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Basque Style Cider Made in Oregon

Jasper Smith is a terrific cook. Actually, he's a pro with plenty of kitchen experience. 

At the top, he's grilling branzino, which he'll serve with his own salsa verde. 

But Smith's main job now isn't cooking. It's making cider--Basque style cider, under the label Son of Man.

This he does in a business complex at Cascade Locks, Oregon. Smith first tried his hand at cider-making in Spain, but his Oregon cider is brand new, made from 27 varieties of apples grown in the Hood River area.

Fermentation started in August, 2018, and the first batch was bottled in February, 2019.

What is Basque cider? Smith's is dry, higher in acid than ordinary cider and slightly alcoholic--6%. It's made from pure fresh juice, without concentrate.

Fermentation takes about three weeks, then the different batches are blended into the final cider, which should be consumed within a year. Above, he's explaining how it's made. 

The fermentation is spontaneous, without added yeast, and the cider is not fined or filtered. It's "similar to what you would be drinking fresh in Spain," Smith says. In Basque country in northern Spain, the name for the cider is sagardo, as on this sign in the cidery. 

Why did he get into this?  A first taste of Basque cider in San Francisco blew him away, in his words. Now, he's the only one in the country that is doing Basque cider exclusively, he says. This year's batch was 20,000 liters.  

The traditional way to drink is straight from the tank or barrel, poured in a long stream to make it lively. You can only do this at Smith's cidery. To visit there, an appointment is necessary.

However, Smith bottles the cider, and distribution is getting underway. I saw it at Park Avenue Fine Wines in Portland, where Smith lives. And it can be ordered through his website. 

"It's a living beverage," he said. "It's all about food, drink and having fun."

This is where his cooking comes in. Smith produced a handsome meal for a small group of visitors. The next day, he would be grilling steaks for 100 or so. "Basque cider goes well with food," he says. 

For the small group he grilled the branzino, seasoned with olive oil and salt, and then daubed on his homemade salsa verde.

Here, Smith cuts up the fish to serve his guests. 

Two salads accompanied the fish. The one above combined celery, dried apricots, almonds and mint in a sherry vinaigrette.

This one was based on grilled cabbage--Smith recommends using Savoy cabbage. The dressing was a spicy blend of homemade preserved Meyer lemons, guajillo chiles, garlic, honey, sherry vinegar and grapeseed oil. For Basque flavor, he sprinkled the Catalan goat's milk cheese Garrotza over the salad. 

The bread came from Ken's Artisan Bakery in Portland. 

There were cheeses, too. 

After cider as an aperitif, Smith paired his lunch with wines, easy to do because he shares space with two artisan winemakers, Bethany Kimmel of The Color Collector and Graham Markel of Buona Notte Wines. 

Markel's wines are made from Italian grape varieties grown in Oregon's Columbia Gorge. Kimmel's are French. She's a specialist in Oregon Gamay Noir and makes a Rosé from Chardonnay and Pinot Noir grapes.

So under one roof, the beverages are French, Italian and Basque, all made from Oregon-grown fruit. 

Northwest Flavors at 3 Rivers Grill

Want to learn about Pacific Northwest food and wine? 

A good place to do this is 3 Rivers Grill in Hood River, Oregon. It's a beautiful restaurant with stunning views. At night you look out over the town. During the day you can see the Columbia River, with Oregon on one side and Washington on the other. And any time, you can sample delicious regional cuisine.  

One example is Pacific halibut almandine, lightly coated with panko and served with a cranberry, citrus and butter sauce. The vegetables on the side include locally-grown asparagus. 

Others are pork tenderloin stuffed with Hood River apples, Oregon sole with a lemon, dill and cream sauce and pan-seared fresh Northwest steelhead with a cherry tomato piccata sauce.

The halibut got the most takers when five local wine producers brought their wares to a tasting dinner. The five were Keely Kopetz of Wy'East Vineyards (Wy'East is an indigenous name for Mount Hood), Robert Morus of Phelps Creek Vineyards, Lonnie Wright of The Pines 1852, Jill House of Stave & Stone Wine Estates and Rick Cushman of Viento Wines.

Wine went with every course, even a house salad composed of organic greens,  tomatoes, olives, red onions, Gorgonzola and an herb vinaigrette.


