While I was reading the email invitation from Charles Communications in San Francisco to meet a fifth generation winemaker from a property that farms 1,200 acres and then some I was intrigued. Then I found out it involved a Double Decker Bus and Portland Food Carts in different locations and I instantly RSVP’d.  I have to admit I am a little food cart challenged; buying prepared food is something I rarely do. Ordering a meal from someone who has no overhead like a lease, china, glass and silver, linen and no fixed facilities maintenance costs is foreign to me. The lack of alcohol offered may have also played a part in my reluctance to embrace Portland’s food carts in the past. It also could be that on my first visit to Portland in 1999, I ate at a cart and the food sucked. I have read so many glowing reviews and personally witnessed the political support the food carts receive from the local community and I felt obliged to give them another go especially if it was on someone else’s client entertainment account.

I met the bus as directed promptly at 4PM in Jamison Square and was greeted by quite a few known associates and several I had yet to meet but was glad I did by the end of the tour. I was instantly impressed with the out of the box approach to market this event.  The point: Karl Wente had come to town to promote a brand many Oregonians are not familiar with yet called Tamas Estates. This venture draws its fruit from properties that used to be farmed by the Mirrasou family and were acquired by the Wente Family. The wines are produced from some Wente estate Livermore fruit and fruit sourced from the Central Coast.

Is everyone still with me on the geography because it is important and there will be a test at the end!!

Karl was so much fun to be around who cared what the food was or for that matter what the wine tasted like. The truth be told the wine was pretty good despite the constant movement and the plastic glasses. The glasses were OK, I just wished I had rinsed mine with the Pinot Gris before tasting it. After the first taste, it got better and better but isn’t that how most wine experiences go? Well the good ones anyway.

The fact Tamas Estates has a label called Double Decker Red made the new limousine style double decked bus an integral part of this tour. You may have seen this behemoth rolling around Portland or the Wine country already. Despite this being a pretty new entrepreneurship (a service that is only about a year old) they have made a good reputation for themselves so far. If you want to book a driver and a vehicle that’s just a little larger than a couple of limos, check these guys out. It is a class act.

Our party started out with a toast of Tamas Estates 2009 Pinot Grigio.  It is an all stainless production cold fermentation wine whose next step in the wine making process is followed by temperature controlled stainless tank aging. This wine has a 7% blend of Viognier, Chardonnay and Orange Muscat added to 93% Pinot Gris. Flavors were granny smith apple and key lime, with a hint of dreamcicle when it warmed up a bit. The dreamcicle part was apparent from the mid-palate to the start of the finish then back to a crisp apple with a slight minerality. We traveled to Cartopia from the Pearl. We had the high quality non-glass stemless glasses and I was impressed how the bus was designed so you could put your drink down even while we were in motion and it did not spill.

Our first cart at Cartopia was to be Perierra Creperie for a crepe with the Pinot Gris.  The crepes were of fantastic quality and man, these folks could handle a crowd in a hurry. Cream cheese, honey and fresh strawberries were good but perhaps not the best pairing with a Pinot Gris, but hey, we have a couple more wines to try and three more food carts to explore.

2009 Tamas Estates Zinfandel was up next and so was this fried pie place I have been hearing so much about called Whiffies. A savory pie with BBQ brisket and smoked mozzarella in a fresh pastry fried to perfection would be the perfect pairing with this wine. A fun fruit forward young Zinfandel with just enough spice to make you know what varietal you were drinking.

Somehow during the excursion to retrieve our pies a couple of guitars showed up on the bus.  Turns out one of the cocktail masters aboard (no really there were two or three on this trip) lived right behind Cartopia and Karl Wente loves to play and sing and he was not the only one. Let’s give a big shout out to Greg Harned for grabbing the guitars and making the evening a lot more fun. After a couple of Tom Petty and Grateful Dead songs and it was a fully blown sing-along.

Pyro Pizza was the big winner for best food of the evening and best match for Tamas Zinfandel and the Tamas Double Decker Red a very bold and balanced wine that is a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Petite Sirah, and Barbera.  Juicy fruit and spice make this an interesting package, especially when you taste the bright acidity balanced with soft tannins that this wine delivered. The pizza from Pyro Pizza was the best I have had in Portland excluding A Pizza Scholls.

We rolled out of the parking spot at Cartopia singing and playing and having a great time. This was one of the best introductions to a new line of wines that I had ever experienced and the wines were as fun as the experience I had. We toured around Portland a little while longer in the bus. As we noshed on pizza and sipped Tamas Double Decker Red we made our way to our final food cart stop for a bit of sweetness to wrap up our unorthodox wine tasting, camp-fire style sing-along and general socializing. Cool Harry’s would be dessert tonight, also a good match to the wine.

As we headed to Cool Harry’s frozen yogurt cart our driver had to maneuver the bus through the already stacked up early evening Portland traffic that was congested due to the film crew who was here on location filming the popular television series on the TNT channel called Leverage.

As we disembarked from our lofty limo, it was easy to see that the sing-along, food, and wine had brought our disparate group together despite the generational challenges and cross-cultural differences.  A better description of an effective social gathering I do not think I could describe in a more accurate manner.  The yogurt from Harry’s was frozen sweet and had plenty of our local berry bounty; blues and raspberries integrated into the finished product, and again the Tamas Double Decker Red did double duty as it cleansed our palates as well as it did after the pizza.

Overall, the experience was fun educational and really pretty cool. I do not usually think anything is cool because I am too cool to actually talk about something I thought was cool because that would be un-cool.  Well I had enough fun to actually let myself sink into un-coolness to talk about this one time. Now don’t think you can out do this wine introduction, because if I have to say something else was cool I will have to retreat to an undisclosed location and suffer my indignity. No really, do not try. You will fail and I will have to talk about how you failed, if you still feel you can challenge, “Get on the Bus” then bring it.

Karl Wente and Tamas Estates–yeah it was pretty cool!