Washington Wine Country - Day 2

We slept in on Day 2 and had a delicious breakfast before heading out for our second day of tasting.  Staying with parents = the royal treatment :)  We headed back into downtown Yakima for our first stop of the day - Gilbert Cellars.  Their tasting menu features 5 wines and you can also taste their limited release wines for an additional fee.  Their menu features mainly red wines, so again, if you aren't a big red wine drinker you might want to skip Gilbert.  However, if you like reds .... go!  The tasting room is super cute, the service was fantastic and the wines were delicious.  It was a great start to our day. 

I loved the writing on the windows

M.C., R., me

(I'm looking a little special here)

After Gilbert, we headed to Dineen Vineyards.  While I really enjoyed all of the wineries we went to, we had the best time at Dineen.  They were hosting their annual open house and we got the royal treatment.  They had a cheese and cracker bar, free tastes (which were more like half glass pours), a buffet of delicious salads and pizza straight from the brick oven.  It was amazing.

The view from Dineen

The tasting room

Grapes on the vine

Dineen Vineyards truck

After we'd eaten our fair share of pizza, salad, cheese and tasted our fair share of wine, we headed off Windy Point Vineyards. 

The tasting room was in such a neat building.

With a fabulous view ... 

I bought two bottles of wine here and am very excited to drink them with J. returns!

And with that, we headed back into Yakima to have dinner with M.C.'s parents.  We loved all the wineries, but the highlight of the trip might have been our home-cooked dinner ... it had been awhile since we'd had such a delicious, home-cooked meal (and complete with dessert!)  

I told you, staying with parents = royal treatment :) 

Have any of you been out to Yakima Valley?  Do you have any winery recommendations for our next trip?

Washington Wine Country - Day 1

I started October on the right foot ... wine tasting in Yakima!  Visiting Washington Wine Country has been on my to-do ever since we moved to Washington.  I was excited to not only cross another thing off my Seattle Bucket List, but to do it with a local!  R.'s friend, M.C., grew up in Yakima and graciously invited us to spend the weekend at her parent's house.  We packed up the car (and her super cute dog) and headed out on Friday evening.  We woke up early Saturday and hit the road.

We started our tour at Desert Wind Winery in Prosser.

I loved the style of the tasting room!

R. and M.C.

Our second stop was Cote Bonneville.  This winery was SO good, but also not your typical wine tasting experience.  We drove past the winery several times before finally matching the address on the mailbox with the address we got from the winemakers.  We pulled up to their house(!) and were ushered into the barn for our private tasting (it's by appointment only so call ahead if you plan on going).  We tasted with the mother of the winemaker and met the winemaker as well as their two dogs. It was a really personalized and unique experience, but the wines were a little bit out of my price range.  

Our third stop was Cultura Wine:

The adorable tasting room

I liked their wine glasses :) (and their wine!)

And their floral arrangements

Loved this fall inspired centerpiece! 

Cultura is red wines only, so that is something to keep in mind if you aren't a big red wine drinker!  The tasting room is open every weekend or you can call for an appointment!

Apple trees across from Cultura

After Cultura we headed back into Yakima to attend the Yakima Fresh Hop Ale Festival - it's considered one of the nation's ten best fall beer festivals!  The "tastes" of beer were pretty decent pours, so we sampled a few beers, had some pizza and listened to live music!  Then we headed over to M.C.'s sister's house to spend some time with them and then headed home to rest up for Day 2 in wine country!

September in San Francisco - Part 2

So after our big first day in San Francisco, we needed some rest.  We slept in and got breakfast from the cutest little coffee shop around the corner from L.Rae's apartment, The Nook.  I wish I'd time to return ... everything on their menu looked amazing!  

After a delicious brunch, L.Rae's new boyfriend, Bruno, graciously drove us up to Sonoma for an afternoon of wine tasting.  It was just R. and I ... S.B.'s boyfriend returned from deployment Friday and flew down to see her in San Francisco! They stayed behind to see the city and spend some time together!  

We started our afternoon at Matanzas Creek Winery in Santa Rosa.  It was a gorgeous setting, with lots of lavender fields in front of the tasting room.  It smelled amazing and provided a good backdrop for photos! Their wine was really good but, our service was not.  It was very obvious from the beginning that the woman who did our tasting did not like us and she did absolutely nothing to make our wine tasting experience enjoyable.  I think one of the best parts of the tasting is interacting with the person doing the tasting ... they are so full of knowledge about the wines, winery, etc. and I always love learning about what I'm tasting.  We also didn't make any purchases because of her rudeness.  However, when we got home, we were happy to see that Trader Joe's carries Matanzas Creek wines!  

Bruno and L.Rae perusing the wine tasting book

L.Rae, R. and Me :)

The group outside of Matanzas!

Close-up!

Bruno and L.Rae in the lavender fields

And this is the after shot .... after the rock wall went tumbling and so did L.Rae :)

After our lavender field incident, we decided it would be best to leave ASAP.  So we headed to stop number two, Ledson Winery and Vineyards.  Talk about an even more gorgeous setting!  Ledson is a gorgeous castle with several different tasting bars and tasting rooms.