The first poured was a Pinot Noir Brut Rosé from The Pines 1852, made according to the traditional French champagne method.

Jill House brought the Stave & Stone Dorothy Pinot Noir Rosé. Dorothy was the grandmother of the founder, and only her female descendants are allowed to stomp the grapes for this wine, she said.  

Cushman of Viento Wines helped with the pouring. The window behind Cushman and House looks toward the Columbia River, which is almost hidden by the trees. 

Then came Chardonnays from Wy'East and Phelps Creek. That's Mount Hood on the Wy'East label. This winery has a tasting room on Highway 35 outside Hood River, and a place for gatherings high among the vineyards, where the views are spectacular. 


Morus of Phelps Creek (above), who poured two Chardonnays, said he is transitioning to 500-liter puncheons for the wine. In these large wooden casks, Chardonnay can stay for an extended time without picking up too much oak, he said. Here he's moved on to the reds that were poured later. 

Morus supplied one of several Pinot Noirs, which were nice with Mediterranean pasta, a mix of pasta, artichoke hearts, sun-dried tomatoes, olives, Parmesan and pesto.

Wines were poured right through dessert. That's when Wright, of The Pines 1852, brought out an Old Vines Zinfandel from a vineyard planted in the late 1800s. It's at the left in the photo. A Wy'East Carménère is at the right. 

The desserts were creme brûlée.

And a mixed berry cobbler topped with vanilla ice cream and strawberries. 

Overseeing the dinner was 3 Rivers chef Efrem Rivas (above). Jim Dey, who owns the restaurant, has made sure the Northwest is well represented on the wine list, which includes selections from those at the tasting dinner.  

Tasting the Wines of Irvine & Roberts

Ashland, Oregon may be famous for its Shakespeare Festival. But it's also a place for good food and very good drink, thanks to wineries such as Irvine & Roberts Vineyards, a beautiful facility at the edge of town.

Completed in 2017, the tasting room is a quiet place to enjoy a leisurely wine tasting, accompanied by cheese and charcuterie.

Just outside is a spacious patio with a wide open view of the hilly countryside--this is where the Siskiyou Mountains and the Cascades come together.

And the wines? Wonderful. And still in progress, because Irvine & Roberts is new and experimenting. Located at an altitude of 2100 feet, the vineyard is certified sustainable. Of its 52 acres, 26 are under production now. This will expand to another 26, dedicated primarily to Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, but some Pinot Meunier and Gamay will be included. 

"Gamay is the up and coming varietal in Oregon," said Dionne Irvine. She and husband Doug (above) are co-owners along with Doug Irvine's sister Kelly and her husband, Duane Roberts. 

The winemaker is Vince Vidrine, above, who most recently was at Domaine Serene in the Willamette Valley. 

The Rogue Valley, where Irvine & Roberts is located, is riddled with microclimates, so it's not possible to zero in on any one varietal as typical of the area, Dionne Irvine said.

Nebbiolo bombed on their property, but Pinot Noir and Chardonnay thrive. And Pinot Meunier produces a delightful wine that can be paired with almost anything "It's one of the favorites among tasters," she said. Here, it's at the left, with two of the Pinot Noirs. 

These three grapes, Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Pinot Meunier, are the classic components of Champagne. Therefore, sparklers are in the future for Irvine & Roberts.

The easy way to taste there is with structured flights of Pinot Noir or Chardonnay. Each flight consists of four wines, which can be supplemented with single block Pinot Noirs and a reserve Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. Pinot Meunier is in the Pinot Noir flight. The extra on the Chardonnay flight is a rosé of Pinot Noir. 

First up when I tasted was the 2012 Pinot Noir (above), made primarily from estate grapes. The remainder came from a vineyard in nearby Talent.

Next came the 2015 Pinot Meunier, which would be excellent with lighter dishes and spicy flavors.  This is the 2016, which I took away for dinner that night. It was superb.

The 115 block Pinot Noir is from one of six Pinot Noir clones in the vineyard. "Each clone brings a little something different," Dionne Irvine said, noting that 115 on their property offers big, lush, cherry notes. "I'll pick up a little bit of spice, a little bit of earth tones from that particular clone," she said.

Here is a section of the vineyard with Pinot Noir clone 115.  


