Walla walla Trip...

We make an annual holiday in Walla Walla as my father in laws best friend has moved out and had 8 bedrooms.

They turned it from a new construction expensive home to a really cool get away with a kick ass backyard.

Seeing as we’ve made the trek since 2006, we’ve seen the Walla Walla scene grow, new wineries, same style of wines… we are drinking a good deal and here are my brief impressions…

10’ rasa riesling, ‘lyricists’, Golding in color with bright notes. The nose was awesome with red fruits, green apple, melon, pineapple but not candied… the palate was ripe but great acid that makes you want more, really delicious…

14’ Forgeron Chardonnay- thisnwine was fine, tasting nothing like Chardonnay I would like to drink, dull oak notes, with very little fruit, char-y and too technical.

17’ Dillon Cab Franc Rose- good and quenching, easy.

05’ Rollat ‘Sophie’ 1.5… this wine is really good and needs a ton of air, really pretty perfume, the pallet needs to come together but has great acid and fruit. Needs time.

05’ Ken Wright ‘Angela’ 1.5- starting to discolor just a bit, nose has secondary aromas, getting autumnal on the nose with fruit and acid, good wine. Should have been slow O’d. It was funny because people that I would never have liked this wine loved it… people just don’t know they like aged wine.

15’ Thomas Pinot noir 1.5… hard to comment on as it’s just a baby, bit really showing anything… if you need open one but really a waste of time as this showed nothing, hard as nails but with a ton of promise.

We visited a couple of wineries…

Aluve- Special winery that is going to be a 1000cs winery of rose, Chard, merlot, petite Verdot and Cab. Rose was great, chard, while Washington, was actually balanced and not overdone. Cabs were really good, nice acid and not Overdone.

Sommes des Parties-200cs winery that specializes in Syrah, Cabernet and Touriga nacionale. I really like their Portuguese grabbed wines.

Tempus- Joe does a great job and his wines are a great QPR, he’s a naturally funny person…

Dillon- 800cs winery, rose, Chard, Merlot, Syrah… This winery is solid, the Chard is a little bigger but still has fruit and acid… Merlot was the best of the line up.!syrah was ok.

We drank more wine than that and as I remember I’ll add. Overall Washington wines are more balanced than ever, if you like big wines you’ll love what’s going on.

I generally don’t like the wines of Washington as the past 15 years has proven to be uneven, the wines are really coming into focus and are
better than ever…

Do yourself a favor and get on the Aluve list, the vineyards are next to figgins and the wines are more singular…

I would second the comments on Aluve. REally nice folks (both retired AF pilots) making very good wine.

Also am enjoying seeing more Touriga National wines appearing. The Walls also puts one out via their Stanley Groovy bottling (they don’t always tell you what’s in it). Wish we could get more Touriga’s from Portugal–the good ones just don’t seem to be very available in the US.

Thanks for sharing Jason. We are heading out there the last week of July/first week of August. Recommendations are appreciated since the Washington Trip posts are not recent.

Some more wines…

15’ Devium blend, ironically full pull just offered the 16’ version out today… Mainly Mourvèdre plus a couple of other grapes… lighter in style, this isn’t a bruiser but a really balanced fun to drink wine, enjoyable and went well with food…

12’ Domaine Serene ‘Jerusalem hill’. Big but aging, showing secondary notes. Shows a lot of almond joy bar with chocolate covered cherries. A cab drinkers Pinot, not my cup of tea.

14’ Domaine Serene Evenstad reserve- Big and bruising, a lot like the 12’ but younger and more primary…

07’ Dunham Riesling- bought winery direct recently from someone who joined us, I guess Dunham is offering a bunch of library stuff at reasonable prices… good acid and balance with a touch sweetness. Fun wine to drink, not to complicated but went well with the Salmon…

I’ve had good wine from Figgins, Walla Walla vintners, Woodward Canyon, Amavi and Pepper Bridge.

K Vintners please

Sleight of Hand

Thank you. Please keep the recs coming!

We just returned from a long weekend in Walla Walla for some much needed vitamin D and to celebrate my mothers birthday. Being that the visit was for mom’s bday the locations we visited focused more on places she enjoys and that would be good for our group.

