Rain Dance Winery
Last November, my friend took me to her favourite Oregon winery Raine Dance. It is a small winery located among its own vineyards in Chehalem Mountains AVA. Cozy tasting room and the personnel are ready for a nice talk about wine. Riesling was good; Chardonnay didn’t impress me, too oaky, but lovers of American-style Chardonnay should appreciate it. The main variety, as among most Oregon wineries, is Pinot noir. They offer three different cuvees. Good Oregon Pinot noir. Prices are not low, which is typical for Oregon, from 20 to 60 dollars.
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Colter’s Creek Winery, Idaho
What comes to your mind first, that Idaho is mentioned? Most people think about potatoes. I did too. However, potatoes are not the only thing that Idaho can be proud of.
Every (every!) state of the US produces wine for better or worse. However, except for California, Washington, Oregon, and New York more often for worse than for better.
In Hawaii, they grow a small plot of Pinot noir as high as they can (still it is too hot for grapes, and it feels bad), and bring some grapes from California. Wine isn’t worth a good word, but, still, they produce wine om Hawaii. So, I realized that Idaho state should produce some wine, but never thought about it.
This summer I worked in eastern Washington, a few miles from Moscow, Idaho. One day, my friend took me to her favourite Moscow tasting room. I thought it belonged to some Washington winery (although
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Walla Walla. September visit.
At the end of September, we traditionally visited East Washington to try something new.
В Walla Walla we tried three wineries.
Moonbase Cellar
Small family winery. Laine and Drew Pauk founded it only in 2017. Before they did completely different things, but fell in love with viniculture, moved to Washington, and founded the winery. They don’t have their own vineyard yet and buy grapes from the vineyards of Walla Walla AVA and two small unique AVAs.
The tasting room is operated by the owner, and it was very interesting to talk with him. Well, mainly to listen to him only, because as soon as we started to talk, the big and bold company appeared and requested all his attention. So, normal dialogue became impossible, but we heard his inspiring vinicultural speech. He is a fan of wine education and always tries to bring more info to the clients. He uploaded his short educational movie
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Walla Walla. April visit.
About once a year I make a visit to the wineries of East Washington, tasting the production of the local winemakers. Some of them I love so much that re-visit them from time to time, especially to introduce them to my friends, but usually, I love to try something new considering the huge amount of wineries in this place. My preference is small wineries which wines can be bought only via the winery itself, because wines of big wineries can be found in any huge liquor store in the state, so don’t worth so long ride. A couple of weeks ago we spent a day in Walla Walla, one of the most famous AVA of Washington. About AVA and US wine law you can read here.
This time we visited four new (for me) wineries.
First on our way was Waterbrook, the biggest and most glamorous among them. The huge
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World of Magic Bubbles
In the article about Champagne I talk in detail about the history of the foremother of all sparkling wines, about Champagne’s styles and technology. However, the world of magic bubbles doesn’t restrict to Champagne; it is wide, deep, diverse, and very interesting.
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Chardonnay: the taste of climate and oak
If you drink white wine in general, you almost surely drank Chardonnay. More than likely you drank it many times, even sometimes you probably didn’t know that it was Chardonnay in your glass. This is a very popular grape variety. Nowadays every wine-producing country makes Chardonnay. Every wine store, every restaurant has a multiple choice of Chardonnay. Its popularity keeps first place among white wines (or shares it with Sauvignon blanc that is more probable).
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