Walla Walla Wine Country

This past weekend, Troy, Betty, Dustin, Marie, and myself made our first pilgrimage to Walla Walla wine country. And what a weekend it was! Three days, twelve wineries, and seventy-four wines later (at least that was my personal tally), I think its fair to say we all have much more developed palates. Which is a good thing because that was our sole objective: increase our knowledge of wine so we better know whats out there and what we each like. (right, the crew at Kiona)

I was a little anxious as we headed east because I was in charge of planning our itinerary, but I had some great input from my parents and our friend, Jacky. Though, with a better grasp now of whats in Walla Walla, its pretty hard not to find great wineries. So a brief summary of our adventure... On friday morning, Marie, Dustin, and I all piled into my car for the long drive ahead (troy and betty would join us late that evening). Our first stop was actually in Richland at Barnard Griffin. Then we proceeded east, stopping at Woodward Canyon and L’Ecole No 41 just outside of town. After that we checked into the Holiday Inn Express, grabbed some dinner at the MillCreek Beerpub, and then hit the pool and hot tub when Troy and Betty caught up to us.

Saturday morning began fairly early with our heading out to Pepperbridge, followed by a stop at the joint tasting room of Trust and Chateau Rollat. Then we headed down to Milton-Freewater to visit Otis Kenyon, which was the unanimous highlight of the trip. I had emailed Muriel, the head of sales, at OK beforehand to schedule a visit since they do not yet have a tasting room. After driving up the gravel driveway, past the sketchy-looking house neighboring OK, Muriel greeted us with a big smile and took us into the converted appleshed which now houses their barrels. It was such a great atmosphere (above right, the crew while tasting amongst the barrels). We also met Dreux the assistant winemaker (whos been working with winemaker Dave Stephenson, and is taking a much more active role in the newer vintages). The two of then were absolutely fantastic and super friendly! And if there was such a proverb about the quality of people translating into the quality of their wine, it would certainly be true at OK. Their 05 Merlot and 05 Syrah were voted by our little party to be the favorites of the entire weekend. Dreux was also gracious enough to let us sample his unfinished Reisling, which was quite an experience for us and very enjoyable as well.

After Otis Kenyon, we took Muriel's advice at stopped at the Ice Burg drive-in for lunch. Then we continued on to Forgeron, and finally arrived at Seven Hills. It was a long day of wine tasting and by the time we made it to the last wines at Seven Hills (left, enjoying their tasting room), our palates were all struggling. We spent the rest of the afternoon back at the hotel taking it easy, and I was able to get into my most recent book, Reading the Old Testament with the Ancient Church by Heine. For dinner we hit up the bar at 26 Brix, which we had heard such great things about. Honestly, we weren't super impressed, but there were a couple tasty things there.

While we had entertained the idea of catching the 8am service at St Paul's Episcopal on Sunday morning, daylight savings stole our sleep and any chance to getting up that early. After our final breakfast at the hotel, we made our way out to the old Airport which has a number of wineries. We stopped at Cougar Crest after finding Tamarack mysteriously closed (must have missed the time change), and then after finding two other closed wineries, we headed back through town to Reininger, where they offered twelve wines to taste... not bad at all! We also made a quick stop at L'Ecole again so Troy and Betty could taste a couple of their wines. This brought our time in Walla Walla to a close, but our wine adventure wasn't done yet. We made another stop at Barnard Griffin, and our final destination (which took quite a few wrongs turns before we made it) was Kiona in Benton City.

As I look back on this weekend, I believe our trip was quite a success, both in terms of fun and great wines! Oh, and how could I not also share my absolute favorites of the weekend. In no particular order, my top picks were L'Ecole 41's 2005 Perigee, Otis Kenyon's 2005 Syrah and Merlot, Trust's 2005 Cab, Chateaux Rollat's 2005 Cab, Seven Hills 2005 Pentad (right, Dustin and I partaking), and Reiniger's 2002 Cima. Since many of these were simply out of my price range, my other favorites that I was able to bring home included Barnard Griffin's 2007 Rose of Sangiovese (great summer wine!), the two from Otis Kenyon, Cougar Crest's Dedication One, and Kiona's Vivacious Vicky Rose and their Late Harvest Riesling. I hope that before I head off to school in the fall, I will be able to make one more trek out there, so until then...