Last year we were able to start offering a limited number of our wiking tours.  Our current plan is to offer several more wiking tours this summer.  However, mother nature is holding us back a bit.  We are having one of the wettest springs in the history of Oregon.  This has led to some very muddy trails.

We have two three mile sections of trail that are now open.  The trip starts with a tasting at Johan Vineyards.  We then drive over to Left Coast Cellars for a tasting, 3 miles of hiking and lunch.  From there we drive on to Van Duzer Cellars.  Leaving Van Duzer we head down to Baskett Slough and hike through the wildlife refuge.  At the end of the trail we head over to Firesteed Cellars to finish the day.

We are offering several dates where you can join a group that is heading out.  These wiking tours will be offered Memorial Day Weekend, June 16th, July 7th, August 4th, and September 1st.  The cost is $150 per person and includes your tour fee, tasting fees, and lunch.  We start each tour from The Grand Hotel in Salem at 10:30 am.  If you are looking for lodging, let me know as we have a special rate with The Grand Hotel for $130 a night including taxes for a king or double queen room.

If you have a private group that wants to head out, or the dates above don’t work for your group, we can arrange a private tour.  You can book one of our standard tours and let me know that you would like a hiking tour.

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I wanted to send out an update on the status of our Oregon wine hiking tours, aka our wiking trips.  We will be posting more pictures soon.

Due to land access issues we were not able to get the entire trail opened this year.  However we have a great set of trail at Left Coast Cellars and through Baskett Slough.  From May through the end of August we have access to the longest stretches of the trails, about 6 miles.  We will drive portions of the route between the wineries and still have plenty of trail to hike.  We are going to schedule a few trips next summer where you can join a group for the six mile hiking trip.

For those that are looking for a shorter hike, that can also be arranged.  Depending on the time of year we will also have shorter routes available.  Our plan is that on any tour in the Salem area you can request to add on a hiking portion to your tour.  We will talk with you about the trip and determine how much hiking we will be able to do.

We were able to take a few groups out this summer and a great time was had by all of our guests.  While the cooler weather this summer wasn’t the most helpful for ripening Pinot Noir, it was great for a day of hiking.  We have seen a variety of birds and other animals on the trips.

You can also check out some of the recent press on our trips

New York Times – Wiking in Oregon
Polk County Itemizer Observer – Vino and a View
Grants Getaways – Off Road in Wine Country
The Oregonian – Gerry Frank’s Picks

For a while now we have been working on a new project, a hiking wine tour, also known as wiking.  Our goal is to have the hiking tour available for reservations this summer.  The trip will showcase some of the great wines in the region, as well as the beauty that the Willamette Valley is known for.  We look forward to having you join Grand Cru Wine Tours for your Oregon hiking wine tour.   Below is a brief introduction from the New York Times:

OREGON is hiking country. It’s also wine country, with vineyards that are increasingly destinations for oenophiles. So perhaps it’s no surprise that the combination of hiking and wine tasting has a name: wiking.

Looking for a more immersive wine experience? In mid-July, Oregon’s first hiking trail through wine country will open in the southern Willamette Valley. This nine-mile trail was put together by Byron Williams, the owner of Grand Cru Wine Tours. The hike winds through an oak savanna, over rolling hills and onto a portion of the Baskett Slough National Wildlife Refuge.

New York Times

So what can you expect on your Oregon hiking wine tour?  Guests will start the day at Johan Vineyards where you can sample the Pinot Gris and Pinot Noir from owner Dag Sundby.  We will then hike over to Left Coast Cellars.  Guests will be able to sample their wines, including their Latitude 45 Pinot Noir and enjoy lunch from their Cafe.  We will then head on the longest stretch of the hike over to Van Duzer.  Guests will experience wines from their new winemaker, Jerry Murray.  I have followed Jerry’s wines for years and am excited to have him in the Mid-Willamette Valley.

