Taste Your Way Through
Oregon Wine Country
This is a place where the harvest doesn’t just feed the table — it sets the pace of daily life. Spend an afternoon barrel-side tasting wine with a winemaker, follow a farm loop through whatever’s ripe that week, or let our concierge secure a seat at a kitchen the rest of town is talking about. From century-old vines to James Beard-nominated plates, the Willamette Valley’s story is best told one bite and one pour at a time — and we know exactly who’s telling it best.
WINE TASTING
Wine tasting in the Willamette Valley is never just one thing — it can mean a polished pour in a tasting room, a barrel-side conversation with the person who made the wine, or an afternoon that turns into something closer to a farm visit. The faces in our homepage video aren’t actors. They’re real members of our wine community — winemakers, vineyard owners, and the people behind some of the valley’s most respected labels — who agreed to share their story on camera for the Atticus Hotel. We couldn’t think of a better way to introduce guests to this place than through the people who make it.
Their wineries alone span a remarkable range of experience. At Maysara, biodynamic farming meets a family heritage rooted half a world away. Remy Wines is the work of Remy Drabkin — a McMinnville native, now the city’s mayor, who has spent two decades crafting Old World Italian varietals and championing queer winemakers across rural Oregon. At Hundred Suns, a husband-and-wife team left everything behind to build something smaller and more personal. R. Stuart & Co. pours approachable, food-friendly pinots just off Third Street — and crafts the Bubbly we welcome every guest with at check-in. Argyle has spent decades establishing sparkling wine as one of the region’s benchmarks. At Dominio IV, a 1916 Carlton farmhouse sets the scene for biodynamic Tempranillo and Pinot Noir. Matzinger Davies brings together two of the valley’s most accomplished winemakers for small-lot, appointment-only tastings downtown. And the vines at Hyland Estates were planted in 1971 by Oregon wine pioneers Dick Erath and Charles Coury — among the oldest in the state, and still some of its most sought-after fruit.
And that’s just the people who happened to be in front of our camera. The Willamette Valley holds hundreds more stories like theirs. Ken Wright Cellars in Carlton has built one of the most decorated single-vineyard Pinot Noir programs in the country, poured from a restored 1923 train depot. At Durant at Red Ridge Farms, wine tasting shares the hillside with the largest olive grove and only commercial olive mill in Oregon, alongside a specialty plant nursery and gardens worth the trip on their own. Somewhere between those two is every kind of experience you could want — grand estates, family farmhouses, century-old vines, and brand-new ones, all within a short drive of the Atticus Hotel.
This is only the surface. Let our concierge introduce you to the rest.
AGRITOURISM
The cadence of life in our community has always been defined by the crops we grow. Over the decades, the spotlight has shifted more than once. We were once the world’s largest walnut producer—until the Columbus Day Storm of 1962 blew down the orchards. Hazelnuts took their place, since they reach production in five years instead of ten. Turkeys, strawberries, and blueberries each had their turn in the spotlight too. Then, in the 1970s, old orchards and oak groves began giving way to vineyards. For the first time, the crop didn’t have to travel to the marketplace—the marketplace started traveling to the crop. That reversal is the seed of agritourism here: instead of our harvest going out to find you, you can come find it growing.
Today, that means you get to share in our agricultural life firsthand—and it’s easier than you might think.
There’s so much more in the hills around town than grapes. Spend a morning picking sweet peaches at Perry Hill Farm, swing by Blue Raven’s farmstand for a fresh-baked pie, or head out to the fields at Bernard’s to fill your own basket with Oregon’s famous strawberries. The fertile soil here grows more than wine—it grows an entire calendar of things worth tasting.
Want to make a day of it? Follow the Yamhill Farm Loop for a self-guided tour through the county’s farms and food trails—what’s in season is always changing, so no two trips look the same.
If you like a game of hide and seek, come during truffle season and forage our forests for this rare find. Go it alone, or let us connect you with the right guide.
Our concierge knows every farmstand and what’s ripe during your stay. Let us help you plan a day built around just how fresh food can taste when it comes straight from the source.
FARM TO TABLE
All the agricultural bounty surrounding us makes it easy to enjoy farm-to-table dining at its finest. Let our concierge guide your experience and secure a reservation at one of our award-winning restaurants, where the sole focus is bringing what grows in the ground nearby straight to your plate.
Farm-to-table pioneer Thistle, located just around the corner, is the only restaurant outside of Portland to ever win The Oregonian’s Restaurant of the Year. Sourcing ingredients from a tiny local radius has long been their standard, and plenty of other chefs have followed suit with a similar ethos: fresh, local, and in season.
From James Beard nominees like Hayward and Grounded Table to multi-course prix fixe experiences like Okta, the chefs in our community are pushing the boundaries of what it means to create a meal directly connected to its source.
Not sure where to start? Our concierge keeps a pulse on every menu, every seasonal shift, and every hard-to-get reservation in town—let us match your table to your taste.
PUB CRAWL
There’s more to McMinnville than just wine. The same fertile valley that grows world-class Pinot Noir also grows something else worth raising a glass to: hops. Oregon’s hop yards have quietly fueled the Pacific Northwest’s craft beer reputation for decades, and our local breweries are putting that homegrown ingredient to good use right in our own backyard.
When your palate is asking for a new flavor, we’re happy to help you explore our vibrant beer scene. From gluten-free breweries like Bierly Brewing and Evasion to hometown favorites like Heater Allen and Golden Valley, there’s a style and a story behind every pint in town.
Let our concierge map out a crawl that fits your taste—whether that’s a quiet flight at one favorite spot or a full afternoon hopping between them.
TOURS
Let’s be real — when wine tasting is the focus, sometimes it’s better not to be behind the wheel. Letting a seasoned professional do the driving and help shape the context for your stay is an incredible way to add depth and texture to your experience.
Our concierge team works every day with the best guides in the valley. We know who tells the local history best, which guide mixes in the most interesting stops, who’ll let you build your own itinerary, and who has the most comfortable cars. The number of tour operators here is almost as varied as our wine and restaurant scenes — and matching the right guide to the right group is what we do best.
