Willamette Valley Wine
The best of the Willamette Valley wine growing region is southwest of the Portland metro area starting outside the metro border towns of Forest Grove, Hillsboro, Scholls, and Sherwood. Seven AVA’s comprised of over 150 vineyards are included in the areas south of Portland and extending past Salem and McMinnville. With all of the country roads in this area the route variations are almost limitless and there is almost always a vineyard that you could stop at too.

For a bicyclist, the wine region is an intoxicating blend of beautiful rolling hills to ride through and inviting tasting rooms to stop at. The trick is minimizing the tasting room stops before getting to your riding destination. But if that destination doesn’t have a tasting room then it is almost like… why’ed we stop?

We give you the option to do your wine country bike ride your way. You can plan for your tour to be anywhere from 3 days to a week, or more. You can focus on one AVA or take a survey ride through them all. The Willamette Valley AVA’s are:

• Willamette Valley
• Chehalem Mountains
• Ribbon Ridge
• Yamhill
• Carlton District
• Dundee Hills
• McMinnville
• Eola‐Amity Hills

We design your route to include riding during the day through the AVA’s of interest to you. We try to point out individual vineyards and our lunch stop may be at a vineyard, but just for the view. In the afternoon we continue riding through wine country until we get to our camp location. We work with vineyards that have an open field to allow us to camp on their property. Our mode of “self contained” camping allows up to camp there with no trace left behind. Once we get into camp we tour the vineyard and visit the tasting room. That night we have a special dinner where we feature the wine of our host vineyard.

If there are no suitable camp sites available on vineyard properties then we find the closest public campground to stay at. Even if we stay in a campground we still choose one of the local vineyards to be featured with wines for that night’s dinner.

The first two legs of the Willamette Valley Scenic Bikeway – Champoeg State Park to Wheatland Ferry and Wheatland Ferry to Salem make for a great way to start this ride out. From Salem you can swing back around towards McMinnville and on into the heart of the Yamhill county vineyards.

Given the possible variations on this ride it is hard for us to pick one set ride for everyone. If you have a group that wants to do a Willamette Valley Wine Tour then fill out a group preferences questionnaire and we will put together a custom trip for you.