Under the Wino Sun

While in Yakima wine country this weekend, I saw a great sign, “Wine a bit…You’ll Feel Better.” I think it should have read, “Wine Every Day…You’ll Feel Better.” At least I’d like to wine every day for the rest of my life…

I’m becoming increasingly more obsessed with wine–loving the loopy wine buzz, the varieties, pairings, wineries, culture and wine tasting. I don’t think about marriage much, but I have at least zeroed in on the fact that I’d really like one of those wine chillers you often see in Metropolitan Markets on my wedding registry and perhaps a lifetime dream could be… owning a winery with my lover of choice?! A little ala “Under The Tuscan Sun,” if you will. We grow rows and rows of grapes for the perfect wine (white only, of course), keep bottles and bottles in a dark little wine cellar, have an entire fridge full of cheese to pair, and hold parties on our huge sunny patio that overlooks the vineyard–wrapped in trellis’ of flowers (that my gardener maintains, of course).

Le sigh.

I had the pleasure of touring the Yakima Valley wine country a little bit this weekend while camping at the Yakima Sportsman State Park. Without any plans for this past weekend, I insisted on getting out of town to camp since the next couple weekends I’m stuck in Seattle for obligations (a wedding and Baby Daddy’s 10-year reunion). Also, when I hear of expected rain in Seattle during the summer, I’m out like lightening to the Eastern Washington sun. We settled on camping in Yakima and immediately planned our wine touring route…

Yakima has a hugely Mexican-influenced culture, which is fine by me since I do think I’m a born-again Mexican, and an average of 300 days of sun! 300 DAYS OF SUN! We set up camp late Friday night, and after a little breakfast the next morning and swimming at the Yakima public pool (with a huge water slide), we headed down Highway 82 at last to the clusters of wineries located on the Rattlesnake Hills Wine Trail.

Our first stop, Maison de Padgett Winery, had tacky labels and extremely sweet wines, however, I was most impressed by the winemaker’s story… after working in the Costco warehouse for 15 years, he decided to purchase a small winery in Yakima and learned in five months how to make wine. (See! It is possible!) We cringed a bit at the coffee-flavored sweet port, decided against buying any bottles, took some pictures in their beautiful gardens and headed on our way…

The next stop was nothing more than a little house, but by far my favorite place–Paradisos de Sol. Their wine philosophy was “Sip, sip, bite, dump.” The “bite” included a small snack they had to accompany their wines… artichoke and crab dip to accompany two white wines, bleu ribbon dip to accompany three of their reds, flaming pears to accompany a dessert wine and my favorite–a pairing of roasted marshmallow (an easy entrance to my heart) with Botrytis Riesling, the rarest form of wine in the world!

…Bostrytis is a fungus or mold that causes grapes to shrivel and become very concentrated. Also called the “Noble Rot,” it is a desirable condition and causes ripe grapes to shrivel, resulting in the remaining juice becoming very concentrated…Few winemakers will attempt to make botrytis wines. The fungus requires specific weather conditions and the winemaker has to leave the grapes on the vine until late fall, risking loss of the entire crop…

Next we moved on to SilverLake Winery (also located in Woodinville), where the gentlemen pouring our wine did us well. We ended up sampling at least 10 different wines, all heftily poured. Because we told him we were new, he let us try the differences between a red–the same wine made in a barrel and a steel cast, and a white–same wine, but one made in a barrel and a steel cast. Then he also used a “smelling kit” to teach us how to pick the flavors out of a wine, which is my new goal. I struggled with picking blueberry out of a Chenin Blanc, but I just about flew to the moon when I finally smelled the “apricot” listed in a riesling at the next winery…

After a few more stops, we ended the evening with a wine buzz, hot dogs, corn and baked beans on the grill, and stars through the roof of our tent. It was a good weekend, a good weekend indeed.

Currently Feeling: Focused on a healthy goal.
Currently Anticipating: Shopping for wedding gear tonight. I’m going to try to persuade Mike to purchase a kelly green tie to match my dress! Lol.
Currently Reading: “The Road,” by Cormac McCarthy.

I’m a Bit Paranoid Sometimes

FYI:

Saturday night, after much drunken debauchery at Seafair (13 hours on a boat, to be precise) I came home and passed out. Sometime between the 2 a.m. and 3 a.m. hour, I heard someone wiggle my doorknob a couple times. I don’t know why I was up, but for a minute I thought Sarah was coming home late for some reason or Amanda needed a place to pass out…

But the person just wiggled the doorknob then must have walked away.

I, myself, was too freaked out to get up and tiptoe to the peep hole to get a look at the creeper. I tried rustling Baby Daddy awake once or twice, but to no avail.

So then I lied in bed for an hour or more, thinking about all the scary things that could have happened to me – or us – if I had accidentally left the door unlocked. My mind was wandering all over the place and kept coming back to, “I’VE PUT TOO MANY DETAILS ON MY BLOG AND NOW A FREAKY INTERNET STALKER WANTS TO KILL ME!”

When I view my blog stats, I sometimes get a little freaked out and paranoid.

I know my imagination was just running a bit rampant (probably because this is the second time someone has tried to get into my apartment), but I thought I’d share this with you to explain my little shyness and absence on the blog this week.

Toodaloo!

Currently Feeling: Chipperdy doo da
Currently Anticipating: Kickball tonight and and Yakima wine country this weekend.
Currently Loathing: Working on this dumb copywriting pro bono project with these other people.