Then I tasted two more "extras," the fruit-forward Clone 777 Pinot Noir, which is in the glass at the top, and the 2015 Reserve Pinot Noir.

Irvine & Roberts does everything first rate. The wine-tasting glasses are Riedel. And the winery has its own chef, Kris Elder (above), who has been a professional pastry chef and a line chef at Amuse restaurant in Ashland.  

Elder creates wine and food pairings, and his cheese and charcuterie boards show off artisanal products such as elk salami from Medford, Oregon; handmade Cheddar from Seattle, goat cheese and Castel Vetrano olives from Spain and some of Elder's own handiwork--pickled onions and cucumbers, violet toffee and five-spice walnuts. 

Events include winemaker dinners and cooking classes featuring Ashland chefs. Just before the 4th of July, Doug Irvine presided at a Pinot burger tasting featuring beef patties soaked in Pinot Noir. 

Another place to taste the wines is the Mission Inn Hotel & Spa at Riverside in Southern California. Irvine & Roberts partners Duane and Kelly Roberts own the inn, and you can be sure the wines are on hand in all of its restaurants. 

 Irvine & Roberts Vineyards, 1614 Emigrant Creek Road, Ashland, OR 97520. (541) 482-9383. 

Big Wines from a Tiny Oregon AVA

This is Oregon wine country at it's best--a glorious Pinot Noir paired with an equally glorious view.

The wine is from Brandborg Vineyard & Winery in Elkton, a tiny AVA in the far northwest of the Umpqua Valley in southern Oregon. There are just seven labels in the  Elkton AVA (American Viticultural Area), which was established in 2013, and Brandborg is one of only two producing wineries there.

This view is from the deck of the Brandborg home on the estate vineyard outside the town of Elkton. The chilly cloudy day shows why this area is so hospitable to cool weather grapes. Climate-wise, it's comparable to Alsace or Burgundy, said winemaker Terry Brandborg, who is the current president of the Umpqua Valley Winegrowers Association. 

After a vineyard tour, Brandborg (above) poured his 2014 Ferris Wheel Estate Vineyard Pinot Noir. The light color is deceptive. The wine is loaded with character, because Brandborg really knows what to do with grapes.

He's self-taught and hands-on, starting as a home winemaker in the San Francisco Bay area, where he worked as a longshoreman. In those days, he recalled, "I had my hippy friends over for a grape stomp in the driveway." 

After he was licensed to sell commercially, in 1986, his wine was picked up by a high-profile distributor impressed by a Graves style Sauvignon Blanc-Semillon blend. At that time, Brandborg wine was showing up in restaurants such as Chez Panisse. 

The early days of hawking sample bottles around San Francisco are long past. Now there's a handsome tasting room and winery on the main street of Elkton, which Brandborg designed (above).

Here's a look at the tasting room, where you can taste the wine, buy local products, and hear occasional music performances.  Brandborg and wife Sue both cook for an annual five-course nouveau release dinner in the winery.

The Brandborgs settled in Elkton after a two-year search for property in California and Oregon. They bought 145 acres at Elkton, complete with a three-bedroom house, "for the same price as 20 acres with no improvements in the Anderson Valley," Brandborg said. 

Just five acres of the estate vineyard, which is located at a cool 1,000 feet, are now planted. Twenty-five more acres have been cleared, and 20 of those are plantable, Brandborg said. 

For the first four years after buying the land in 2002, he and Sue (above) did all the work, bringing production up to 6,000 cases. They have now reached 10,000 cases, made with both estate and purchased fruit. Most of the fruit comes from the Elkton AVA. They also custom make wine for other labels.

Assisting are two full time and one part time employee as well as picking crews and local help for bottling. 

Back at the tasting room, Brandborg conducted a tasting, starting with the 2015 Fleur de Lis, a White Pinot Noir made "for the fun of it," the label says.

Then in came lunch, prepared by Sue Brandborg. To go with the wines, she came up with an asparagus quiche with a touch of goat cheese, homemade cucumber and onion pickles and a salad of local lettuce, grapefruit, pepitas and chives, mint and oregano that grow alongside the winery building. 

With this, we tasted a completely dry Pinot Gris--"our oyster wine," Terry Brandborg said. (It's in the photo with Sue Brandborg).

