One has really made the big time when your town is profiled in The Gray Lady herself!

Wine Takes Over a Town, and Prosperity Follows

It will be interesting to see what a rush of new awareness this brings to Walla Walla.

Walla Walla Union Bulletin (05/23/2008):

Reininger Winery’s 2005 malbec, Walla Walla Valley, and Northstar Winery’s 2004 merlot, Columbia Valley, were co-winners of the Mount Rainier Award, which represents the state’s overall best examples of style and type, at the recent Northwest Wine Summit

The wines were among 1,280 from the Pacific Northwest tasted by panels of judges, including scads of award-winning Walla Walla wines, during the Northwest Wine Summit held at Timberline Lodge on Mount Hood on April 27-29.

See UB story for complete list of Walla Walla winners

Today, we got an email from the Dunham family with the sad news that Port died recently.

Here is the memorial photo collage that was included in the email. Let’s raise our wineglasses and remember Port, Eric’s faithful companion and hands down, the most famous dog in our valley.

Here is an unique opportunity to wine taste with wine writer Paul Gregutt. Recently, he announced on his blog that along with Jim German of Jimgermanbar, he will offer guided, custom wine tastings for groups of eight or more in a private room at the Jimgermanbar in Waitsburg.

You pick the topic, he’ll pick the wines, and guide you through a fun, entertaining and informative presentation. Jim will co-host, and tapas-style plates of your choosing will accompany the wines.
Prices depend upon the food and wines chosen, and the number of people in your group.

In addition, Paul is available to do basic palate training, seminars on varietals and wine regions, comparison wine tastings and “engaging discussions on a wide variety of wine-related topics.”

“My presentations are informal, amusing and fast-paced. I am happy to customize to your specific interests. If you represent a visiting group and want a quick and memorable introduction to the splendid wines of Washington state, I’m your man.”

Contact Paul at wine@paulgregutt.com

Vintage Walla Walla is just three weeks away and this year, they have made substantial changes to highlight the vintage feature of this annual event. To stand apart from the numerous other winery associations tastings, they have moved the Vintage Pour (Early Bird $100/after 06/01 $125) to Friday for a more swanky tasting that features only wineries with vintages 2001 and older, vintage ‘flash-live’ auction lots and name-chef-created nibbles.

Friday’s vintage tasting is preceded by a panel discussion (Early Bird $85/after 06/01 $90) with the valley’s winemaking pioneers: Martin Clubb of L’Ecole Nº 41, Chris Figgins of Leonetti Cellar, Casey McClellan of Seven Hills Winery, and Rick Small of Woodward Canyon Winery, moderated by Paul Gregutt.

Saturday’s more casual Pavilion Grand Tasting (Early Bird $65/after 06/01 $80) features newer vintages and therefore, includes everyone else.

Whether you attend Vintage Pour or not, you still have a chance to pick up some properly-cared-for library wines to add to your cellar as several wineries are using the occasion to offer their vintage wines for sale.

Walla Walla Vintners: Saturday, June 07, 2008, One Day Sale Only ~ Library Wines from 1998 to 2003
The library wines will be organized in packages by vintage and varietal and available only at the winery. No Internet or phone orders will be accepted. (?!)

L’Ecole Nº 41 have opened their library and released the following vintages: 2000 Seven Hills Vinyard Estate Merlot $41 (92 WS)
2000 Columbia Valley Merlot $34 (90 WS); 2000 Walla Walla Valley Merlot $37 (91 WS); 2001 Walla Walla Valley Merlot $37 (91 WS). There is a 6 bottle limit on these wines and supplies are limited.

Lastly, Woodward Canyon is having a magnum sale of their back vintages with 10% off any magnum except for 2005 vintages and etched bottles. Includes: 2002 Old Vines, 2001 Estate Red, 2002 Columbia Valley Merlot and 2003 Old Vines.

Wine has become the ultimate pairing for not only food, but also with the arts. This June 9 – 20 brings the Walla Walla Chamber Music Festival, with a schedule of concert hall performances, open rehearsals around town and Tasting Music Concerts held at local wineries.

From August 6-10, Shakespeare Uncorked comes to town for four performances of ‘A Midsummers Night’s Dream’ at the Fort WW Amphitheater.

Finally, just as crush winds downs, a revamped ‘Fall Festival of Foliage & Feathers’ takes place October 23-26. Their website is not up yet, but you can be sure that they will weave wine tasting into their mix of events.

The Walla Walla Community College’s Center for Enology & Viticulture’s third annual Wine Marketing Summit two-day schedule has just been released.

Each June, the Wine Marketing Summit brings the best in the industry to share their essential tips and insider information to aid wineries in the sale and marketing of their wines.

Whether your winery is already well-established and you want to network and compare best practices with your peers or a new winery just developing your marketing plan, this summit will arm you with the valuable information needed to succeed in this dynamic business.

Two blog items concerning the rich and famous with our own local stars.

At Through the Walla Walla Grapevine, the new label from Eric Dunham, owner/winemaker of Dunham Cellars and actor Kyle MacLachlan, called Pursued by Bear.

Earlier this year, Men’s Vogue ran an article on the project.

From Paul Gregutt’s blog, he hints that an official announcement of an exciting new winery and wine project from Walla Walla native Drew Bledsoe and winemaking consultant Chris Figgins is coming.

The weather cooperated and the valley was very busy on Friday and Saturday at tasting rooms everywhere. When the limos, buses and SUVs left the valley on Sunday, the consensus from the wineries was that it had been a successful weekend.

This year, thanks to the Internet and blogging, we are not only hearing from the Walla Walla wine community regarding the success of the weekend, there are discussions everywhere from wine visitors. One of the most interesting is the forum topic at WinePressNW.

The first posting started out civil, following Andy’s example of only saying something good about a wine or winery or nothing at all, however, those that followed took it up a notch. The most spirited exchange is still being penned between TiminSpokane and Trey Busch, former winemaker at Basel Cellars. Read all about it at The Wine Knows

If Trey thought the issue would fade away, he has managed to flame the topic as defenders of TiminSpokane chime in with their views.

Seattle Magazine awarded Walla Walla with a number of honors in their third annual Washington Wine Awards (April 2008)
Best Destination Winery ~ Abeja
Best AVA (Wine Region) ~ Walla Walla Valley
Best New Winemaker ~ Greg Harrington of Gramercy Cellars
Best New Winery ~ Gramercy Cellars
Coolest Wine Label ~ Substance, a cooperative effort between Waters Winery and Gramercy Cellars. Boxwood created the label and periodic chart concept for the brand. Check out their equally cool website.

Among the wines taking top honors:
Reds: Abeja’s 2004 Columbia Valley Cabernet Sauvignon $32, Beresan’s 2005 Columbia Valley Merlot $29, and Ensemble Cellars Release Two Washington State $48
Whites: aMaurice’s 2006 Columbia Valley Viognier $25, Bergevin Lane’s 2006 Columbia Valley Calico White $15 and Rulo Winery’s 2006 Walla Walla Valley Viognier $18.

Congratulations!