When Thunderbolt Strikes Seafood

I recently took some time after a conference and spent the weekend in Seattle. Josh made note of our adventures in one of his recent posts. On that trip, with Josh, Kyle, and some alums from the places I have worked, we stopped at Airfield.

I was first introduced to Airfield last winter when we took the now infamous trip to Prosser, Washington area. While Rick made a great post about the experience there, I left there with several

bottles of wine, and the trip to Woodenville, Washington a couple of months ago was no different. Since Josh was gracious enough to be the DD, I took advantage and did the full tasting that was filled with both their whites and reds. Elise, Tara, Neil, and Stacey (the alums who were joining us), also participated in full tasting. That Saturday I would leave Airfield with 10 bottles - some would say "Why not just do a full case?" While I think about it, I just cannot answer that question with a decent response...shame on me!

I fancy myself a fairly decent cook. I am always willing to try new dishes, and frequently do with varying degrees of success, and I have a few staples, which I am sure you all do. I also LOVE seafood, I grew up on it. Now that I live in the Pacific Northwest, I usually have seafood several times a week. One of the dishes I have been experimenting with are spicy stir-fryes.

After coming back from Seattle, I decided I would try out another stir-fry for a recent dinner guest I had. I made a spicy shrimp stir fry that was had red, green, and orange bell peppers and asparagus. The stir-fry was then placed over rotini pasta. I am still fine tuning my rice cooking skills. Not going to lie - cooking rice still intimidates me a bit with the rice to water ratio and such. Anyway, I digress.

In deciding what to drink with dinner, I decided to open the bottle of 2009 Airfield Thunderbolt Sauvignon Blanc. This was one of the bottles I had just procured during the above mentioned trip to Seattle. I could not have done a better pairing for this dinner! Both my dinner guest and I found that the balance between the chilled, dry, lightly sweet Sauv Blanc with the warm and spicy stir-fry dish was perfect.

The Sauvignon Blanc was crisp and refreshing with hints of tropical fruit including lemon seemed to enhance the flavoring for the spices used in the stir-fry. The way it landed on the palate provided an alternative to the stir-fry. The Thunderbird was really just very enjoyable. I don't recall buying more than one bottle, but by the end of dinner, I definitely wished I had several. You will too after you give this bottle a try.

Until next time...

March is Washington Wine Month

March is Washington Wine Month, a perfect occasion to both celebrate and learn about the quality, variety and personalities of Washington Wine. The accolades and recognition for the wines coming from Washington continue to mount and national and international wine publications and wine authorities are fully aware that Washington is making some of the country's and really the world's best wines.

Washington Wine Month and its culminating event, Taste Washington, are aimed not at these media outlets or industry types, but rather at the consumer, and specifically the consumers within Washington. Washington is the country's second largest wine producer, but only a fraction of the size of California, which is a very good thing in my opinion. Washington's 160,000 tons crushed in 2010 pales in comparison to California, where they crushed 654,522 tons of Chardonnay alone, but California produces a lot of wine, much of it bad, and some of it in boxes. When you look at the higher quality California regions, Sonoma and Napa, who crushed 189,897 and 138,379 tons, respectively, in 2010, then Washington is in good company for quality wine production.

The Washington Wine Commission hopes consumers will educate themselves about the high quality wine that that's being produced here in Washington - often close enough that you can more or less throw a rock and hit a vineyard or winery. The hope is that consumers in Washington are at the very least, shopping for, ordering and actively seeking out the wines that we make right here in Washington.

For those of you who may be - somehow - still in the dark about Washington wine, shame on you, but what are you waiting for? This month gives you the perfect opportunity to brush up on your familiarity with Washington wine. As a primer here are a few tidbits you can use to get yourself ready for Taste Washington on March 27th.

The AVAs
Washington has eleven federally recognized AVAs including one on the western side of the Cascades. The fruit coming from each of these AVAs varies and when wineries produce an AVA or vineyard designate, that wine gives you an opportunity to focus in on one of the characteristics and qualities that define these eleven regions. As a consumer and budding Washington wine connoisseur, take the time to sample wines from each AVA, it'll give you a sense of Washington's range when it comes to wine growing.

Urban Wine
Wineries and tasting rooms are popping up in Seattle and Spokane and they give consumers a great opportunity for easy access to the kinds of experiences those visiting wineries often come away with. Wineries like Domanico Cellars in Ballard and Laurelhurst Cellars in SoDo/Georgetown do all of their production on site. You don't need to leave the big city to meet the winemaker and see what they're doing.

Exploring Varietals
Washington has become known for Riesling, Cabernet, Merlot and Syrah and for good reason: we produces some of the best in the world. Increasingly, though, growers and wine makers are also stretching themselves and exploring a variety of varietals. For examples, check out Washington Tempranillo by Gifford Hirlinger, a Lemberger from Kiona, Gruner Veltliner and Pinot Noir by Syncline and Petit Sirah by Thurston Wolfe.

World Class Vineyards
Some of the best fruit in the world is growing right here in Washington and the growers and winemakers are doing a wonderful job of working together to really push the boundaries and make improvements to what they've done. Look for vineyard designate wines that will allow you to see what these sites can do. Vineyard designates are indicated on the wine label, and vineyards to look for include Boushey Vineyard, Champoux Vineyard, Ciel du Cheval, Conner Lee, Dubrul Vineyard and Klipsun Vineyard.


