On February 8th, I did a post on Tips for visiting wine country which included advice on being friendly and polite and respecting the time of the people working in a tasting room. Since then, we have visited over 100 winery tasting rooms in 15 different states. Based on those visits, I’d like to share […]

This week’s Wine Word of the Week is corkage. Official definition from Jancis Robinson’s The Oxford Companion to Wine: Corkage is the charge customarily levied in a restaurant for each bottle of wine brought in and consumed on the premises rather than bought from the restaurant’s own selection. The term is derived from the fact […]

Gilbert Cellars is a family-owned winery located near Wiley City in the Ahtanum Valley west of Yakima, Washington. Even though Gilbert Cellars is only a four year old winery, the Gilberts are veterans when it comes to producing high-quality fruit. The Gilbert family has been in the tree-fruit business since 1897. In 2001, they planted […]

Thank you for joining us for the fourth “virtual meeting” of the Wine Book Club where bloggers and wine lovers all over the world come together for book reviews and discussions every other month after reading a selected text. Our host for this edition is Farley Walker of Wine Outlook and the text she selected […]

While Paul Gregutt named Red Willow Vineyard one of the Top Ten vineyards in Washington State in his book, Washington Wines & Wineries, I got the distinct impression that his ranking was based more on longevity than anything else. As I pointed out in my Red Willow Vineyard: The Mother of Washington Syrah post, Red […]

This week’s Wine Word of the Week is vintage. Official definition from Jancis Robinson’s The Oxford Companion to Wine: The vintage year is the year in which a wine was produced and the characteristics of that year. … In the southern hemisphere, a vintage-dated wine invariably carries the year in which the grapes were picked, […]

We have had some exceptional Syrahs lately, and our tasting dinner last Friday evening continued the trend. This tasting featured six Pacific Northwest Syrahs, four from Washington State and two from Oregon. Both Oregon wineries represented, Watermill and Cayuse, are in the Walla Walla Valley AVA just a few miles from the Washington-Oregon state line. […]

“Crafting world-class wines that capture the essence of Sonoma County” –Tom Klein, owner of Rodney Strong Vineyards Tom Klein, owner of Rodney Strong Vineyards, truly believes that Sonoma County, California, has the capacity to grow grapes and produce wines that compare in quality to anywhere in the world. Spurred by this belief, he has embarked […]

Saviah Cellars is a family-owned winery located south of downtown Walla Walla, Washington, near the Oregon state line in the Walla Walla Valley AVA. Owner/winemaker Richard Funk and his wife Anita, both natives of Montana, moved to Walla Walla in 1991. Rich became acquainted with a number of the area wineries while working as an […]

This week’s Wine Word of the Week is nose. Official definition from Jancis Robinson’s The Oxford Companion to Wine: Nose is the most sensitive form of tasting equipment so far encountered, the sense of taste being so inextricably linked with the sense of smell. …. Nose is also used as a synonym for the smell, […]