My star pupil confessed to me this morning that he had had enough of wine tastings.

I tried to hide my disappointment as I knew I had been working him pretty hard.

Mick said he’d prefer to buy a glass of wine and enjoy sipping that over a longer period of time, perhaps this afternoon.

I relented and we headed out to do something completely different.

McMinville is home to a very important Aviation and Space Museum called Evergreen, so we decided to spend a few hours out of the rain in two massive, state-of-the-art buildings; one for aviation and one for space travel.

Mick actually knows quite a lot about planes. It always surprises me when he points to one and says “that’s a ….”.

I’ve asked him before where he learnt so much about the history of planes, especially fighter planes, and his reply: “from reading comics when I was a kid”.

Mick was keen to see the “Spruce Goose”, which I had to admit I had not heard of before.

It is also referred to as the largest wooden flying boat. There was loads of information about it and about Howard Hughes, whose company built it. But with more than 200 aircraft, or models of aircraft, on display, the information soon became overwhelming for me. But Mick loved it.

The Space Museum was equally as impressive.

By the time we emerged, the sun was trying to break through which gave me hope that we would be able to walk into town after lunch and get back to the task at hand – to taste some more wines from Oregon.

But Mick had another surprise. Or so he thought.

He wanted to visit a brewhouse called “Two Dogs”.

So we headed there for one beer.

One beer turned into two and I ordered a glass of the local Pinot Noir they had on offer.

I’m including this image here as evidence of the best Pinot I’ve tasted here. And its price is quite cheap for here. We were both weirdly relieved as we were starting to think our tastes don’t match those who rave about this area.

One more stop before heading home for dinner. This time to a place called Troon Vineyard – a relatively small biodynamic producer who almost took out the best winery in America in 2022.

But these guys had no Pinot Noir. Mick tried a GSM blend and I had a glass of their Syrah. Both were good. Mick was tempted to buy a bottle of their amphora Mourvèdre but I kept reminding him that we were in USA and not France. They source their fruit from the southern part of the state.

Tomorrow is our last day here and we are hoping to get into a vineyard located about 20 minutes away for a tasting and some lunch.