After you've loaded your trunk with a variety of varietals from the many great wine producers in the Willamette Valley AVA, stop in to Nick's Italian Cafe (521 NE 3rd St in historic downtown) to conclude your journey with a memorable meal.  Starting this week you can conclude your  five star, five course prix fixe feast with a special signature espresso I'm now making for the restaurant.  I promise you will be very happy! 

N.B. March 17....I went there last week for with my Oregon Symphony buds Joe Berger and Greg Ewer for LUNCH...place looks great after they remodeled and expanded the dining room...now they're open 6 days a week for lunch as well as dinner.  Amazing food.  Chefs Eric and Carmen are utilizing the wood-burning oven for all manner of things, and the pizza are just spectacular.  We shared a speck and arugula pie, an opener of their house-made salume (sopressata, salami, cotto, prosciutto), hand-made and cut tagliatelle with an awesome gorgonzola sauce, and a panini of mouth-watering tri-tip.  Insanely good stuff, makes me stoopiddrool thinking back on it. Eric promised to let me pull some shots of my extra-special espresso next time.

Wine things in McMinnville...it's going to be a strange year in Mac in the Pinot Noir world, but I'm placing serious bets post-barrel tasting on Michael Stevenson at Panther Creek and Stevenson-Barrie and the Eyrie folk (include Black Cap).  Can't wait til November, but it won't be the same without Jim Diamond making the rounds with me, since he'll be teaching chemistry in Beijing and snarfing copious quantities on dim sum and chinese cooking wine.  Hopefully Nick's will have joined the Badbeard family by then and I can count on drinking heavily and then waking up with Carmen's pasta and a few espressi.