Celebrate Valentine’s Day with an aerial twist
Aerial tours of Oregon’s wine country
Aviators and aviation enthusiasts seeking a memorable Valentine’s Day with their significant other can tour Oregon’s Willamette Valley vineyards by air, sample the fruits of the Pacific Northwest’s premier wine growing region, and leave the flying to someone else.
McMinnville-based Tour DeVine by Heli offers a pre-flight breakfast, helicopter tours of the region’s world-recognized wineries, samplings from at least two local vineyards, and a gourmet picnic lunch starting at $359 per person. Guests may add a third vineyard for an additional $100. The day begins with a glass of sparkling wine and “breakfast bites” at Precision Helicopters' hangar, the tour's parent company established in 1983 by Dennis and Nancy Sturdevant.
Precision’s rotary workhorse fleet includes the Bell 206 Jet Ranger, Eurocopter AS350, Sikorsky S–61, Guimbal Cabri G2, and Bell 205 Huey. The company also maintains a Cessna 172 and a Piper Arrow in its fixed-wing fleet.
When Precision pilots aren’t touring vineyards, they are fighting fires from helicopters, training new rotary pilots, and performing agricultural operations that include scooping up Noble fir Christmas trees from the steep slopes of Noble Mountain.
The firm also offers a “day trip to the beach” flight to Pacific City that includes coffee at Stimulus Cafe, beach walking, lunch at Headlands Lodge, and a beer at The Pelican Brewery before a beautiful scenic flight back to McMinnville, home of Howard Hughes’s mammoth H–4 Hercules known as the Spruce Goose.
