Third Street is McMinnville's best urban pleasure: a compact strip of old brick buildings, independent shops, restaurants, wine bars, and tasting rooms. It is not large, but it has the lived-in look that many Willamette Valley towns have lost to highway sprawl.
Come late afternoon if you want the street at its liveliest. You can browse, drink a glass of local wine, and still be close enough to the surrounding vineyards to make this feel like part of the wine-country day rather than an afterthought.