Upcoming Event: Taste Washington 2017 - March 23rd to 26th - Various Locations

As we celebrate March as Taste Washington Wine Month, an annual month-long celebration of Washington State’s award winning wine industry, we get eager with anticipation of what’s coming up soon. Taste Washington, the nation’s largest single-region wine and food event, celebrates its 20^th Anniversary in 2017 with four days of wine, culinary delights, and education. With so much packed into such a short period, it gets difficult to choose what to attend (or just opt for the Connoisseur pass and attend all of the signature events!). But I’m here to give you a little insight into what will be happening for this year’s multi-day event so you can make your choices with ease.

The Delights and New Finds of Taste Washington 2016!

I attended this year’s Taste Washington Grand Taste on Sunday, which was a change from years past when we went for the Saturday tasting. I will say, the lack of crowds on Sunday made it quite the enjoyable experience! It was nice to have the ability to stop and chat with winemakers and actually taste through several wines without feeling rushed to step out of the way for the next person in line. It’s always a challenge to learn a lot about what you’re tasting at busy events like this, but I had a great time this year with the lesser Sunday crowd! As I have in the past few years, I made my focus trying wines from wineries I either had never heard of, or just had not had a chance to try yet. Boy oh boy did this work out in my favor as I found several great Washington wines that I can’t wait to try more of! I always walk into the Grand Taste with my go-to stops mapped out, so that I can make sure to hit the ones I have identified in advance. I took that approach once again this year, and managed to make it to many of the wineries and restaurants I had mapped out!

Upcoming Event: Taste Washington 2016 - March 31st - April 3rd - Various Locations

Taste Washington (Twitter: @TasteWashington), the nation’s largest single region food and wine event, is back in action from March 31^st to April 3^rd, 2016. As always, there are a multitude of events to please your palate, culminating with the Grand Taste on April 2^nd and 3^rd. Here is your one-stop shop for details on each of the various Taste Washington events and activities:

The 2016 Seattle Wine & Food Experience is Another Hit!

If you missed this year’s Seattle Wine & Food Experience (SWFE), you missed out big! This year’s event was a hit, and guests left with extremely full bellies and a list of new wine, beer, cider and spirits favorites. I personally LOVED the food options at this year’s event. The restaurants certainly brought their A-game and the food offerings were simply delightful. I also discovered a new cidery and had the chance to try several offerings of my favorite type of beverage: sparkling wine/champagne! In case you missed my Instagram feed at the event (find me on Instagram: sipsandthecity), here are my favorites and finds from this year’s Seattle Wine & Food Experience.

Upcoming Event: The 2016 Seattle Wine & Food Experience - February 20th & 21st, 2016

Oh it’s a new year in Seattle and you know what that means?! The Seattle Wine & Food Experience (SWFE) is once again almost upon us! That’s right folks, the deliciousness of Jamie Peha’s signature annual event is just around the corner. In true SWFE fashion, this year’s event is bigger and better than ever with more than 200 vendors lining the aisles at the Seattle Center Exhibition Hall on Sunday February 21^st from 12-5pm (VIP) and 1-5pm (GA). POP! Bubbles and Seafood also returns for its second year, this time held in the elegant McCaw Hall on Saturday evening February 20^th from 6-9pm.

Upcoming Event: 2015 Taste Washington - 3/26 to 3/29/2015 - Various Locations

We have kicked off March of 2015 and Washington Wine Month is in full effect! Who doesn’t love an entire month dedicated to the amazing wines that are produced from our great state? One of the best parts of Washington Wine Month is that it is capped off with Taste Washington, the nation’s largest single region wine and food event. Taste Washington is so much more than just the Grand Taste. This year’s 4-day extravaganza, held March 26^th through 29^th, includes several different events where you can sip some of the finest wines Washington’s many AVAs have to offer. So let’s a take a look see at all the fun, shall we?

