Grappa, Vodka, Whiskey, Wine
November 27, 2010 11:29 pm SeattleWoodinville, a small city on the outskirts of Seattle contains over 70 wineries, multiple distilleries and is home to one of the world’s best craft beer producers, Red Hook. In short, if you want to get your drank on, little ol’ Woodinville is the place to be.
I decided to get a sampling of their finest… samples. We started at Soft Tail Spirits, a distillery proud of their grappas and vodka creations. For those who don’t know (I didn’t until today), grappa is a brandy made from the remnants of wine production and grape pressing, including the juice, stems and seeds. Grappa is essentially the hot dog version of alcohol.
Hidden away at the edge of Bothell and Woodinville, in a tiny tasting room, you can take a chance on three of their spirits for $5. My party and I opted for two tastings to get a complete set of their five grappa creations, Blanco, Cabernet, Giallo, Reserve, Sangiovese and of course, their Vodka.
Let me tell you, 6 shots of 80-100 proof alcohol is an interesting way to start the morning.
The grappas had a flavor I hadn’t encountered before. Interesting. Nose was generally ‘rasiny’ and pungent. The grappas all had a really strong musty flavor. The vodka was very vodka like. Strong.
Overall, my favorite tasting grappa was either the Reserve which was the smoothest, or the Sangiovese which had a really big and forward flavor to it.
I will admit I’m not a grappa convert yet. I’m generally not a huge vodka fan either. The woman working the tasting room was very nice and informative though and for $5 you get to try something new that, who knows, you might fall in love with. It’s definitely worth a visit and I would consider going again. Grappa might be an acquired taste.
Our warm-up had definitely warmed us up. Next we headed to our second distillery for the day, Woodinville Whiskey Company (WWC).
As soon as we walked through the door, we were greeted with a clean glass and a smile. The woman working the tasting room drew us in and began to pour shots of their vodka offering, Peabody Jones (80 proof). No charge.
We nervously looked at each other, reeling from the vodka we had just consumed over at Soft Tail. We took a sniff, and sipped.
Magical. Perfection. I never thought I’d meet a vodka I truly liked straight up, but this was smooth. Clean flavor.
Daddy like.
I knew I would would be walking out with a bottle but I wanted to see what else they had to offer. This was a whiskey company, after all.
Next up were shots of their Headlong White Dog Whiskey (80 proof). Pretty decent, but because the distillery is so new (it opened this year), their whiskey hadn’t had the benefit of aging in oak barrels. The woman at WWC ensured us that they would be coming soon.
I asked why their vodka was so smooth by comparison, and she told me that when they make their vodka, it goes through multiple distillations (something like 17) and what they put in the bottle is only the best of the best alcohol. The cream of the crop. I couldn’t really argue. Whatever they did worked.
I had a few more questions about how the founders went about starting their own distillery. It turns out the two founders have had a long time relationship with spirits. It also doesn’t hurt that they knew David Pickerell, the Master Distiller of the world famous Maker’s Mark whiskey brand. A helping hand, indeed.
One last thing to mention. At WWC, they hand craft everything, including milling their own grain. They even use all organic ingredients and specially filter their own water. They are even USDA organic certified, rare to see on any alcohol label.
After finishing consuming our potent liquids, I purchased my Peabody (support your local businesses) and we walked out the door.
We then walked ten feet to our left, over to Tefft Cellars. Let the wining being.
Again, another nice woman ran the tasting room. Tefft had posted that they were offering a collection of ports and desserts, but due to the recent extreme weather, the person catering the treats couldn’t make the trip. Instead, we had to settle for their regular tastings. The seven wines we tried included their pinot grigio, chardonnay, villa toscana, syrah, cabernet sauvignon, huckleberry white and gewurztraminer. Oh, and tastes were free again… score!
By now we definitely had our buzz on, so we decided to take it easy. However, with seven wines on the docket and heavy pours coming our way, the alcohol began to take it’s toll.
We didn’t drink everything sitting before us. We threw a portion of each away to keep our pallets ready for more action. Also so we didn’t stumble out of there.
My favorites here were the huckleberry, which is sort of a novelty wine. They told us they couldn’t keep it in stock though, especially through thanksgiving due to the great pairing with turkey and cranberries. The gewurztraminer was also pretty good with a sweet and fruity aroma and flavor that I love. Mmmhmmm, I loves me some sweet whites.
