Up early and we took Oregon Hwy 238 from Medford, thru Jacksonville and out to Applegate to visit our friends, Marcos and Heidi. They bought a 68 acres abandoned farm with woodland area last year. It’s their new ‘life project’ to renew the farm land with grape vines, large vegetable garden and remodel the 100 year old farmhouse from the ground up while living in it. Also, they plan to recondition many of the outbuildings for farm use again.
Looking down on the farm house and out buildings from the wooded hillside
The area is beautiful and they are working very hard to dry in the house and prepare the land before winter arrives.
The hillside where they are preparing to plant a vineyard. It is all prepared and should be planted April 2017.
Great ‘Crooked Barn’ that they plan to restore for use but keep the ‘crooked’ look.
With a light rain falling, we walked the farm and heard their wonderful plans.
Marcos and Heidi taking their first day off in many months to take us wine tasting.
Then we decided to go wine tasting at a few of the Applegate Valley’s wineries. All were great! So nice to visit on a weekday and enjoy the beautiful trees and gardens in bloom.
First, was Red Lily Vineyards. Beautiful barn restored and reinforced for an event center, nice tasting room and a large winery operation building all tied together with the same architecture. Tastings were ‘testings’ and presented in test tubes lined up in a wooden test tube holder.
Next on to Troon Winery set up as a Tuscan villa with beautiful gardens and cooking class kitchen. The tasting room bar is set up so that guests look out large bay windows to a perfect view of the vines and the mountains. Irina introduced us to the Troon wines, she is a very knowledgeable sommelier and created a great experience.
Next we went to Wooldridge Creek Winery and Creamery. They also had wonderful wines and gardens too. With the added joy of various goat cheeses made on the premises available for purchase. Their website also has many wonderful recipes.
Last but not least, we went to Plaisance Ranch which is both an active cattle ranch and great winery. We were given a tour of the facilities and enjoyed a full discussion of wine making with the wine maker and his wife, Joe and Suzi. They were very generous with their time, wine and information. I encourage you to explore their website as it is filled with story, history, recipes and beautiful photography. The wines are wonderful and not to be missed!
Joe, winemaker and owner
The end to a perfect day was a BBQ at Marcos and Heidi’s friends house as the big storm moved in. We cannot thank Heidi and Marcos and Tom enough for such a wonderful day and great dinner company
We were probably a little ‘tipsy’ by the end of the day, but Heidi was driving!
First Post in this series | First Post in Peru series | First post in Galapagos series
Please add your email to ‘Follow this Blog‘ for updates. We never share your email.
Interested in a vacation in Hawaii? Check out our friends units at SurfCondo.com
