Vote for Grand Vines as Best of the Mid Valley

Voting has begun to select the people's choice - vote for Grand Vines!!!

Each year, readers of the Statesman Journal vote on their favorites in the mid-valley - favorite businesses, restaurants, services and schools. Last year Grand Vines was in the top three in our categories (Best Place to Buy Wine and Best Place to Taste Wine). This year, we'd like to move up to the top in our categories and we need your help to do this.

General voting began on Wednesday, March 17, so start voting today!

If you've enjoyed your experience in the shop, please:

• Go to the Statesman Journal website and click on the "Best of the Mid Valley" link
• Under "Food and Drink," scroll down to "Best Place to Buy Wine" and vote for Grand Vines. Then scroll all the way to the bottom of that page and click "submit."
• Under "Entertainment," scroll down to "Best Place to Taste Wine" and vote for Grand Vines. then scroll all the way to the bottom of that page and click "submit."

You can vote each day for Grand Vines, with voting continuing daily through April 6.

We appreciate your support and thank you for helping make Grand Vines The Best of the Mid-Valley!

Confessions of a Foodie: Grand Vines

Here's an unsolicited review of the shop. Hope she comes back!

Confessions of a Foodie: The Grand Vines

Findings at Sip Wine Festival

What do you do on your day off when you own a wine shop? You go wine tasting, of course! This weekend was the annual Sip Wine and Food Festival in McMinnville, so we headed out to visit some new wineries, taste some new wines and see if there were some new finds to bring into the shop.

We saw lots of winery friends at the event - Abacella, Zerba, Kraemer, Dukes, Hip Chicks, Terra Vina, Eden Vale, Eola Hills, Johan, Kathken, Haur of the Dawn and maybe a few more I've forgotten. It's a good thing we decided before we even started to "spit not swallow" or we would have been able to taste only a fraction of the wines we did!

We also visited some new wineries - at least new to us. Angel Vine, Quenett, Palotai, Vista Hills, Bradley, HV and Vinn Distillery.

Our favorites from the "new" wineries were several varietals from Quenett - the Sangiovese, Barbera, Cab and Zin were winners in our book. And the two Pinot Noirs and one Pinot Gris from Vista Hills made me re-think my "I'm not a fan of Pinots" mantra. The Pinot Noirs had body, structure and great fruit.

A unique find was rice wine - not sake, but a real wine fermented just like grapes, but using brown or wild rice instead. It is fortified with rice wine brandy, so has more of a kick to it, but both the "Mijiu Ice" (brown rice) and "Mijui Fire" (wild rice) had a unique and not unpleasant taste. We both agreed they would go great with some Asian dishes - stir fry, dumplings or even some Thai noodle dishes. We're looking into doing a tasting with them in the shop. A check of their web site also shows they make a rice vodka. No, they weren't tasting that - but it might be worth hunting some down for our own private tasting...

We also enjoyed the wines from the wineries we were more familiar with - too many to list here, but we have to say Zerba continues to be one of our top five favs.

I came to Sip to see if I could add some new wineries to my personal "favorites" list. I think I can say I was successful. You'll just have to come in to the shop to see which ones made the list, along with all my long-standing favorites. It sure is great to live in Oregon - so much wine, so many great festivals at which to taste them!