Calendar of events

I’m sorry that updates have become less and less frequent. I am trying to be better at posting but things at the winery and in the tasting room have become increasingly busier in the last month or two. There are so many things going on in the month of June, that we are involved in, that I wanted to get the word out. Hope to see everyone at one or more of the events ...

·         June 3^rd – We will be joining in on the national Washington Wine (#WAWine) tweetup down at Olive Marketplace Café in Walla Walla from 5:00 to 8:00 pm. Join us and numerous other Walla Walla wineries as we all meet in one central location and collectively taste and tweet about Washington wines.

·         June 3^rd – Join Thomas Woodley, our national sales coordinator, at The Inn at Langley in Langley Washington for an amazing night of food and wine. Chef Mike Costello has put together an amazing 5-course menu and paired it with some fresh whites and vintage reds. Cost of the dinner is $170 per person which includes food, wine, tax and gratuity. Attendees of the dinner will be offered a discounted room rate to stay at the inn as well.Call the Inn for reservations (360) 221-3033.

·         June 4^th – For those that stay the night, join Thomas Woodley and Chef Costello as they dig into their award winning cellar to host a vertical tasting of vintage Woodward Canyon wines accompanied with some small bites prepared by Chef Costello. The tasting will be free to those who attended the dinner the evening before and cost $35 for anyone else.

·         June 6^th – Join Marlene and myself as we descend upon The Davenport Hotel in downtown Spokane for Taste Washington Spokane on Sunday from 5:00 to 8:30 pm. We’ll join around 100 other wineries and 25 restaurants at the event and will be pouring our 2008 Washington State Chardonnay, the 2007 “Artist Series” Cabernet and the 2008 Nelms Road Cabernet. Tickets are still available so get yours at http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/107945.

·         June 13^th – Join either Thomas Woodley or Darcey Fugman-Small, our owner/general manager, at the Seattle Wine Awards hosted at the historic Rainier Club. We will be pouring our award winning wines – the 2006 Estate Red (double gold), the 2007 “Artist Series” Cabernet (gold) and the 2008 Nelms Road Cabernet (silver). Tickets for the event are still available so get your ticket here.

·         June 18^th – Visit the Walla Walla Valley and join in on the festivities of Vintage Walla Walla. Friday evening, June 18^th, join Thomas, Rick and Darcey for the bbq under the stars out at Northstar Winery from 6:00 to 9:00 pm. Tickets are available for the bbq only or as part of the Vintage WW package.

·         June 19^th – The next day, ten wineries, us included, are hosting special tasting events throughout the valley. For more information on the individual events and for reservations, please contact the Walla Walla Wine Alliance office at (509) 526-3117. Later on Saturday join participating wineries for the Vintage pour gala and silent auction that evening from 5:00 – 7:00 pm. It’s a great opportunity to taste vintage wines with the winemakers who make them. It’s also the chance to bid on amazing packages put together by wineries of the Walla Walla Valley.

·         June 25^th – 27^th – The 2010 Wine Bloggers Conference has decided on a change of scenery and is moving from Napa/Sonoma Valley, California to the Walla Walla Valley. I was able to attend the conference last year and had a blast. It is a great opportunity to meet with fellow wine bloggers and talk about wine and the importance of blogging and social media. California set the bar fairly high last year but I know that Walla Walla is up to the task. The conference is sold out however they are keeping a wait list in case there are any last minute cancellations.

And a heads up look at what is coming up in the month of July ...

·         July 1^st – Join us as we’re pouring a selection of our wines at Olive Marketplace Café at their weekly wine tasting event. For a $5 tasting fee you can taste through our line up of wines. Splurge on dinner while you are there and grab one of their fabulous flat-bread pizzas. Trust me, you won’t regret it.
 ·     July 31^st – Looking ahead, T-Maccarone's and us have paired up to do a farm-to-table dinner out in our Estate Vineyard. Final details are still to come so check back for more information or send me an email at shari@woodwardcanyon.com and I'll keep you updated.

Hope to get a real post up here soon with the happenings at the winery and a recap on Rick and Darcey’s trip over to England and Germany last month. Thanks for keeping an eye on us and hope to see you in the tasting room soon.

