Barrels at Ken Wright Cellars, photo courtesy of Joe.
One of the great Northwest holiday traditions is to spend Thanksgiving weekend in Wine Country. And the weekend before Thanksgiving if you can swing it. Now that I'm back on my 3-and-4 day weekend schedule, I felt I could almost justify these extra days spent wine tasting. I'm still not quite sure if I like wine. Must keep tasting. I think it's an aquired taste. And I'm willing to try anything once, twice...twelve times.
Artsy picture by Joe. These are not all my glasses.
Hesitant to taste from the barrel, but I'll give it a try. Four tries- that's it.
I purchased one bottle of wine from Ayers, my favorite stop on the weekend-before-Thanksgiving excursion. I won't bother reviewing the other wineries to offer my insightful comments such as, "these wines were good". A lot of "OK, nothing special". Or the ever popular "poured by cute guy". After a few years of experience, there are some common themes I can taste. Red fruit for example, but don't ask what kind. I might even use "earthy" on occassion. Lisa noticed one wine described as containing "forest floor". We agreed that forest floor is really tasty!
Even if I'm using the sip-and-dump approach, I am bascially totally worthless after a day of winery-hopping. Full of bread and cheese. So on the second day of Thanksgiving weekend, this is the third day total for those who are counting, I decided to limit myself to two wineries with Maggie and Lisa. We went to taste Owen Roe wines at the Horseradish in Carlton (Yum! another popular adjective) and then to Carlton WInemaker's Studio where we hit the mother lode with eight winemakers and 30 different wines to taste. So much for two quick stops!
Displaying our haul: a case of wine and complimentary wine glasses.