The vineyards

Grapes!

me and r.

At the tasting bar

L.Rae, me, R.

Loved this place!

And then we were on our way to winery #3 ... Gundlach Bundschu.  Of the three wineries we visited that afternoon, this was my favorite!  And, in case you are unsure how to pronounce their name ... try now:

Gun Lock Bun Shoe!

(Photo courtesy of their website)

I love it!  And felt much more confident talking about the winery once I knew how to pronounce their name!  We had such a great experience here ... the person doing our tasting was super friendly and knowledgeable, we got a free tasting because Bruno and R. have Visa Signature cards, and my favorite band had played their the summer before!  And they were setting up for a wedding and it was GORGEOUS.  Makes me want to get married at a winery!

L. Rae, me, R.

Ra Ra Riot

A little post-wine tasting, pre-dinner picnic!

And then we headed into Sonoma for dinner.  We had a little bit of time to kill before dinner, so we headed into Murphy's Pub.  If you've been following since last year, you may remember that we spent a fun night at Murphy's Pub when we went to Sonoma last year!  We went and had a toast to B. and J. who sadly weren't with us this year.

Dinner was at La Salette, a Portuguese restaurant that Bruno wanted to try.  Since he drove us around all afternoon, we thought the least we could do was let him pick the restaurant!  We had a delicious dinner ... starting with a traditional Portuguese dish of Bolinhos de Bacalhau (cod cakes) and then each trying something different for dinner.  Everything was delicious!

And then we headed back into San Francisco.  R. and I spent the rest of our night watching Louie and videos on YouTube :)  Saturday night is always exciting with us :)

Sonoma or Bust! (Part II)

Sorry about the delay in posting about Day 2 ... J. had the day off yesterday so we went to the beach :)

We had a slow start on Saturday morning ... but we managed to make it to the rest of the wineries on our itinerary!  We started out at Benziger Family Winery.  It was gorgeous.  We took the tour around the vineyards, which was really interesting and informative.  The vineyard is actually a fully functioning organic farm, with its own recycling center on the premises.  Half of the acres are planted with grapes and the other half are planted with other crops, they've got vegetable gardens and cows, goats and sheep.  It was really interesting to learn about the different methods they use on the farm.  We tasted four wines, but the Chardonnay was by far the best (in my opinion!)  Then we bought some crackers, cheese, salami and a bottle of the Chardonnay and headed outside for a little lunch in the sun.  It was another gorgeous day and Benziger had tables set up for "picnic-ing!"

On the tour:

Barrels of wine in "The Cave:"

L.Rae and I in The Cave:

J. and I in The Cave:

Labels on the barrels:

Look, no hands!  The boys and their wine yokes:

Looking good boys!

Group shot in the "official" wine country vehicle:

A note about Benziger ... they have a sister winery, Imagery Estate Winery, and if you pay for the tour/tasting at Benziger you can taste at Imagery for free.  I think this is a great deal ... most tastings cost $10-20 and a free one is always appreciated!  We didn't taste at Imagery this time, but I've been there in the past and enjoyed it.  

After Benziger, we headed over to the Jacuzzi Family Vineyards ... B.'s favorite and a must-see on our list. This family was so cool.  Two of the Jacuzzi sons immigrated to the West Coast (from Italy) in the early 1900's, making their way down to California.  Their father, a wood-worker and vineyard farmer, joined them in 1911.  They were fascinated by aviation and made several notable improvements to the propeller.  However, a tragic plane crash, which took the life of the one of the Jacuzzi brothers, ended their stint in aviation.  The Jacuzzi brothers then started manufacturing water well pumps and eventually, the bath and spa that bears their name.  The family then got into wine making.  I thought their story was really fascinating!  The vineyard was beautiful, they had olive oil tasting AND their tasting was free.  They had a very extensive tasting menu.  Three of the wines were $1 to taste ... but I'd say that's pretty reasonable!  They also had my favorite ... the Chocolate Wine Shot.  We got them with the dessert port in it ... SO delicious!

The winery was GORGEOUS:

N., me, B. at Jacuzzi:

 J., with his wine yoke, and his new Mrs.:

We ended at Cline Cellars, right across the street from Jacuzzi.  We tasted outside in a big tent that they had set-up.  It was such a gorgeous day so it was great to be outside ... especially for our sun deprived San Fransican ... L.Rae.  Cline also did a free tasting which was very nice ... I think we tried 4 or 5 wines.  And then we proceeded to have one last wine country photo shoot in the parking lot: 

And then we piled into the car and headed back to San Francisco.  We had a quick dinner at Blowfish Sushi, which was AMAZING.  I haven't found a new sushi place in Everett/Seattle yet and this definitely satisfied my sushi craving.  After dinner we went back to L.Rae's and crashed, HARD.  We had such a good night's sleep, which was much needed!  

Come back tomorrow to find out about our last day of vacation ... a few hours of sight-seeing in San Francisco before heading off to the airport!