Upcoming Event: Taste Washington 2014 - March 29th & 30th - CenturyLink Field Event Center

It’s Washington wine month once again (or #WAWineMonth to those of us Twitter savvy folk) and you know what that means: TASTE WASHINGTON IS NEAR! Every year, the month of March gives us a month-long celebration of Washington’s award winning wine industry. The month ends with the biggest and baddest wine event of the year. The 17^th annual Taste Washington (@TasteWashington) is the largest single-region wine and food event in the United States, featuring more than 225 Washington State wineries and more than 65 Pacific Northwest restaurants. There are, in fact, so many wineries and restaurants at this event that if you don’t go in with a game plan you’re going to be wide eyed and overwhelmed trying to decide what to try next (trust me on this, map it out in advance, CenturyLink Field Event Center is a large facility!).

Another Winner in the Books: The 2014 Seattle Wine & Food Experience Had Something for Everyone

This year’s Seattle Wine & Food Experience (@seattlewinefood) was nothing short of DELICIOUS. To re-cap: Meat wins, Skittles pair well with riesling, cheese lounges are my happy place, I’m so happy it’s rosé season, and the new signs led the way! What does all that mean? Well, read on…

The New and Notable of Taste Washington 2013

Well another wonderful Taste Washington has come and gone, and I came away with some AWESOME new finds in both the wine and restaurant arenas. This year, I walked in with a plan of attack. I’ve been to a lot of wine events, and often times I find myself drawn to the wineries I have had and enjoyed previously. So this time around I decided that I was going to visit just a few of those never fail wineries (mostly the ones that really don’t ever pour at events either) and make my focus on trying wines from wineries that I had never even heard of. What a success it was! I also found some great bites from some restaurants that I will be making visits to ASAP. We started at one side of the room in A and basically worked our way across the room to Z all afternoon. We had some great finds to show for it

Upcoming Event: 2013 Seattle Wine & Food Experience - 2/24/13 - Seattle Center Exhibition Hall

 

Much like a fine wine, the Seattle Wine & Food Experience (@SeattleWineFood) gets even better with age. Each vintage of the event gets better every year, as if event producer Jamie Peha (@tabletalkpeha) of Peha Promotions strives to out-do herself year after year. This will be my 4^th visit to the SWFE and I am just as excited for this year as I have been for previous years. This year the SWFE will be held on February 24^th, 2013 from 12-5pm at the Seattle Center Exhibition Hall (its home for the past several years). The 5^th annual SWFE will feature more than 100 wineries from around the globe plus local foods, beer, cider and craft spirits.

Sips on the Road: Bier Thirty, Part One

Karl and Ally at Stone

Celebrating the end of the day has long been accomplished with a nice cold beer, but for my very handsome boyfriend Karl’s 30^th birthday, he wanted to celebrate the end of a decade with beer, and so we did.  Twenty real life humans and one cardboard cutout gathered the morning of January 19^th and climbed our way in to our party bus to attempt a visit to five different San Diego breweries in seven hours.  Aside from that we were given only one other goal of not racking up a bill for Karl with the bus driver by keeping ourselves “together,” a goal I’m happy to report we accomplished.  In all the day was a complete success and the breweries were welcoming, the great part for me was I had only ever been to one in person having tried beers from only a few as well, so it was a day of firsts for me.

The breweries visited in order were Stone World Bistro and Gardens, Lost Abbey, Green Flash, Rough Draft and the original San Diego brewery, Mission Brewery.  Each is deserving of their own post so over the course of a few weeks I’ll post about each going in order of those visited.

Upcoming Event: Taste Washington 2012 - CenturyLink Field Events Center, Seattle

It's that time of year again folks, Taste Washington (@TasteWashington) is upon us once again! This event continues to set the standard for Washington wine events and this year, the Washington State Wine Commission has teamed up with Seattle’s Convention and Visitors Bureau (SCVB) to put on the food and wine event of the year. Big changes this year: the event is TWO days instead of its traditional single day tasting format. Both the tasting and the seminars have been spaced between the two days. Previously, the seminars were all held on Saturday and the Grand Taste held Sunday, but this new format offers more time for tasting, and a better chance to sit on on one of the educational wine seminars.

