SOLD OUT!
Maximum Attendance: 19
Monday – Wednesday, August 2 – 4
About Southern Oregon
Spend three days off the well-beaten wine path exploring Southern Oregon’s growing region, natural splendor, charming small towns and endless adventures. The region is home to more than 150 wineries in five regions and grows the greatest variety of grapes in the entire state. This trip will showcase the best of the Umpqua and Applegate valleys before heading into the wild and scenic Rogue Valley. Here, rich riverbank soils and one of the largest diurnal temperature swings in North America produce incredible fruit handcrafted into delicious wines by small producers. Family-owned vineyards dominate the landscape in Southern Oregon and it is common to sip on wine poured directly by the winemakers who love to share their deep knowledge and love of viticulture with guests. The region’s wineries offer a new story for your audience in an idyllic location that has been producing wines for decades. Your local hosts for this excursion are Travel Southern Oregon, the Rogue Valley Vintners, and Neuman Hotel Group.
Transportation & Accommodations
You will be picked up at 12:15 PM at the Valley River Inn or at 12:45 PM at the airport in Eugene and driven to Gold Hill, Oregon. If you are flying to the airport you should book a flight that arrives by 12:30 PM on Monday, August 2 (if you are not checking luggage). If you are driving to the pre-conference excursion, you can also choose to meet at the Ashland Springs Hotel in Ashland, Oregon at 3:00 PM. Excursion hosts will check with you on your pickup location prior to the event.
You will be driven back to Eugene on Wednesday and should make your own reservation for the conference hotel in Eugene. You should book your return flights based on whether you are attending a post-conference excursion.
You will stay at the Ashland Springs Hotel in Ashland for Monday and Tuesday nights. Nestled at the base of the Siskiyou and Cascade mountain ranges, Ashland has a reputation for great outdoor recreation in the city limits and beyond. Ashland Springs Hotel, built in 1925, has been the top choice for downtown Ashland lodging for almost 100 years. For this excursion, your hotel will be included in the excursion and covered by the excursion registration fee.
What is Included
Cost: $215 per person, which includes two nights lodging, all meals, tasting room visits, and van transportation from Eugene or Ashland, Oregon.
Itinerary
Please note details can and likely will change.
Monday, August 2
12:15 PM Pickup at Valley River Inn in Eugene
12:45 PM Pickup at Eugene Airport. Drive to Southern Oregon. Box lunch provided en route.
3:30 PM Arrive at Del Rio Vineyards, located just outside Gold Hill on the beautiful Rogue River, an estate vineyard and winery with more than 300 acres of producing vines. This property originally was a stagecoach stop, transformed to a pear orchard in the 1920s and in the late 1990s became a vineyard, thus preserving agriculture in the Rogue Valley. This site of primary southern facing slopes grows 15 different varietals. Afterwards we will check into our rooms at the Lithia Springs Resort.
6:00 PM Attend a Rogue Valley Winery Reception at Ashland Springs Hotel. Meet winemakers from The Rogue Valley, a region with approximately 180 vineyards growing over 50 different varieties on roughly 4000 acres producing nearly 10,000 tons of grapes.
Tuesday, August 3
8:00 AM Breakfast at hotel
9:00 AM Depart for the Applegate Valley. “Digging Deeply into Biodynamic® and Organic Regenerative Agriculture in the Applegate Valley.” You will be spending a day fully immersed in biodynamics, regenerative agriculture and natural winemaking surrounded by the Siskiyou Mountains and the stunning pristine beauty of the Applegate Valley AVA. There will be significant time spent in the vineyards and pastures so comfortable shoes are recommended. You will experience how three working farms take the concepts of biodynamics and organics and use them in practical daily use to build the health of their soils and produce wines that fully express their estate vineyards. The following three farms each express a unique experience of biodynamics and organics. In one day, you can experience the full spectrum of the power of regenerative agriculture to transform a farm and create uniquely expressive wines in three diverse situations.
10:00AM Cowhorn Vineyard and Garden (Biodynamic® and Organic) is set apart from other vineyards as grape varieties are chosen that are historically associated with the Rhône River wine region of France: Syrah and Grenache for red wine and Viognier, Marsanne and Roussanne for white wine. Cowhorn is certified as a Biodynamic® farm and winery, meaning they do not use anything synthetic, toxic or harmful. Instead, they build up the soil with micronutrients, allowing beneficial plants to grow between the vine rows, and encouraging other creatures to live in and around the vineyard.
2:00 PM Plaisance Ranch (Organic), far off the beaten path in the town of Williams, is Plaisance Ranch, a working ranch since 1858, with grapes and cattle on site. Located in the heart of the Williams Valley, you’ll have the opportunity to learn about the Ginet family’s rich history in the ranching and vineyard business that spans over hundreds of years. Today, the family farms 210 acres where they grow wine grapes, make and sell estate grown wines and USDA Certified Organic grass fed beef.
4:30 PM Troon Vineyard (Biodynamic® and Regenerative Organic®) estate wines, from Oregon’s Applegate Valley, are inspired by the wines of the Mediterranean coasts of Southern Europe. The winery is Demeter Biodynamic® and Organic Certified and is dedicated to regenerative agriculture. Troon believes the only route to memorable wines that reflect the terroir of where they were grown is found in the healthy soils and vines that are the foundation of Biodynamic® agriculture. This philosophy continues in the cellar where their winemaking is minimalist and they use only native yeasts with no additives to ferment their wines and where they eschew the use of new oak barrels to reveal each nuance of wines grown in Oregon’s Applegate Valley.
6:30 PM Dinner at Troon by Mary Cressler and Sean Martin of Vindulge, who will be presenting their new cookbook Fire and Wine.
8:30 PM Return to Ashland Springs Hotel.
Wednesday, August 4
8:00 AM Breakfast at Hotel
9:30AM Quail Run Vineyards is one of Southern Oregon’s most celebrated producers of premium wine grapes. Across 12 unique vineyards sites up and down the Rogue Valley they are growing 29 varietals celebrated from some of the most famous old world wine regions of the world. We will visit with owner Michael Moore.
12:00PM We will visit 2Hawk Winery for a tour and lunch, a special place tended by special people who understand, believe in, and are committed to sustainability. They give back what they remove whether in the vineyard by returning grape compost to the soil or by using the region’s only winery-installed solar array for their state-of-the-art gravity-flow winery. They strive to produce exceptional, sophisticated wines that speak of the soil, climate, and environment in which they thrive.
3:00PM Depart for Eugene and the Valley River Inn with an approximately arrival of 6:00 PM. You should make your own reservations for this evening and are on your own until the conference activities tomorrow.