Next up was the lightly sweet 2013 Riesling--the 2012 Riesling was the first wine bottled after Elkton became an AVA.


Then came a standout, the 2014 Gewürztraminer, a rich full wine at 14.2 % alcohol, made with grapes from two Elkton vineyards.  "It's the single best bottle you can buy for Thanksgiving, because it works with everything on the plate," Brandborg said

The final wine was the 2014 Pinot Noir from the Hundredth Valley Vineyard, the most western of the Hundred Valleys of the Umpqua, which is a nickname for the Umpqua Valley.  

Wines such as Brandborg's may tempt more to try their luck in Elkton. For now, this is a rural area, hilly, green, and quiet. The town of Elkton has only 170 inhabitants and few attractions for tourists. In other words, it's still unspoiled. The nearest large city is Portland, a three-hour drive away, which is too far for all but the most determined weekend wine tasters.  

Brandborg Vineyard & Winery, 345 First St., Elkton, OR 97436. (541) 584-2870.  

Abacela, the Tempranillo Pioneer

Visiting Abacela winery is like treading on sacred ground, that is, if you worship the Spanish red wine grape Tempranillo. 

It was here, in Southern Oregon's Umpqua Valley, that Earl and Hilda Jones introduced Tempranillo to the Pacific Northwest, with stunning results.

How they did this is an amazing story, which you can read on the winery website. Both dumped scientific careers to become wine pioneers, spurred on by their love of Spanish wines backed by extensive research. 

Abacela's first Tempranillo vines went into the ground in 1995. Three years later, the couple had an award-winning wine. And in 2015 they were granted a lifetime achievement award by the Oregon Wine Board.

When I dropped into Abacela late one afternoon, Hilda (above) was there, but Earl was in Spain. 

With Hilda's guidance, I tasted the two Tempranillos that were on hand. At right in the photo above is the 2015 Fiesta Tempranillo, which Hilda calls an entry level wine, in a lighter style with less tannin. 

The Barrel Select Tempranillo 2014, made from a different clone, is more intense, a beautiful, powerful wine that deserves Hilda's title for it, the Cabernet Sauvignon of Spain. 

Here's another look at it, a bottle that I took away to drink at dinner. 

The two other Tempranillos on the tasting list, the 2009 Paramour Gran Reserva and the 2014 SE Block Reserve, were sold out. Not surprising, considering that the Wine Enthusiast gave the SE Block Reserve 94 points and named it editors' choice.

But there's more than Tempranillo at Abacela. Above, Alison Galbraith pours the 2017 Albariño, another Spanish wine grape pioneered there. Crisp and fresh, it was fermented entirely in stainless steel.

Only available at the winery, the 2017 Private Selection Albariño has a touch of oak, making it richer. Albariño has done so well at Abacela that more vines will be planted.

Next, I tried the 2017 Grenache Rosé, a great summer wine for red wine enthusiasts but good all year. The Spanish red wine grape Garnacha (Grenache) requires heat to grow well, and Abacela has a sunny slope to provide that.

The 2015 red Garnacha is easy drinking, goes well with everything and is absolutely yummy, to use an overworked word.

And so is the 2015 Malbec. I would love to have tasted the 2014 Tempranillo-Malbec blend, but that was sold out.

At Abacela, Tempranillo is used for more than drinking. The juice goes into the starter for sourdough bread baked there weekly. This tangy bread (above) is a wonderful complement to the wines.

The sold-out Tempranillos and the Malbec blend will be available again in new releases, but the Tempranillo-based starter isn't produced to sell, which is sad for bread-bakers like me.    

Abacela, 12500 Lookingglass Road, Roseburg, Oregon 97471. Call (541) 679-6642. 

Butte Creek Mill, a Baker's Dream

Look at this gorgeous loaf of 10-grain bread. I would not have been able to make it if I hadn't gone to Butte Creek Mill in Eagle Point, Oregon.

Butte Creek is the last water-powered flour mill in the United States, dating from 1872. This photo taken from an old tin-type shows how it looked in 1876. 

Old timey heaven, the mill has been beautifully preserved and made even more atmospheric by the antiques collected by its owner, Bob Russell. Here's how the front porch looks now, complete with a country musician.  