So here's the scoop on the happenings:

It Just Keeps Getting Better: The 2012 Seattle Wine & Food Experience

If you weren’t in attendance at yesterday’s tasting bonanza, you missed out tremendously. The 2012 Seattle Wine & Food Experience was a huge success and this year’s event brought together some of the Northwest’s finest wines, beers, ciders and spirits as well as delectable bites from a variety of area restaurants. I took a much different approach this year than I have at previous wine events: I didn’t drink wine. Well, I had a few tastes of wine at the event, but I wanted to switch it up a bit and focus more on our local beers, ciders and spirits (also, I had the privilege of attending an Oregon wine event the night prior, so I definitely didn’t miss out on the fine juice that state has to offer!). So, without further ado, my favorites this year of the 2012 Seattle Wine & Food Experience.

Swiftwater Cellars - Suncadia Resort - Cle Elum, WA

Nestled back in the woods amongst the sprawling beauty that is Suncadia Resort, lies a new winery that is quickly changing the face of the typical “winery visit”. Swiftwater Cellars (@SwiftwaterWine), owned by Don & Lori Watts, has billed itself as “Washington’s ultimate destination winery”, a description that runs true. Their facility contains their production space, a large restaurant, a gift shop, and various rooms that can be used for private events. I was able to visit this awe inspiring winery recently along with several of my peers and there wasn’t an attendee amongst the group that didn’t leave impressed with every aspect of our visit.

Duckhorn Vineyards Wine Dinner - Russell's Dining & Bar - Bothell, WA

Well by now I think it’s quite apparent that I like wine. And I like food. And I REALLY like wine dinners. Food and wine pairing has become one of my favorite things, and while I don’t consider myself anywhere near an expert at it, I do enjoy tasting other people’s (who are more “experts” in pairing) menus. In the early part of February I, along with a usual partner in crime @erindrinkswine, attended another wine dinner at one of my favorite restaurants, Russell’s Dining & Bar (@russellsdining). As you may or may not remember, I attended a wine dinner at Russell’s back in April of last year for Sojen Cellars of Everett. Chef Russell Lowell creates some of my favorite meals and he really has a knack for pairing his delicious courses with wine. Switching it up a bit, this dinner featured a California winery, which is not a region I have had the opportunity to taste paired with food. I had also never had Duckhorn wines (@duckhornwine) so I was eager to try something new!

Upcoming Event: Seattle Food & Wine Experience - Seattle Center Exhibition Hall - Seattle, WA

Food is delicious. Wine is devine. Add food + wine together and you have next month’s marvelous food & wine event, the Seattle Food & Wine Experience (SFWE). The event, which will be held Sunday February 27th, 2011 from 1-5pm, will showcase wines from Washington, Oregon, Idaho, California, Spain, Italy, France, New Zealand, Australia, Argentina, South Africa and more. This worldly showcase will feature over 1,000 different wines as well as bites from 24 of the finest Seattle-area chefs and restaurateurs. Last year’s event was my first foray into large wine tasting events here in Seattle. It did not disappoint. The location of the event, the Seattle Center Exhibition Hall, is perfect, as it provides a nice open space to sip wine, snack on tasty food bites and mingle with other SFWE attendees.

This year’s SFWE features wines poured from 45 California and International Wineries, 35 Washington Wineries, 10 Oregeon Wineries, and 10 Idaho Wineries. In addition to wine and food exhibits, there are also other wine related and lifestyle exhibitors on site. The “Experience” also offers guests an assortment of activities and learning opportunities including:

• The Taste of Tulalip Lounge – all of the Tulalip Resort chefs will be on hand cooking their latest Taste of Tulalip creations. Remember my amazing tasting notes from the Taste of Tulalip and the preview event? This Lounge is one you don’t want to miss.

