evil prince in bygone days.
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