Washington Wine

It's not too late to make romantic, sexy, sensual plans for Valentines. This year Valentine's falls on the Saturday before President's day, a holiday for many. And Washington wineries are prepared. You and your sweetie can participate in a special wine and chocolate tasting designed to please both the oenophile and the chocoholic, at wineries all over the state. Typically, for a small fee, you receive a commemorative tasting glass, an opportunity to taste several very carefully chosen wines and accompanying gourmet chocolate. It's just about the perfect romantic event for anyone who likes wine or chocolate. Don't underestimate the mysteriously erotic and seductive properties of chocolate!

Hedges Family Estate Winery in Benton City, WA is offering a special tasting of Red Mountain wines paired with chocolate. They're offering samples of their new release estate wine as well as older, small, production limited wines and their Red Mountian Fortified, a rare port-style wine. Saturday, February 14, 12:00 PM–4:00 PM. The fee is $10.00; here's the contact email, or call 509-588-3155. Hedges, among other wines, make the rather pleasant, palatable, and flexible CMS Red.

Olympic Peninsula Wineries in Port Angeles is offering two weekends of Red Wine and Chocolate, February 7 & 8 and February 14, 15, & 16, 2009 from 11 am–5 pm. This is a self-guided tour, and includes a wine glass, wine tasting and chocolates at each of the participating wineries. The tickets, pre-purchased or at the door are $25.00.

In Woodinville, WA Brian Carter Cellars is celebratiing Valenties with Red Wine, Chocolate and Candles on Saturday February 14th from 12:00–5:00. They're offering samples of Brian's Tuttorosso, a "Super Tuscan Style" all red-wine blend accompnaied by Tuttorosso Truffle made by Seattle's Own, Oh! Chocolate, a commemorative wine glass, and Soy candles made by Waxen Art, in addition to special Valentine's Discounts. Email them here, or call (425) 806-9463.

Alexandria Nicole Cellars in Patterson, Washington, is holding "Love Notes," on the 14th, featuring live music by Greg Stone, chocolate by Theo Chocolate and great wine. $10 per person Email kstatler@alexandrianicolecellars.com or call (425) 483-2968.

Novelty Hill and Januik winery in Woodinville are offering a special Valentine's Day Red Wine & Chocolate Tasting from 11:00am to 5:00pm, pairing a selection of Novelty Hill and Januik wines with selected chocolates for $10 per person. No reservation required, but you can email them at info@noveltyhilljanuik.com or call (425) 481-5502.

William Church Winery is holding a Red Wine & Chocolate Galore event on the 14th, featuring chocolates from The Confectionary and Wellington Chocolates, paired with their 2006 Syrah and their new Bishop's Blend Red Wine, available at a special pre-release price. There's no charge, but you can email them here or call them at (425) 427-0764.

Join Red Sky Winery on Valentines day in celebrating Red Wine & Chocolate, featuring two vintages of their Serendipity, a Bordeaux style red blend paired with chocolates. For more information, email them or call (425) 481-9864.

Silver Lake Winery is pairing chocolates and wine featuring hand-made chocolates and selected red wines. All of their red wines will be specially priced during the weekend. Email or call (425) 485-2437 for more information.

As Snoopy creator Charles M. Schultz noted: "All you need is love. But a little chocolate now and then doesn't hurt."

A few days ago we were shopping for wine in a local market. One of the things we do habitually when we discover a local store or market with a wine section is just browse. You can often find wines you've heard or read about, or sometimes it's simply fun to try a wine you've never heard of, or read about, and had no idea existed, or the wine buyer might highlight a particular personal favorite wine, or a temporary special purchase. Then you go home and look up the winery, and . . . and pretty soon you've written a blog post.

While we were browsing, the wine buyer came over and asked what we were looking for (I was actually looking up a wine on my iPhone), and could she help us? She was courteous and pleasant, so we explained that we were shopping specifically for Washington and Pacific Northwest wines, having recently relocated to the region. She asked what sorts of wines, so we showed her our current picks: a 2006 Gewürtztraminer from Silver Lake Winery in Washington, a 2006 Special Harvest Riesling from Idaho's Ste. Chapelle, and a bottle of Washington's Pacific Rim 2007 Dry Riesling, also in Washington.

