Note: This “Wine Word of the Week” series, which previously ran on Saturdays, will now be running on Tuesdays starting today. This week’s Wine Word of the Week is Charmat. Official definition from Jancis Robinson’s The Oxford Companion to Wine: Charmat is the name of a bulk sparkling winemaking process which involves provoking a second […]

For years, I’ve had friends tell me that they can’t find the great Washington State wines that I tell them about where they live. So with the help of Wine-Searcher.com and a lot of legwork, I’ve set out on a mission to prove them wrong. This is the fifteenth in a series of posts to […]

This week’s Wine Word of the Week is loess. Official definition from Jancis Robinson’s The Oxford Companion to Wine: Loess is a light-coloured, fine-grained accumulation of clay and silt particles that have been deposited by the wind. An essentially unconsolidated, unstratified calcareous silt, it is usually homogenous, permeable, and buff to grey in colour, containing […]

Obviously the answer to the above question depends partially on who you are, a wine consumer, a winery, or a wine reviewer. If you are a novice wine consumer, wandering through the wine section of your local Fred Meyer store, how else will you have a clue as to where to start in identifying a […]

Would you like a quick suggestion for a good wine to drink tonight (or this weekend) that won’t break your budget and is widely available? Many of our readers have said this is something they would like, so here is this week’s selection, the NV Domaine Ste. Michelle Blanc de Noirs from the Columbia Valley […]

Washington State Cabernet Sauvignons are among the best in the world, and they are much better values (higher QPR) than most Cabs in other wine regions of the world. Last Friday evening, we tasted six Cabernet Sauvignons from the 2006 vintage from Washington State in our monthly wine tasting dinner. It was another fabulous evening […]

A good friend gave us some fresh fish from Alaska including a package of ling cod so I thought it would be fun to have fish and chips for this month’s challenging wine pairing. We all know that fish and chips is a popular take-out food that we associate with England, but I decided to […]

Before we delve into the lab analysis, let me give you some background information in case you are not familiar with Cayuse and the great debate that rages between Cayuse lovers and Cayuse skeptics. Cayuse Vineyards, founded in 1997 by French-born Christophe Baron, is often thought of as a Washington winery. While Cayuse does have […]

This week’s Wine Word of the Week is port. Official definition from Jancis Robinson’s The Oxford Companion to Wine: Port, a fortified wine made by adding brandy to arrest fermenting grape must which results in a wine, red and sometimes white, that is both sweet and high in alcohol. Port derives its name from Oporto […]

If you know exactly what wine you want to buy, then the only issues are availability and price. A big box store like Costco or Sam’s, a wine mega-store like BevMo in California, Spec’s in Texas, Davidson’s in Denver, or Total in the Southeast (if you have one of those in your area) may fill […]