Along The Southern Oregon Way - Part II - High Country and Wine Country

FrommerLuxuryTravel
	by Myrna Katz Frommer and Harvey Frommer

“Lumbering and wood products used to be the chief industries up here. But in the 1980s when the spotted owl was placed on the endangered species list in Oregon forests, logging was severely curtailed,” said Carolyn Hill, Managing Director of the Southern Oregon Visitors Association (SOVA).  “The economy took a huge downturn at that time, and it’s still being felt,” We were driving with Carolyn at an altitude of about 5,000 feet through the Sky Lakes Wilderness Area, part of the region they call the High Country, a vast, varied landscape that reflects the still unspoiled grandeur of the Pacific Northwest.

Earlier in the day, Carolyn had picked us up in Ashland – a small city halfway between San Francisco and Portland that is famous for its Oregon Shakespeare Festival – and headed northeast into the mountains. A few days later, we’d start out in Ashland once again, but this time we’d travel northwest through the tamer but no less appealing Applegate and Rogue Valleys where pastoral fields are backed by distant mountains, and undulating roads follow pear orchards, dairy farms, and endless fields of grape-bearing vines. If the High Country is breathtaking in the way South America’s Patagonia is, albeit with safe and well-maintained roads, the Applegate and Rogue Valleys are serenely beautiful in the manner of the wine country of Beaujolais. Each is less than an hour’s drive from Ashland.

Logging may have lessened, but the marketing of natural gifts and their accompanying recreational options is promising new possibilities of prosperity throughout the region. It’s like the old saying “When one door closes, another opens.”

Along the byways of the Rogue Valley, a story is told  (which may be apocryphal as such tales often are) about Doug and Becky Neuman, the enterprising Californian transplants who, in 1998, bought a derelict Ashland property and transformed it into the enchanting Ashland Springs Hotel. It seems that soon after the mammoth renovation of that property began, Doug told Becky he’d found another rundown place that he’d love to have a go at. Becky was, to put it mildly, skeptical. The hotel project was proving daunting enough. Surely Doug could not conceive of, nor could she survive, a second renovation before the first was complete.

But some 36-miles to the northeast, high up in the Cascades, in a setting of towering pines and firs, and overlooking a great natural lake so clear that it was a perfect reflection of the sky, Doug had discovered a resort of sorts – a lodge and collection of cabins -- in dismal condition. And before Becky could stop him, he’d bought it.

“When we came on the scene in ‘98, the whole place was in a state of utter decay,” George Gregory told us. A solidly built, dark-haired man with a short beard and a frank and open manner, George is a major player in the Lake of the Woods Resort success story. In  addition to his role as general manager, he was from the start and continues to be its plumber, electrician, carpenter, heavy equipment operator, and -- if need be – chef. “When the cook quit, I took over,” he said.

“Two and a half million dollars were spent on infrastructure, remodeling,”   George added. “All the cabins were completely redone; the lodge, with the restaurant and bar, was rewired, reworked. Two years after the remodeling, someone brought us an old post card. Without even knowing it, we had restored the upper part of the lodge to what it looked like when it first was built.”

He continued, “We know there was a trading post and post office up here around the turn of the last century and cabins in the early 1900s. But the furthest back we can trace the place is the 1940s when a family named Neeley bought it. A few years ago, a daughter of the family came up. She was in tears. ‘I used to live in one of those cabins,’ she said.”

We are walking through a wooded area on a sparkling July morning from the parking area towards the lake. Behind us, the RVs are aligned in their spaces; before us, stretched out across the idyllic lakefront landscape, are the lodge, marina, general store (where vintage Jack-in-the-boxes and yo-yos share shelf-space with t-shirts and caps), and twenty six cabins that look out to a shaded grove paved with woodchips and lined with picnic tables. And beyond, following the turns of the property’s shoreline is mountain-rimmed Lake of the Woods with snow-capped, 9,495-foot Mount McMoughlin at its zenith.

