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WHO Knows? God Only Knows!!!

My husband and I have a wine problem! Okay, that’s not what I mean! We have a problem figuring out which wine to open at night. One of us, usually me, goes into the cellar and starts perusing our list! Do we want white, red or rosé? Do we want a Pinot, Cab, Tempranillo, Syrah? Do we want Old World or New World? Last night it was his turn, and once again it was a struggle. What wine should we open??? We only knew that we wanted something good. God only knows! That gave me an idea! Let’s open the God Only Knows!!!!

Cayuse is a great winery out of Washington’s Walla Walla Valley. I’ve been on their waiting list for YEARS and still haven’t struck gold by being promoted to the actual list. Luckily there’s a wine store a couple hours away that has some in stock from time to time, so I have a couple of their wines in our cellar.

Cayuse’s founder Christophe Baron is originally from the Champagne region in France. His family owns the Champagne house Baron Albert and has worked the land there since 1677. He fell in love with the wines of Burgundy and had plans of opening a winery in Oregon to focus on the Burgundian varietals. After doing an internship in Walla Walla Washington, however, he discovered a vineyard that reminded him of the Rhone Valley in his home country of France. Being unable to resist this unique terroir of softball sized stones, reminiscent of the Southern Rhone, Monsieur Baron set up shop in Washington State!

Cayuse produces several wines, but the God Only Knows is considered a Grenache, as it contains at least 75% Grenache which is needed in order to label it Grenache! The other 25%? God only knows!!!!! That’s from where the clever name comes.

The 2012 Cayuse God Only Knows Armada Vineyard is a fabulous wine. It has lots of Old World “funk”, which I love. It has lots of black olive, which I also love! There’s also lovely rose petals and cherry on the nose. The palate has the olive, black cherry and some great minerality. The finish is long and lovely.

This bottle shouldn’t have been opened yet. I messed up! We should have waited a few more years, but it was still delicious. It’s only going to get better with more time in the bottle. I’m going to get online and try to hunt some more down for my cellar!

If you’d like to check out Cayuse Vineyards, and perhaps get on their massively long waiting list, check them out here:

https://cayusevineyards.com

 

With What Wine do YOU Decorate?

I’m a little crazy about Christmas. My husband and I absolutely love the holidays and we decorate our house from top to bottom. We love to relish in the festivities of December and the holiday season.

After bringing up all of the boxes of decorations, we pick out a gem of a wine to enjoy while beginning the long (but fun!) process of turning our Florida home into a winter wonderland.

This year we chose a bottle of 2007 L’Ecole No. 41 Perigee, which we bought at the winery almost six years ago.

Just outside of Walla Walla, Washington is a small town called Lowden, and this is where L’Ecole No. 41 is located. The winery is housed in an adorable French schoolhouse, with the tasting room in a former classroom. The wines being offered for tasting each day are cleverly displayed on an old-fashioned chalkboard.

The ’07 Perigee consists of 60% Cabernet Sauvignon, 30% Merlot and 10% Cabernet Franc … and it’s drinking beautifully right now. The nose has raspberry, mocha and violets. The palate is very complex and well balanced, with both red and black fruit, a touch of vanilla and clove, some baking spices and lush, soft tannins. The finish goes on and on and on. I’m in love with this wine!!!

The 2007 L’Ecole No. 41 Perigee was a great way to START our holidays! I’m looking forward to what the rest of the season has in store for us!

 http://www.lecole.com

My October Wine of the Month

Sleight of Hand Cellars 

2008 The Illusionist Cabernet Sauvignon

Columbia Valley

I’ve visited Washington several times now. It’s a beautiful part of our country, with some wonderful wines being made in several different locations. One of these areas is Walla Walla, a delightful town surrounded by the beautiful Blue Mountains.  There are a lot of great wineries and vineyards located here in this well-respected region. One winery that is hard to forget is Sleight of Hand.

The Wine – Ruby red in color, this aromatic wine has black currant, licorice, fig and a touch of roasted meat on the nose. On the palate are the black currant, black raspberry and a smooth velvety finish. This well-balanced Cab is blended with 8% Syrah and saw 60% new oak, but you’d never know it. This wine is singing right now and I wish that I has a case left in my cellar!

