Walla Walla Spring Release Weekend- Walla Walla, WA

Well I’ve done a lot of wine tasting (which is quite obvious if you’ve happened to read this blog in the past), and I’ve visited most of the AVAs of Washington to do said tasting. There was just one major area left for me to visit and I finally had the opportunity when we ventured east for the Walla Walla Spring Release in early May. My friend Annie (@BlackPearlSEA) and I set out from rainy Seattle with high hopes of sun drenched vineyards and copious amounts of Walla Walla wine. While we didn’t necessarily get those sun drenched vineyards (that was some wacky weather that weekend..), we did get to experience some of the best of Walla Walla and had some great stories along the way!

Upcoming Event: Wine Rocks 2011 - Georgetown Ballroom - Seattle, WA

Wine Rocks. No, really, it does! At Seattle’s 4th annual Wine Rocks event (@WineRocksSEA), not only do you get to taste wine and listen to music (which can be pretty standard at tasting events), you get to taste wine and listen to music played by the winemakers that just poured you the wine! This year’s event, held at the Georgetown Ballroom on June 9th from 7pm – 10:30pm, brings together wine, food, and some amazing music from some prominent Washington winemakers.

I attended last year’s event at the Hard Rock Café, and I was seriously impressed with the talent that was displayed, both in the bottle and on stage. While the Hard Rock was a great venue as far as location, the brand spankin’ new nature of it, etc, it was pretty cramped in there. The winemakers practically had to scream over the music to describe their wines as some of them were basically right next to the stage. I’m definitely looking forward to this year’s venue, as I hear that it’s a bit more spread out and accommodating.

This year’s event will feature 30+ wineries and breweries, and music from Jamie Brown (Waters Winery), Chip McLaughlin (Vinyl Wines) (@VinylWines), Rob Newsom (Boudreaux Cellars), Gordy Rawson (Chatter Creek Winery and a few more special performances!

This is a great event that is sure to sell out, so get your tickets now and get ready to rock out (just don’t rock too hard and spill your wine!) at Seattle’s Wine Rocks on June 9th! I’ll see you there!

From the Vine to your Glass: Bottling

I decided that it would be fun to do pieces on the different aspects of wine making. As I'm sure you've deduced by now, I love to learn. Some of my favorite wine adventures have come in learning experiences (remember that Bordeaux blending I did? Awesome!). For this series, I'll focus on separate pieces of the wine making process. Maybe take a tour through a vineyard, help out with crush, and of course, bottling. I'll do a separate write-up on each of these different activities. My first post in the series (obviously not in any sort of order) is on bottling. Enjoy!

I've always enjoyed volunteering with wineries. One local winery that I have helped out on a few occasions now is Northwest Totem Cellars, so when Mike Sharadin posted a note saying he was looking for a few volunteers for a Saturday afternoon of bottling, I jumped at the opportunity. The winery is located at the home of owners Mike and Kate Sharadin, located on the Redmond/Woodinville border. Mike has his own bottling equipment, but every winery does things a little bit differently. Mike stated that a lot of the smaller wineries have their own small bottling set-ups and once they reach a certain size (i.e. they reach a certain case production), they will utilize a mobile bottling truck. This truck is basically a bottling line on wheels and provides all the necessary equipment for bottling. Mike estimated that up to 85% of wineries in this area bottle using the mobile truck. At Northwest Totem Cellars, the bottling line is set up in an area designated for this purpose. The volunteers each had a specific responsibility in the line. Once we got going, we were bottling about 45 cases an hour! At 12 bottles to the case, that was a whopping 540 bottles that went by in just ONE hour of bottling. On this day we were bottling two separate wines. We started with the 2008 Qo-ne, which is a blend of 60% Cabernet Franc, 29% Cabernet Sauvignon, 9% Syrah, and 2% Petit Verdot. We bottled up 102 cases of the Qo-ne, which comes out to 1,224 bottles! WOW. It doesn't hit you just how many bottles go through the line until you do the math on it! After a lunch break, catered by Kate Sharadin, we headed back out to bottle up the 2008 Sangiovese. We bottled 62 cases of the Sangiovese, or 744 bottles. It was a lot of fun to be a part of the process!

Taste Washington - Seattle, WA

Waiting for Taste Washington each year is like counting down to Christmas. There's all of this excitement leading up to it and then the day comes and it's pretty magical and then the day after you become all depressed when you realize you have a year until the next one! This year was no different. As per usual, I spent hours at the event and still wasn't able to try everything I wanted to. My "try new stuff" plan only worked partially, as I was still stopping to chat with winemakers I knew, but I did manage to stick to trying new wines of theirs that I had yet to taste. All in all, a fantastic event and I give serious kudos to the Washington Wine Commission for hosting another stellar Taste Washington. Sadly, I missed out on the seminars as I was just getting back from vacation that day, but the Grand Taste was fantastic and I have some highlights to share...