Note: If at anytime you’re offended, please refer back to the title. That said…
The gentlemen at Tavola Rosso have passed me the T-Day baton, perhaps not realizing I have inflexible thoughts about what to drink, and what to shun, on the Great Day of Turkey. Warning: it’s not going to make you Europhiles happy. Check [...]
On election night, we felt it necessary to put together an american meal. By the time it was on the table it was actually a quintessentially northwest american meal.
Armed with a bottle of Amity Pinot Noir, we tracked down some fresh alaskan silver salmon for the occasion. With a side of mashed potatoes and another [...]
Brunch is a surprisingly great time to try out new food and wine pairings. The old reliable for us is champagne or cava or a tasty northwest sparkling wine, but a lot of different crisp wines would do the trick with the usual breakfast egg, potatoe, bacon, sausage, and caserole type dishes.
Last month, Nick covered [...]
It’s summertime, also known as BBQ season, and you are planning your next party…
Charcoal? Check.
Food? Check.
Libation?……Libation?
Okay, so you don’t know what to serve. That’s okay; BBQs are hard meals to pair with wine, mostly because your guests and your parties come in all shapes and sizes. For instance, if you are planning to invite 50+ [...]
We have all been there before: you work hard all day, and when you finally make it home, you are exhausted, and have the energy of a sloth, leaving no desire to cook. To make things more complicated, it is mid-July, and many of us would prefer to enjoy the warm, sunny days, and afternoon [...]
Chef Nick Benz discusses his weekly pairing of Roasted Whole Trout with a Beurre Blanc, Chinese Long Beans and Fingerling Potatoes and Pinot d’Alsace.
In mid-May, I was invited to Fielding Hills Winery, a small family-run vineyard located in the hills of East Wenatchee , and had the opportunity to help bottle their 2006 Tribute.
Overlooking the Columbia River and Wenatchee community, owners Mark & Karen Wade, planted grapes near their orchard in spring of 1998 and their first [...]
I’m writing this from a desk pushed up against the second week of June in Seattle. My mind is migrating to any place where people might be celebrating Summer by reveling in Springtime sunshine. Pagans. Not the kind of thing we see in June up in these parts. To combat my geographical dislocation, I go [...]
While tasting dozens of wines at the Washington Wine Highway last weekend, Sean and I started discussing the role (or lack thereof) of terroir - a sense of place - in Washington wines. A solid majority of the wines we tasted, though labeled as a single varietal (mostly cab, merlot and syrah), were blends from several different vineyards.
Yesterday, we were able to tour around the state of Washington at the annual Wine Highway held at Chateau Ste Michelle yesterday. We enjoyed the nice afternoon, some delicious wines, and interesting foods. Wineries that stood out to me were Dunham, Basel and Gifford Hirlinger…. all from Walla Walla region. This result led Mark [...]
