This wine walk was in the Hollywood School winery district - still in Woodinville, just a different set of wines. I kinda felt like these wines were WAY more expensive and WAY out of my league when it comes to purchasing. I'm a relatively cheap wine connoisseur.
Anyhow, Woodinville is home to roughly 100 wineries. The number keeps changing depending on what article you read, who you talk to, and the month. So I'm rounding to 100. My goal this year was to taste at ALL The wineries in Woodinville. If they stayed static, this wouldn't be a problem - other than me becoming a wino. But as the months have gone on my list has ebbed and flowed with regards to available wineries.
New ones have been added, and some I've already tasted are no longer "on the list". The "list" is this handout that Woodinville provides that's essentially a map of wineries. I suspect these missing wineries still exist, but have chosen to not be on the list for whatever reason.
Anyhow...that's a long winded way to tell you that I've adjusted my goal. Instead of ALL the wineries, my goal is 75 wineries. As of last night, I've tasted 30. I've got a long way to go by the end of the year. I'm going to have to go tasting on my own it seems.
This wine walk was a fun adventure. The sun was out and it was a beautiful evening in Seattle. We started - after I told Seattle SIL the wrong direction to go - with Trust Cellars. They had several to choose from and I opted for their Cabernet Sauvignon and their Cab Franc. All were delicious and all were out of my price range. And nothing, in my opinion, to write home about.
Moving on...
Our next winery was Dusted Valley - characters abound here. The pourer was a sassy blond woman who was all to happy to tell us all about their wines, their winery and stories behind some of their names. I tried their Grenache and their Mourvedre. Delicious wines. If I had an occasion to bring a NICE bottle of wine, I'd go here to get it. They had an interesting wine too called Squirrel Tooth Alice and they had a fantastic story about how they got the name. They had a photo of this old timer woman who lived in the late 1800's / early 1900's who died at 98 in the 1950's. Anyhow, I'll let their site fill in the blanks, "The namesake of this old Dodge City, KS lady of the night lives on famously. The sex appeal of this wine jumps out of the glass with loads of seductive allure. You're gonna love 'er. If not, you'll have to have to answer to Alice's pet ground squirrel. No kidding. She had a pet ground squirrel...How else did you think she got her name???" Crazy...and while I didn't taste it Seattle SIL did and loved it.
Our next stop was William Church. I love their logo and sorta love their wines. I had their 2 Spires and their Bishop's Blend. Both were decent, alright, they were good. But again, not in this girls price range. I had tasted at William Church before so I kinda knew what to expect here.
Our next stop was back to where we started - the ticket pick up - at Otis Kenyon. Now it could be that this was winery #4 and our taste buds were almost drunk OR it could be they just didn't have wine that was complimentary to my pallet. Either way, I wasn't a fan.
The next winery is out of Oregon and was offering a free tasting ... so we HAD to do it. Torii Mor was a fun, lively little tasting room. The young gal who helped us was BURNT to a crisp by a sunburn that just made me ache. I opted to taste their Port blend and...OH....MY....God...it was delicious. Seattle SIL and Mrs. Braspir followed suit and it wasn't long before we were pulling out our wallets. We bought ONE bottle between us (it was expensive...very expensive - $45) and we figured we'd split it and have it as a special wine for our annual trip we do. I can't wait to taste that Port blend again. We didn't taste any of their other wines. We were too in love with the Port.
Our last stop was Zerba (not Zebra). The guy in there seemed less than enthused to be helping us and frankly I didn't like their Cab Franc blend I tasted at all. I may not know that much about wine, and what makes a good wine, but I would like the wineries to at least make an attempt to tell me what they're tasting and why it's a good wine.
After this winery it was determined that we all had had a bit too much and that we should go sop up the wine in our systems with some Mexican food. So we went and sat for a good hour and chit chatted in the sun (I sat in view of a Mustang Cobra convertible and drooled the entire time...then a Shelby convertible came and parked next to it...I was in heaven).
I love these two women as they are ALWAYS game to go and do something like this. We laugh a lot, and talk about nothing overly important or sometimes deep, important stuff - but we always have a good time.
Oh I almost forgot, we weren't drinking on an empty stomach. When we do the warehouse walks they have a food truck there so we can get quick, good food. While there are restaurants in the Hollywood School House area, we didn't want to waste an hour of the wine walk eating, so I brought snacks.
It might become a tradition. You may also notice our wine glasses are essentially travel coffee mugs but like a wine glass (they even have lids that go with them) we got these when we went on the Mt. Rainier Railroad wine tasting thingy last year. They were all the rage. Every winery we entered someone said how much they loved our glasses. One gal even took a photo. Maybe I should buy a bunch of them and set up shop out there and sell them! I'd be RICH!!!
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