Day 1 winery visits included Gramercy, Rotie, El Corazon and Charles Smith with Gramercy and Rotie being the standouts in my book. Thoroughly enjoyed the rose from both and the Third Man Grenache & L’Idiot Du Village at Gramercy.

Day 2 winery visits included Saviah, Sleight of Hand, Amavi and Tranche. Saviah had a nice range of wines from 2010 through 2015 with The Stones Speak Syrah being a nice Rocks offering. Tranche was a great finish to our day as we were able to relax and enjoy some sunshine and chose to go with bottles rather than tasting. The Pink Pape and the Pinot Gris were great and exactly what we needed given it was in the mid 80’s.

Food-wise our rental had a full kitchen so we cooked the majority of our meals at home. We did do breakfast at The Maple Counter which is very much a traditional breakfast spot with huge portions and all the bacon you could need. That being said the food quality was great and everyone found something to enjoy. Sadly for our one dinner we were left pretty disappointed with our experience at Passatempo as it came highly recommended from the berserkers and locals alike. From the slow service (15+ minutes for drinks to show up) to the food (the bucatini being beyond salty and the spaghetti containing so much garlic you couldn’t taste the other components of the dish) we were letdown. My folks did stick around for an extra day and let me know that they enjoyed a great meal at Saffron.

Hopefully this is a little help and you are able to enjoy a great trip.

Man, sorry to hear about Passatempo. I definitely recommended them in other threads. Hate that you didn’t have a good meal there. Hopefully it was just an of night, we had a really nice meal there.

Our family friends son is the wine guy at Whitehouse Crawford so has an inside of what’s going on in the sleepy little town.

He explained that ever since Mike left, they hired a vegan chef and the food is inconsistent on a nightly basis, even saying that Jim has to hit every table to make sure their meal is ok… nothing wrong with being Vegan, but when you work at a house that’s half meat, you have to taste the food…

Quality has gone way down hill…

We were just in W2 a couple days last week and had a great time. We stayed at the Green Gables B&B - nice enough place with excellent breakfast. For wines, I definitely second visiting Rotie and Gramercy. We also had a great visit at the new Doubleback tasting room. Charles Smith was good as was Saviah and Pepper Bridge. Dinner at Saffron was fantastic in my book.

We were there 5 days around Memorial Day. Stayed at Feliciana winery…they have a little casitas you can rent. Perfect for 2. Had dinner out 3 nights and a couple of lunches. Olive (casual but good), Pasatiempo and Saffron for dinner. Pasatiempo was a little bit of a let down. Pasta was undercooked and they were doing a Tiki Theme week which threw off the vibe in my opinion. Saffron rocked. Everything excelled. Lunch we did TMac and Saint and the Sinner for Tacos. Both were good…but S&S…a little pricy for tacos. Wine wise we tried some new ones (have been here several times). Va Piano loved their Reserves (Dubrul especially), Kerloo was a nice discovery. Not new, Sleight of Hand has an excellent Rose going on right now. If you are staying in and cooking…try sourcing from Blue Valley Meat. Had some great steaks and rack of lamb.

Nice, current recommendations here. That’s crazy about Whitehouse Crawford. The decision to hire a vegan chef in a place that serves a lot of mean seems ridiculous to me, unless he/she didn’t work with the meats. I can’t imagine cooking ANY food without having tasted it, or having at least a little passion around the final dish.

Sorry if that wasn’t clear, passtempo hired the vegan chef hence the inconsistency

I could be wrong, but I read that to be about Passatempo (Mike Easton and Jim German) not about Whitehouse Crawford…

Another note, mike Easton has nothing to do with the restaurant anymore, also another reason for the lackluster quality

Noted, my mistake. My points still stands, though.

Is the great breakfast spot called Bacon and Eggs still good?

If the line out front and weight time is any indication I am guessing it is still good. We didn’t bother waiting as our group size was larger and opted to have breakfast at The Maple Counter which was enjoyable and if you’re starving provided massive proportions.

Got it, just didn’t want to throw shade at whitehouse Crawford…

I think it’s crazy to ever hire a vegan chef unless the food is Vegan, which is why they have the issues they have now…

Too bad as the place has a lot of potential.