Twitter + Food + Wine + Friends = An Incredible Weekend

As many of you know I have been a part of the tweet movement for a while.  Through Twitter I have 'met' the most incredible people in the food and wine realm.  This past weekend was the Portland Urban Winery Winter Wonderland Event.  I spoke with my better half and asked if I could please have this weekend as my Christmas gift and so the weekend began.

Whenever we stay overnight in Portland we always stay at the Courtyard Marriott Portland City Center.  We love this hotel and because I have wonderful connections, we do get quite the deal.  We are never disappointed with the staff or the hotel.  They do go that extra mile for you, even running around trying to find me foam pillows as the Princess cannot have feather.

Courtyard by Marriott Portland, City Center

I love the rooms

Sunday morning our new Twitter Besties Lars and Dave took us to our very first hashcapade.  This is a group of people who love hash and meet once a month at various restaurants through out the Portland area.  What a great group of people and they made us feel so welcome.  I am seriously considering driving up from Corvallis to future gatherings.  We met at Besaws.  I did not take a picture of the restaurant as there were people waiting outside and well you know how that goes right?  So I borrowed the picture of the restaurant from their website.

First order was a Bloody Mary.

Bear's Spinach Omelet and Potatoes

My Incredible Hash.

Dave's UNBELIEVABLE Egg Bacon Burger on top of a waffle!

Our Twitter Besties Lars and Dave and the incredible Maggs our waitress.

Kramer Vineyards, Oregon

Through Twitter I found Kramer Vineyards.  Becky and Kim Kramer were always tweeting about Sparkle Parties and the Princess is always up for a party when it involves sparkles, so I started following them and we became Twitter friends.  This was one winery I wanted to visit while in the area. When we arrived we were given the VIP treatment and tour.  We also got to meet the wonderful Beau, my first wine blogger that I followed and totally value his opinion with regards to wine.  As we were leaving the vineyard we all agreed that it was so wonderful to see the passion that Kim has for her art of creating great wines.  She is incredibly passionate about what she does and it shows.  Once again if I was better with words I would describe everything in more detail, but I am not so you will be subjected to pictures and captions.

The cutest winery dog.  I follow this dog on Twitter.

Yes this all means something.  To me, it's happy juice!!

Tasting from the barrel.  Don't you love my shot of Kim, winemaker, in the background?

Barbera (my love) tasting from the barrel.

I love the smell of these barrels.  Yes I did smell them.

My other happy place.

Next we went on to the Winter Wonderland event at Seven Bridges Winery.  Seven Bridges was the very first winery to follow me on Twitter.  I love their wine and I am slightly Pay Pal challenged so Jill, the owner and wine tweep, has always been so kind and gracious and I was looking forward to meeting her.  I also got to meet other people I follow on Twitter and it was a wonderful evening.

Vincent Winery. What incredible Pinot Noir. On my drink list.

Jan-Marc and his wines.

Without a doubt the best Chardonnay I have ever tasted in the States. Perfect balance.

You have to love machinery that was made in South Africa

The great winemakers from Enzo. Their Zinfandel is yummy-licious-glass-lickable

Bear and our Twitter Besties.

The team from 7 Bridges Winery.  Part of my drink list and wine family now.

More Twitter Tweeps that I got to meet.

I must shout out to Portland Urban Wineries for making this event affordable.  It was so well organized, food was great, wines were great and we were the last ones to leave.  We will be attending the next one!

So after this great event we were all a little peckish so we headed on over to Henry's Tavern.  Happy Hour ALL DAY SUNDAY.  I did not take any pictures of the food, I was so hungry and my beer from Portland was so good I didn't think of the Nikon once!

At least I took a picture of the building.

And the neon sign.

The next morning we headed out to Lauretta Jean's.  A tiny little pastry coffee shop.  We had read an article about Lauretta Jean's in Portland Monthly Magazine. You must stop by and have their Quiche.  Truly flaky crust and the filling is perfectly portioned.

The incredible Quiche

Have to work my way through the menu some day.

Yum.

Stumptown Coffee

My piece of pie heaven.

Just a sample of our stash. Didn't want to look like a lush and post a pic of them all.

The fabulous Ms. T brought this Hestia Barbera for me to enjoy. What a sweetheart.

Last week someone tweeted the following on Twitter.  "Facebook is for the people you went to school with. Twitter is for the people you wish you went to school with."

After my incredible weekend, I have to agree.