Let’s face it. There are a lot of good places to have dinner while visiting Oregon Wine Country. You really need to know someone, which, if you stop and think about it, you do. She’s our concierge, Nicci Stokes. She will help you plan your trip. But she’s gone a step further. She’s already planned the perfect three-day week-end.

You can download a PDF copy of Romantic Week-end Getaway in Oregon Wine Country. She prepared the itinerary over in Yahoo Travel where you can customize it if you like. Just click here to go there. To customize it, you will click the “Copy Trip” items, and yes, you will need a Yahoo account. But it’s free, so go ahead. You can add or delete items from your itinerary, or if the choices Yahoo offers for items to add are not what you want, just click on “Create Item,” and then add it to your itinerary.

You will enjoy dinners at the Joel Palmer House, Nick’s Italian and Tina’s. For lunches have recommend the Crescent Cafe and The Horse Radish. And of course on Saturday, you’re scheduled for a winery tour in our very own All Events Limo.

On Saturday of your romantic getaway, we have you scheduled for a tour of some of Oregon’s great wineries. Our slogan, as always: You drink. We 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.

Jamie Goode is a London-based winewriter.  He currently writes The Sunday Express, the national newspaper in the UK.  You can catch Jamie Goode’s full credits here.

After attending the International Pinot Noir Celebration, just concluded in McMinnville on July 25, he has started a tour of Oregon Wine Country.  Just as soon as I get another minute, I will add some of his stops to my “Oregon Wine Country and Willamette Valley Vacation Planner Map”

But for now, you can follow his travels.  Check out Day 1 of Jamie Goode’s Tour of Oregon Wine Country.

A couple of weeks ago, I posted a map of the medal winners of San Francisco International Wine Competition. Ten area wineries were among the winners.

Because there are so many ways to enjoy a vacation in Oregon Wine Country, I decided to expand the scope of the map and produce the “Oregon Wine Country and Willamette Valley Vacation Planner Map.” I will be updating it frequently.

For now, here are the pushpins I used and what they mean.

Best Place to Stay in Oregon Wine Country

 Medal Winner in San Francisco International Wine Competition

Attraction worth at least a half day.  You miss the boat if you miss these.

Every week the McMinnville Chamber of Commerce sends an email blast. to its membrs  Here;’s their lead item on for July 24.

Kudos to Kelty Estate!
The Kelty Estate B&B Blog, recently ranked by Google’s Blog search as the #1 blog for Oregon Wine, announced the winners from the Willamette Valley at the prestigious San Francisco International Wine Competition.  Ten area wineries received 21 medals, including a gold medal for the Arcane Cellars 2007 Pinot Gris Reserve. The complete list of winners is posted at the Kelty blog.  There you will also find a map to all the medal winner wineries.

SAN FRANCISCO, July 18, 2008  Ten wineries from the Willamette Valley, receiving a total of 21 medals, were among the winners of the prestigious San Francisco International WIne Competition.  In all, the competition examined wine from 23 states and 23 countries. 

 ”The medal count included 125 Double Gold (a wine is elevated to Double Gold status when all judges on a particular panel agree that a wine deserves a Gold medal), 180 Gold, 941 Silver and 1,593 Bronze. “ (PRNewswire via COMTEX, July 18, 2008)

Read the complete CBS Marketwatch report on the competition here. You can also download the list of medal winners winners.

The owners of the Kelty Estate Bed and Breakfast,  Bill and Joava Good and its manager, Nicci Stokes, congratulate the winners.

 To encourage people to visit these outstanding wineries and purchase these award winning wines, we have created a Google map to these award winning wineries. In addition to listing the awards, the list below also includes links to these winery websites.

The Willamette Valley Winners

Abiqua Wind Vineyard 
Other Best, Double Gold Medal Abiqua Wind Vineyard 2007 Müller-Thurgau, Chloes Breeze, Willamette Valley $12.

 Amity Vineyards

Silver Medal Amity Vineyards 2007 Pinot Noir, Eco Organic, Willamette Valley $27.

Silver Medal Amity Vineyards 2006 Pinot Noir, SunnySide, Willamette Valley $40.

Bronze Medal Amity Vineyards 2006 Riesling, Willamette Valley $17. [1.48%]

Bronze Medal Amity Vineyards 2006 Pinot Noir, Crannell, Willamette Valley $40. 

