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.

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.