Cheers,

Shari

Taste Washington

Hello again! I’m back in the office, rested and rejuvenated after a quick trip over to Seattle for Taste Washington. Mine was much shorter than everyone else from Woodward Canyon but I enjoyed myself immensely. It was really nice to get away from Walla Walla for however short it was. Rick and Darcey left Thursday so they could attend the Washington Wine Restaurant Awards & Tasting Friday night and Rick could attend and lead some of the seminars on Saturday. Thomas flew in Saturday morning after making stops in San Francisco and Chicago. And then first thing Monday morning he was off again, this time to New York. WOW! What a rough life he must lead. I’ve always wondered what life would be like, always on the road. I ended up catching a plane at the Walla Walla Airport at 6:50 in the morning. Let me tell you something, a 4:30 wake up call so you can make a 6:50 flight is not something I enjoy doing. Maybe I don’t envy Thomas’s job as much as I thought, after all.

Seattle was gorgeous! It was bright and sunny and unlike most of the rainy days I've spent there. It was almost difficult being indoors all afternoon. Almost, but not quite, I enjoyed myself at Taste way to much to think about it. There were more people than I could count but it was fun meeting everyone and talking about the wines. And with over 200 wineries and 60 restaurants, there was no way to get around to all of them. I made a point to taste a couple different cabs which were composed entirely of Champoux Vineyard fruit. I thought it would be interesting to see how they compared and were different from our “Old Vines” Cabernet. I love how each wine was similar in some ways but also very different in others. I guess that is what makes wine so fascinating.

Both of our labels, Nelms Road and Woodward Canyon, were included at Taste. We poured the ’07 Nelms Cabernet and ’07 Nelms Merlot and then the ’07 Washington State Chardonnay and the ’06 “Artist Series” Cabernet for Woodward Canyon. The wines were showing really well and people seemed to enjoy them. We, of course, poured out of the “Artist Series” and came close to pouring out of everything else. It was a great event with great response from the consumers.

The Walla Walla Valley Wine Alliance hosted a special “Get a Taste” of Vintage Walla Walla during a 4 hour block once the Grand Tasting started. It was an appointment-only session on some of the older wines in the valley. Rick joined six other winemakers from Walla Walla, and poured our 1998 “Artist Series” Cabernet, to help showcase what Vintage Weekend is all about. I didn’t get to taste any of the wines there but we had opened a bottle of the ’98 a couple of weeks ago and the winery and it was still pouring beautifully. Lots of tobacco and earthy nuances with some black fruit on the palate, this wine still had some cellar life on it.

We poured through just about everything and headed off to Seastar in Seattle for dinner that night. If you haven’t been to this restaurant before you should definitely visit on your next trip. We had an amazing dinner. We started off the night with a couple bottles of champagne paired with fresh oysters shooters right out of the sea. Then we moved on to our white for the evening with fresh seared ahi, calamari poppers and crab cakes. Then it was a pinot noir from Burgundy which I paired with my halibut provencal and spring style asparagus. We finished off the evening with crème brulee, white chocolate coconut cream pie and passion fruit panna cotta with tropical fruit. All the desserts were amazing, though I’m gonna have to admit that the crème brulee was my favorite. Once again, I’m so glad that everyone at Woodward Canyon is as much of a foodie as I am. I am so lucky to be working at a place where us employee are treated so well and we are constantly surrounded by great food and amazing wines!

If you're in Walla Walla today come see Marlene at the Woodward Canyon table at Feast Walla Walla between one and four. We'll be pouring our '05 White Riesling, our '07 Estate Barbera and our '07 Walla Walla Valley Cabernet. If you can’t make it to Feast, swing by the tasting room and we’ll share some wines with you out here!

For those of you who will be in town the first weekend of May come visit us for Spring Release Weekend, May 1st through the 3rd. We will be pouring some of our favorites. And we might even have a trick or two up our sleeves. Hope to see you all through the tasting room at some point during the spring / summer!

Salut!

Shari / Woodward Canyon Winery