OREGON TRUFFLE FESTIVAL

For more than a decade, the Oregon Truffle Festival has been the leading voice for a burgeoning American truffle industry as well as an exciting culinary festival. From James Beard Award-winning chefs to truffle industry experts to food journalists and food enthusiasts, dozens of renowned culinary personalities and industry players participate in the Oregon Truffle Festival every year. It’s the only event of its kind in the country, and the foremost wintertime culinary event in the Pacific Northwest.

The Oregon Truffle Festival is a “party with a purpose,” a nonprofit organization promoting a burgeoning truffle industry in North America, and a collection of winter events centered in the Willamette Valley, our country’s only wine and truffle region.

More information: oregontrufflefestival.com

Photos courtesy of the Oregon Truffle Festival

Quaintrelle

Quaintrelle is a jewel box of a restaurant on SE Clinton Street in Portland, Oregon. The open kitchen is helmed by the talented 28-year-old Executive Chef Elijah Rivers, who was born and raised in Portland and was most recently at The Green O in Greenough, Montana.

Quaintrelle’s sister farm Abbey Road Farm in the Willamette Valley is the source of many of the ingredients on the menu, which is served as a set seven-course and ten-course.

The restaurant has one of the best wine lists in the city thanks to Wine Director Gregory Cantu, the former manager of Grüner and who cut his teeth at fine dining restaurants in Japan and Colorado.

Open for dinner Wednesday through Sunday.

More information: quaintrelle.co

Featured image by Zach Lewis.

Photos right by Heather Amistad.

REMY WINES

Founded in 2006 by lifelong Oregonian and queer winemaker Remy Drabkin, Remy Wines is a Willamette Valley winery honoring Old World-style wines with a progressive voice and undeniable flair.

Remy makes an impressive portfolio of wines with Oregon-grown Italian varieties, which can be enjoyed at her humble and welcoming farmhouse tasting room in Dayton, Oregon.

In 2020, Remy co-founded Wine Country Pride, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, bringing LGBTQ+ Pride celebrations to rural Oregon and creating a space to uplift and support a diverse community of queer people who call wine country home.

Over the years, Remy Wines has evolved to encompass the vision of its founder as she herself has become a fixture within her local community. After more than 12 years of public service, Remy was appointed interim mayor of her hometown of McMinnville, Oregon in the spring of 2022.

Remy is the first woman and the first queer-identified person to hold the office of mayor in McMinnville.

#MadameMayor

Photos by Zachary Goff.

For more information, please visit Remy Wines on Instagram.

Wine Country Mayor Remy Drabkin. Photo by Zachary Goff.

TASTE NEWBERG

In partnership with Lila Martin from Talk Story PR, Play Nice represents the DMO for the city of Newberg. As the gateway to the Willamette Valley, Newberg is a destination for friendly, world-class hospitality in Oregon’s wine country. Taste Newberg, the regional marketing agency and a 501(c)(6) non-profit, was formed in 2019 to promote the destination.

For more information, please visit tastenewberg.com

Photos courtesy of Taste Newberg.