The place is fully booked. Still few people are about, and there’s a magical stillness in the air. Where is everyone? Hiking or biking along one of the myriad trails on the 20-acre property, swimming, water skiing, perhaps out in a pontoon, canoe, pedal or fishing boat, powering or paddling across the waters, or leisurely waiting for a trout, salmon, or bass to take the bait.

For there seems to be no shortage of activities in this rustic resort which somehow evokes a 1940s “film-noir” starring Humphrey Bogart or Alan Ladd, a resonance that intensifies in the cabins where tiny bathrooms and kitchens are modern, but walls are knotty pine, tables are covered with red and white checked cloths, 50-year-old copies of “National Geographic” are in the magazine racks, and furnishings are reproductions of pieces in the Will Rogers Museum in Monterey California  down to the very upholstery fabrics in country shades of red-orange and hunter green.

“Every Friday at dusk, we show old movies using a 16 mm projector and screen we set up outside the general store,” George told us. “‘The Little Rascals,’ ‘Woody Woodpecker,’ ‘Roy Roger’ films. The kids are fascinated. ‘Wow!’ they’ll cry. ‘What’s that?’ And every Saturday night, we bring in a live band and have a barbeque in the picnic grove overlooking the lake: baby back ribs, chicken, fresh corn, cowboy beans, cornbread, coleslaw.”

A native of the region, George Gregory knows its history. Over a lakefront lunch on the porch outside the lodge, we learned the Davey Crockett of Southern Oregon was a man named Jesse Applegate (which accounts for the Applegate Trail, Applegate River, Applegate Valley). “He was scouting the area with some Native American guides, camped out around here, heard some birds singing,” George related. “They came out of the trees and found this lake.

“It really wasn’t a familiar Native American site because the Klamath Indians settled around the much larger Klamath Lake east of here, and the Tekelma Indians in the area to the south and west around Ashland. So this was kind of neutral territory. But you can go ten miles in any direction and you’ll find important Native American sites.”

You can go much further a-field in any direction from Lake of the Woods and find glassy lakes, snow-capped mountain peaks, plunging gorges, shimmering waterfalls, wildlife sanctuaries, volcanic craters, and deep, still forests of cedar, maple, sugar pine and Douglas fir. But it is just a short drive north, past the little town of Klamath Falls and wide open fields where black cows graze on expanses that run to the base of the Cascades, to Crater Lake – one of the purest and most pristine lakes in the world. Named for the caldera at its center which was formed 7,700 years ago when 500,000- year-old Mount Mazama erupted and collapsed into itself, it is a huge circle in the middle of Crater Lake National Park, Oregon’s only national park, and one of America’s oldest national parks.

Crater Lake is five miles wide, ringed by cliffs nearly 2,000-feet high, and surrounded by a 33-mile road at its base. At a depth of 1,932 feet, it is the deepest lake in America and so blue, it defies description, if not explanation: because of the water’s depth and clarity, sunlight penetrates it deeply so that the long wave lengths – reds, oranges, yellows and greens -- are absorbed as they pass through the surface leaving only blues and violets to be redirected back to the lake’s surface. But one need not understand the science to appreciate the beauty of the blue expanse, nor of Wizard Island, a 7,500 –year old miniature volcano which grew inside the caldera, nor of the surrounding mountains that remain streaked with snow into July.

Crater Lake Lodge, the National Park Service-operated hotel, seems to emerge from the massive mountainside it hugs. It’s a three-story wooden structure, anchored by huge boulders with enormous public rooms, great stone fireplaces, Mission-style furniture, and a verandah overlooking Crater Lake that runs the entire width of the building and is lined with (perennially-occupied, it would seem) rocking chairs.

“They were going to demolish the building in the mid 1980s because it was bordering on collapse,” said general manager Derek Safley who works for Xanterra Parks and Resorts, the company hired by the National Park Service to run the property. “But what happened was the residents in the greater Southern Oregon area rose up and declared, ‘Absolutely not. This is part of our heritage.’ They raised the funds to rebuild the entire structure, and when it reopened in the 1990s, it looked just like the original version.