She made an odd face, and suggested that we might do better to shop German wines for Rieslings. She found the American versions too fruity, and too sulfite-laden to be enjoyable. She finds most Washington wines too brash to really enjoy. If she's going to buy a bottle of wine for herself, she looks to France and Germany, and expects to pay at least $25.00.

Now, I'm all for individual preferences, and we've been known to splurge on wine. But honestly? I doubt, very much that she can taste sulfites, or, more accurately, sulphur dioxide in commercially bottled wines made so very recently. They're present in minute amounts, and even those rare people who are allergic can't actually taste or smell the sulfites. Now, the odor of sulphur, that faint whiff of rotten eggs, or a freshly lit match, that's a different thing, and quite possible. That, however, is actually hydrogen sulphide, an altogether different chemical compound, and not related to sulphur dioxide, which, while it's a common additive to wine (and has been since the Roman era) and occurs naturally in grape skin, would need to be far more concentrated that it typically is before it could be detected by odor or taste. For most people (that is those who are generally allergic), concentrations must exceed 200 milligrams per liter (mg/l) in white wines, and 100 in red wines to be at all detectable— and they don't taste it, they have a rapid, immediate, and often dangerous allergic reactions. If you detect sulfites in wine, then you're not going to be eating dried fruit, including raisins, since thet are loaded with them, as are various sorts of processed meat.

It was a frustrating conversation for me. I know she genuinely meant to be helpful, and she was quite kind. In the end, though, we mostly just wished she'd go away so we could return to choosing the local wines we'd come in specifically looking for, without being told that they were terrible.

What I suspect was really happening was that the helpful wine buyer was convinced that European wines are intrinsically better (and many are indeed excellent), by their nature as imports, and by their higher price. But that $25.00 or $30.00 a bottle, for most of us, makes those wines a once-in-a-while purchase. The problem with that, is that with so very many "local" vineyards in the U.S., from New York to Washington (never mind the excellent wine from Canada), wine is rapidly becoming an everyday dinner companion, much as beer and wine have been in Europe, Australia, and South Africa for generations. I much prefer to have wine as something that's a regular part of my dining, instead of just a special occasion thing.

Personally I'm not convinced that an import or a higher price is an automatic indication of higher quality. I'd want an empiric demonstration including a blind taste-test. And part of my skepticism is that all three of the "new" wines we tried (a 2006 Gewürtztraminer from Silver Lake Winery in Washington and thus far our favorite local Gewürtztraminer under $15), a 2006 Special Harvest Riesling from Idaho's Ste. Chapelle (positively going to buy more of this), and a bottle of Washington's Pacific Rim 2007 Dry Riesling, (our current favorite Riesling), were quite lovely wines, and we'll be buying more of them—as well as lots of other Northwest (particularly Washington) wines.

We did pretty much the same thing today; we went to a local market, one from the same chain, even, and were looking at the wines for sale. The buyer came over, and we mentioned that we were looking at mead (it's a constant interest, if you're a medievalist), and he brightened up immediately, and mentioned two meads made in Washington state, then pointed out one from Scotland, and even one from Ethiopia. A few minutes later he mentioned a particular dessert wine that he recommended, from Washington, and was downright enthusiastic about the ice wines. He was engaged, and knowledgeable, and interested in helping us, more than in impressing us. It makes a difference.

It probably comes down to personal taste, finally. I like a good burger, too.

My first exposure to mead was in Britain. I'd tentatively tried local beers and ales, and found a few I'd liked. I'd also discovered I liked cider (but that's a different post). The mead though . . . I was at a faculty member's house, a medievalist, who pressed a glass of a lovely, golden colored fluid into my hand with a cheerful "Here. Try this. You'll like it, it's made from honey."

Now, in hindsight, "made from honey" should have made me think "mead," but honestly, I heard "honey" and thought "non alcoholic." Fortunately, I didn't even get mildly tipsy, but I might have. Mead is quite lovely, and you very much can tell that it's made from honey, but it is quite alcoholic, and it is mead's alcoholic nature that has made mead famous (and infamous) in myth and poetry song.