• Foster Farms Market – a huge supporter of the independent family-owned farm, Foster Farms chicken is raised locally and delivered to the market in 48 hours or less. At SFWE, visit this exhibit to visit with the one and only Kathy Casey, taste her chicken-bacon cupcakes, and pick up a copy of her book. There will be 400 copies given away compliments of Foster Farms!

• Chef in the Vineyard – Chateau Ste. Michelle Culinary Director and cookbook author John Sarich will be preparing four different recipes taken from his book “Chef in the Vineyard” and pairing with individual wines. A comparative wine tasting bar will allow guests to sample wines from different growing regions (Italy, New Zealand, Washington, and Oregon) via side-by-side comparison.

• Beecher’s Cheese – Did someone say cheese?! Beecher’s classic Mac & Cheese served along with Goose Ridge wines.

• Tom Douglas Rub with Love – This spectacular line of rubs is featured at SFWE along with fresh American Lamb. Lola Chef Liam Spencer along with Oregon lamb producer Reed Anderson are the Shepherd and the Chef team for American Lamb representing the Pacific Northwest.

• Brewery and Cider Companies – wine not quite your thing? There will also be more than 10 local and national breweries and cider companies on hand sampling and educating!

All this food talk making you hungry? It should! In attendance representing the amazing Seattle food scene will be Andaluca Restaurant, Arnies, bin on the lake, Blueacre/Steelhead Diner, BOKA Kitchen + Bar, The Capital Grille, Coho Café, Copperleaf Restaurant at Cedarbrook Lodge, Earth & Ocean, The Georgian, Ivar’s Seafood Restaurants, Purple Café and Wine Bar, Ray’s Boathouse, Ruth’s Chris Steak House, and Salty’s on Alki.

For the most current list of wineries and breweries pouring at SFWE, click here, and for a detailed restaurant list click here.

And we ALL love having fun for a charitable cause, so this year’s event benefits The Giving Grapes Foundation, a 501c3 organization assisting local charities who provide financial assistance to service industry professionals who have to take time off work due to injury or illness.

Convinced that the Seattle Food & Wine Experience is for you? Well it is! Head on over to Brown Paper Tickets to get your tickets for the event, just $49 (and that’s a LOT of food and wine for $49!). Your ticket price also includes a souvenir wine glass to use for your tasting at the event and take home with you afterward.

This year’s Seattle Food & Wine Experience is gearing up to be a fabulous event once again. Peha Promotions doesn’t ever let us down when it comes to fantastic wine events, so I’ll see you there!

Friday Wine & Dine Tour - Butler Transportation & Russell's Dining - Woodinville, WA

My mom was in town in early May (over Mother’s Day weekend in fact!) so I thought what a better activity for us than to head out for some wine tasting in Woodinville. Mom was in town from Anchorage (doesn’t happen all that often) and my friend Caity was also available to join us! Rob Williamson, General Manager at Russell’s Dining & Bar (@RussellsDining) in Bothell, had told me previously about the “Wine & Dine” tour offered as a collaboration between Russell’s and Butler Transportation. This Friday afternoon tour departs Russell’s at 3:30pm and heads out to visit several tasting rooms in the Woodinville area. For just $10/person you get to ride around in style in one of Butler’s Mercedes vans and visit at least three warehouse area wineries. The wineries waive tasting fees as part of the tour also. After the wine tasting, you head back to Russell’s to enjoy dinner and no corkage fee on wine purchased on the tour! This sounded like such a great deal and a fun way to spend a Friday afternoon. The day of our tour, we arrived at Russell’s just in time and were greeted by Jeremy Butler, co-owner of Butler Transportation, and our driver Joseph. Our party of three happened to be the only ones booked for the afternoon, so we jumped in the van and off we went on our tour. The sun was shining and we were quite surprised that there was no one else joining us that day! Came to find out later that there had been several cancellations. That just meant more attention to us, which we definitely got!