“Oregon has its own kind of culture,” Derek continued. “It’s very ecological, and that attitude is reflected in the Lodge.” He introduced us to Matt Folz who holds the telling title of environmental risk manager. Both Derek and Matt are young, earnest, and dedicated to implementing Oregonian values and Xanterra sustainability goals. They’ve introduced passive day-lighting to conserve heating fuel, dispensed with room telephones and televisions, and obtain 50% of the hotel’s electricity from wind-boxes. “You’d be hard pressed to find these kinds of measures anywhere else in the public sector,” said Derek showing off one of the comfortable yet energy-efficient guest rooms.

The Lodge restaurant serves such au courant entrées as ahi-tuna sashimi rolls, citrus duck, and artichoke chicken in gouda cream. But produce comes from organic farms, meat from pasture-fed livestock, and fish from waters that are not over-fished. Growers and purveyors are largely local; they include artisanal cheese-producers like the Rogue Creamery, which won the 2003 gold medal for the world’s best blue cheese at the Fancy Food Show in New York, and chocolatiers like Lark’s and Lillie Belle Farms. “At Crater Lake Lodge, we provide a literal taste of Southern Oregon,” Matt said.

A very different taste of Southern Oregon can be had in Prospect at the 24-room Prospect Historic Hotel which remains the beacon it was back in the 1890s when the trip between Crater Lake and Medford, the city north of Ashland, two took days. The large white farmhouse with peaked roofs and big wraparound porch was at the midpoint of the journey and thus a favored stagecoach stopover. Names such as Jack London, William Jennings Bryan, Teddy Roosevelt, Zane Grey, and John Muir are among the hotel’s guest book entries.

 Today’s visitors are charmed by its turn-of-the-last-century ambience, the tidy Victorian parlor with gas fireplace, the two airy and spacious dining rooms that look out to pleasing gardens and a little trout pond with footbridge, and the famed home-style cuisine.

 Through the decades, Prospect ownership changed a number of times. But all proprietors were local folk. So townspeople were taken aback in the fall of 2005 when they learned their local landmark had been sold to a cosmopolitan couple from San Francisco.

Fred Wickman was a businessman; his wife Karen Wickman was a nurse. Parents of three teenagers, seeking a change from the suburban/urban lifestyle, they searched the Internet for the perfect rural inn. After a year or so, news of the Prospect’s availability appeared on their computer screen.

On a summer evening during this first season of Wickman  management, we sat on the porch with Fred, a warm, bearish kind of man whose resonant voice and inviting manner serve him well as innkeeper, waiting to offer our compliments to the chef. Soon Karen appeared, a little flushed from hours spent over a hot stove and minus her toque blanche -- it had been a busy night – but energized nevertheless. Interestingly, in her new life, the former nurse has not entirely surrendered her role as nurturer so much as re-directed it towards feeding her clients healthy and well-prepared foods.

In these parts, a warm welcome seems to come with the territory. Combine that with the great range of recreational and cultural offerings and stunning yet disparate settings within close physical proximity of one another, and Southern Oregon becomes an irresistible destination. Greg Paneitz, a vintner in the Applegate Valley, told us that journalists from such diverse publications as The Wall Street Journal and a mountain biking magazine have visited his Wooldridge Creek Winery of late.

“Southern Oregon is the new story,” Greg noted. “It’s the place where you can experience adventure, intellectual stimulation, and fine wines.”

The nascent wine industry is a story in itself. “Three years ago, the Rogue and Applegate Valleys had had three wineries,” says Sue Price of Southern Oregon Marketing Consultants. “Today there are thirteen. It’s really getting huge. The industry is beginning to get on the map.” 

The 58-acre Wooldridge Creek Winery got on the map last year. Two years earlier, Greg Paneitz and his partner Kara Olmo approached Ted and Mary Warwick who had been growing grapes at Wooldridge Creek since 1976 (and selling most of them to neighboring wineries) with an offer they could not refuse: if the Warwicks would take care of the building of the winery, they’d supply all the equipment in return for a 50-50 partnership.