Touring with Russell was fascinating, but I split off from the group because I couldn't resist the old fashioned country store, loaded with memorabilia and stocked with stone-ground flours, grains and baking mixes produced by the mill.  

The displays were pure heaven for a baker, and I left with as much as I could carry on the flight home, including the 10 grain bread mix (above). 

I did see grain being sent down to the grinding stones (above). Russell said hard red wheat from Three Forks, Montana, is the primary grain for bread flour.

©Todd Montgomery 2015

But I missed a lot, including a peek at Russell's museum-like office (above), crammed with  antiques.

©Todd Montgomery 2015

Russell (above) bought the mill 10 years ago. He's now the mayor of Eagle Point, a town so small that only about 30 show up for Rotary meetings  Next to the mill is an antiques store crammed with more of his finds. In 1895, it was a cheese factory. 

Butte Creek Mill is open every day, and tours are free. It's also a party site, and for my group, Russell had set up a tent in the yard and ordered food from another old timey place, the Jacksonville Inn in nearby Jacksonville.

The menu was up to date, though, not vintage. We started with grilled fingerling potatoes, crispy leeks, chive broth and a fresh-shucked oyster followed by diver scallops with apple fennel slaw, local pea shoots, a quail egg and California sturgeon caviar (above).  

In the mill's olden days, no one would have heard of the next course, duck confit sliders with Asian slaw, Sriracha aioli and lotus root chips. Grilled beef tenderloin, potato puree and carrots would have been more familiar, except for a square of crispy pork belly on the plate.

For dessert, a famous Oregon product, Rogue Creamery blue cheese, appeared in a cake with hazelnut crust that somehow stood on end without toppling over. Its accompaniments were fresh local figs and pear butter in a sugar nest. 

With these we drank local wines, a 2014 Albariño from Abacela, Pebblestone's 2014 Viognier, a Folin Syrah from 2011, Jaxon's 2012 Tempranillo and Cuckoo's Nest Cellars Fizzé Early Muscat 2014.

Although stuffed, we were not finished. For our last bite, we were going to revert to the past. It was a cinnamon roll baked by the folks above in a Dutch oven with coals on top and underneath.

I could hardly stuff in any more food, but this was not to be missed. It was the best cinnamon roll I have ever tasted, crusty and caramelized, proof that old ways are sometimes the best.

Butte Creek Mill, 402 N. Royal Ave., Eagle Point, Oregon 97524. Tel: (541) 826-3531. Butte Creek products can be ordered online. Go to www.buttecreekmill.com. 

Really Hot Chocolate at Lillie Belle

The hottest hot chocolate around is inside a lavender building in southern Oregon.

It isn't a drink. It's chocolate spiced with such moltenly hot chiles that a sign on the counter warns, ''Do not eat this sample. This chocolate is too hot." 

"Nobody should put ghost chiles in chocolate, but I do," says Jeff Shepherd of Lillie Belle Farms Handmade Chocolates near Medford. The bar he's talking about includes not only ghost chiles but ají amarillo and chile de árbol.

Shepherd (above) has been making chocolates since 2001, starting at home, then selling to farmer's markets. Now he's turning out truffles, bars, brownies and more at a shop in the same stretch of the southern Oregon artisan corridor as Rogue Creamery, famous for its blue cheese, and the Ledger David Cellars wine tasting room.

Obviously a guy with extreme tastes, Shepherd makes bhut jolokia truffles. Ouch!

And chipotle ganache. And cayenne caramels encased in organic dark chocolate.

Wimps can feel safely quirky eating a flying pig bar made of bacon caramelized in maple syrup and mixed with milk chocolate and a dash of salt, or chile-free añejo tequila truffles with lime and salt (above).

And then there are innocent fruit-filled chocolates such as these.

©Todd Montgomery 2015

The biggest seller of all, though, is lavender fleur de sel caramels, which just might be the reason the shop is painted such a pretty shade of purple.

Lillie Belle Farms Handmade Chocolates, 211 N. Front St., Central Point, Oregon 97502. Tel: (541) 664-2815.

Dancin Vineyards--Pinot and Pizza

Pizza and Pinot are good buddies at Dancin Vineyards in southern Oregon's Rogue Valley.

