Open That Bottle Night
The last Saturday of February is Open That Bottle Night.
You keep The Bottle of good wine for a wedding, solar eclipse, end of a big project, a marathon of two hours, alien to the president, or any other important for you event. But this has still not even happened. Or it happened, but you separated with your bottle at this moment. Don’t wait until this bottle will be open o your funeral. It is symbolic, but you want to try his wine yourself. And almost any wine wouldn’t survive so long.
The last Saturday of February is a perfect time to open such a bottle.
My bottle for tonight is The Boss of Kontos Cellar from Walla Walla Washington state. Bordeaux blend 2015. I visited this winery in 2019, the same time I bought this bottle. It was the exclusive vantage, only for club members, but I had an excellent talk with
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Washington Wineries. Red Mountain AVA, 2022
Red Mountain Is a small, but interesting AVA located on the southwest slopes of Red Mountain, accordingly. Plenty of suns during days, and long warm autumn provide ideal conditions for high-tannic varieties, that require long ripening. Result – rich, but soft tannins. Cold nights keep necessary acidity; low precipitation and constant winds provide small berry size, and, accordingly, a high concentration of aromatic components.
Several years ago, among the vineyards of Red Mountain, I found a fantastic small family winery Tapteil. They grew mainly Cabernet sav and Merlot and made beautiful wines – pure-varietal and Bordeaux-style. When I drop by this winery in the fall of 2021, the owners had sold out wines, retired and sold the vineyard. It was so pitiful because they made one of the best Washington wines that I ever tried. In 2022 the winery has been under the sign of new owners – Avennia. It is a medium
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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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Isenhower Cellars. Aroma of Northern Rhône in the cellars of the American Northwest. Sometime ago, while looking for a few missing wines to complete my lecture, I found a little wine shop called Arista Wine Cellars in Edmonds, WA. The shop has an interesting wine choice and a friendly staff, and there are thematic wine tastings held there on Saturdays. The week that I happened to visit, they happened were tasting wines from Isenhower Cellars, a winery in Walla Walla, WA. The shop offered seven wines for the tasting. The first glass I was handed had white wine and was said to be: “77% Marsanne with Roussanne and some Viognie”. I was a bit confused as I estimated the distance between Walla Walla and the traditional place for Marsanne with Roussanne. All things considered, my glass contained a smooth rich wine with a Northern Rhone aroma.
I should explain. Marsanne, Roussanne and Viognie are classics of the Northern Rhone white wines. While Viognie is spread widely throughout the
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