As the project progressed, every aspect of the process was analyzed, Greg explained, including where the sun rose and set through the year, so that in all seasons there would be a pleasant working environment. “We use stainless steel tanks,”  he said. “When the grapes come in, we pick everything up and dump it in the tops of the tanks. Essentially this is a gravity winery. Nothing in the tanks has seed or skins. So the wines are much more mellow; the tannins are much less aggressive.”

In the sun-lit wood-paneled tasting room, we tasted Wooldridge Creek’s 2005 Chardonnay which had matured in French oak barrels and had wonderful citrus and passion-fruit aromas. “It’s a much more traditional style than California Chardonnays which are often buttery,” said Greg. “This is more lemony.”

Wooldridge Creek produces 2,500 cases of premium wines per year, varietals and blends. We thought to look for them back east, but then Greg told us that would not be possible as 98 percent of their wines are sold through wine clubs. What about the remaining two percent, we wondered. “Oh, we sell that to the local restaurants we eat in,” he said.

The Roxy Ann Winery has 46 acres planted and plans for major expansion in the works. Down the road from a 19th century farmhouse in a picture-book setting, we met Michael Donovan in the big barn that has been converted into a tasting room. “The house and barn -- all the buildings on this property were built in the late 1800s and are listed on National Historic Register,” the ruddy, extroverted Ashland businessman who handles Roxy Ann’s marketing told us. “They’re still owned by the Parsons, a prominent Seattle family, who founded the property in the late 1800s, primarily as a pear orchard.”

We walked out towards the vineyard on a warm and sunny morning. Before us, the branches of hundreds of pear trees were rustling in the light breeze. “This orchard is the only part of the property that is still producing pears,” Michael said. He pointed to the hillside beyond. “That is the beginning of our vineyards which we first planted in 1997. They extend all the way around; the land has a lot of undulations.” 

In the huge winery, Michael was explaining the fermenting process when he suddenly stopped before one of the barrels. “What will come out over time is the beautiful red cherry of Cabernet,” he said. “But it needs time. How much? At, that’s one of the mysteries of making wine.”

 The sense of wonder lasted but for a moment before the pragmatic Donovan turned back to the business at hand. “Roxy Ann’s signature blend is a Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc and Merlot,” he told us. “We’re adding to that Petit Merlot, Carminera, and Malbec -- all  grapes we have on the property -- as well as Syrah and Petit Syrah. That is really is the strength of what we do here. We’re more akin to Bordeaux than northern Oregon which is cooler. But we don’t like to say we’re like Bordeaux. We like to say we’re like Oregon.”

Besides, Roxy Ann is concerned with a different kind of geography. The vineyards lie within Medford’s city limits. In this rapidly expanding town, developers have undoubtedly set their sights on the grape-growing land. “Two weeks ago, the Parsons made the decision to increase to 106 acres by 2011,” Michael told us. “That will make us one of the largest vineyards in the state. By 2012, we expect to be producing close to 20,000 cases of wine.

“If we aren’t profitable, housing will be the next step,” he said. Then he added with no small amount of determination: “We are doing our best because nobody wants that to happen.”

Chris Martin, who is handsome in the manner of a Hollywood movie star, is the new owner, along with his parents, of the historic 27-acre Troon Winery where he is putting a new spin on the concept of viticulture. “My father wanted to get away from the corporate world in Scottsdale,” he told us. “He and my mother came out here, bought the place, and told everyone, ‘Oh yeah, we bought that place. Our son Chris will be taking care of it.’

“When we moved in, this was a small winery that produced 1,200 cases – today we’re up to 5,600,” he continued as we walked through what looked like an estate in Tuscany. “Dick Troon, the previous owner, had been in the area for a long time. He’d been a cattle rancher and river guide before starting the winery in 1972. Many years ago, his nephew used to work for my father, and through him my father got introduced to Mr. Troon and the wine-growing business. Over the course of a couple years, they talked about us coming in and taking over the operation. It was a back and forth, almost-happen, seller’s remorse, buyer’s remorse. Finally the solidification was me stepping out of my other roles and agreeing to run the day-to-day operations.”

