Cooperation in the Oregon Wine Industry

I have already posted two entries about our Wine Adventure in Oregon and this is the third. Somehow, I can't stay off the topic!

I think this is largely because our Wine Adventure in Oregon is so unique. Let's face it: other companies run tours in popular places like Burgundy, Tuscany, and Sonoma - even if these tours aren't the combination of activity and wine that we find so appealing. Almost no other adventure travel companies run tours in Oregon's wine country, however, and that makes Oregon a bit more special to us.

The other aspect of Oregon I find very unique is the cooperative nature of the wine industry. The Oregon wine industry is just not a cutthroat business, with one vintner competing against another, like you might expect. They are more keen to promote Oregon wines in general, knowing this will help each winery individually.

This cooperation continues when it comes to our Wine Adventure there. In fact, we have created a separate website (www.OregonWineAdventure.com) to promote this tour in concert with some of our key Oregon suppliers: wineries, hotels, tourism associations, etc. The amazing thing is almost everyone we approached about this was eager to help and we now have 14 local sponsors helping us to promote Oregon wine country, Oregon wines, and our Oregon Wine Adventure. In no particular order:

• Travel Oregon
• Lane County Tourism
• Oregon Wine Country
• Travel Salem
• Willamette Valley Vineyards
• Wy'East Vineyards
• VX Vineyard
• Carlton Winemakers Studio
• Iris Hill Winery
• Sokol Blosser
• Red Ridge Farms
• Bethel Heights
• Phoenix Grand Hotel
• Oregon Wine Services and Storage

Please visit our Oregon Wine Adventure site for links to these companies and organizations.

Hiking in the South Africa Wine Country

I would say South Africa is the least known of the wine areas featured in our seven 2008 Wine Adventures. It also tends to generate the most interest when I mention it to potential travelers and is on the cutting edge of active wine tourism.

South Africa boasts 13 wine regions, all located in the Western Cape centered on the city of Cape Town. While we visit three of those regions on our South Africa Wine Adventure, we spend most of our time in the Stellenbosch area, by far the most famous wine region in South Africa.

Stellenbosch is a fun town boasting a university and a fun downtown with hotels, shops, and restaurants. It is surrounded by mountains, including the Helderberg, Stellenbosch, Jonkershoek Valley, and Simonsberg ranges.

Most visitors who travel to Stellenbosch either have a destination already in mind or drive one of the well-promoted Stellenbosch American Express Wine Routes. These five driving routes have maps connecting the participating wineries, scheduled tasting hours, and a website dedicated to the concept.

However, it is not the Wine Routes that attract us to South Africa. Much less well known, the Stellenbosch area also has a fantastic series of marked paths called the Vineyard Hiking Trail.

Without its own website and with little promotion, the Vineyard Hiking Trail is not well known or highly traveled. The trail is centered on the World Wildlife Fund-owned Sugarbird Manor, a fantastic small inn that is our base in the Stellenbosch area. We walk right out the doors to reach any of the three hiking routes: the 3.3 kilometer Vintners' Route, the 8.8 kilometer Devon Valley Route, and the 14.3 kilometer Mountain Route. The trails are signposted and a basic map is available for a small fee. Vineyards along the routes are pleased to welcome visitors.

One of the aspects of the Vineyard Hiking Trail that makes it so cutting edge in wine tourism is hikers are allowed to walk on private property throughout. Unlike in Europe, where most trails through wine areas are on public roads, or in the United States where property concerns make public vineyard walks a rarity, in South Africa the local grape growers have teamed together to make their lands accessible to tourists.

And make no mistake about it - walking through vineyards is more rewarding than driving from winery to winery. For one thing, it eliminates the drinking and driving problem. For another, it provides a much greater connection to the industry of wine, as you pass row after row of well-tended grapes. Best of all, it allows you to be outside enjoying the beautiful scenery rather than cooped up indoors.

P.S. For another look at our South Africa Wine Adventure, read my blog post on South African Safaris.

Sonoma County & Vineyard Walks

Have you been to Napa Valley? Beautiful scenery, fantastic food and lodging, and outstanding wines. The area makes for a great vacation.

At the same time, I see Napa as kind of the epitome of the type of touring that we at Zephyr Adventures don't do. Most people who visit Napa drive from winery to winery, never seeing much more than the front of a tasting bar or the occasional cave cellar tour.

