I am proud to report that we survived our picnic dinner last night. It was a little questionable, because our “protein” was supplied by the Bandon Bait Shop. Really, you can buy bait there AND smoked salmon, or smoked tuna. I thought I would play it “safe” and go with the salmon. Looking back on it that is probably the riskiest cuisine decision I’ve made in decades.

We left the cold and windy coast and moved inland making our way across the state toward Crater Lake. But today, we were in search of covered bridges, historic towns and wine. After all, we are in one of the greatest wine states in the country.

What we didn’t know, was how many different areas of winemaking there are. Silly us, we thought it was just the Willamette Valley – we were so wrong. There are 8 different wine regions in Oregon, and we visited the “oldest estate grown winery in Oregon”, Hillcrest Vineyards.

That specific designation is important. After prohibition, wineries were bonded. Hillcrest was the 44th winery in the state to receive its bond in the 1950’s. Other wineries before number 44 are no longer operational, except 1. Is this getting confusing yet? You would think if there is a winery still operating with a number less than 44 then it would be the oldest. But here is where there is some debate.

Hillcrest is “the oldest fine wine” winery. The reason I am nit picking over the whole estate grown, and fine wine, distinction, is there is a thrown down with another winery, Honeywood, which has bond number 26 and makes blackberry wine, in addition to other fruit/non-grape wines. So here is the crux of the disagreement over who is the “oldest”: is making an alcoholic beverage out of something other than grapes considered fine wine? Discuss among yourselves. In the meantime, I’m going to continue to sample the grape version of this amazing beverage.

Oh, and we photographed a couple of covered bridges. One sort of “fake” bridge that was original, but then moved to a place over a ditch. There is no road through, you can’t walk across, but there is a parking lot with a couple of picnic tables. The other was real, I know this because as I was in the middle of the road taking photos, the sheriff drove up and gave me the “this is not Disneyland, get out of the road” look. I moved….quickly.