The inaugural Sip of Snoqualmie, benefitting Encompass, was held last Saturday at the Snoqualmie Casino in Snoqualmie, Washington (about 26 miles east of Seattle). Encompass is a non-profit organization whose mission is to nurture children, enrich families, and inspire community in the Snoqualmie Valley. Thirty-two Washington wineries were on hand pouring their wines during this [...]

Pedroncelli Winery, located in Geyserville, California, in the Dry Creek Valley of Sonoma County, was founded in 1927 by John Pedroncelli, Sr. Today, Pedroncelli is still a family-owned business, now in their fourth generation. Winemaker John Pedroncelli, Jr. has more than 40 vintages under his belt at Pedroncelli Winery. We first visited Pedroncelli Winery in [...]

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 spending Thanksgiving Day in Seattle, we loaded up the car and headed to Oregon’s Willamette Valley. The last time we visited wineries in the area, which was several years ago, we had not had a very pleasant experience. With the increasing notoriety that Oregon has received worldwide as a wine producing region, we decided [...]

On a recent Saturday, the Wine Peeps attended tastings at two local wine shops. Mom (LaGayle) and Dad (John) attended the Ross Andrew tasting at McCarthy & Schiering in Seattle’s Ravenna neighborhood and then I joined them for the Stephenson Cellars, Otis Kenyon, and Five Star Cellars tasting at Pete’s Wine Shop in Bellevue. Ross [...]

We recently spent a long weekend in the Columbia Valley visiting a number of wineries, some we had visited years ago and others we had not previously visited. The Columbia Valley, established in 1984, is Washington State’s largest AVA (American Viticultural Area). Six other AVAs are located within the borders of the Columbia Valley AVA, [...]

As our road trip took us to Spokane, Washington, we tried to visit a representative sampling of wineries in the Spokane area. Our first stop was at Latah Creek Winery. Latah Creek, owned by Mike Conway and his wife, has been in business 26 years and produces about 15,000 cases per year. Our friendly hostess, [...]

As we continued our cross-country road trip, we stopped in Milton-Freewater, Oregon, at a couple of eastern Oregon wineries. What a contrast it was between the western Oregon wineries we have visited in the past and these two eastern Oregon wineries. We didn’t have to pay any tasting fees, the attitude of the winery tasting [...]

As we traveled through Colorado, we made several stops at wineries near Palisade, Colorado. We were impressed that each of the wineries we visited sold only Colorado grown grapes, offered complimentary tastings, had nice professional tasting rooms, and their wines were pretty good. Our first stop was at Grande River Vineyards, Colorado’s oldest winery. Their [...]

This event, held last weekend at the Dempsey Indoor on the University of Washington campus, brought together two of my favorite things, Huskies and wine. As a graduate of the University of Washington, I am a tried and true Husky fan. In fact one of my favorite pastimes is attending UW sporting events with my [...]