Arcane Cellars

Gold Medal Arcane Cellars 2007 Pinot Gris, Reserve, Dundee Hills, Willamette Valley $20.

Silver Medal Arcane Cellars 2007 Pinot Gris, Estate, Wheatland Vineyard, Willamette Valley $16.

Bronze Medal Arcane Cellars 2007 Riesling, Estate, Wheatland Vineyard, Willamette Valley $16. [2.7n%]

Bronze Medal Arcane Cellars 2006 Pinot Noir, Reserve, Dundee Hills, Willamette Valley $32.

Battle Creek

 Bronze Medal Battle Creek 2006 Pinot Noir, Battle Creek Vineyard, Willamette Valley $40.

Domaine Serene

Bronze Medal Domaine Serene 2005 Pinot Noir, Evanstad Reserve, Willamette Valley $58.

Bronze Medal Domaine Serene 2005 Pinot Noir, Jerusalem Hill Vineyard, Willamette Valley $75. 

Elkhorn Ridge Vineyards & Winery

Bronze Medal Elkhorn Ridge Vineyards & Winery 2006 Pinot Noir, Le Terre Foss, Willamette Valley $39.

Griffin Creek

Silver Medal Griffin Creek 2004 Syrah, Rogue Valley $35.

Bronze Medal Griffin Creek 2005 Viognier, Rogue Valley $25. 

Tualatin Estates

Silver Medal Tualatin Estates 2007 Muscat, Frizzante, Willamette Valley $15. [10.6%]

VX - Vercingetorix

Bronze Medal VX - Vercingetorix 2006 Pinot Noir, Estate Grown, Willamette Valley $30.

Willamette Valley Vineyards

Bronze Medal Willamette Valley Vineyards 2006 Pinot Noir, Estate, Willamette Valley $40.

Bronze Medal Willamette Valley Vineyards 2006 Pinot Noir, Willamette Valley $25.

Bronze Medal Willamette Valley Vineyards 2006 Chardonnay, Dijon Clone, Willamette Valley $18

Bronze Medal Willamette Valley Vineyards 2007 Pinot Gris, Willamette Valley $15.

When you visit the Willamette Valley, you naturally want take a wine country tour of several of the 75 or so vineyards in this part of heaven.  I’m going to assume for the moment that you like fine wine but perhaps don’t know enough to talk about it “properly.”

Suggestion:  Download and print a glossary of wine terms.  Then taste some of the spectacular Oregon wines, you can begin to make comments like:

“I loved the lingering aftertaste.”

Or you could say, “That was an atractive wine.”  According to our glossary that is “a slight put down for expensive wines, a slight compliment for o thers.” 

The glossary will further advise you on the proper sequence of communicating your perceptions.

a) Colour/clarity of the wine when the wineglass is tilted and its contents viewed against a light source.

b) Smell - (known in the general sense as the “nose”).

c)  Taste - (first in the “mouth” or “palate”, followed by the “finish”)

Our limo service, All Events Limo, always has a copy of this glossary.  By matching the terms in it with the wines you taste, you will return home not only relaxed but enlightened to the point you can show tell your friends a thing or two about wine tasting.

Cerainly one of the best, if not the best, photographer in these parts is Janis Miglavs.  He took the exterior shots of the Kelty as well as many of the interior shots you see on our site.

I just found his blog where he exhibits some of his photographs and describes a behind-the-scenes look at photography, wineries, and vineyards.  His recent set of posts deals with this spectacular country we call home.  And no, you don’t have to come here to see his photographs.  But warning, when you see the beaty he saw through his lens, you will be firing up your car or booking air.

In a word: spectacular.

And by the way, I thoroughly enjoyed his essays about wine and photography. The man can also express himself in words.

With this post, I’m starting re-naming my series on things to do in Oregon WIne Country.  There are undoubtedly hundreds of things that can draw you to our part of the world.  Beginning with this post, I’m going to start numbering them. As you might imagine there are five others. They are all in the “What To Do” category.  So stay tuned for more.

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A scant 10.1 miles from the Kelty Estate Bed and Breakfast, you will find the 99W Drive-In Theatre. There’s not a lot of drive-ins left, giving you still one more in a very long list of reasons to visit Oregon Wine Country and stay, naturally, at the Kelty. They are open Friday, Saturday and Sunday night.

For current showtimes, features and a map, visit the 99W Drive-in Website.