This is the first winery in the valley to install a pizza oven, and not by chance. Owner Dan Marca--he's Italian--went to work in a New Jersey deli when only 10 and by 14 was making pizza. 

Photo by Todd Montgomery

Marca runs the wine operation and also pours in the tasting room (above), as if he were an employee. 

His wife Cindy runs the kitchen, out of which come such must-eat pizzas as those at the top, a classic Margherita and, behind it, the Estancia, with mushrooms, caramelized onions, Alfredo sauce, crumbled gorgonzola and spinach.

 
Here is the Harlem Shake, topped with creamy mac n cheese.

Perfect with pizza is this Caesar salad, accompanied by a glass of the 2013 Farandole Pinot Noir.

Dancin, which opened in 2012, was among the first Rogue wineries to offer food full time. "We wanted to do something different," Marca said. "We wanted to have the food and wine together, to serve at tables, stay open late, have families come."

And they come in crowds to relax and eat outdoors, above.

Or to picnic on this tree-shaded lawn.

The menu offers much more than pizza, including mushrooms stuffed with Italian sausage, cheese and eggs, topped with a Chardonnay cream sauce and reduced balsamic (above).

For dessert you could have panna cotta or, in strawberry season, huge cheese cake-stuffed berries, or just a slice of The Moon Walk pizza, topped with fresh organic local peaches (when in season), caramelized onions, mascarpone, basil and balsamic (above). 

The menu suggests wine pairings, such as the 2014 Chaine Chardonnay with the Harlem Shake. However, Dancin is essentially "a Pinot Noir winery," Marca said. And so the 2013 Pas de Deux Pinot Noir is recommended with the Margherita pizza, and the 2013 Ecarte Pinot Noir with the mushrooms.

For the strawberries, which were on hand when I was there in September, Marca chose the 2013 Adagio Pinot Noir. "This is the lightest and most elegant Pinot we have," he said. "The aromatics on this wine are amazing. That is the beauty of Pinot Noir, the aromatics that it provides."

Pinot Noir is the number one harvested grape in the Rogue Valley, and Dancin makes seven to 11 Pinots a year, Marca said. Above, he stops in front of Pinot vines during a vineyard tour. The grapes are hand harvested and hand sorted to eliminate rubbish and bad fruit. "It's a tedious process, but that's the way we want to do it," he said. By the time the grapes go into the fermenting bins, they are "as immaculate as can be."  

Marca runs a very tight ship. "I'm a control freak," he said. "The goal is to continue to make better wine."

The Dancin wines are named for elements of dance and music, as fits the winery name. The real reason for calling the place Dancin is more personal, though. It's a combination of Dan and Cindy, the two owners.

Dancin Vineyards, 4477 South Stage Road, Medford, Oregon 97051. (541) 245-1133.

Exploring and Eating in Jacksonville

It's fun to roam around historic Jacksonville in Southern Oregon, and easy to get there if you're staying in Medford, which is only about five miles away. 

I didn't feel a bit creepy tromping through the old cemetery, where I saw the grave of Peter Britt, the photographer and agriculturist who planted the first wine grapes in southern Oregon (above).

Then I hopped onto a cute red trolley for a tour that made clear why this charming town, founded when gold was discovered there, became a National Historic District. We rode past vintage houses (above) and looked at the Britt, Jacksonville's equivalent of the Hollywood Bowl but smaller and more intimate, with a grassy lawn for picnickers, and turkeys running loose.  

My head filled with history, I got off and did my own tour, looking at antiques and artisan jewelry in the shops. A local tip led me to The GoodBean Coffee Company (above), where I bought a couple of sacks of Dark Mountain, a heady dark-roast coffee with mocha undertones.

With other members of my tour group, I dropped into the Quady North wine tasting room (above) and sampled generously.

The wines were fine, but what really interested me were the ammo cans from army surplus reworked into wine boxes (above). You buy one of these and refill it as needed with bags of wine. That's much better than putting in bullets.

On a side street I came across the South Stage Cellars tasting room (above) and edged up to the bar for a round of tastes. I was so impressed with the 2012 Malbec that I bought a bottle so I could taste it again before leaving Oregon, because I could never find it at home. 