Mead in fact is an alcoholic beverage made from fermented honey and water. It may well be the first such beverage produced, in Europe, anyway. It pre-dates both beer and wine, and residue from mead has been found in B. C. E. burial goods all over Europe. The Modern English word mead is from Old English meodu, which is cognate with Old Germanic *medu, and Greek methu, "wine." Other related words include Sanskrit madhu (a neuter) "honey, sweet drink," ancient Greek Old Irish mid "mead," closely related to Old Welsh med, Welsh medd. Ultimately, they all go back to *Proto Indo-European *medhu. In both Irish and Norse myth, mead is closely associated with poetry and kingship; there is even an Irish queen whose name, Medb, means "she who intoxicates."

Mead is fermented, and is actually closer to wine than beer, though it's frequently sold in the same case with bottled beers and ciders. In general, mead has an alcohol content of somewhere between 10 and 15%. Mead is typically sweet, but there are very dry meads as well. There are a number of traditional mead varieties, but the three most common sorts are "still" mead, sparkling or naturally carbonated mead (the carbonation is a natural side effect of the fermentation), or metheglin (meddyglyn, in Welsh), a traditional Welsh mead-based drink that is flavored with herbs, or sweet spices. Other versions include mingling fruit juice with the honey and water, either before fermentation, or after (traditionally this would be called melomel). Braggot is a hybrid drink, made with both honey and malt. Cyser is mead made with the addition of apple or pear juice. However, despite the different varieties of mead made with additives, the greatest influence on mead in terms of flavor is the variety of honey used to make the mead; each honey imparts a unique flavor. The base honey really is the most important ingredient.

Washington state is exceedingly fortunate to have several meaderies. In Woodinville, Washington Adytum Cellars produces mead made from their own honey, under the direction of mead-maker Vince Carlson. Adytum produces a variety of meads, including traditional mead, as well as a number of fruited meads, including elderberry, apple, Ranier cherry, pear, plum, raspberry, and grape.

Honey Moon Cellars in Bellingham, Washington has a tasting room open to the public, and a small bistro. They produce a traditional mead, an apple cyser mead, and a blueberry mead.

Skyriver Mead in Sultan, Washington produces traditional meads in the form of a Sweet Mead, a Semi-Sweet Mead, and Dry mead. They are currently developing fruited meads, or melomel varieties. They have a tasting room and a retail store.

A good sweet mead is comparable to a late harvest Riesling, or a dessert wine in terms of the general sweetness, and in fact works well as a dessert wine replacement. The dryer meads go well with a variety of foods, though the traditional suggestion is to serve a dry or semi-sweet mead with asian cuisines, I feel quite certain that if mead worked well in the mead-halls of the Geats, which, according to Beowulf, it did, then why not enjoy mead with lighter fare and casual dining? Particularly if you server the mead chilled (though mulled mead is a traditional way to enjoy it as well). Traditional mead has very very low acid, since it's made from honey, so that it really does go with just about anything, once you decide between dry and sweet. Do keep in mind that it has a higher concentration of alcohol than the taste might lead you to think; it really is potent. As it says in Beowulf "Gæth eft se the mot to medo modig" (l. 604). (Go often to the assembly, to mead mighty").

For those curious about mead, and mead-producers outside of Washington, Chaucer's Mead, at the Bargetto Winery in California is quite easy to find. You'll find a small pouch of mulling spices tied to the bottle of the neck, though it's also enjoyable chilled. If you're curious about mead, spend some time on Got Mead the site all about mead, which even has a list of U. S. meaderies, as well as lists for the rest of the world. You might also think about visiting your local farmers' market this summer, and buying twelve or fifteen pounds of honey, and making your own mead.

*Bonus points if you know the song ;)

When I first started trying to learn about Washington wines, a friend said "If you like Rieslings," (and I do!) "you'll probably like Gewürtztraminners too" (and I do!).

Gewürtztraminer (Gewurtztraminer sans umlaut to the French) is one of those wines that's named after the grape variety. The Gewürtztraminer grape is mostly associated with the Alsace region, though the grape's early history links it to Italy. Gewürtz- means "spicy," or perhaps "perfumed," with the addition of -traminer, after Traminer, from the grapes most likely birthplace in Italy's Tyrollean Alps, near the village of Termeno (Tramin) in Alto Adige. At some point a few centuries ago the Traminer grapes, a variety known in the Middle ages, spawned a mutation, a rosier-skinned grape with a tendency to sport lighter colored, faint spots. The French began calling this new variety traminer musqué, traminer parfumé, or traminer aromatique. That grape is, if not identical (opinions vary) to the modern Gewürtztraminer, is at least its closest ancestor.