Taste Washington
The greatest tasting event on earth is quite simply Taste Washington. There is nothing else like it. The event spans three days beginning with the Restaurant Awards on Friday, the amazing and once in a lifetime seminars on Saturday and wraps up with the greatest tasting extravaganza of all time on Sunday at the Qwest Event Center. Over 200 wineries and 60 Seattle area restaurants are coming together to give you the opportunity taste the best Washington has to offer. There are a lot of options, and it’s easy to go too far. Instead, make a plan, pace yourself and figure out exactly what you hope to get out of the experience. “Plastered” should not be at the top of that list. I'll have more on Taste Washington for you soon, but if you're not excited about March now, I'm not sure you can be helped. For tickets click here.

Pinot from Washington State...Kyra Wines

I had heard rumors, whispers, even mumblings about top shelf Pinot Noir from Washington state. There aren't many of them being made in Washington, due in large part to the significant doubt that the growing conditions allow the fruit to become what it can truly be. Kyra Baerlocher of Kyra Wines in Moses Lake is one of those who is making a Pinot Noir. Given how much I enjoyed their Merlot, I was looking forward to giving their Pinot Noir a whirl. (Kyra sent me the wine to review.)

Washington state's AVAs are warmer than Oregon's, particularly in the more common wine growing areas east of the Cascade Mountains. Recently, the Puget Sound AVA has begun getting a reputation as a possible Pinot Noir spot. There is, however, quite a bit of skepticism and the jury is still out on how the Washington Pinot will hold up to vintners' experimentations. Some Washington winemakers have committed to making the varietal work in Washington and we should see some interesting wines over the next few years.

Kyra more or less happened into Pinot Noir while she was waiting for her estate vineyards to mature. As she put it, it found her. She was working with the Evergreen Vineyards in George, Washington and really liked their fruit, so when some of their Pinot Noir fruit came available, Kyra figured she'd give it a try. What she found is that Pinot is a whole different kind of animal, except, it's not really an animal, but a grape. That's just an expression people use, so you know.

Kyra speculates that winemakers in Washington may be going awry when they treat Pinot like other varietals: "Once I began to work with Pinot Noir, I realized it couldn't be approached like any red varietal from Washington." When Kyra Wines decided to make a specific investment in their production of Pinot Noir, they purchased wine making equipment that is specific to Pinot and started to think differently about how they'd approach this wine. Kyra spent a lot of time and effort on yeast selection and extraction to achieve the best color concentration, which seems to be a weak spot for many Washington Pinots.

In order to get the complexity she's looking for out of the wine, Kyra gives her blending a lot of consideration. She's worked with Mike Buckmiller from Okanogan Estate & Vineyards who has made Pinot for some time out of the Okanogan Valley. Additionally she's working with the fruit from Jack Brady of Underwood Mountain in the Columbia Gorge.

This Pinot Noir is considerably different from the majority of the ones coming out of Washington. Any that I've had anyways. The dark fruit elements of the wine and the color concentration are certainly unique,to Washington Pinot. It's not an Oregon Pinot either though, the completely obvious aside. It's a Pinot of a different color, if you will.

The wine has darker fruit characteristics, the nose is baked cherry tart and thanks to the oak program Kyra used, there's a hint of toasted almond in there as well. The flavor is concentrated - it almost has a smoky fruit element. In comparison to Oregon Pinot Noir I find less of the earth and soil tones. Kyra's Pinot is exciting and really holds great promise for what this varietal can be in Washington. The wine shows lots of layers and a flavor concentration that should allow for the wine to develop and age. I love what Kyra has done with this wine and look forward to her future endeavors.

#WAwine ...#WAthehelldoesthatmean?

Josh Wade is an evil genius. If you look at his blog logo and Twitter picture, he's staring at you. Nay, he's staring through you, peering into your soul from behind that red "N." Like a Sesame Street segment on the letter N gone evil: "N is for Necronomicon kiddies....muhahhahahaha." The Evil Genius of #WAMerlot fame is at it again, and this time he's not stopping at Merlot, there's more #WA though. Josh likes the #WA. Hell, we all like #WA and that's the whole point. We'd like you to show the #WA some love. Whether you're in WA or in OR or in some other places with less ready access to Northwest wines, we'd like you to give WA a shot and maybe pass on the CA. (By the way, this is all much funnier if you say the letters phonetically. Also, Josh isn't really evil. Far from it, in fact. But it got your attention.)

So on June 3rd, #WAwine will be your chance to take part in a Washington wine tasting event, even if you're in someplace like Sturbridge, Massachuttes. If you're on the twitter machine and you're into the tweeting, you can have yourself a glass or a bottle or even a box of #WAwine and then you can tell the world what you think of it. Twitter is good for that sort of thing. And as someone who has tasted a great deal of #WAwine, I can tell you that you're gonna love it.

The more obvious goal of #WAWine is to get people to give Washington wine a whirl. It's more than that, though. It also creates relationships within the Washington Wine industry through the world of social media. Josh's last go at this, #WA Merlot was a wild success in this respect. Over 500 people used the twitter machine to fake talk in the twitter world about Washington Merlot. Those twitter users fake talked, or tweeted about Washington Merlot over 2000 times. In addition to the tweeting, there were 1000 people at nearly 80 locations throughout Washington, these people, and I was one of them, were not only real talking with other attendees and fake talking (tweeting) about Merlot but we were buying it, too.


Wineries like Kyra Wines, 509 Wines and Laurelhurst Cellars have registered

So on June 3rd you should cozy yourself up to a bottle of Washington Wine. If you don't have a favorite, peruse the list of wineries that are registered for the event and give one of their wines a try. There will be tasting rooms and wine bars throughout the state that are hosting opportunities for you to taste as much #WAwine or Washington Wine as your heart desires.

Think of it this way: you can be part of a phenomenon. When was the last time you got to say that? Except for the mullet thing, and that doesn't really count. It was more of a movement than a phenomenon.