An Afternoon in Woodinville, Suburban Wine Country
Three of Washington State’s largest and most opulent winery facilities are located in Woodinville, a suburb of Seattle. Chateau Ste. Michelle, Columbia Winery, and Novelty Hill/Januik make excellent stops on anyone’s wine tasting adventure.
In addition to the “Big Three,” Woodinville is also home to a number of small, garagiste wineries. But instead of being located in someone’s garage, most of these mom-and-pop operations are located in local business parks or storage facilities. While over 30 wineries currently have production facilities or tasting rooms in Woodinville, almost all of them actually get their grapes from vineyards in eastern Washington.
One Saturday afternoon last month, the Wine Peeps made the 20 mile trek to Woodinville for a bit of wine tasting. Since we have been to the “Big Three” numerous times, we decided to check out a few of the smaller wineries that we had not previously visited.
Our first stop was at Chatter Creek. During our visit, we had the pleasure to meet Gordy Rawson, winemaker/owner, who founded Chatter Creek in 1996. Chatter Creek’s annual production is approximately 2000 cases and is focused on the Rhone and Bordeaux varietals. We tasted five of their wines and especially liked the 2005 Clifton Hill Syrah.
Just down the street from Chatter Creek is Stevens Winery. Tim and Paige Stevens opened Stevens Winery in 2002. Tim is also an artist and designs an original label for each Stevens wine. Their yearly production is about 2000 cases. Of the three wines we tasted, their 2007 Divio Viognier was our favorite.
Our next stop took us to Matthews Estate. Matt Loso founded Matthews Estate in 1993. His wines have received numerous accolades. However, earlier this summer, Matt sold his interest in the winery to his partners. We, unfortunately, did not have a very pleasant experience at Matthews Estate. The four wines we tasted were okay, but not great, and certainly not worth the money. And the tasting room staff was a bit snooty. The lady serving us even made a snide comment to me about the fact that I was spitting and taking notes. I wonder if Matthews Estate has always been this way or if things have changed since Matt left.
Darby Winery was our final visit of the afternoon. Darby Winery is a fairly new winery founded by Darby English, winemaker/owner. Even though they are located in a business park, Darby has done an excellent job creating a nice ambience in the tasting room. Of the three wines we tasted, we liked their latest release, the 2006 Chaos, the best.
For information and a listing of other wineries in the area, visit the Woodinville Wine Country website.
Here’s a breakdown of the wines that we tasted in Woodinville. Under each Quality heading, the wine name and region will be listed along with price and QPR rating.
Quality: 4 stars (out of 5)
2005 Chatter Creek Syrah, Clifton Hill Vineyard (Wahluke Slope), $38, QPR: 4
2006 Darby Chaos Red Wine (Columbia Valley), $28, QPR: 4
Quality: 3.5 stars (out of 5)
2005 Chatter Creek Cabernet Sauvignon, Alder Ridge Vineyard (Horse Heaven Hills), $30, QPR: 4
2007 Chatter Creek Pinot Gris (Columbia Valley), $15, QPR: 3
2007 Stevens Divio Viognier (Yakima Valley), $22, QPR: 2
2001 Matthews Columbia Valley Red Wine (Columbia Valley), $70, QPR: 1
Quality: 3 stars (out of 5)
2006 Stevens YES Red Wine (Yakima Valley), $16, QPR: 4
2006 Chatter Creek Cabernet Franc, Alder Ridge Vineyard (Horse Heaven Hills), $24, QPR: 2
2006 Darby Syrah, Destiny Ridge Vineyard (Horse Heaven Hills), $30, QPR: 2
2004 Matthews Columbia Valley Claret (Columbia Valley), $30, QPR: 2
2007 Stevens A Second Thought Sauvignon Blanc (Yakima Valley), $19, QPR: 1
2007 Darby Le Deuce Viognier/Roussanne (Columbia Valley), $24, QPR: 1
2005 Matthews Red Mountain Syrah (Red Mountain), $55, QPR: 1
Quality: 2.5 stars (out of 5)
2006 Chatter Creek Grenache (Columbia Valley), $18, QPR: NR
2007 Matthews Columbia Valley Sauvignon Blanc (Columbia Valley), $30, QPR: NR
It all began on April 8th of this year; a road trip through 23 states covering 12,360 miles. Since then, I’ve posted 16 times from the road as we visited almost too many wineries to count in search of that next great bottle. Obviously, I hope that you have read all of my posts from the road and that they have helped you find some new wines to try. But in case you haven’t read all of them yet, you will find links at the end of this post.
Top Winery Discoveries (wineries we didn’t know before this trip):
At the conclusion of 
Watermill did not disappoint; they are making excellent wines and are truly wonderful people. We had a fabulous visit with Kelli and Nancy in the tasting room and then Nancy took us on a tour of their barrel room and production facility.
Incidentally, Rich is also the winemaker for Watermill Winery. After the standard tasting, Rich gave us a tour of Saviah’s facilities and treated us to numerous barrel samples. He is already making great wines and has some exciting projects in the works.
Our third stop at 
This is the first in a series of posts on Washington Syrah. We thought it only fitting to begin this series with a report on our recent visit to 
Next on our tour was the 1986 Syrah vineyard, the mother Syrah block in Washington. In fact, it is estimated that 80 percent of all Syrah plantings in Washington have come from cuttings from this vineyard. While Mike has grown over 20 different varietals at Red Willow over the past 35 years, he was quoted in Paul Gregutt’s Washington Wines & Wineries as saying that he believes Syrah is what Washington can grow best.
Then we drove up to the top of the hill to the iconic Monsignor Chapel which was built between 1992 and 1995 with stones from the farm. The chapel is surrounded by more Syrah plantings on three sides of the hill along with a Viognier block that is co-fermented with Syrah in some of the Syrah offerings originating from Red Willow. It is quite a reverent spot where you can feel the spirituality of the Sauer clan.
Our next stop was at 
Our final stop of the day was at 
Last Friday was a beautiful, sunny day in Seattle, the perfect day to enjoy some crisp, cool white wines for summer. Our wine tasting dinner this month was a slight departure from our normal tasting format. This tasting featured six different white varietals instead of six different wines within the same varietal. Since the Wine Peeps generally gravitate toward our beloved New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc when it comes to white wines, we wanted to expand our horizons and see how some other varietals from other regions stacked up in a blind tasting.
While the 2007 
Last Tuesday, Dad (John) and I attended the 
tasted a total of 45 wines, 44 Syrahs and one Syrah blend. We gave a 4 star rating to seven wines. We especially liked the 2006 Cline Los Carneros Estate Syrah and the 2006 Cass “Rockin’ One” Red Blend. We look forward to picking up some of these and adding them to our blind-tasting lineup to see how they stack up against some of our proven favorites. Look for posts on these tastings in the coming weeks and months.
On our second day in Walla Walla, Washington, during our cross-country road trip, we visited five wineries. All of them were new to us, but they had come highly recommended and we were not disappointed. The tasting room personnel were very friendly and the wines were generally very good, although some were a bit pricey. [In case you missed it, you might want to check out my 
After lunch, we visited 
Our final stop on Day 2 was at 
This blog is for busy people who enjoy wine and want to be savvy wine consumers, but who do not have the time or inclination to do the research themselves. We want to be your Wine Peeps. As a regular reader of this blog, we hope that you will learn everything you need to know about selecting, tasting, and enjoying good wine. You’ll be able to impress your friends with your knowledge of wine. 