{"id":2161,"date":"2015-06-16T08:26:55","date_gmt":"2015-06-16T15:26:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/danthewineguy.com\/?p=2161"},"modified":"2015-06-16T12:30:29","modified_gmt":"2015-06-16T19:30:29","slug":"the-end-of-an-era","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.danthewineguy.com\/?p=2161","title":{"rendered":"The End of an Era"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dear Wine Enthusiasts:<\/p>\n

As of today, the Bellingham Herald has discontinued my weekly wine column. <\/p>\n

But rest assured that I’ll continue to provide you with coverage of wines from Washington, the Pacific Northwest, and to a smaller extent, around the world, albeit in other and new venues…including Bellingham Alive<\/strong> and North Sound Life<\/strong> magazines. It’s an exciting new stage in my career as a wine writer that will provide you with even better coverage of the industry’s wines and wineries.<\/p>\n

It has been an absolute pleasure giving you the latest on the world of wine through the Herald for the past 16 years. <\/p>\n

Here is my final column, printed in its entirety (photo below from Kiona Vineyard<\/em>s<\/em>):<\/p>\n

\"null\"<\/p>\n

What does the future hold for the Washington wine industry? Today I\u2019ll give you my insight on what you might expect.<\/p>\n

For starters: more recognized wine regions and even more wineries. I don\u2019t anticipate that we\u2019ll keep up our 50-new-wineries-a-year pace (of course, I said that 10 years ago and I was wrong), but steady growth, especially from small, boutique wineries with annual production of 1,000 cases or less will keep that number climbing.<\/p>\n

You can also expect to see more diversity among the types of wine grape varietals grown in Washington. When I attended my first Tri-Cities Wine Festival in 1985 the choices were miniscule: riesling, chenin blanc, and chardonnay for whites wines and merlot and cabernet sauvignon for the reds. That was about it.<\/p>\n

Today you\u2019ll find \u201cnewer\u201d white varietals and blends that include viognier, albari\u00f1o, roussanne, and marsanne much more commonplace. Red choices have become even more varied with once virtually non-existent varietals such as grenache, malbec, primitivo, sangiovese, mourv\u00e8dre, and carm\u00e9n\u00e8re finding their niche among Washington wineries.<\/p>\n

From the beginning, my charge has always been, \u201cgo taste wine.\u201d Simply put, you can read all you want about wines, familiarize yourself with all sorts of snobby terminology, and know your local wine shop from top to bottom.<\/p>\n

But until you experience a winery firsthand \u2013 traveling to the production facility, walking the vineyards, meeting with the winemaker, or perhaps participating in a barrel tasting, you\u2019re missing out on a huge part of the Washington wine industry.<\/p>\n

Fortunately, it\u2019s easy to get started. With our state\u2019s over 850 wineries, plus those in neighboring British Columbia, Oregon, and Idaho, the tasting possibilities are essentially all within a day\u2019s drive of the Whatcom County area.<\/p>\n

Today closes the book on my weekly wine column for the Herald. Since 1999, writing this column has been an incredible experience and introduced me to scores of remarkable people in the wine industry. I hope I\u2019ve been able to do the same for you by using it as a forum to primarily promote Pacific Northwest wineries and encouraging you to go out and taste the wines they produce. <\/p>\n

Moving forward, I\u2019ll be working as a contributing writer to Whatcom Magazine<\/strong>, a slick, locally produced quarterly publication I urge you to check out. <\/p>\n

You can also continue to follow me as a contributor to Wine Press Northwest Magazine<\/strong>, a wine educator at Bellingham Technical College<\/strong>, and on my \u201cWashington Wine of the Week\u201d spot on KGMI Radio<\/strong>\u2019s PM Bellingham segment every Thursday. And of course, you can connect with me through my web site: danthewineguy.com.<\/p>\n

Thanks to the Herald for allowing me this opportunity and thank you loyal readers. Cheers!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dear Wine Enthusiasts: As of today, the Bellingham Herald has discontinued my weekly wine column. But rest assured that I’ll continue to provide you with coverage of wines from Washington, the Pacific Northwest, and to a smaller extent, around the world, albeit in other and new venues…including Bellingham Alive and North Sound Life magazines. It’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2161","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-from-the-bellingham-herald"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danthewineguy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2161","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danthewineguy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danthewineguy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danthewineguy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danthewineguy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2161"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/www.danthewineguy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2161\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2184,"href":"https:\/\/www.danthewineguy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2161\/revisions\/2184"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danthewineguy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danthewineguy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danthewineguy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}