Passport to Woodinville

This past weekend I attended the 2010 Woodinville Wines Passport Weekend. I have been wanting to do this for some time, so I was super excited when I got to be the "plus 1"!

For those of you who do not know what this is, basically, all of the wineries in Woodinville open their tasting rooms for one weekend to the general public. You can buy a "Passport", which is your ticket to get in and try their delicious wines. They do this twice a year in April and in December.

We kicked off the day at diStefano. They had a really cute set up with an old movie playing on a projector in their warehouse, along with garlic truffle oiled popcorn - so good!

Next (I think) we went to Woodhouse Cellars. This place looks like a barn with a really fancy kitchen inside of it (they have a wine tasting/cooking class club). I really couldn't tell you much about the wines, but the food stood out of course... this place had the most wonderful ham sandys. They were on those yummy rolls you have for Thanksgiving, along with a pesto mayo (I think - could have been wasabi mayo).

Then headed to Matthews, which is right along Redmond-Woodinville road. This was one of the smaller tasting rooms, but they had a tent up for all the extra bodies. They had cheese, which I swear was Cougar cheese, and salami - my favorite! This one wasn't very memorable, so I don't have much else to say about it. They gave you tasting tickets which I thought was annoying, but didn't have a poor spout like the other wineries, so I didn't complain about my pours ;)

We finished the main tour with Chateau Ste Michelle, my absolute favorite wine of all time. I love this place and it didn't disappoint. They had the most wines to taste including a Brut, which was the only wine I actually poured out. Blech, not a fan of anything pink... Their Cab however, is THE BEST and I love it.

Then we headed over to the "Warehouse", where I gather there are about 25 tasting rooms. Its like a wine strip mall. Each winery had their own little hook, whether it was a live folk band, unique snack (Gardettos = classy) or promotion like at Page, where they have a wine called Lick My Lips, and they were looking for some new lips for their label. I glossed up and stamped my lips, but was a little tipsy so my imprint wasn't great... we'll see! Page had the most fun atmosphere... they had a great band called Higher Vibes playing covers in a reggae-like beat, such as Human Nature, ACDC and Cheap Trick. It was my favorite stop for sure.

We also visited Red Sky, who had the BEST white wine, Semillion, I have ever tasted. One of the pourers happened to be the dad of a dude I went to high school with! Small world (it was there in the line to the bathroom, that I was told to go to Page). And also Baer, where I bought their signature Ursa blend (for $35 - YIKES). It was sooo good - I even convinced the pourer to give me a second sample, since that was all they were tasting for the day.

We went to a few others, but I honestly cant recall which. It was a super fun day and I hope to do it again sometime!

Ill stick with beer for the next week so ;)