Cote Bonneville 2005 Carriage House Red Wine

*Price Tag: $54
*Running Tab: $772 (The boy bought…)

Considering Cote Bonneville is one of the highest-rated (94 points from Wine Spectator), estate-grown (DuBrul Vineyard is one of the most prestigious and older vineyards in the state) and premium Merlot producers around, one would think they’d have a better/functioning Web site.

Side note – I seem to really like using parentheses in this blog (obviously).

To compensate for the bad Web-marketing, this is what I picture happening… Cote Bonneville decided: “Hey! We don’t make enough money from our $120 critically acclaimed and more often than not sold out Cab/Merlot, let’s make a second label!”

Lake Chelan AVA Approved

Washington awarded official designation of 11th AVA

Lake Chelan is 2nd regional designation in state this year

SEATTLE (April 28, 2009) – As the Washington wine industry continues to grow, so does its number of officially recognized vineyard areas. Washington is adding another American Viticultural Area (AVA) to its list of ten. The newest is the Lake Chelan AVA, which falls entirely within the Columbia Valley AVA, the larger appellation now containing eight of the state’s designated grape growing regions. The new appellation has received final approval and will officially go into effect in late May.

Lake Chelan: You’re all grows up

Welp, it’s official. The long-time-comin’ Lake Chelan AVA has finally been realized after, like, 17 years of this and that, back and forth. The ‘lake effect,’ which is one of the driving reasons behind what makes the LC AVA unique, is said to keep the fruit sane amid scorching summer days and the frigid colds that pour down from the Cascade range. Sounds like a lot of science voodoo to me, but so long as the Kludt’s, the Neff’s, the Phelps’ and even our friends at Tsillan can keep growing fruit for their elegant wines, I’m not certain we care what ‘effect’ is creating the cause.

Congratulations, Lake Chelan wineries, from the Wino crew!! *Clinking of glasses*

A Good Idea: Small Lot Co-Op

Innumerable times, we have been told that there is strength in numbers. There are parables of one stick being easily broken, while a bunch of sticks cannot. There are sidewalk-scurrying activists trying to get massive numbers of people to sign petitions for the environment, world peace, and bike lanes. There are huge savings for buying in bulk, like the Volkswagon-sized boxes of Cheerios at Costco. There are gangs.

The truth of the matter is, there really is strength in numbers. Likeminded folks banding together to achieve a singular purpose have a much higher likelihood of success than each on his/her own. (Don’t believe me? This is how specialized society was formed and mankind evolved.) One example of that was the Joint Operation Agreement (JOA) formed by the Seattle Times and Seattle P-I all those years ago, which allowed costs, resources and the Sunday masthead to be shared by the two, which arguably prolonged the life of the papers much longer than if they had each gone their own way. (RIP, Seattle P-I.)

This kind of CO-OPeration (see what I did there?), allows smaller entities to combine efforts to secure success for the whole. In fact, this is nearly the definition of a “co-op” or “cooperative.”

Spindrift Pinot Gris

*Bottle #59: Spindrift Cellars 2007 Willamette Valley Pinot Gris
*Price Tag: $15
*Running Tab: $772

My girlfriends are my rock. True and true, through thick and thin, always down for a good laugh and a cheap drink(s). More often than not, unless one of us is on some bizarre diet (sorry, Katie), we will get plentiful amounts of cheap drinks, usually enough to quench the thirst of many deprived small children in a starving third world country.

Say Cheese: the Northwest Wine and Cheese Tour

If there’s one thing I like better than chocolate, it’s cheese. Seriously. Cheese is where it’s at. There’s a cheese for every occasion, mood and milieu. The only cheesy things I don’t like are bad puns, things that start with “cheez” or what they’re calling “American Pasteurized Processed Cheese Food.” I mean, come on, if you have to specify that it’s food, it’s enough to breed distrust in anybody.

So, pair cheese (real cheese) with the thing we love most in the world (aside from democracy), wine, and you have what must be like Heaven, Nirvana, Brahman and Utopia all rolled into one cosmic breakfast burrito.

AlmaTerra

In November, we interviewed Dr. Alan Busacca in the Last Glass section of WINO Magazine. He was cooking up something novel, a series of wines called AlmaTerra that would be a study of terroir. Well, wait no longer; AlmaTerra has been released.

Here’s the idea. Alan Busacca teamed up with winemaker Robert Smasne, giving birth to the brainchild that is AlmaTerra. They made three single-vineyard syrahs from three AVAs. Same vintage. Same methods for harvesting, crushing, barrelling, the works. Same time in oak, same time in bottle. The only thing different about these wines is where they come from. That means that the differences in flavor you experience is entirely terroir-driven.

Then, they turned around and did the same thing with Viognier. Pretty cool, huh?

Now available at the new Smasne Cellars tasting room in “Hoodinville,” we headed out there on Friday to give it a whirl. Now, it’s your turn. The Smasne Cellars/AlmaTerra tasting room will open their doors for Woodinville’s Passport Weekend on April 18. Located off of 144th Avenue in the same complex as Alexandria Nicole, DesVoigne, Senoj, Darby and scads more, you’ll have the opportunity to conduct your own taste test before heading to the over twenty other wineries there.

Vino In The Springtime

Spring Release is what we’ve been waiting for since, well, last spring

It’s that crazy, butterflies-in-the-gut time of year. The sun is starting to show itself on a more frequent basis, you can occasionally go outside without a jacket, sidewalk seating outside cafés and bars is starting to look more attractive, and tax season is almost over. There’s that awkward feeling that we shouldn’t be so vigilantly posted in front of computer monitors, that we should get out, maybe walk instead of drive, and play “Name That Tune” with the songs in our hearts. What could be better than that? Spring releases and barrel tastings, that’s what.

Label of the Month: Trust Cellars

Trust Cellars

When we go to pick out our Label of the Month, it typically involves fussing through the isles of a Whole Foods, moving from the elegant-and-blasé of classic Euro-packages to homogenized, animal-driven, rainbow-color-paletted garbage that has been making the Aussie’s millions since the first magnum hopped off the boat. Then, after the mind’s canvas has been put through an aesthetic ringer, we take it over to the Northwest aisle and see what we might.

Blogroll

You spend way too much time online, and you know it. You’re pretty sure there’s a clinical condition for what’s become an illness; but you’ll never admit a problem, and neither will your doctor, who’s also online way too much. So, being as you’ll probably check your email after reading this magazine, why don’t you add these wine blogs to your list of on-line to-dos? Welcome to:

The wine blogs you should be reading :

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