Sonoma or Bust! (Part I)

Talk about a FANTASTIC weekend.  I don't think I can do it justice in a post, but I will try.  I left on Thursday afternoon, had my first trip to Sea-Tac (the Seattle airport) and made it to San Francisco right on time.  B. picked me up in his rental car ... a 4-door Jeep Wrangler with the top down!  It was perfect for wine country.  We had two hours to kill before we picked up the couples that were arriving, so we headed into downtown San Bruno to find somewhere to get an appetizer and a drink!  We settled on B.J.'s Brewhouse ... B. had a brew and I had a pomegranate margarita and we shared the avocado rolls.  They were delicious.  We picked up the rest of the crew and headed to the Presidio Social Club in The Presidio, where L.Rae met up with us.  It was a really neat little restaurant ... I wish I would have taken some pics!  After dinner, B. and the crew headed out to Sonoma and L.Rae and I headed to her boyfriends, J2K.  But first, we stopped at Safeway to pick up some essentials ... two bottles of Menage a Trois and Pepperidge Farm cookies.  We proceeded to stay up until 3 a.m. talking, even though we had to be up at the crack of dawn to pick up J. from the airport!

A few short hours later we were up and on our way to the airport.  J.'s flight was delayed, leaving us justenoughtime to make it to Sonoma in time to meet the crew and the limo.  We had arranged for a limo to take us around the wineries on Friday so nobody had to be DD.  We picked up J., made a quick stop at In-N-Out burger, made 2 wrong turns before I turned all navigating skills over to J., and were only 10 minutes late.  Pretty good if you ask me.  Especially considering L.Rae and I were involved ... we're notorious for being bad at directions and LATE.  But we made it, hopped into the limo and we were off to the first winery ... Ty Caton and Muscardini Cellars:

J. and Me:

L.Rae and Me:

Group shot with George, our tasting guide!

B.'s aunt lives in Sonoma, and true to form, B. had quite the hook-up everywhere we went.  He knew George from several previous trips to Sonoma and George treated us like royalty!  Thank you George and Ty Caton/Muscardini Cellars!  We took one last group shot outside ...

And then headed off to the second winery ... Loxton Cellars.  L.Rae and I bought a bottle of Chardonnay here ... their Chardonnay was fabulous (I'm a lover of Chardonnay).  I didn't take a single picture of the winery but here are some pictures from their vineyards:

J. and Me: 

L.Rae and Me:

Group photo:

Are you sensing a theme here?  We piled back into the limo, might have had a glass of wine on the road and headed to B.R. Cohn Winery and Olive Oil Company.  This was the winery I was the most excited to visit, because they also have olive oil tasting.  However, I was sorely disappointed.  I thought that olive oil tasting would be like wine tasting, where you sidle up to the bar, the tasting guide pours you some samples of olive oil and you sit around and eat bread and olive oil.  Not so.  They had a separate store, which had cubes of bread and different kinds of olive oil to try.  It was still delicious and a new experience, but not what I was expecting!  I bought an olive oil/herb mix for bread dipping and then we headed into the winery.  This winery was founded in 1984 by Bruce Cohn ... the manager of the Doobie Brothers!  He had several of his vintage cars on the property and the winery itself was gorgeous.  

  

At this point, a very long photo shoot ensued.  I love this one of L.Rae and me:

I love this one too ... "But L.Rae, there's BEES!"

Finally, a good picture of us:

Group shot:

Girl photo!

From L to R: L.Rae, me, K. and E.

We picked up a Doobie Brothers CD and a bottle of wine for the limo, and we were off!  We were ahead of schedule, so we had our limo driver, Lou, just drive us around Sonoma for a bit.  It was a GORGEOUS day.  We stopped at Hawkes Winery's tasting room in downtown Sonoma.  We had a really cool tasting guide and got to sit outside in the courtyard.  Unfortunately, I did not take a single picture :(  

We loaded up and headed to our final winery of the day ... Sojourn Cellars tasting room!  

Their tasting room was so cool, it was in a house and we sat around a big dining room table to taste.  This picture is by no means good, but it kind of gives you an idea: 

After our tasting at Sojourn, Lou dropped us off at the Girl and the Fig where we had dinner reservations.  I had the Flounder, which I think was a daily special, and the Lavender Creme Brulee.  Delicious.  

You'd think our day ended there, but nope, we headed over to Murphy's Irish Pub after dinner.  I don't know how I made it through Friday, especially since L.Rae and I got very little sleep Thursday night ... I'm exhausted just writing this post!  B. knew the former owner of Murphy's and he came out to meet us all.  He was a retired Naval Aviator, so B. really wanted J. to meet him.  B. and the boys were ENGROSSED in a multiple hour conversation with him!  He even had a tail hook in the bar.  

All the girls with the owner ... I cannot for the life of me, remember his name 

and J. isn't here to help me out!  

One last pic of the whole group:

Whew, that was exhausting!  Come back tomorrow to hear about Day 2 in Sonoma! 

S.E.J.