My father in law gave my wife and I a trip to Walla Walla as a gift, and we went down last weekend for two nights. We stayed at the Marcus Whitman Hotel, which is the tallest building in town by far and a thankfully easy to find landmark when walking around town. It is interesting that there is a town called Walla Walla in Washington State, because I grew up in New South Wales, and there is a Walla Walla there too.
Now, Walla Walla is in the middle of a wine growing region and some people are calling it the Napa valley of Washington (which is interesting, because the Australian Walla Walla was established by Germans from the Barossa who had land granted to them). I was looking forward to killing a couple of days off work wandering around a wine town and generally relaxing.
On the first night I had a glass of Forgeron Cabernet with a steak for dinner (unfortunately I have forgotten the year). This was OK but after the Cabs that I had tried recently (Justin and Penfolds) it tasted a little bit flat. It was drinkable but it did not really meet my tastes – I think that there are many Australian wines that I would prefer for the money. When we were there we met Dawn of DaMa Wines who invited us to come by the next day and see her shop.
The next day was tasting day. We woke up and wandered around to find some brunch, and settled on a nice bourgeois cafe (where we saw Dawn again. This told us that the town was not very big). After that we went to DaMa to have the first tasting of the day.
I cannot list everything that I tried there with accuracy, but I remember at least tasting a Viogner, a Merlot, a Cabernet Sauvignon and a Syrah. The most memorable of these was the Merlot – it actually had a hint of Terrior about it (which I have never tasted in a Merlot before) and a very pleasant flavour. I went back for a second glass and ended up buying several bottles for myself and some gifts, because a Merlot that I enjoy drinking is a rare beast, especially one for less than twenty dollars. The other wines were pretty good too – these ladies make some good stuff. Their wine was the only stuff I brought back with me from Walla Walla for a reason.
I met a restaurant owner in DaMa who heard I was from Australia and proceeded to rave about how good the bottle of Grange was that he had drank recently. This was interesting because Penfolds is hard to find out in the rural parts of the US and this guy had drank the best of the lot.
After DaMa we found a wine map in a shop and decided to drive around some vineyards for a bit. We decided on south of Walla Walla, because there seemed to be a lot down there and we had already driven through west of town on the way in. A lot of vineyards seem to be closed on Mondays, but we found a couple that were open and doing tastings.
The first one that we found was Pepper Bridge. The grounds were beautiful and it was great driving through the vines on the way in on a nice summer day. They were tasting a vertical of their Cab (2004, 2003, 2002). The 2004 was different to the other two in taste, and this makes sense when you read the tasting notes (the grapes came from some other vineyards due to freezing weather). I definitely liked the 2003 and 2002 better, but all of them were a little too tannic for my tastes.
Almost next door to Pepper Bridge was Northstar. They are primarily a Merlot house but they do other varietals as well. They were tasting six or seven different wines on the day (too numerous to remember). I thought that these were all OK, and I say OK because these also had a bit of a tannic taste to them. When I recounted the trip to a coworker he mentioned that the tannic style is a Walla Walla regional thing. I won’t begrudge anybody their style, but I cannot say that this tannic flavour is really my thing.
This ended the day for me. Not because I did not like the wines, but because I don’t like to spit at a tasting. After about 15 tastes of wine and some summer weather I was ready for a nap. We went back for a nap and then went to dinner (details of the wine there to come) and the next day we drove home.
Overall I was happy about the trip. I found an interesting small winemaker that surprised me, I got to drive around some vineyards and I ate some good food. It was nice to be around a place driven by wine. Even though I found the wine in the region too tannic for my tastes, I expanded my knowledge by finding this out. This was a good warm up for my eventual trips to Napa and Barossa that I hope to do one day.
Ben's wine reviews 