ChrisinCowiche
Posts: 7845
Joined: 12/16/2009 From: Cowiche, WA Status: offline
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quote:
Incorporate winery visits into your travel and vacations. We've been doing this for close to 20 years. Before moving to Washington in 2008, we explored the Mid-west/Midatlantic, Illinois, Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina. You really appreciate winemakers who can make a good wine in those states, because frankly, most of it is NOT good. Moving to Washington for a job in the fruit industry opened my eyes, and my memory says the wine tastings during the interview trip were not a small part of why I chose Yakima over Omaha. We've continued to explore the west coast, including Baja Mexico and British Columbia. We have visited every WA region and I lost count at over 400 Washington wineries sampled/purchased. A few of those were big events like Taste Washington/Tri-Cities Wine Festival, but the vast majority were tasting room or private tastings with winemakers/growers. In my first couple of years 2008-2010 I visited everywhere I could as a walk-in taster mostly, and wrote a wine blog much of that time, which granted a little bit more access to some places of interest. It was, and still is, amazing how assessable Washington wineries are if you live here and take an interest in getting into the weeds. Work trips and vacations to Oregon and California have led to probably close to 100+ winery visits in each of those states as well. We have booked trips to Italy, then Spain, but backed out each time for health or family reasons. Oh well, we still sample European wines, with Italian BdM and Barolo becoming favorites. Spanish wines harder to find the right fit, mainly due to lack of range of regions and types readily available to us. Tasting room tips: - Ask the pourer to let you taste without their commentary. Sometimes it is helpful to know some info about the wine, but having a server describe what I am about to smell/taste is very annoying to me. I have my own palate, and prefer to approach a wine however I want. - Avoid food other than a bland cracker. Plain mushrooms work great too, but I've never seen them in a tasting room. The food, cheese, fruit, salami, chocolate all can greatly enhance the wine experience, but it also can cover flaws in the wine itself. Better to think about how it would work with various fats/proteins and do the tasting absent these. Sometimes that is hard/impossible particularly if food is integrated by the server. There is a Yakima winery that insists on a sip, sip, eat regimen. I haven't been back there in 15 years. - Drink at proper temperature. If a wine is straight from a cold frig, warm it on your hands. If it is too hot, not much you can do, ice maybe, but that can really ruin the experience as much as an 80 degree wine. Other Tip: - Taste blind as often as possible. We have been fortunate to be included in dozens of blind tastings in Seattle, Portland, OC, Atlanta with mostly other CTer's. We are trying for about the 5th time to start a local to us tasting group again this spring. Nothing compares to sampling side by side similar wines, same variety at various price points and regions and producers. A ringer thrown in can help too, different variety maybe, or a cheap wine, or a very expensive wine.
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