Upcoming Event: Taste Washington 2019 - March 28th to 31st - Various Locations

The sun is shining here in Washington which means spring is upon us and the nation’s biggest single region food and wine event is quickly approaching! Taste Washington kicks off Thursday March 28th, and is sure to be a fantastic weekend celebrating all things #wawine!

An Afternoon of Rosé and Grenache Blanc at Taste Washington 2017

We enjoyed the 20^th vintage of Taste Washington last weekend and it delighted attendees with tastes and bites as it always does. I attended Sunday this year and I took the same approach that I have the past few years, and ventured out to try wines from wineries that I had never heard of before. With 225+ in attendance, there were many of them! The winery count in Washington has grown significantly in the past several years and it’s been exciting to try new things from our new up and coming winemakers and wineries.

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:

How Do You Like Them Apples? The Explosion of the Cider Market

During this year’s Taste Washington festivities, I had the pleasure of attending one of the seminars for the first time along with my (normally beer drinking) boyfriend. My friend Erin James (of Sip NW and CIDERCRAFT magazines) was on the panel and I was dying to learn all there is to know about the cider movement and also see her do her thing in front of an audience. It was such a great opportunity to learn about cider, where it came from, where it’s headed and to hear from the actual producers themselves as well. Oh and the tasting.. you can’t forget the tasting portion! Deee-lish.

The "Tried and True" and "New and Notable" of Taste Washington 2015

Sigh… Taste Washington 2015 has come and gone, and we now spend the next year dreaming of next year’s vintage of the best of the best of Washington wine and food. While there were too many amazing events to attend all of them, I managed to try some amazing gems at the Grand Taste Saturday edition, and got my learn on at one of the Sunday Seminars! This post contains my wine highlights from the Grand Taste, an upcoming post will cover all of the amazing things I learned at the seminar.

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?

The Tantalizing Tastes of Taste Washington 2014

Once again, Taste Washington lived up to its name as the biggest and best single region wine tasting event by bringing in 225+ wineries, 65+ restaurants and a whole lot of delicious fun down at CenturyLink FieldEvent Center. As I did last year, I mapped out my plan in advance. I went through the great event guide and picked out my “must get to” stops for both wineries and restaurants. Of course there were the big names like Betz and Doubleback on my list, but my main mission (as it was last year) was to try new things. When faced with an expansive room containing more wine choices than I would ever be able to try in a week let alone the short time I had that afternoon, I chose to seek out a few wineries I had never even heard of. I really love this approach, as it helps me expand my knowledge of Washington wines, AVAs and wineries and I don’t keep going back to what I know (disclaimer: of course I still had several from ones I already know and love, but that’s beside the point…). So I perused the event guide and picked out wineries that I had either A. heard of but never tried or B. never heard of and never tried. This proved to work out well for me, as I discovered a few gems throughout the afternoon that made me excited to see more from these wineries.

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!).

Upcoming Event: Taste Washington 2013 - March 23rd & 24th, 2013 - CenturyLink Field Events Center

 

We all love the classics. Classic movies, classic books, and even for some, classic(al) music. Well there’s a classic wine event that comes along every year during Washington Wine Month.  It’s true to form and always sure to please. Taste Washington (@TasteWashington), the nation’s largest single region food & wine event, is back in 2013 in its two-day format that was adopted in 2012. From the opinion of an attendee that has attended both formats, I really like it as a two-day event. It spaces out the guests and makes for a much more enjoyable tasting experience.  The 16^th annual Taste Washington features 225 Washington wineries and more than 65 Northwest restaurants. As in prior years, this year’s event is held at the CenturyLink Field Events Center (or better know to many of us as the “CLink”). Held this coming weekend, March 23^rd and 24^th, it kicks off with seminars on a variety of topics (there’s even a beer one!), and moves straight into the tasting.