Moving to Seattle area: Recommendations for wine shops, tasting rooms, wineries to visit?

Moving from San Francisco to Seattle area and would love to hear of your favorite places to buy, drink, and taste.

I grew up in Bellevue/Renton but moved to California when I was 18 for school and haven’t spent much time up in the PNW since (except to visit family during holidays). Happy to be back and excited to go on a new wine adventure in a ndw-to-me area!

I’m already a list member at cayuse and no girls but have limited experience with other WA wines.

Thanks!
Ian

Wine Shops: McCarthy and Schiering Ravenna

Tasting Rooms: K Vintners, Cadence, Latta, Kerloo, Waters, Seven Hills/Crimson, Rotie, Efeste are all in Seattle. Plenty more in Woodinville proper and the wine ghetto.

Welcome back.

I think there are something like 90+ wine shops/tasting rooms in Woodinville.

I second most that Kris mentioned and would add Sleight of Hand in SoDo is great. Also if you have the need for an off site storage, the customer service at Phenol55 has been exceptional.

Welcome back!

I hear the Capital Hill area has a lovely retail sector [wink.gif]

In Woodinville, would check out Delille, Avennia, Januik, Long Shadows

Spent a weekend last year hopping around woodinville. Cant beat a day out there if you catch a sunny day

If you end up looking for a break from WA wines: I enjoy Le Caviste downtown for French wines and bistro food. I’m not sure whether they have reopened yet.

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Thanks so much everyone! Definitely planning on spending plenty of time in Woodinville and also trek out to Walla Walla at some point.

How’s lecole 41, Quilceda Creek, and amaurice these days? Haven’t had their wines in quite awhile.

Lots of good suggestions here. Here are a few others, or repeats of some based on my sense of your taste. I.e. if you like Rocks Syrah (Cayuse, No Girls), then you might try Rotie. They have a pretty modern tasting room in SODO - very nice people. Their Northern Rhone is now made with Rocks fruit.

McCarthy & Schiering Ravenna and Queen Anne – their prices are fine, not great. Join their club – $100 for life. Then the prices are competitive. But their staff is very knowledgeable. I have discovered some wonderful wines over the years from them (including Cayuse back in 2000).

Lots of quirky wine bars to try – really depends on what kind of wine you like.

Woodinville has an enormous number of tasting rooms. There is the downtown more established area, and then the warehouse area. The warehouse area has some real gems (Savage Grace for example) and lots of mediocore stuff. I would also second DeLille. I think they make some of the best wine here – their Chaleur Blanc is usually a must be for me each year. But again, depends on your taste.

Welcome back! Once all of our distancing stuff is in the past, we will hopefully meet at an offline somewhere!

Thanks Ron!

I’m a bit all over the board with my taste in wine, but tend to gravitate towards Rhone varietals, but within that realm enjoy everything from Saxum and CdP to cote rotie and croze. Also very much enjoy high minerality whites like sancerre and Chablis.

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I would recommend you not move back to the Seattle area at all. Having lived here for 56 years, it greatly pains me just how ruined the Puget Sound area has become even in the last 20 years (the tech boom era). Over-population has fundamentally erased the incredible beauty and open space that this area once had. But I supposed that is true for San Francisco and many other parts of the country as well. And yes, plenty of people still think its just fabulous. Different standards, I guess.
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I live about 15 miles from Woodinville. It is absolutely the silliest excuse for a “wine region” in the entire world. The majority of visitors there are just “bar hopping.” All the vineyards are on the other side of the state. We “fondly” refer to Woodinville as the Wine Mall. You’ll go there once. I doubt you’ll go twice.
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But to answer your question, as a Seattle area denizen, I recommend you order all of your wine from Vinopolis, Sec, and Avalon in Portland, and make a couple of visits to the Willamette Valley each year to visit world class wineries.

Well there are definitely good and interesting Rhône varietals in Washington state. For whites you will probably have to look elsewhere. I have found few Washington whites that I really like. I tend to like the same minerality you do. Oregon has some really great ones. More than California (Ceritas being the one exception I can think of). For Washington, savage grace can make some whites you might like. And Cayuse and kobayashi make some very nice viogniers. Rotie has a new Chardonnay project that is good, but is a bit more pricey than better Oregon ones.

With all respect here, but if you haven’t lived anywhere else for 56!! Years… how do you know Seattle isn’t better than most other cities in the US?

You say you would not recommend moving back to Seattle… where would you recommend the OP move to? like what’s a better city to move to at the moment? just curious.

I don’t think Seattle’s problem is over population. It’s still in the teens in terms of US cities in terms of population size no? What it’s problem is, is rather incompetent lower level governments without any vision or backbone. The infrastructure has not kept up with the growth. investments that should have been made years ago were not.

In theory increasing population / with good paying job opportunities should = more tax/property tax revenue and should = better infrastructure put in place to sustain the growth. but nope. i can’t think of much the city/county gov’t has done to look a little forward rather than just react… except maybe finally building a light rail system.

Anyhow, thread jack. :slight_smile:

Ian (OP), are you more asking about places to buy/drink wine locally? or places to buy/drink local wines?

Maybe we should shoot half the people in the country so that you can have your cities be the size you want them to be. There are two types of cities - those that are economically thriving and growing and those that are economically stagnant and dying.

Yep, my post is full on curmudgeon, anti-growth, anti-progress without solution offered. I have traveled to other cities and perhaps as a city, Seattle is better than others. You will note that I said the Puget Sound area. Seattle didn’t stay in Seattle. It use to be a very small city, Bellevue was a two-story town, Redmond was a village, Issaquah was a hamlet, and North Bend was a tiny spot in the middle of the woods. Now the Seattle sprawl of identical sub-divisions and traffic gridlock goes out to North Bend and beyond in every direction. In the area I live, there used to be 500 people and 10,000 cows. Now there are 10,000 people and 500 cows. The vision of my local leaders is to build at least another 800 homes (tax revenue!) even though the local school districts are beyond capacity. Beautiful, isolated hiking spots are now mobbed with more people than the trails can support and are spread with trash and human waste. It only took a couple of decades. Yeah, I am sticking to there being a population problem. And I think the concept of sustainable growth is an oxymoron in a world of finite resources.

My apologies to the OP. My comments have been wholly unhelpful to his questions. What I should have said is that the depending on how long you’ve been gone, you may find the area very different than knew it.

You say that like it is a bad thing. Oh, that I had a wine mall such as Woodinville nearby. My family knows Woodinville as Dad daycare when my wife/daughter go shopping. [cheers.gif]

Nice welcome to the OP, Chris. [wow.gif]

Esquin Wine Merchants has a pretty significant selection (south downtown) and knowledgeable folks, but their prices aren’t great. Worth a visit nonetheless. One of the true gems of the region is Cafe Juanita (near Kirkland)…truly exceptional food, and it’s been around for a long time. For tasting, park in the lot in SoDo where Rotie, Kerloo, etc. have their tasting rooms. Grab some grub from one of the places there in between tastings…enjoy.

Agreed with Brandon re: Esquin – lots to look at but prices aren’t the best. Also, if it’s a good vibe that you’re after, can’t beat the patio at Bottlehouse in Madrona on a nice evening.

Favorite Seattle wine shop- Pike & Western in Pike Place Market

Favorite WA winery- Cadence, red blends that age incredibly well at very fair prices

Welcome to Seattle, still a great place to live!

Cheers,

Hal

pike & western is awesome. Great people.