Lionheart Wines, located in Half Moon Bay, California, was founded in 2005 by owner/winemaker Leon C. Glover III. Leon has had the dream of making wine since he was a boy and admired his father’s extensive wine collection. Due to high start up costs and the knowledge required to start a winery, he put his […]

Stephenson Cellars, founded in 2001 by owner/winemaker Dave Stephenson, is a small winery located in the Walla Walla airport complex in Walla Walla, Washington. Dave Stephenson moved to Walla Walla in 1999 and began his career in the wine industry. Studying enology and viticulture textbooks and working at other wineries in Walla Walla prepared him […]

For the last year, we have been touting the virtues of Syrah and Washington Syrah in particular. Now Dorothy Gaiter and John Brecher, wine writers for the Wall Street Journal, have joined our chorus. Their conclusion after tasting over 50 Washington Syrahs in blind flights over several nights: “As a group, these are the most […]

This month’s wine tasting dinner featured red blends from Washington State. You may remember that we had Washington Red Blends at our September tasting dinner last fall. We put the winner of the September tasting, the 2006 Mark Ryan “The Dissident,” in this tasting along with five other red blends from Washington. Mark Ryan came […]

Don’t be misled by the title of this post. We are not advocating that you drink wine with your breakfast in the morning. However, if you are like us, there are times when you are in the mood for breakfast foods at dinner time. And since we like to enjoy a glass or two of […]

In the process of cleaning up my desk and purging my files over the holidays, I found notes from four Walla Walla, Washington, wineries that we visited in October on the same weekend we took our vineyard tour with Rich Funk of Saviah Cellars. These four were wineries that we had not had a chance […]

As part of our visits to some of the major vineyards in Washington State, Dad (John) and I took a day trip to Stillwater Creek Vineyard and Cold Creek Vineyard. Planted in 2000 at the urging of Mike Januik and owned by the Alberg Family, Stillwater Creek Vineyard covers 245 acres north of Royal City, […]

South Seattle Artisan Wineries is a group of eight boutique wineries located just south of downtown Seattle, including Cadence, Elsom Cellars, Fall Line, Falling Rain, Nota Bene, O*S, Sodovino, and Stomani. Since these are small, boutique wineries, they are not open for regular tasting room hours. However, they host joint open houses on special Saturdays […]

After visiting more wineries than we can count, tasting hundreds and hundreds of Washington wines, meeting winemakers, and walking the rows in many of the best known vineyards in the state, these are the Wine Peeps’ picks as the best of 2008 in Washington Wine Country. BEST WINE: 2005 Fielding Hills Syrah (featured Aug 8, […]

Mother Nature gave us just enough of a reprieve between snowstorms to allow us and our guests to make it to this month’s wine tasting dinner last Friday night. After being cooped up in our homes for a couple days, it was nice to get out for a fun evening of good wines, excellent food, […]