We started off our afternoon at Patterson Cellars, a winery I had never visited or tried before. Favorites of mine here were the 2009 Chardonnay and the 2009 Late Harvest Roussanne. The tasting room here is small, but inviting! My mom even picked up some of Russell’s special spice blend in addition to her wine purchases.


Next we moved on to Covington Cellars (@CovingtonWine), which was by far my favorite of the day, and another winery I had never visited before. We were again the only ones in the tasting room when we arrived and we had a chance to chat with winemaker Morgan Lee. Morgan poured us our first few tastes, then grabbed the next bottle and we headed off on a tour of the winery. It was great to see how all storage and production happens in the space they have in the warehouse. The best part was the barrel samples that we were able to try of wine that will still sit for awhile longer. It had such amazing flavors already and it will be fantastic when it goes to bottle. My favorites at Covington included the 2007 Malbec and the 2007 Sangiovese. The tasting room area also has a large table that can be used for special events and dinners. They had obviously done a lot of remodel work on the tasting room, it was very beautiful inside. Another highlight of the stop at Covington was a poster in the production area that I knew I was going to have to find for my dad. Anyone who has a black lab (or any dog for that matter), knows how true this is!





We left Covington and headed back over to the main warehouse area to visit Gordon Brothers (@gordonwines). This was another new stop for me, I was on a roll of visiting all places I had never tried! The tasting room had gift items for sale in addition to wine, including a brand of stemware I had recently purchased one of. The Eisch breathable stemware is supposed to aerate your wine equivelant to wine that has been decanted for a few hours. I have just one piece of the stemware so far, and it’s definitely my “special glass” (and also the one that no one but myself gets to use!). Another feature at Gordon Brothers is a back room area called the “Tradition Room” that is used for winery and private events. I really enjoyed the wines here, and was excited to see that their 2007 Sauvignon Blanc was on close-out special for $6.99! This was a fantastic deal for a great summer weather wine. I ended up joining the wine club here, and was able to purchase their 2007 Tempranillo, a wine that had been in the previous wine club shipment, at a discount. While I did not get to try this wine while at the tasting room, I am excited for it, as I love a good Tempranillo. We decided to purchase our wine to take back for dinner at Gordon Brothers, and left with a 1.5L 2002 Syrah, one that had been voted Best Syrah in the 2006 Washington CEO Magazine Wine Competition. It didn’t disappoint. I really enjoyed chatting with Laurie, the tasting room manager, and I look forward to my next visit to the tasting room as a wine club member!


We finished our tour off at Smasne Cellars (@smasnecellars)/Gard Vintners (@gardvintners), a tasting room that I have visited several times and quite enjoy. There is such a wide selection of wines to try each time I come in, I still haven’t tasted all the way through! It was great to see Lori working in the tasting room. My mom found quite a few wines she enjoyed here, including the Smasne 2007 Chardonnay and the Gard 2007 Syrah. I’ve always been a fan of the Smasne 2007 Rosella Rose, I even took it to Mexico with us last month! We enjoyed several wines here, which was a great end to our tasting tour.

We headed back to Russell’s for our dinner reservation and were sat immediately. I had been raving about the gnocchi appetizer to my mom and Caity and after an afternoon of wine tasting, I couldn’t wait to get my hands on it. We brought in our 2002 Gordon Brothers Syrah to enjoy with dinner, which accompanied all of our courses well. For our dinner courses, we tried a little bit of everything, sharing the halibut, scallops and New York steak between the three of us. Dinner was simply amazing. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, the food at Russell’s is the best around. Everything was prepared beautifully and the service (as always) was fantastic. We finished off our meal with the chocolate gateau, a chocolate cake with a melted chocolate interior. This was a great dessert to share among the three of us and left us so satisfied with the meal. After we finished our wine, our big 1.5L bottle made it up on the wall, I’ll get to walk by it each time I visit now and remember our great day out wine tasting and the great dinner that followed!