My Experience Visiting the Winery – My husband and I had no expectations upon arriving at Sleight of Hand for a tasting. My stepson is a magician, so we were intrigued by the name.  Little did we know we were walking into a REALLY fun experience. As soon as we entered the tasting room the co-owner and winemaker, Trey, greeted us with a question: “What do you want to hear?”  I was a little confused until I saw the row of albums he had lining the back wall. I suggested Bryan Ferry, and by gosh if he didn’t have some Roxy Music!  So he put on the album, (yes, VINYL!!!) and we started tasting.

The Journey – Sleight of Hand Cellars is located in a beautiful area of Walla Walla with open areas of vineyards and beautiful views. I can’t help but think that it may be similar to Napa Valley many, many years ago. Their original tasting room had been in the quaint downtown area of the city, but had just moved into the beautiful current location when we visited in 2011.

If you’re looking for some “magical” wines, check out Sleight of Hand Cellars in Walla Walla! We fell in love with many of them, and they all have magic themed names!!!

Visit their website at: www.sofhcellars.com

 

 

Canlis Restaurant in Seattle

While in Seattle a couple of weeks ago for the Society of Wine Educators annual conference, some friends and I hit some “must dine” restaurants before leaving town.  They all proved to have great food, wonderful service and fabulous wine lists.  That, of course, was our main focus:  WINE!

Today I’m going to tell you about Canlis, a Seattle landmark designed in 1950 by the well-know architect Roland Terry.  I love the design, which reminds me a lot of a Frank Lloyd Wright style building.  There are huge windows all across the back of the restaurant that looks out at Lake Union, as well as a special events room and some private dining areas above with breathtaking views.

My friends and I started in the bar with a bottle of Fergettina Franciacorta.  This sparkling wine, from the Lombardy region, is Italy’s answer to Champagne.  The Fergettina has a lot of character, with good brioche aromas on the nose.  The palate is very alive, with lots of elegant fruit and a nutty quality.  This non-vintage bubbly is well worth the list price of $65.

Once we were seated at our table we were introduced to their head sommelier and wine director Nelson Daquip.  What a great guide to help walk us through their list.  He is not only exceptionally intelligent about all things wine; he is also a really cool guy.

Canlis has one of the finest wine cellars in the world, and is the recipient of the Wine Spectator Magazine Grand Award for the past 17 years in a row.  With 18,000 bottles and 2,500 selections we definitely welcomed some advice from Nelson!  We knew we wanted a local wine, and we knew we wanted something good.  Together with Nelson we picked out some gems, the 2005 Cayuse and the 2009 God Only Knows, both out of Walla Walla, Washington.  I was very excited.  I’ve been on the waiting list for Cayuse’s mailing list for a few years now.  It may be the longest winery waiting list in North America!

We were served the wines together, so that we could try them side-by-side

Christophe Baron, who is originally from the Champagne region in France, makes both of these wines.  His family owns the Champagne house Baron Albert and has worked the land there since 1677.  He fell in love with the wines of Burgundy and had plans of opening a winery in Oregon to focus on the Burgundian varietals.  After doing an internship in Walla Walla Washington, however, he discovered a vineyard that reminded him of the Rhone Valley in his home country of France.  Being unable to resist this unique terroir of softball sized stones, reminiscent of the Southern Rhone, Monsieur Baron set up shop in Washington State!

The wines certainly didn’t disappoint.  The ’05 Cayuse Cailloux Vineyard Syrah is a dark ruby in color with aromas of ripe blackberry and black cherry, anise and smoky meat.  The palate has the lush sweet dark fruits along with cassis and olive brine.

The 2009 God Only Knows Grenache is another wine from Cayuse Vineyards.  The name comes from the fact that no one knows the true blend in the bottle (except for the 75% Grenache required if it is labeled a Grenache, which this is), or so they say.  Baron claims that this particular vintage is made with roughly 90% Grenache and the rest “God only knows!”

This wine has some fabulous old world funk on the nose, along with sweet strawberry and black tea.  On the palate are ripe red fruits along with meatiness and a hint of the black tea.  This is a well-balanced wine with a lovely finish!

After dinner we were fortunate enough to get a tour of their lovely restaurant.  As I mentioned earlier, the building is beautiful.  My favorite part of the tour (OF COURSE) was their wine cellar!  Their selection is almost overwhelming.  I could have spent hours there looking at their vast bottles from every region in the world.

