Wind River Cellars

Located 65 miles east of Vancouver, WA and 8 miles north of Hood River, OR, Wind River Cellars isn't exactly a Willamette Valley Vineyard.  Just outside of White Salmon, WA, the vineyard is part of a partnership with River Drifters, a white water rafting company who runs trips on the White Salmon River nearby.  River Drifters offers a trip (which we took) where after your rafting trip, you can sample wines and have a barbecue at the Wind River Cellars tasting room.  The ambience is different...upon parking in a gravel parking lot, you approach a large wooden barn.  Above the only door is a sign for the tasting room.  The old farmhouse houses the small, empty tasting room, where you can sample most, but not all, of their 10 varieties of Red, White, and Port wines.  The wines themselves proved to be quite ordinary, but we enjoyed a glass while downing our barbecue (hamburgers and dogs).  The view from the deck/sitting area is nice, but trees block most of the horizon.  We didn't find any of the wines to be worth taking home, so we just sampled, ate and left.  

To reach the Wind River Cellars tasting room, take the Hood River Bridge from I-84 in Oregon, and travel up highway 141 to the small town of Husum, where you hang a left on gravel Spring Creek Road.   You can see more photos of the vineyard in our Oregon Slide Show.