“All ships ride with the tide” is the modus operandum in Walla Walla Valley and, it seems, in Washington as a whole. This is a story and theme repeatedly told in a myriad of variations and specifics.
Three Walla Walla wine makers are joining our busload of wine bloggers, nicknamed the Jackpot Bus, for a panel discussion and tasting in the barrel room’s nice cool interior.
Walla Walla wines have nice structure, aromatics, good with food, and according to more brighter palate, more food friendly. It’s a lot easier and cheaper to get a wine going here because land is inexpensive and makes excellent wine. But possibly the most important element is that people here are a community working together helping everyone succeed. It’s been an era of entrepreneurship. Continue reading →
This is a the wildest way to taste wine ever. Each winery has 5 minutes to tell their story and pour their wines. Then they switch and move on to the next table. I think I tasted 13-14 wines; below I mention and blog about 13 of them!
Big House White 2009
White wine in a box that’s shaped in an 8 sided container called Octogon. One Octogon has 4 bottles. Stays fresh for 6 weeks instead of a couple of days . Made by Adam Richardson senior winemaker, but a local artisan wine maker makes the wine Georgetta Dane from Romania. But there’s some gal she mentioned too. Malvasia, muscat, viognier, gruner, pinot gris, reilsing. Very aromatic, really unexpected that it’s quite decent. $20 more or less because it’s a lot cheaper to produce and distribute. People will like this and change their opinion of wine in a box.
2008 Viognier from Maryhill in the Columbia Gorge
and you can see the Columbia River there and they have lots of concerts and stuff.
Produce 80,000 cases., 4000 of this wine. A bit cold now but will open and warm up. Retails at $12. Stainless steel mostly but one fermented in oak. This wine is distributed in 21 states. Will be pouring a zin tomorrow and they’re the largest producer of zin in WA. Taste like viognier.
I’m here at the 2010 Wine Bloggers Conference and it’s time for the “About Wine Blogging” breakout sessions! Our choices are:
• Wine Blogging 101 with Colby Vorhees, Joe Power and Catie Walker
• Advanced Wine Blogging with Joe Roberts, Jeff Lefevere and RJ Hilgers –
• Wine Blogging and the Wine Industry with Craig Camp, Lori Narlock and Bob
Silver
I’m with the Advanced Wine Blogging with Joe Roberts who just won the best wine blog award 1 Wine Dude, Jeff Lefevere Good Grape (who won two awards!) and RJ Hilgers and taking notes on suggestions from Jeff Lefrevre at Good Grape. Here’s his four main points:
1. Work Smarter Not Harder
2. Work on your writing
3. Develop your brand
4. Capitalize on trends.
Best Overall: 1Wine Dude aka Joe Roberts
Best graphics: Good Grape
New wine blog: swirl smell slurp
Best Single Subject Wine Blog: New York Cork report
Wine Blog: Been Doon so Long
Wine Reviews: Bigger than your head
Blog writing: Catavino
Industry/Business: Good Grape
These are all great blogs to check out and follow. I’ve met many of these folks who were both competing and winners and they’re really great too.
Steve Heimoff tastes 5000 wines a year–professionally.
He’s also controversial when it comes to wine bloggers.
In his keynote, which I am enjoying with some AUS shiraz samples of the tasty Mollydooker The Boxer and the absolutely juicy joy of Carnival of Love, he starts out with discussing how this is a transitional phase of wine writing from the era of “ivory tower” wine writers to a more democratized wine writing via Robert Parker who wanted to write in a way to make wine more popular and wine writing more available to the level of the average person.
Now he points out it’s the third wave of wine writing where women are now writing about wine.
The top down model of wine writing has changed radically with the spread of social media so that now there are thousands of wine writers publishing on the web using various social media platforms–primarily blogs.
He sees how blogs provide writers an opportunity to write in a stronger more personal voice. Having a blog allowed him to write without the chafing of the yoke of an editor. Continue reading →
Cave B on the Columbia Valley Gorge was our first stop on our drive from Seattle to Walla Walla. There, we enjoyed the view (wow!) and sampled wines from 15 different wineries which are making wines from the Columbia Valley. Highlights on this tasting follows.
We then drove about 2 hours to Prosser’s Milbrandt Winery for a delightful tasting of wines from Yakima Valley producers and vintners. Live music and food which they grilled right then and there. More highlights on that too.
We closed the day and our driving at Walla Walla Vinters where they made us feel just like family and right at home for a casual home made pizza and wine sunset dinner in the vineyard where I took lots of photos.
From CSM, we continued to gorge ourselves on wonderful food and wine and BEER too…about which I will have to add more to this post later because the whole world is moving so fast I am dancing through time trying to keep up!
To all those wonderful Woodinville wineries who shared their wines and stories on Wednesday, I promise to do my best to post some highlights as soon as I get a chance! And to all those who are looking forward to learning about Washington wines, you won’t need to hold your breath because when I catch mine, I will!
wine predator.............. gwendolyn alley 