Let’s say you want to visit some of the award-winning wineries in our neck of the woods.
You have a problem for which we have a solution.
The Problem:  You want to visit five or six wineries.  How do you plan your trip so you spend the least amount of time driving and the most amount of time visiting?
 
The Solution:  The first step is to go to Google Maps Fastest Round Trip Solver.  Enter the starting point for your trip.  That’s the address of the Kelty where you will be staying.  You can copy it to your clipboard here:
 
675 Third Street, Lafayette OR
 
Paste it into the box labeled “Add location by address.”   Click the ADD button.  Hint: You have to manually clear that box before you can paste another address.  Do it now.
 
Leave that window open.
 
Next stop, another map:  Our Oregon Wine Country and Willamette Valley Vacation Planner. 
 
This is a growing map of Oregon wineries.   So far, we have added the wineries that won an award in the San Francisco International Wine Competition.  You will find them marked with BLUE pushpins.  We have also added map locations for wineries that Jamie Goode, an internationally known wine writer, visited right after the 2008 Pinot Noir festival.  (See “Reason #14” to read his blog on Oregon wineries.)  You will find his stops marked with YELLOW push pins.
 
As you click on the pushpins, a little balloon will open up.  There you will see the name of the winery AND its address as well as its URL
 
When you find a winery you want to visit, select its address and copy it to the clipboard.
 
NOW pop back over to Google Maps Fastest Roundtrip Solver.   Paste it in the little box and click ADD.
 
When you are done, click the “Calculate Fastest Roundtrip” and you’ve got your route.  Print it and you are good to go!!!
 
If this sounds like just too much work, you could of course just call our own ALL EVENTS LIMO at 1-503-560-1512.  Tell us where you want to go and we will figure it out.  Unless you have a designated driver, you drink.  We will drive.
 

In my August 1 post (Reason #12), I promised to add some of Jamie Goode’s stops on his tour of Oregon Wine Country.  If you recall, Jamie is a London-based wine writer, currently writing for The Sunday Express, the national newspaper in the UK.  He really is one of the most widely read wine writers.

After attending the International Pinot Noir Celebration, he set off on a 4-day tour of our section of heaven.  An interesting tour for you would be: go where he went.  To help you, I put the wineries he visited on my “Oregon Wine Country and Willamette Valley Vacation Planner Map.”

When I am finally done with this map, it will be THE DEFINITIVE MAP of Oregon Wine Country.  It now has shows two sets of wineries.  The blue pushpins are the wineries that won at least one award in the 2008 San Francisco International Wine Festival.  The yellow pushpins are the wineries Jamie visited on this trip. The red pushpin is where the Kelty is, your starting and ending point for this great tour.

And by the way, I should mention, we are the only B&B in Wine Country with our own limo service.  You drink.  We drive.  Check out All Events Limo.

All four of articles on the great Oregon vineyards Jamie Goode visited are on a single page of his blog. Start at the bottom of the page for Day 1 and work your way to the top.  In my map, when you click on one of the vineyards, you can easily click on the website for a given winery.  So read and look at the map together.

In my next post, I will show you how to pick the wineries you want to visit and calculate the shortest route.  It’s very cool if I do say so myself.

Let’s face it.  You really do not want to schlep a case or two of premium Oregon wine back to whereveryoucamefrom.  You want to let the pros do it.  That’s why we congratulate Oregon WIne Services on the completion of another 61,000 square feet of site temperature controlled storage area.  This brings them to over 170,000 square feet of climate controlled storage.

Not that you will ever see it or even need to know about it.  You see, their customers are the wineries you visit and enjoy.  Eighty of them are clients of Oregon Wine Services.   

Here’s what OWS ( as they call themselves) say about their services.

“We ship winery client orders Monday through Friday, using both UPS Ground and FedEx Express services. Our pricing includes all labor and packaging. We offer both styrofoam and environmentally friendly pulp packaging, available in all shipping sizes. Our rigid quality control, with multiple audit points, ensures minimal errors.”

If you are curious or really want to know who is shipping your precious nectar, check out Oregon Wine Services.