Once we thought we were done, the woman running the tasting room loved us so much that she decided to bust out the ports anyway. We went through two or three ports at a dizzying pace, finally followed by their ice wine. Crazy. By now, we were definitely giggly and boisterous. Not a good sign when there’s still at least two more wineries to hit up.
I wasn’t too hot on the ports but their Black Ice ice wine was decent. She was also nice enough to bring out chocolate during the port tastings which definitely helped the port flavors. Still, I’ve tasted some really amazing ports in my life so I’m picky about them.
As a side note, I thought it was pretty hilarious they were so proud of their box wines. They even had a giant sign proclaiming “Best wine from a box!” according to Food & Wine magazine. You go girl. Shake what your mama gave ya. You nasty girl, you nasty.
We needed to chill things out a bit. Is there any better way to calm down besides drinking more wine? Didn’t think so. Next up was the Columbia Winery, one of the Northwest’s largest wineries. If you’ve been to the grocery store, you’ve probably seen their goods. When I lived in LA, I would drink Columbia wines often so I could be reminded of the PNdub.
Columbia has a large and impressive tasting room, including an outdoor flat bread oven which kept one older gentleman very busy our entire stay. He appeared to enjoy the heat of the flames in the chilly weather. There were crowds around both of Columbia’s large tasting bars and multiple events happening, including a party in their private tasting room. It was bumpin’ at Columbia.
We went to the rear tasting bar. Again, another woman serving us. More girl like. Very nice and bubbly. She was very inquisitive about us and asked us more questions than we asked her. I think she was new and excited about her pretty cool job of basically just pouring wine to people and talking to them. To be fair, she knew a lot about their wines.
Time to pay again. $5 for five samples. And because we needed something to soak up the booze, we ordered up some of that amazing flat bread. Simple and crunchy, with olive oil, salt and pepper sprinkled on top. Fresh from the fire, it hit the spot.
By now we were flying through wines. I ended up trying a chard, a syrah, a merlot (which I walked out with), two cabs (both good), a pinot gris, a rose, and a few others I can’t remember. I enjoyed them all to some degree, except the rose which was a bit of a disappointment. Too citrusy for my tastes.
I needed a good red for a future meaty meal, so I picked up the merlot and took a chance on their gewurztraminer since it was less than $10 on sale. Can’t beat that.
Our group was now slammin’. It was time to go eat some real food. We hit up the nearby Mazatlan and ate a few pounds of chips, salsa, encaladas, burritos, rice and beans. Oh yeah, and we drank a whole lot of water.
So full! We were debating going to the last winery, Chateau Ste. Michelle…
Fuck it, let’s do this.
Back across the street from Columbia sits Chateau Ste. Michelle, an absolutely gorgeous winery which happens to be the oldest and one of the largest wine producers in Washington. They jazzed up the joint for the holidays, but I always have fond memories of coming here in the summer where tens of people are spread out on the vast lawns, having picnics, drinking and enjoying their recent purchases, while, no joke, peacocks strut around. It’s sounds crazy, but I was there maaaaan…
We went to the private tasting room because hey, some of us are members there. We skipped the tour which we’ve done in the past. I’ll point out the tour is free and comes with free tastings every hour, on the hour.
Into the packed tasting room we went to try a gewurztraminer which was a little to dry for me but still very smooth, a decent syrah and a grenache which was alright.
We stood around our table drinking and we all realized it was getting late and we’d had our fill. Enough was enough. Time to throw in the towel. Tasting time was over.
We headed to the public tasting room, checked it out so at least everyone could see what they were missing. I love the interior, it feels so cozy and looks beautiful. They even had their second tasting room open. People were standing elbow to elbow at the bar. There could have been easily a hundred people trying out various wines, it was insane. Everyone from every walk of life was having a good time. From beautiful women dressed to kill to guys that looked like they just came from the lumber mill. Hipsters holding babies to obvious Microsoft employees were swirling glasses, sipping, and enjoying every minute of it.
We headed out with our syrah and gewurztraminer in hand. We were so tired that we barely said a word to each other the entire trip home. I’m amazed I wrote this at all, to be honest.
All told, the tastings between two distilleries and three wineries amounted to $10. The fact that a tavern exists at all in Woodinville blows my mind.
And now to pop that Peabody, cause I’m feelin’ so fly like a G6.