Another great Taste Washington in the books. Thank you Kana Winery and Elegante for letting us pour for you. It was a great year to be both an attendee and worker due to a lower # of people thirsting for an easy drink and a greater # of people out to find the beauties of Washington state. The wineries had excellent wines and the food vendors equally good food. Although I did eat, it was the wine I was out find, and boy did I ever. Some must buys at great prices are, River Aerie Malbec and Sangiovese, Syncline was showing a Gruner Vetliner (excellent acidity), Robert Karl 2006 Claret, Kana 2005 Tempranillo, and as always Camaraderie had a star Cabernet Franc 2005. For the expensive big boys as always I found the Longshadows group to be outstanding and look for Saviah's Syrah Reserve bottling and Bunnell's single vineyard Syrahs. I am updating our home page www.ellensburgwineworks.com to reflect some of the treasures I found at Taste and will have many more of them in the store, shoot us an E-mail or give us a call we ship almost everywhere. For my usual epiphany I have to say I am shocked as to how many people I talk to out of the Pacific Northwest that have not discovered Washington wine and for you Cali files remember variety is the......

Woodward Canyon Walla Walla Cab. 2007

OK, so you can only find it at restaurants, but do find it. Last night I had a bottle of 2007 Woodward Canyon Walla Walla Cab. at the Yellow Church Cafe here in Ellensburg (sadly this time I had to share) and even as young as it is it drinks wonderfully. It showed some perplexing notes of what I would generally find in a WA syrah, such as, the mouth feel was thick and somewhat sweet and there was a distinct nose of cooled bacon fat. The pallet had a roller coaster effect that ended with a slow long finish of dark fruit and molasses. After much discussion and some argument I got what I will call a cooked rhubarb and black berry center pallet. Well enough of the eclectic tasting notes when all is said and done it was a real joy to drink. Look for it at wine oriented restaurants through out WA, but go soon because there was very little produced and soon this will just be a story of what you could have tried. Go forth and taste them all because as you know variety is the....