Willamette Valley Hotels

Maryhill Winery offers hospitality worth the trip

The Columbia Gorge AVA is an area of grape growers and wineries that if you do not live in the NW is usually lumped into the Columbia River AVA most often. It is a separate region that to the west almost connects to the Willamette Valley and to the east lays the Columbia River AVA. Yes most of it sits on or above the banks of the Columbia River and similar to the Columbia River and Walla Walla AVA’s it too incorporates both Washington and Oregon wineries and growers. I recently had the pleasure to experience some hospitality offered by one of the largest wineries in that AVA.

Maryhill Winery started in 1999 now produces 100K cases a year and all of it is very good wine I think it was in 2007 I first met Jay Turner from Maryhill at the NW Food and Wine festival and I was fresh off of tasting my first bottle of their 2005 Red Winemakers Blend which exuded a quality blend that instantly put me on watch for anything this winery produced. Imagine my surprise with their Sangiovese paired with my Italian food background. It was magic; great forward fruit and a backbone of acidity that clearly placed this wine as a NW food and wine pairing magnet.

Winery owners Vicki and Craig Leuthold were consummate hosts as we arrived for a little nosh and wine tasting before we departed to tour some of the vineyards they source from. I was a little surprised with how little we interacted with tasting room operations and the concert and event planners. It was a huge opportunity to sell the outstanding services this winery is known for. But none the less we headed out to the Oregon side of the Gorge to meet an old acquaintance, someone whose grapes I was very familiar with. Lonnie Wright owner of the winery The Pines 1852 whose tasting room is located in Hood River.

Turns out Lonnie plays a major part in providing fruit for Maryhill a Washington winery who sources a lot of fruit from Oregon growers. As Lonnie Wright proprietor of The Pines 1852 winery boarded our tour bus I could tell he was confused to see me among a group of journalists because he knew me as a wine educator and independent wine distributor/broker and former employee of someone he supplied grapes to.
Lonnie shifted well to the present program where I am a writer for Enobytes the blog who won Best Wine Reviews 2011 at the North American Wine Bloggers Conference and a contributor to www.oregonlive.com (Wine Bytes).