All this touring worked up an appetite for serious food. The place to get that and take in more history is the Jacksonville Inn. From the outside, the building (above) looks like it probably did when it opened in 1862. 

How often do you eat in a dining room as old fashioned as this? I was surprised not to see Victorian ladies at the tables instead of casually-dressed tourists. Guest rooms at the inn are furnished with antiques too. 

The food isn't dated, though. Look at this beet salad with roasted baby carrots, cherry tomatoes and micro greens on a bed of spinach. The dressing was an heirloom tomato vinaigrette.

The inn's wine shop has been rated one of the 100 best in the country. Out of a stock of more than 2,000 bottles came the 2014 RoxyAnn Pinot Gris to go with the salad. RoxyAnn Winery is located at Medford.

Next came salmon prepared three ways. My favorite was pan-seared with parsnip puree (above).

The others were crusty fried salmon on a bed of vegetables accompanied by smoked tomato ketchup (left, above) and butter-poached salmon with fish roe on top and roasted carrot and pea purees. The 2012 Pinot Noir poured with the fish was made by Irvine Family Vineyards in Ashland. 

Dessert, sugar pie pumpkin panna cotta with chai spiced whipped cream, white sugar and pepita crumbles and a golden sugar ribbon (above), was as good as it sounds. With this we drank GoodBean's blend of Colombian, Kenyan and Tanzanian coffees, made especially for the restaurant. 

After lunch, my group, the International Food, Wine and Travel Writers Association, split up to tour the guest rooms. I wound up in the honeymoon cottage where former President Bush and his wife stayed.

What caught my eye was the photo of President Obama placed there so Democrats would feel comfortable too. As if anyone could feel uncomfortable in as welcoming a town as Jacksonville. 

Next: a winery known for pizza and Pinot Noir. 

Food, Wine--and Pastries--at Medford

I've never met Allison Brummet, but I know she's fantastic.

Brummet is the pastry chef at Larks Restaurant and Lounge, located at the Inn at the Commons in Medford, Oregon. That's where I stayed for a few days while food and wine touring in southern Oregon.

Posts on what I saw will start shortly. Don't miss them, because the Medford area offers great wines, cheeses, food and friendly people (The photo at the top shows vineyards at Del Rio, one of many wineries within easy reach of Medford.)

Although not as well known as Ashland and its Shakespeare festival, Medford has great tourism potential. To compare, Ashland has perhaps 40 serious restaurants, while Medford has eight, including Larks. OldTown Medford has a few good tippling places too, like the one in the photo above, which is walking distance from the Inn at the Commons. 

Thanks to executive chef Damon Jones, Larks is right on trend, meaning the food is fresh, seasonal and locally produced. Even basics such as mayo, catsup and pickles are house-made.

"The Valley [Rogue Valley] has progressed over the last 10 years in what is available to us," Jones said at a farewell brunch hosted for my writers group by Travel Medford, the people who showed us around.

(I'm not praising Medford to please my hosts, but because I like the area anyway. I go there regularly to spend time with family. The only pizza I love is there and also the craft beer of my dreams, but that's a story from last year's trip. You can see it here.)

Back to Brummet. What turned me into a fan was the granola she makes for breakfast (above). It's pure oaty goodness, deeply browned, almost caramelized, and not cluttered with nuts and dried fruits.  People load it into coffee cups and take it away for snacks, a waitress told me. I'm not the least ashamed that I did that too.   

Brummet can handle much more than granola, though. The writers brunch started with her banana chocolate chip muffins (above), warm enough so the chips were melty soft. 

Along with orange juice, we had mixed fruit and berries with mint creme fraiche (above).

The main course was smoked brisket and farm potato hash with summer peppers, fried eggs and pea shoots (above). Jones comes up with variations on this for the daily breakfast served to Inn guests.

The coffee we drank came from Noble Coffee Roasting in Ashland. But there's good coffee roasting in the Medford area too, and you'll read about that in an upcoming post.

Brunch ended with Brummet's spectacular dessert, a coffee and donuts bread pudding with coffee ice cream, cinnamon almonds and salted caramel sauce (above). 

"Most restaurants don't want you to order dessert so they can turn the tables faster," Jones said. That wouldn't be true at Larks, with such a talented pastry chef to show off.

Next up: Jacksonville--history, food, wine and lots of charm.