Nick's Italian Cafe and the Pinot Noir Celebration
Near Mcminnville, Oregon
When the wine pioneers of the Willamette Valley needed a place to gather, they found it at a modest storefront on Third Street called Nick's Italian Cafe. Nick Peirano opened it in nineteen seventy seven, back when McMinnville was a quiet farm and mill town that no one associated with fine wine. Nick loved the local Pinot Noir, poured it proudly, and his back room became the unofficial clubhouse of the young Oregon wine industry, the place where the founders compared notes and opened bottles late into the night.
For forty six years it served fresh handmade pasta and Oregon wine, and in twenty fourteen the James Beard Foundation honored it with one of its America's Classics awards. That community of winemakers also created something larger. Each summer since nineteen eighty seven, the International Pinot Noir Celebration has gathered on the Linfield University campus, bringing Pinot Noir producers and lovers from around the world to McMinnville for three days of tastings, seminars, and feasts prepared by leading Northwest chefs.
Together, a corner restaurant and a summer festival helped turn this once overlooked county seat into one of the most celebrated wine destinations on earth.