The food was great as well, but again, I was really there for the wine list.  My final conclusion of the wines?  I sure am looking forward to my name leaving the Cayuse waiting list and showing up on the mailing list!

My final conclusion of the evening???  I highly recommend a visit to Canlis the next time you’re in Seattle.

www.canlis.com

Last Day in Walla Walla

Our final day in Walla Walla started at Charles Smith Wines.  I really wanted to hit the tasting room at K Vintners (owner and winemaker is Charles Smith), but they are closed most days.  Charles Smith was a fine replacement.  The tasting room was awesome.  It was very different from most, but I loved it.  It has a very industrial feeling with exposed pipes, big wooden rafters, and fabulous brick walls.  It’s huge and can easily be used for some potentially fun-filled events.  The wines were fun too.  He makes some very affordable wines such as “Kung Fu Girl“ Riesling, “Eve” Chardonnay,  “The Velvet Devil” Merlot and more.  They were all pretty good for the price.  Personally, I dig his Syrah.  They’re HUGE, but I really like them.

We had a 1pm appointment at Long Shadows, so that was our next destination.  We arrived about ½ an hour early, but Jeff was great and let us come right in.  Boy oh boy, this place is special.  The building is beautiful, the views are stunning and the wines are spectacular.  It’s really difficult to find anything wrong with this tasting.  Jeff was perhaps the most knowledgeable person of the trip, and again, the wines …

Long Shadows is very different from other wineries.  They have a different winemaker (all well respected and well known in the wine world) for each varietal, and each wine is named differently.  I could go on and on about Long Shadows and each wine and their winemaker, so I plan to feature one of their wines in an upcoming Wine of the Month.  I loved all of the wines, but only had room for two in my checked case boxes.  Luckily they distribute!

Our next stop was Va Piano.  They had some nice wines and the gal was very nice.  The tasting room was packed with a bunch of men on a tour.  They seemed to be having a good time!  We bought a Bruno’s Blend V, which is a nice, easy drinking wine for only $23.

Next up was Waters, another pretty spot.  They also have a very nice tasting room and some good wines.  We picked up a 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon.

Our last winery of the trip was Sleight of Hand.  My stepson is a magician, so a stop here was a must!  Little did we know we were walking into a REALLY fun experience.  As soon as we walked into the tasting room the co-owner and winemaker, Trey, greeted us with a question:  “What do you want to hear?”   I was a little confused; until I saw the row of albums he had lining the back wall.  I suggested Bryan Ferry, and by gosh if he didn’t have some Roxy Music!  So he put on the album, (yes, VINYL!!!) and we started tasting.

They have some really nice wines.  My husband fell in love with them.  We ended up buying four, even though we didn’t have the room.  We decided that we would need to drink two bottles before leaving Washington!  Shipping isn’t an option when it’s already in the 90’s at home.  So we purchased a 2009 “Enchantress” Chardonnay, a 2008 “Levitation” Syrah and two bottles of the 2008 “The Illusionist” Cabernet Sauvignon.  The chardonnay was full of green apple with some nice oak, but not too much.  The acidity was good, so it was nicely balanced.  The Cab has some nice dark fruit on the nose and palate, and is one we’re going to cellar for a little while.   We also picked up some swag for our 17 year old magician!

After all of the wine tasting, a beer sounded pretty good.  So we took the advice of Brooke from Reininger and headed to a local hangout called The Green Lantern.  My husband had been dying to sit at a fire pit all during the trip, and Brooke had told us this was the place.  Unfortunately, we were there too early!  Oh well.  We had a couple of very tasty beers and some filling nachos and called it a day.

The next day we headed to Spokane, from where we were flying out.  We stayed at the Northern Quest Resort and Casino.  We had a fabulous dinner at Masselow’s (the Port Mushrooms with Parmesan are a MUST ORDER).  They let us bring in a bottle of wine for a moderate corkage fee, which helped us with our overage!  We then hit the craps tables for a couple of hours and headed to bed for our journey home the next day.

By the way, the state of Washington has unbelievably awesome bathrooms.  The bathrooms in every one of our rooms except for the Courtyard by Marriott (which was pretty basic) were so great.  The bathroom at Northern Quest was the coolest I’ve ever seen.  We took pictures and hope to update our bathroom at home to look like a Spokane Washington bathroom!!!

Next Stop:  Italy in July!

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