Few things are more intimidating to wine drinkers than opening a bottle of sparkling wine. The very act is fraught with danger: we’ve all heard horror stories of corks ricocheting around rooms, blinding people, or both. Even if you manage to keep the cork under...
This is, indisputably, the best time of year for Northwest wines. Not surprisingly, it’s also a fantastic time for local foods. One of the consistent elements across the wide range of varietals we grow is the region’s ability to combine fruitiness with earthy and...
Sometimes, I find the interplay between Northwest wine and European wine to be fascinating. Many winemakers openly aspire to mimic styles and blends found in France, Italy or Spain, and most use those long-established styles as a way to talk about their wines to...
There are few combinations of words that offer more false hope than the phrase “wine bar.” Maybe “fat free” or “no money down,” but that’s a column written by someone else. Wine bars should be the kind of place that I adore, and yet almost universally they fail in...
If you’re anything like me, August is a stressful month. Besides trying to keep on top of all the news about this year’s crop of wine grapes, August is also when my many fantasy football drafts happen, and preparing for those is tough (and thirsty) work. In a...
Washington Wine Month is upon us, and while of course the state’s wines get attention the other 11 months of the year, I figured I’d take this opportunity to shine a bit of light on a few places in Washington that I think deserve a bit more attention: growing...
There are a few different thoughts that run through your head when you’re sitting in a room for hours, tasting dozens if not hundreds of wines, all while trying to figure out which ones are the best of the bunch. Most of them are variations on “what in the world...
The Pike Brewing Locale Skagit Valley Alba is more than just a bottle of beer: it’s a glimpse into both our past, and our future. Made with a selection of heritage grains that haven’t been used in beer for decades, it’s the end result of years of research by...
Drinking wine in the summertime is great if you like white, rose or sparkling, but when you’ve got temperatures up near 100 degrees it can be damn hard to enjoy red wine. While I don’t have any real advice to offer when it comes to full-bodied red blends (other...
Trying to forecast vintages that are still in progress is most assuredly a fool’s game, and yet here I am, writing something in June about wines that, for the most part, are still not even proper grapes yet. Yet it seems that the inescapable reality for the Pacific...