After finishing the tasting at Van Duzer we will head into Baskett Slough National Wildlife Refuge.  Having grown up spending lots of time outdoors, I am excited to add a trip through the slough.  Depending on when you choose to visit you will be treated to visits from a variety of animal guests.  The Fish and Wildlife Service has a listing of bird life that you may see, showing the frequency of sightings by season.  If you are heading into the slough on your own, they have a map of all of the trails.

After leaving the slough guests will finish travelling over to Firesteed Cellars.  We are working on finishing the trails and will let everyone know once we have full access.  We will hold a special kick off wiking tour in mid-July.  After that, guests will be able to reserve the tour during the open season.  Because the slough is closed for the winter to protect the winter habitat of the birds, we will only be able to offer the tours from May 1 through the end of September.  Tours will be $125 a person with a four person minimum.  This will include all of you tasting fees for the day, lunch, and a guide for the day.  For couples we have a package deal with The Grand Hotel is Salem to provide a king room and the tour for $450.

The last question we have received, how does our focus on sustainability affect this tour?  First, we are excited to offer a hiking wine tour as it will require less travel in a vehicle.  However, travel by foot also has its own impacts.  All of our guides have received Leave No Trace training, as well as first-aid and CPR training.  We are developing additional resources for our guides about the correct routes to travel to have limited impact on the areas we are traveling in, including working to ensure we do not introduce invasive or non-native plants or insects into the area.  We are all learning much more about the birds of the area.

We look forward to having you join us soon on your wiking tour.  Please call us with any questions, or to have your contact information added to our email list for when we have more details on the tours.  Our goal is to offer guests a exciting new outdoor activity, a fun, educational, and scenic Oregon hiking wine tour.

We were recently reviewed by the Green Traveler Guide.  The Green Traveler Guides is an online guide for those looking for information on green travel.  We are happy to announce that they have recommended our wine tour services.  For those not familiar with the guide, Planet Green had the following to say:

Green Traveler Guides showcases eco-friendly travel ideas that its writers have researched and experienced. “We won’t send you anywhere we haven’t been” is one of the site’s slogans. The content includes articles on everything from green lodging, restaurants and shopping to general advice on traveling green.

Peter Myers, editor of the Reuters Business Traveler site, calls Green Traveler Guides “easily one of the very best blogs focused on traveling green we’d ever seen,” culled from a list of thousands.

Source: planetgreen.discovery.com

We welcome all outside reviews of our tours.  We feel that credible reviews help you make more informed decisions.  The feedback also helps us improve.

Grand Cru Wine Tours is pleased to announce that, in our desire to develop sustainable business practices, we are the first wine tour company to become second party eco-certified through the rigorous Sustainable Tourism Eco-certification Program™ (STEP) offered through Sustainable Travel International (STI). When we started, being green wine tour company was a personal requirement for me. This certification – and our sustainability management plan that we continue to improve – is another way for us to show our customers that we take sustainability seriously.

STEP is the pre-eminent standard in sustainable tourism certification. It establishes a minimum set of criteria for sustainability, and also to serve as an educational resource and management framework for businesses. To become second party certified, we completed a thorough and comprehensive self-assessment, drafted our sustainability policies, collected baseline measurements of environmental, social, and economic impacts, and submitted evidence of implementation for numerous best practices.

Next up will be an on-site assessment by an independent party, known as third party certification.  This rigorous process is the highest level of transparency and therefore offers a higher level of certification.

So what are some of our sustainability practices? We use recycled papers and soy-based inks, reduce waste and maximize recycling wherever possible, educate our drivers regarding fuel efficient driving, and carefully plan routes to minimize the total miles driven. You can visit our sustainability policy to learn more about our practices and goals.

Preserving local culture and stimulating local economies is also important for us at Grand Cru Wine Tours. We bear the responsibility to ensure the health and well-being of the communities in which we work. Tourism accounts for 18% of Oregon’s economy, so dedication to sustainable tourism is essential for the health and welfare of our planet and our local community. As such, we serve predominantly local products such as meats, cheeses, breads, and chocolates on our wine tours; with a focus on working with businesses that also emphasize sustainability.