North Seattle Tax Day Tweet Up - Black Pearl Restaurant - Seattle, WA

Back on April 15th, everyone's favorite day of the year, a local restaurant and some writers put together a great tweet up to celebrate "Tax Day" with some great food and wine. The event was hosted by @BlackPearlSEA, @NorthESea, and @Seattle_Events and was held at Black Pearl Restaurant's Wedgewood location in North Seattle. We had a great little group in attendance to try out a variety of dishes from Black Pearl as well as a number of different wines donated for the event by @NWTotemCellars and @grlakewine. There were some faces I knew already, including @jenkmiller, @colbyjn, @BlackPearlSEA and @chrispirillo as well many new people I had never met before: @NorthESea, @Seattle_Events, @posiegirl, @hnlmark, @bananablossom, @danaek, @belvoir, @mypartini, and @chefamadeus. It was great to meet so many new people and share thoughts on the amazing food and wines we were able to try. The amazing Annie @BlackPearlSEA worked with @yasharseattle to pair the wine and food dishes for the event.

The menu started out with a spicy sesame chicken paired with a Spanish Xarelo donated by @grlakewine. This was very fresh chicken in an amazing sauce. This paired nicely with this very refreshing white, one I love to call a "sunshine wine".


Next we moved on to a spicy fish in szechuan sauce, which we tasted along with a Randall Harris Sauvignon Blanc, which was also donated by @grlakewine. This was a very tender fish with a very spicy flavor with the aftertaste. The very fruity and flowery Sauv Blanc was a refreshing and perfect pair for this spicy dish. This was a big favorite of many in attendance!

Next we tried a salt and pepper crispy fried calamari paired with the @NWTotemCellars Salish. This 60% riesling and 40% viognier was a nice sweet wine that complimented this lightly breaded, but spicy, calamari.


We then moved on to beef chow mein with homemade noodles, which was paired with the @NWTotemCellars Potlatch, a 52% Syrah, 47% Tempranillo and 1% Petit Verdot. This was by far my favorite dish of the entire evening. Just saying "homemade noodles" does not do this dish justice. The noodles are made in-house daily and are thicker, bigger and better than any chow mein noodles I have ever had. I could just eat an entire bowl of these on their own and be completely satisfied. This is a must try when dining at @BlackPearlSEA. The flavors of the paired wine really stood out and this was a great blend.

Next up were pot sticker dumplings in both pork and vegetarian flavors. This was served along with a Randall Harris Syrah, donated by @grlakewine. The pork dumpling was my favorite of the two flavors, and was even better with some soy sauce. The Randall Harris was a very flavorful Syrah that was very tasty along with the pork flavors.

We moved on to a mongolian beef, paired with the @NWTotemCellars Syrah. The mongolian beef was very spicy and very tasty and I was amazed at how well the Syrah tempered the spicy nature of the beef. I had never thought about wine pairings with spicy food before, but this was definitely one I will be trying again. I was happy to get to take home a bit of leftovers of the beef, it was fantastic!

Last, but certainly not least, we tasted some shrimp cakes along with the @NWTotemCellars Late Harvest Viognier. The shrimp cakes had a wonderful sweet plum sauce accompanying them, which was terrific along with the sweet Late Harvest Viognier. As @chrispirillo commented on the wine: "this tastes like skittles!". It was a very pleasant dessert wine that I look forward to trying again!


Overall, my first visit to Black Pearl Restaurant was amazing and I look forward to dining there again. I couldn't believe the extent of dishes we were able to try, and we barely even grazed the surface of all they have to offer on their menu. I was excited to see that they offer delivery, but disappointed when I realized I live outside their delivery area! I'll just have to make the drive! It was great to try some new types of food and wine pairings, and it gave me some great ideas for the future. Thanks to all who organized this great "Tax Day" event.