Today was about as perfect a day as I could imagine. We were up early and had breakfast at the local deli in downtown Walla Walla. Things were busy downtown as Walla Walla was having a "Muscle Car Show" with hundreds of hot rods from all over the Northwest...some very cool vehicles.
After breakfast, we set out for a day of wine tasting. L'Ecole 41 was our firs stop. I've had their wines before, and they are excellent...a fact confirmed by the tastings. Of course, I bought a few bottles.
The highlight of the day, however, was our return visit to the Reininger Winery. It was there that we struck up a conversation with Spencer, who turned out to be one of the winemakers there. He invited us back to the cellars to tour their operation and taste some wines right out of the aging barrels. I felt like a fifteen year-old teenage concertgoer that got invited backstage to party with Britney Spears! We tasted every variety of wine that they had...Cab, Merlot, Sangiovese, Syrah, Chardonnay...you name it. Spencer was just a great guy, and he taught me a lot of things that I did not know about wine and the whole winemaking process. After that, I just had to buy a few bottles.
All of that tasting worked up our appetites, so we headed from Reininger over to the local Mexican "dive" for a couple of shredded beef tacos...very good. After lunch, we stopped at a few more wineries that I had not heard of...Woodward Canyon, Columbia, etc. From there, we headed over to Pepper Bridge Winery. I've had some of the wines from Pepper Bridge, and they are some of the best produce in Washington, if not the whole country. They have probably the best vineyard in all of Walla Walla (Seven Hills Vineyard is the other prime spot), and they lease parcels of the vineyards to many of the other Walla Walla wineries. The Winery and vineyards were absolutely beautiful. Harvest time for the grapes was just days away, and we were able to get right into the vineyards and see the vines and grapes up close...great fun. After getting that close to the grapes, I had to buy a few bottles of Pepper Bridge's wonderful Reserve Cab and Merlot.
Our last stop was the Flying Trout tasting room. Spencer has teamed up with the owner of Flying Tout to start making and bottling his own wines. We didn't get to try any of Spencer's wines, but the owner's Malbec was very, very good...I, of course, bought two bottles. But what was truly eerie/weird/inexplicable was the poster on the wall at Flying Trout...a young girl pointing down at a stone tablet (tombstone?...I hope not!) on which was printed my last name...Thee.
After a long day of tasting, we headed back to our campsite to enjoy some more wine before heading off for dinner. We ate at Saffron, a restaurant that came highly recommended. It did not disappoint...perfectly grilled hangar steak with a green olive "salsa", crispy fries and several glasses of a local Tempranillo/Syrah blend. Several scoops of great ice cram was a fitting "cap" to the end of a great, great day!
2 comments:
WOW, just YUMMY! Love the grapes, love the "THEE", and love the beard!
Did you find out the story behind the "Thee" stone? That has to be a really weird feeling.
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