I personally hate greenwashing. When we started, I knew that I wanted a framework around which to design our sustainability practices that was comprehensive and truly reflective of industry practices, and STEP offered that framework.  Achieving this certification was the next step for us in this process.  We are also working on completing the voluntary reporting requirements for the Travel Oregon Sustainable Business Challenge.  We look forward to continuing to improve our practices and encourage others to do the same.

Would you like to learn more about sustainability in Oregon’s wine industry?  We have arranged a onetime tour of the Carbon Neutral Challenge Wine Tour Route.  While the route has been designed for you, this is your opportunity to have us guide you along the route.  We have taken care of all of the details, arranging you hotel, tastings, specialized tours at the wineries and lunch.  You will get additional information about the wineries experiences with the Carbon Neutral Challenge from staff at the winery.  Several of the visits will also include tours of the wineries, discussions with the winemakers, and more in-depth discussions about sustainability in the Oregon wine industry that you would not get on the self-guided tour.  The tour price covers a hotel room for two, all tasting and tour fees, lunch, and a few other treats.

The first tour is our Salem wine tour on April 16th.  The day will start with a tour of Left Coast Cellars with winemaker Luke McCollum.  Then on to a private tasting at Mahonia, who is normally closed to the public.  We will finish with a tasting and tour at Willamette Valley Vineyards.  Guests will be staying at the Grand Hotel in Salem.  The cost per couple is $335.

The second tour is scheduled for April 23rd and is the first Carbon Neutral Challenge Route in Newberg.  We will be visiting Adelsheim, Soter, Lemelson, and tour of Stoller’s Gold LEED certified winery.

The final Carbon Neutral Challenge tour is April 30th.  We will finish by visiting the four remaining wineries in Newberg, including a tour at Sokol Blosser, and tastings at Winderlea, Chehalem, and Rex Hill.  Our normal tour route features the Chehalem tasting room, we will be visiting the winery for this special tasting.

For both of the Newberg tours, guests will be staying at The Allison Inn & Spa.  Both of these days will begin with a tour of some of the features that make The Allison unique.  The cost per couple is $600 per day.

To book you can visit our reservations page, give us a call at 877 98-PINOT (877 987-4668), or send us an email.

On Friday we received a letter from Sustainable Travel International stating that they had completed our assessment and were awarding us our first eco-certification star.  To celebrate we have decided to give away a free tour for up to four people.  The promotion is being run on our facebook page.  You can check out the link on our facebook page or at the sweepstakes center.  No purchase is necessary to win.  We will have some new information released in the next few days talking more about the certification and some of the work that we have done in the last year to achieve it.

Do you love Oregon’s wines but also care about its environment? Would you like to taste some of the Salem area’s finest wines while meeting some its strongest environmental advocates? Then join Grand Cru Wine Tours on April 16th for the Salem Carbon Neutral Challenge Wine Tour—an exploration of three local vineyards that have completed the groundbreaking Carbon Neutral Challenge for Oregon Wineries.

Spend a relaxing night in a King Suite at Salem’s EarthWISE certified Grand Hotel, you and your guest will join the tour group in the hotel’s lobby, and set out at 10:30AM for Left Coast Cellars. When you have finished tasting a variety of Left Coast Cellar’s wines, you’ll feast on a lunch of locally produced food at the fantastic Left Coast Cafe. After lunch, the tour continues to Mahonia Vineyards for a private tasting to celebrate Mahonia’s completion of the Carbon Neutral Challenge. The last stop of the day is Willamette Valley Vineyards, where you’ll get to take a tour of the winery as well as sample a variety of their wines.

