Touchet Valley On “Budget Travel” Itinerary

WAITSBURG - Another 675,000 magazine subscribers have a chance to read about Waitsburg and Dayton this month.

The May issue of Arthur Frommer's Budget Travel publication has a three-page story that features attractions in Walla Walla and the Touchet Valley, including the jimgermanbar in Waitsburg, the Monteillet Fromagerie and McCann Manor in Dayton. It also carries a picture of the Waitsburg Hardware & Mercantile store.

Headlined "Beyond the Vines," the article by author Beth Collins proclaims: "These days, it's not the wine causing all the buzz in Washington's Walla Walla Valley. It's the new crop of creative farm-fresh food."

Collins' story, which opens with a picture of the Monteillets' goat barns with the gently-sloping hills and big Touchet Valley sky in the background, has a three-day itinerary starting in Milton- Freewater and ending in Walla Walla on Day One, moving from Walla Walla to Waitsburg on Day Two and from Waitsburg to Dayton on Day Three.

"From Walla Walla, we took a half-hour drive north along Highway 12, past rolling wheat fields sprinkled with white clapboard farmhouses and arrived in Waitsburg around dinner time," the road trip piece recalls.

"The three-block strip lined with towering oaks and 19th-century brick buildings is all Norman Rockwell charm.

"True to its small-town vibe, the locals were tremendously friendly, although, curiously, many recommended a place with a decidedly un-small-town-sounding name: the jimgermanbar, a spare, low-lit lounge in the center of Waitsburg."

The travelers woke up at the McCann Manor B&B the next morning before heading to the Monteillets' farm.

They describe how they are watched by a trio of "enormous, snowy-white Great Pyrenees guard dogs," then greeted inside the tasting room by Joan and Pierre- Louis Monteillet.

"Their Cardabelle Chevre oozed a creamy, molten river when we cut in the rind. My favorite, Le Roi Noir, was a soft-ripened chevre dusted with edible flakes of pure gold - just the right amount of bling for this laid-back scene."

Jimgermanbar owner Jim German said he wasn't aware of Collins' identity as a writer for Budget Travel when she came.

"The press are interesting," he said. "Sometimes they'll let me know and sometimes they don't. We're (Waitsburg) definitely on the map because of the beauty of our town. I love anything that bolsters our town."

In the article, Collins describes German as a specialist in classic cocktails, "yet he's more than happy to make the standards.

"But it's more fun to give him a starting point (Campari, for instance, or Oregon's own Aviation Gin) and let him work his magic. Believe me: You'll sleep like a baby afterward."

Following last year's exposure in Food & Wine Magazine and a syndicated Seattle Times travel piece, this year's Budget travel article is expected to be succeeded by a program from Dominic Black of KUOW, a Seattle-based National Public Radio affiliate. He reportedly came to town for interviews in April.

Fromagerie co- owner Joan Monteillet said the Budget Travel article reflects the rediscovery among consumers of their food's connection to the soil.

Travelers who come to the area from all over the country aren't merely interested in wine, she said. They're intrigued by the whole journey food makes from farm to table and the more direct, the better.

"We're creating a new limb to our tree," she said. "We're seeing a huge increase in the types of people coming here. We have something in this valley."

Monteillet said just recently she received a call from a high-end travel agency who wants to make a stop at the Fromagerie a stop on a seven-day itinerary that also includes Walla Walla's Dunham Cellars and other food-related attractions.

"It's about pairings with wine," she said. "People want that experience."