He went on, “When I first came out here I said ‘What did I get myself into?’ Then it was a process of total immersion. I bought all the text books and started reading about grape-growing and wine- marketing. I surrounded myself with people like our winemaker Herb Quady who has a degree in winemaking from Fresno State and has spent 30 years of his life in the wine business. It’s a great classroom. I go out in the vineyard, ask a lot of questions, read a lot more.”

Chris thinks his being an outsider has actually been a strength, allowing him the freedom to realize his vision. “My idea was to recreate the lifestyle I experienced during a trip to Italy where they don’t have tasting rooms but instead sit down to a meal -- that’s how they taste the wine. So I live 50 yards away. On summer weekends, we serve appetizers paired with appropriate wines. We have Sunday brunches featuring local products that go with wines like artisanal cheeses. I bring in different chefs all the time; we do wine-makers’ dinners.”

A large stucco building houses Troon’s elaborate tasting room with hand-painted details and elegant fixtures; paintings hang on the walls. Towards the rear is a full-sized, state-of-the-art commercial kitchen and dining area outfitted with casual but quality furnishings. Behind the house against a backdrop of grape vines that seem to extend to the mountains in the distance, a rustic but enchanting gardened area is set with tables and chairs. It’s an ideal place for a wedding except Chris says he isn’t interested in dealing with the most important day in someone’s life. “We stick to what we know best, parties and wines.”

The Martins are into their third year of business now, and Chris has learned a lot. He talks about the locations of Rieslings down by the Applegate River, the effects of the late sun setting in a particular vineyard, how they hold off watering other vineyards until August to in order concentrate the flavors, his proclivity for blending. “Herb and I subscribe to a minimalist tradition but with an eye towards modern technique,” he tells us. “All our better reds are not filtered. We want to minimally handle them as much as possible so there will be a lot of character in the wine; it will be deeper and darker.”

And what about Mr. Troon? “He stops by three times a week, buys wine, takes it out to his friends, promotes wherever he goes,” Chris says. “We believe by keeping the name Troon we are honoring the past and giving Mr. Troon his immortality. He can go anywhere in the world and people will know who he is.”

Everyone in the Southern Oregon world seems to know Valley View, a 27-acre vineyard in an exquisite valley setting with breathtaking vistas and  embracing mountains. It is one of the oldest and certainly one of the most premier of Southern Oregon wineries. 

Valley View’s  large A-frame tasting room and retail shop which is fronted by a garden of tall lavender plants, pink petunias and purple ageratum is where we met Mike Wisnovsky who, together with his brother Mark, continues the business his father, Frank, began more than thirty years ago.

“I was three when we came out here so I grew up with the winery,” Mike, who  is soft-spoken and low-keyed yet passionate about wine-making, told us. “My father was a civil engineer who worked for a very large construction company with jobs all over the country. One of the jobs happened to be the underwater tubes for the Bart in the San Francisco Bay area. This just around the time wineries were just starting to get going in Napa and Sonoma. And my father said, ‘This is what I want to do.’ He took a UC-Davis extension class, and that was where he heard about Southern Oregon.

“This is actually a very old grape-growing region,” Mike continued. “It dates back to the 1850s when Peter Britt came to the area. He was a photographer, but he also planted the first vineyard in the state which he called Valley View. Along with the other wineries that followed, it came to a halt with  Prohibition. But when we came here in the fall of 1971, my father picked up the name.”

With its long tradition of wine making, Valley Vineyard does many varietals: Syrah, Cabernet-Sauvignon, Merlot, Carbaniro, the Bordeaux blends. But currently their most popular wine is a white, a Rhone variety grown originally in the same region of France that they grow Syrah. “What’s amazing is that we started making this in 2002, and by the summer of 2003 it was our number one selling wine. People tried it. They didn’t care if they could pronounce it. It was great, perfect with the fish we get from the coast, the fresh Alaskan halibut, Thai food, sushi.”

