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…