Right next door, Sonoma County still offers that sense of adventure we are looking for, which is why my colleague Reno and I visited Sonoma County last week to revamp our existing California tour.

While famous, Sonoma County still is an enigma to many people. Some simply associate it with Napa while others think of it mostly as the City of Sonoma. It is much more than either Napa's neighbor or one city. Sonoma County is diverse, with sophisticated small cities and towns, twelve different wine growing regions, and scenery ranging from the Pacific Ocean to inland mountains to towering redwoods. It's a great place for an adventure wine tour.

It is also still not so famous that the people have lost their friendly attitude. At least most of the people. As we roamed around the county setting up our new tour, we did come across a few wineries where "gatekeepers" at the tasting rooms did their best to keep us away from the real decision makers. At one, the marketing manager sat on the other side of the wall as she said "tell them I work best by phone". We wanted to pull out our cell phones right there and call her from the other side of the partition!

We were much more successful when we came in contact with the "old guard", growers and vintners who have been in Sonoma County for years and know most of the other key wine players. And thanks to Larry LeVine of the Sonoma County Winegrape Commission, we had access to a number of these people.

Larry is a unique guy. He works for a county commission but thinks like a small business person. He was enthusiastic about his ideas and just as enthusiastic about ours. He loves wine, likes to walk through the vineyards, and is passionate about Sonoma County. Needless to say we got along great. Larry was a big help in setting up our new Sonoma Vineyard Walking Adventure.

In the past, we have run bike tours in Napa and Sonoma. However, we decided these just weren't special enough, nor did they give us the inside access we want on our Wine Adventures. So, we switched entirely to Sonoma and from biking to walking.

Vineyard Walks, which make up the bulk of our new tour, are pretty special. The walks not only afford us but require us to have intimate contact with the local wine industry, since vintners don't want us tromping through their fields without an escort. That worked out great since some of Sonoma's major players were excited to hear we would be bringing people into Sonoma County's vineyards and not just into the tasting rooms.

There is a difference. If you visit 10 tasting rooms on a two-day spree, you might remember which wines you like - if you keep good notes. However, you'll know little about the wineries and nothing about their grape growing techniques. Yet wine making is a 12-month job (it seems like a 14-month job as I listen to the workers) and drinking the wine is only the final step. On a Vineyard Walk, we learn about the workers, the seasons, the land, the wine making, and the grapes themselves.

For me personally, I don't have a memory for whether the 2003 Cabernet is better than the 2001 or whether X winery had a 90-point Zinfandel or an 87-point Shiraz. What I remember is the cool ridge trail we took with Don the winemaker, the eagle I saw circling above the fields, and the incredible sunset over the yellow-colored leaves that capped a gorgeous fall day. And it is those memories that make my Sonoma wines all the more delicious.

Note: Credit for the first photo goes to Sonoma County Tourism Board, www.sonomacountry.com.

Press Trip in Oregon's Wine Country

I returned only a few days ago from Oregon's wine country where we completed our first-ever Wine Adventure. Zephyr's active wine tours will not run until 2008 but we decided to kick off the concept by inviting eight journalists to experience our Wine Adventure in Oregon.

Getting journalists to join in on our tours has been a primary goal of Zephyr Adventures for a decade and we have been very successful with this over the years. However, it is not an easy task. The reality is journalists and editors receive WAY too many emails, are faced with many potential story ideas, are burdened with busy schedules, and are sometimes prohibited from taking free tours.

Therefore, we were extremely pleased with the results of our six-week effort to contact the travel and wine media. We ended up with eight excellent journalists (I'll leave them unnamed since they might want to remain anonymous until their story comes out) and, just as importantly, are in contact with dozens more who liked the Wine Adventures idea but couldn't join us in Oregon.

From my experience, I think journalists face press trips with some trepidation. Often press trips are crammed to over-capacity with visits to museums, chambers of commerce, and other places that just aren't that fun. We decided to do things differently and gave these eight writers the real Wine Adventure experience - five days filled with tasting, meeting local vintners, and doing fun activities such as hiking, canoeing, biking, and horseback riding on and near the vineyards.

