Category Archives: Recommendations from the Archive
Winter Fun: Food, Friends and Good Washington Red Wines
One of my favorite indoor winter activities is inviting over a group of friends and sharing a variety of red wines. The preparation is fairly simple – provide a few easy to make appetizers or cheeses, a sliced baguette or two and several choices of good red wines. Today I’d like to conclude my series […]
Warm Up This Winter With a Washington Red Wine
Wine preferences seem to change with the seasons and as we head towards the winter months most people invariably drink more red wines. This all makes perfect sense when you think about it. In the summer, a chilled bottle of, say, rosé or sauvignon blanc makes a terrific beverage on a hot day; but in […]
Flying Trout and Gifford Hirlinger: Two Smaller Walla Walla Wineries Worth Noting
Washington State is home to a growing number of winemaking facilities that define themselves as boutique wineries. These wineries are generally characterized by limited production, handcrafted attention to detail, and personalized service that you might not find at a large scale operation. One of the best parts of my job is seeking out boutique wineries, […]
Use Your Local Wine Shop to Assist in Ordering Wines From Oregon
Finding wines from Oregon in the Bellingham area can be a bit tricky. I have a couple of theories on why this is, the first being our small population base, which doesn’t provide enough of a market demand for retailers to justify large inventories of Oregon wines. The second and probably more logical explanation is […]
Dakota Creek Winemaker Ken Peck Avoids the Sophomore Jinx
Ken Peck, owner/winemaker of Dakota Creek Winery in Blaine could have used all sorts of excuses for not turning out a decent set of current releases to match those in his stellar, first full year of operations. The sophomore jinx, bad lots of grapes…he might have even chalked up the first year to beginners luck. […]