Getting the flavor of...

Zip-lining through wine country

“Small town” hardly begins to describe Santa Margarita, Calif., said Jackie Burrell in the Contra Costa Times. But “there’s always been something special” about this sleepy burg, starting with the way wine grapes have flourished here since Spanish missionaries planted the first cuttings in 1787. Perched atop the Cuesta Grade near San Luis Obispo, the town has only one bar and one restaurant open past dark, but the first is an 1858 saloon where Willie Nelson has performed, and the second is an “unbelievably” good steakhouse. Still, “the vines are the thing,” and there are multiple ways to enjoy them. On a vineyard tour, we learned that the bears that roam the area never touch 15 of the 16 varieties grown there. “Bears are wine snobs,” said our guide. “They only eat pinot.” We hit some tasting rooms, too. But that was my reward for surviving the day’s big thrill: soaring over those famous vineyards on an 1,800-foot-long zip line.

An Oregon town’s boozy renaissance

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Bend, Ore., has made a remarkable comeback, largely on the back of beer, said Diane Bair and Pamela Wright in The Boston Globe. This city of 80,000, located on the eastern edge of the Cascades, offers gorgeous scenery and abundant outdoor recreation, yet it fell on hard times when the local timber industry shut down. We began a recent visit where the renaissance started: Deschutes Brewery, which since its 1988 founding has spawned 10 other local craft breweries and become a national powerhouse. But “Beer Town USA” isn’t a one-industry locale, having recently been named by Entrepreneur magazine as the most entrepreneurial city in the country. Boutiques and trendy restaurants line downtown streets located just steps from a protected river and 20 minutes from the bike trails and ski slopes of Mount Bachelor. A can-do attitude permeates Bend—“one of the coolest and most eclectic mountain towns in the country.”