And the result was awesome. All ten of us (including my co-guide Reno and me) had a great time. I expect to see some great writeups of the tour in the near future but will foreshadow these by noting a few key points about this Oregon trip:

• Oregon's wine country is unique for its cooperation rather than competition. This impressed all of us. We rarely (in fact only once) heard a winemaker say something negative about another winery and often heard stories of cooperation and sharing as Oregon bucked the tide to become a reputable wine area.
• The inside access we had was impressive. We almost always met with the owner or winemaker at each vineyard and had plenty of time to ask inside questions. Although we were there during harvest and crush and each winery wanted to show off their operations, we tried to have each highlight something unique: barrel tasting, a vineyard walk, a unique grape varietal, etc.
• No one else is doing activities like we do. We set up a Vineyard Walk in the Eola Hills area of Oregon, walking through five separate landowner's holdings and tasting at three wineries. We canoed on the Willamette and stopped at a winery for lunch. We rode horses in and among the vineyards in the Dundee Hills area.

Working with journalists is always a risk; one never knows what will result. However, after five days of fun our relationship with these eight definitely turned from "press trip" to "group of friends". That gives me confidence we'll get some excellent exposure from this trip but also makes what we do worthwhile.

The Wine Lands of Chile & Argentina

Wow! I must admit I am a bit biased in favor of South America. I love the culture, the language, the people, the scenery, and the diversity of experiences a traveler can enjoy. I have spent fantastic vacations in Peru, Argentina, and Ecuador in the past.

But when I visited the Chilean and Argentinian wine areas, I was impressed despite my high expectations.

You already know the wines of Chile and Argentina have become very popular in recent years. What is not yet quite so popular, but getting there, is wine tourism to these areas - especially our "active" brand of wine tourism. While Tuscany, Burgundy, and other European areas are famous as places one can bike on rolling roads or walk along hillside paths, this type of tourism is not yet so established in South America's wine lands.

In Chile, I found only two vineyards that had established hikes. I went on one with four locals at Viña Montes in the Apalta Valley and found it interesting. It was quite organized, starting with a shuttle in a converted tractor to the edge of the vineyards. We had a vineyard employee as a guide and he led us on a steep trail straight up the hillside in back of the vineyards.

Now the view from the top was exceptional but this was a good example of why Zephyr Adventures, with our adventure travel experience, will be able to bring good things to the world of wine travel. First, the trail was much too difficult for most people - straight up with few switchbacks and poor traction. Second, the trail wasn't even in the vineyards!

After we were done, I pointed out a road that led around the vineyard, halfway up the hill, with beautiful views of the valley all the way around. It was the perfect path for a vineyard hike and the one we will do in 2008.

In Argentina I had a similar experience. There, in the wine area centered on the city of Mendoza, I found three new companies running bike tours in the wine areas. We joined one of the groups and the young, exuberant owner gave us a talk and sent us on our way. Honestly, it was a path we would never choose for our biking adventures - roads with no shoulders, plenty of trucks, and quite a few potholes. While they have the right idea, they don't yet have the advantage of having been to the world's best biking areas.

Working with our local guide, Lorena, we came up with two vineyard hikes and a nice biking route for the Argentina portion of our tours.

What I haven't mentioned are all the other things that will make this tour fantastic. The wines are superb. The owners and vintners are accessible and interesting. The food is excellent, the hotels of high quality, and the scenery is spectacular. With a few tweaks of the activities, this will be a remarkable tour.

Walking the Vineyards of Burgundy

Burgundy is one of the most popular regions of France for tourism. For good reason. The area is only a short train ride from Paris, facilities such as hotels and restaurants are plentiful, and the well-known vineyards not only produce excellent wine but also give the area a fantastic visual appeal.

Burgundy is a fairly large province but the wine area is centered around the Côte d'Or, a narrow swath of land that includes both the Côtes de Nuits and Côtes de Beaune appellations. This area is centered on the lovely city of Beaune, capital of the Burgundy wine ara.

From what I can tell, most visitors to the area don’t get outside Beaune. For those who do, most of them don’t get out of their car except to walk to the entrance of a winery. This is the reality of wine tourism today, where “Wine Routes” for autos are what most local tourism bodies create to attract visitors.

Of course, we at Zephyr Adventures are trying to change that.

Although we have run multisport tours in Burgundy for years, we are changing the itinerary and hotels for 2008 to create a new Wine Adventure. I was in Europe last week and so stopped by Burgundy for a few days to do a little research.