He offered us a tasting of a deep red wine which seemed very much like Rioja. Mike agreed. “It’s made from a grape called Tempranillo that is used a lot in Rioja,” he said. “As a rule, you don’t hear the name of the grape in European wines, just the region: Rioja, Burgundy, Bordeaux. They have the region and the winery on the label but not the grape. We grow Tempranillo because it works very well in our climate. It’s one of the shortest season grapes and our summers are relatively short. Again, it was one of those grapes that people never heard of, and it is a huge success.

“We get a tremendous amount of sunlight here,” he continued, “actually about an hour and half more sunlight than they do in Sonoma. Because we are further north, our days are longer, and we also don’t get any fog at all. So we get some really nice riper flavors at lower sugar levels and are able to make some really nice wines.”

Valley Vineyards was taking off when Frank Wisnovsky died in a tragic accident at the age of 44. Mike was 12, Mark was 16. Their mother Anna Maria kept it going hoping they would take it over. And they did.

“In 1990, we had an incredibly great vintage, something that we never had before,” Mike said. “We made some stellar wines. And we decided to name our best wines after our mother. So all our Reserve wines carry the label Anna Maria.

 “Sometimes I look around at all the wineries in the area and think how when my father first came here, people thought he was crazy. ‘You’re not growing alfalfa or corn? You’re growing grapes?’ they used to say. But you have to admit my father knew. He knew what he was doing.”

Sue Stephens, who is the sales director for Medford’s convention bureau and had accompanied us and Sue Price on our tour of the four wineries, grew philosophical on the drive back to Ashland. “I love Michael. He is very sensitive,” she said. “He and Mark are very generous, wonderful people. Greg is interesting, intellectual. Chris is a passionate person, a great marketer. And Mike is dynamic and charismatic. All are taking the same product, doing different things, and being successful at it. These are not cookie cutter people. They have brought their own ideas and life experiences to what they are doing. That’s the value system and independent spirit we were raised with.”

George Gregory had told us, “I was an army brat who was born in Germany and lived all over the world. In my first year of high school, my parents took me out of school and we traveled all over Europe. We came back and hit 47 of the 48 continental states. But when we settled down it was in Southern Oregon. Wonderful place, wonderful people.

Photographs by Harvey Frommer

Lake of the Woods Mountain Lodge & Resort
950 Harriman Route
Klamath Falls, OR97601

Phone:  541-949-8300 or 866-201-4194

Crater Lake Lodge – Xanterra

Phone:  541-830-8700
Web:  http://www.craterlakelodges.com
Web:  http://www.xanterra.com

Prospect Historic Hotel
391 Mill Creek Drive, POB 50
Prospect OR 97536

Phone: 541-560-3664
Web:  http://www.prospecthotel.com

Valley View Winery
1000 Upper Applegate Road
Jacksonville, OR 97530

Phone:  800-781-9463
Web:  http://www.valleyviewwinery.com

Troon Vineyard
1475 Kubli Road
Grants Pass, OR 97527

Phone: 541-846-9900
Web:  http://www.troonvineyard.com

Wooldridge Creek Winery
818 Slagle Creek Road
Grants Pass, OR 97525

Phone: 541-846-6364
Web:  http://www.wcwinery.com

Roxy Ann Winery
3285 Hillcrest Road
Medford, OR

Phone: 541-776-2315
Web:  http://www.roxyann.com

Carolyn S. Hill, Managing Director
Southern Oregon Visitors Association (SOVA)
1512 East Main Street
Ashland, OR 97520

P.O.Box 1645
Medford, OR 97501

Phone: 541-552 -0520
Web:  http://www.sova.org
Email: manager@sova.org

Sue Price
Southern Oregon Marketing Consultants
1795 Apache Drive
Medford OR 97501

Phone: 541-890-5472
Web:  http://www.somc.biz
Email: somarkco@aol.com

Sue Stephens
Convention Sales Director, Visitors & Convention Bureau
101 East 8 Street
Medford OR 97501

Phone: 541-608-8521
Email: sue@visitmedford.org