The Salem Carbon Neutral Challenge Wine Tour starts at $335 for two people, and includes a King Suite at Salem’s Grand Hotel, lunch at Left Coast Cellars, and all tasting fees. In addition to supporting the Carbon Neutral Challenge for Oregon Wineries, you’ll enjoy the scenic countryside surrounding Salem, taste some amazing wines, and learn about the environmental efforts of the people who produce them. At Grand Cru Wine Tours, we’re concerned about preserving Oregon’s unique environment, and committed to showcasing wine producers who care about the land they grow on. Call us today at 877 98-Pinot (987-4668) to reserve your spot or book online. You can learn more about the Carbon Neutral Challenge Wine Tour Routes on our website.

Last summer I met Richard Halpern, founder of EcoApprentice.  EcoApprentice was just getting started and was looking for companies that had an ecochallenge that needed solved. He was searching for a project that would require significant time and effort for a team of students from Portland State University to solve. I realized this was a great opportunity for Grand Cru Wine Tours to tackle a project that I had not been able to accomplish on my own.

When we started our company, we joined Sustainable Travel International. Their guidelines have provided a framework around which we could design our sustainability efforts, helping us to make sure we consider as many aspects as possible. They also offer ecocertification, a goal we hoped to someday accomplish. Unfortunately, as a fledgling small business the paperwork, planning, and details this required were more than I had time to take on. However, with the help of four excellent students from Portland State University’s MBA program, the goal became achievable.

I met with Richard and the team in October to kick off the ecochallenge.  I outlined the requirements to the team and they started helping me work through all of the calculations, process improvements, measurements, and policies that we needed to fulfill the 26 criteria required for certification. The team then went on to examine the scored criteria.  They reviewed the work we had already completed to determine which criteria we had met, and helped to identify short and long term goals.  They also helped design an efficient waste tracking process and identified ways to decrease our water usage.  The team went above and beyond my expectations by creating an in-depth marketing plan for us.  They conducted market research, identified target markets and opportunities to increase our branding, and did some competitive analysis.

EcoApprentice created a valuable link between my business and the PSU team that would not have happened without this resource.  With this help, we were able to complete the required criteria and submit our initial application for ecocertification to Sustainable Travel International.  Our first ecochallenge was a success.   Our goal is to become Oregon’s first eco-certified wine tour company, and we are now one step closer to achieving that goal.  We look forward to being able to use ecoapprentice to post more ecochallenges in the future to help find new innovative improvements.

Cultivating Communities has worked with Senator Jackie Winters and Representative Kevin Cameron to introduce Senate Bill 442. The bill would add a fifth license plate option to Oregon residents. The new plate, called the “Wine Country Plate” would cost $30 more than a standard registration. The extra money would go to support tourism development throughout the state. It is expected that 15% of the money would be used to produce the plates and promote them. Of the remaining 85% would be used to fund grants related to tourism development. The 85% would be available as grants with 50% of gross revenues going to projects in the mid-Willamette Valley and the rest of the state getting 35%. The split was determined by looking at the concentration of wineries in Oregon. Angie Morris, President & CEO of Cultivating Communities feels that the plate would help to promote agri-tourism in Oregon.

Being based in Polk County, we rely on the support of the local wineries and other businesses in the area. Tourism development is something that we focus on every day. Many of our guests who tour the wineries in Polk and Lane counties are in the area for another event, or as part of a larger trip.  This has ranged from business trips, conventions, to a trip to the Oregon Gardens or visiting their kids at college.  We have set high standards for our drivers and our company as a whole to help highlight the best that Oregon wine country has to offer. Any chance we get to help promote Oregon wine country, and encourage visitors to add a stop at a local winery to their itinerary is a welcome opportunity. 

We will be attending upcoming legislative hearing on senate bill 442 and would appreciate hearing your thoughts and feedback.  This will join the Riedel Oregon Pinot Glass as another item that California’s wine industry does not have.  We look forward to the opportunity to sport a new license plate on our vehicles and support tourism.

One side note, several news outlets are incorrectly reporting that Oregon has “over 800 wineries”. The original article from the Statesman Journal said “over 800 vineyards”. To get the statistics on Oregon’s wine industry, check out the Oregon Wine Board Oregon Vineyard & Winery Report