One of the great things about Burgundy's wine area is the tourism authorities have mapped out Wine Routes not for cars but for walkers. You can start from the city of Beaune and make loop walks into the vineyards of varying lengths. There are also walks that run from and through other small towns, up into the the Haute Côte area, and even along the entire length of the Côte d'Or. The trails are composed of dirt roads, small paths, and lightly-trafficked paved roads connecting various villages. They are signed and color-coded to coincide with printed maps. They are fantastic.

This trip, I spent time on trails up in the Haute Côte region. This winery sub-appellation is in the hills above the Côte d'Or area and, because of different altitude and conditions, is on the fringe of the main wine area. The Haute Côte gets few tourists and is clearly on the cutting edge of change in Burgundy. I saw some vineyards (like the one pictured here) where the vintner had simply given up - the attempt at putting vines in a new area had failed. In other areas, new and thriving vineyards were replacing agricultural land. It was interesting to see an area pushing the limits of wine production and yet located in such as established location as Burgundy.

Our Burgundy Walking Wine Adventure in 2008 will take us past small villages, into Beaune, and through many appellations and sub-appellations. Walking, we get the feel for the land much better than from behind a windshield. While I certainly understand creating Wine Roads for those who prefer driving, I hope many other locations will follow the lead of the Burgundians and join the push for active wine tourism.

Combining Activity and Wine in Tuscany & Umbria

I have been to the Tuscany and Umbria regions of Italy five or six times. It is a great wine area, with major appellations such as Chianti, Brunello di Montalcino, Vino Nobile of Montepulciano, and Sagrantino in the Montefalco area of Umbria.

It is also a fantastic area to be active. In fact, Zephyr has run a guided bicycle tour in Tuscany and Umbria for years and we now have four self-guided bicycle and hiking trips in the area.

What is difficult, however, is combining the two: wine and active travel. Sure, it is easy to jump on a bicycle and stop into a winery from time to time. The problem, however, is this. The major appellations listed above are pretty distinct and to get from one to another (except Montalcino's Brunello and Montepulciano's Vino Nobile, which are close) is not easy, unless you spend hours in a car or bus. Not the best for an active wine tour.

As a secondary challenge, the biking in Tuscany is not easy. The entire area if composed of rolling hills, and while avid bicyclists will love this, casual cyclists will be pushing their bikes more often than they like. Umbria, on the other hand, is a cyclist's dream with a big flat valley floor with more challenging riding up to the occasional hilltop town.

I was in Italy in February (a great time to be there) and finally came up with a strategy for what I think will be a spectacular active wine tour in Tuscany & Umbria.

The solution? We have set up an eight-day Bike & Hike Adventure in Tuscany & Umbria for September, 2008. All the hiking will take place in Tuscany and all the hiking in Umbria. Plus, we'll visit three of the major wine areas and rarely have to shuttle by van.

We'll start in Montepulciano, the heart of central Tuscany and the home of Vino Nobile wine, with a walk from the small town of Montefollonico six kilometers to our hotel in Montepulciano. On this and every day we'll have the opportunity to stop at two wineries for a tour, tasting, and often a chat with the winery owner or manager.

The next three days we'll walk from town to town as our luggage is shuttled forward for us. We'll hit the major wine region of Montalcino and its Brunello wine but also visit wineries in the sub-appellation of Sant' Antimo. The great thing about walking through this area of Tuscany is that, for the most part, you simply walk from one town to the next along paths and gravel roads, often built on ridge tops. The views to either side are amazing.

After our four days in Tuscany, we'll shuttle the hour and a half to Umbria and the Torgiano area, another major sub-appellation. We'll then bike on consecutive days to Spello, Assisi, Bevagna, Montefalco, Trevi, and Spoleto, never once getting in our car and always having our luggage shuttled for us. We'll taste great reds and whites from umbria, including the famous Sagrantino from Montefalco. We'll also tour a local olive oil factory and sit down to meal after meal of incredible Italian food.

If you have been to Tuscany and Umbria, all this will ring a bell and you understand why I am slathering on the praise. It is simply a fantastic area for an active wine tour. If you haven't been there before, I'll admit I find it hard to convey how much I love this area of the world. Each time I travel to Italy, I think about whether I should just pick up and move there, working from home via the internet. Perhaps after September 08 and our wine tour there, I will.