Gewürztraminer grapes were first grown in Alsace sometime in the nineteenth century; today they're roughly 20% of the grapes grown by Alsace vineyards. The grapes have a pink to rose skin, though the wine they produce is a white wine. Gewürztraminer wines tend to be on the sweet side, with a marked "fruit" note, and a distinctive scent. It is not a simple grape to grow; it favors a colder climate, (which is why growers thought it would do well in Eastern Washington state). Gewürztraminer vines tends to bud very early in the spring, which means the buds run the risk of damage from a late frost. The grapes tend to attain high levels of sugar, so there's a tricky balance between ripeness and harvest time and balancing the sugars (which mean in dry wines the alcohol level can increase) and the desire to avoid problems caused by the grapes' native low acidity. Pick the grape too early and the flavor and scent so very closely tied to Gewürztraminer may be absent; wait too long, and they may produce a higher alcohol wine than desired. Gewürztraminer is also susceptible to the "noble rot," botrytis, which means it is frequently used to produce dessert wines; they tend to fetch a premium price. Moreover, many Gewürztraminer wines are perfectly suitable for aging, from five to ten years, depending on the wine.

Gewürztraminer vines were grown in Washington in sixties, particularly around the Columbia valley. Today there are a number of Washington wineries producing Gewürztraminer, in the full suite ranging from dry to dessert wines, to the tune of 493 acres of the grape. In the glass, the wine ranges from a very pale barely perceptible yellow, to a lovely deep gold. Spritz, tiny bubbles clinging to the glass, are not uncommon. Though the delicate scent is very definite, it does differ from wine to wine, and the flavor ranges from lovely spicy slightly acidic to a sweet almost muscat-like flavor in the dessert wines. Gewürztraminer is traditionally paired with "fatty," flavorful cheeses, egg dishes, and spicy foods, as well as seafood, particularly salmon. I confess that I favor drinking some Gewürztraminer chilled to the lower end of their ideal temperature as an aperitif.

Ste. Michelle has produced Gewürztraminer for years. Their 2007 Columbia Valley Gewürztraminer uses grapes predominantly from the Yakima valley. Hogue Cellers' Gewürztraminer is a fruit-forward version, fermented in steel tanks then bottled. Columbia Winery's Gewürztriminer is one of my personal favorites. It was my very first, but it's held up well. It displays the scent and slight spicy quality the grape is known for, and it's a lovely pale gold color. It goes well with food, but it's quite capable of standing on its own merits as well.

Covey Run's "Quail series" Gewürztraminer is one that frequently seems overlooked. I very much agree with their Web site description of their wine, which notes the citrusy-overtones and describes it as "the perfect wine to quaff ice cold on the patio on a sunny summer day." Snoqualmie Wines makes a 2007 Naked Gewürrztraminer using certified organically grown grapes in a certified organic facility.

Pacific Rim winery, known primarily for their fine Rieslings, also produces a notable award-winning Gewürztraminer made from a blend of Washington and Oregon grapmes. This one is on my list of wines to try. Hinzerling Winery in Prosser offers both an intriguing blend of Riesling and Gewürztraminer under the Ashfall White label, as well as a Dry Gewürztraminer. They tend to make small batches of finely crafted wines, so you might have to look for a bit. Canoe Ridge Winery's Gewürztraminer is made from grapes grown along Washtington's White Salmon River, an area that's almost too cold for the grapes, but which has allowed Canoe Ridge to produce a wine with limited distribution in the Pacific Northwest.

Finally, Kiona Winery produces Red Mountain Late Harvest Gewürztraminer. It's a nice balance of acid and sweet, sold in half bottles since it's really a dessert wine.

If, like me, you're curious about Washington Gewürztraminer, I note that several of the wines featured here are available in the eight-to-ten dollar range; most notably my personal favorite, Columbia Winery's Gewürztriminer. The Gewürztraminers from Ste. Michelle, Covey Run, and Hogue are all are worth trying.