Woodinville Winetasting

This afternoon finds me flying Southwest back to BNA with Cara and an extra seat between us! Something about flying on planes during the daytime makes me very productive. It could also be the coffee I got at the airport. Or the run up Tiger Mountain with Jacques this morning. I'm enjoying a scotch - neat, of course - while Cara plans out her last couple weeks in the US. We'll be apart for 3 weeks while I wrap up things here in the US (including two trips to Ohio) and Zara attends Duke TIP summer camp. We've got a spot for her at the international school, but Maxwell it looks like will get to do the full immersion into the Norwegian school system. Dude is going to rock it I'm sure. I'm looking forward to hearing Norsk in his Stephen Hawking voice or Russian accent. Zara will be learning Francais. I'll have to brush up!

It's funny. I feel like we didn't do that much because I worked a full day every day except Friday, but since those days often started at 6 AM and the sun didn't set until like 9:30 PM there were still plenty of daylight hours to explore after I finished my workday.

So yeah, Friday. Yesterday we dipped our feed into the ocean that is Woodinville wine tasting. There are over 100 tasting rooms in a two mile radius. We managed to visit six. On a good day eight is the really the max that time will allow, but we took it slow and enjoyed ourselves.

Chateau Ste. Michelle - $10, four pours
We started the day at Chateau Ste. Michelle. I take notes in my journal when I winetaste. And I tend to ask really pointed questions that betray my extensive knowledge of oenology and viticulture. I was also accompanied by a beautiful maiden. This leads to folks thinking I'm a sommolier, or studying to be one, or maybe I'm a secret shopper. At Chateau Ste. Michelle they doubled the number of tastings and brought out their biggest, boldest Cabernet Sauvignons for us to compare. Cara enjoyed, but said that Cab is not really a morning drink as far as she's concerned.

Columbia Winery - $12, six pours
Columbia is across the street from Chateau Ste. Michelle. Indeed, the whole Wooodinville setup is very walkable. They even have little flags for pedestrians to carry across the road so cars will notice them better. At Columbia we got introduced to some of the geology of the Columbia valley with a nice display of the soils from the various sub-AVAs. One thing I love about wine tasting is how it meshes with geology!

Next up was lunch at the Purple Cafe, recommended by a local we met at Columbia Winery. It was pretty pricy, but delicious and their winelist was a thick book! I got a plate of cheese, fruit and charcuterie accompanied by tomato soup and a local viognier while Cara enjoyed a BLTA. The A is for avocado. Cara felt uncharacteristically bold this week and decided to reintroduce avocado to her diet, which she has eschewed for years because of her oral allergy syndrome. Surprisingly she has as of yet suffered no ill effects!

Mark Ryen Winery - $10, five pours
Mark Ryan is in the same shopping center as the Purple Cafe. It's wines were okay, but I don't think they're worth the price point with so much other quality in the region.

Airfield Estates - $5, six pours
Here again my wine knowledge earned us some extra tastings. Still, we didn't buy any bottles. I don't feel bad about not buying bottles after tasting we have to pay for and don't get to take home the glass. The wines there were from a single estate in the Yakima Valley, so there was some real character and amateur quality to what they produced. They're definitely one of the little guys you want to root for!

Goose Ridge Estate Winery - $10, six pours
Goose Ridge sells 90% of their grapes to bigger wineries like Chateau Ste. Michelle. Some of the interesting things they offer are a true icewine (grapes frozen on the vine) and a Grenache Blanc. They also have an orchard on the estate from which they produce cider. Also, a little drunk and irritated by the lack of souvenir glasses, I snatched one into my bag. That's why they bother printing their brand logo on the glass, right?

Cave B Estate Winery - $10, six pours
There is not actually a cave. All their wines come from a single estate in Quincy, WA. Interesting they focus on Italian varietals like Barbera, Sangiovese, etc. which are somewhat less common in Washington. I'm not sure if this is a quirk of heritage or a modern winegrower's choice. Either way, their wines were nothing to right home about. I still swiped a souvenir glass though. Bwahahahahahaha!