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Tuesday Take: April 24 – May 7, 2013

Spring has definitely sprung in Seattle, and there’s a whole lot to do, so let’s get to it. Here’s the latest round-up of things we’ve visited, places we’ve dined at (who am I kidding, having a beer counts), and so forth.

  • Terra Plata – we managed to hit this place 2x in a week, and with good reason. The food is unique and flavorful, the location is grand, and the roof deck. Oh, the roof deck. Brunch here will certainly need to move into the “rotation” of things. Try the green chile pork, Moroccan steak sandwich or the Greek style baked eggs.
  • Cure – You had me at $12 bottle of Cava on a Sunday afternoon. People watching at Cal Anderson Park, some meats and cheeses and enthusiastic service and a decent happy hour? Sign me up.
  • Hilliard’s – Celebrating Zipcar and Uber on a sunny day with solid brews, a fun crowd, tacos and Jen Joyce? How could we miss it? Anyway, this spot in Ballard should provide a fun place to visit and meet with the fine folks behind Hilliard’s beer. Try the barrel aged saison. Or as it was described to me, “It’s $4 and comes in a belgian, but’ll knock you on your ass.”
  • Ocho – A well-priced menu – happy hour or not – outside seating for those beautiful days, and a pretty darn good bloody mary. Try the patatas bravas and deviled eggs.
  • Bar Ferd’nand – Stopping in Melrose Market is an experience on its own, but popping into this “bar” and bottle shop is refreshing. Always with a healthy mix of glass pours and a bit of knowledge as to what you’re imbibing (or viewing on the shelves), and an opportunity to taste some of the fancy morsels from the surrounding shops in the market.
  • Frolik – Really dig the location, as having a glass of wine or a beer on a downtown Seattle rooftop is fun, but the service is challenging at best, whether you’re waiting outside or spooling up at the bar. So there’s that. Certainly won’t stop us from going back (shuffleboard! ping pong!), but you should keep an eye on that sort of thing if you’re planning on popping by for a Friday happy hour. Thankfully, happy hour is 4-10p.
  • Essence Wine Shop – If wandering up Capitol Hill has taught me anything, it’s that I’m going to stumble (maybe not literally) into a few things that are super intriguing. Essence Wine Shop falls into that category, and I definitely want to revisit it. Warm staff, a nice mix of wine offerings, and a great local vibe. Did I mention board / card games?
  • Flywheel – Anyone who tells you that spin class is stupid has no idea what they’re talking about. Riding a bike is easy. Riding a stationary bike while attempting to keep up with the pace of your spin instructor is not. You can so see why people become virtually addicted to going to this, and when multiple people (Brittany Tracy included) have said they see a real impact on how they feel, there’s gotta be something to it. Now, if only I could make it through the full class next time.

Until next time!

The 7.5: Kevin White, Kevin White Winery

Happy May, everyone! We’re excited to present the latest edition of The 7.5 - our take on the Q&A – with all sorts of great people from the world of food & wine. This time, we’re pleased to have Kevin White of Kevin White Winery, whom we’d met at this year’s Taste Washington! event (we’ll admit to having tried his wine on both days). So with that, let’s get to the questions!

1. (from Ryan Crane, KERLOO Cellars) What’s the next bad to the bone varietal out of Washington State? Are you making it, and if so, what style? 

Grenache. Washington State grows fantastic Grenache and the wines are delicious. I would not be surprised to see more and more Grenache planted over the next few years. In my program, I use Grenache a key component in the ‘La Fraternite’ Red Blend. It adds beautiful red fruit flavors and aromas with a savory mouthfeel and texture. Grenache is my personal favorite of all the Rhone Varietals.

2. What are three things people should know about Kevin White Winery?

  1. The winery is small and I don’t have plans to grow more than where I’m at now (500ish cases). Get on the mailing list now as the wines sell fast.
  2. I don’t have a tasting room and will not have one for a while. Right now I have a singular focus on making the best wine I possibly can with the rest of my time is spent with family and my day job.
  3. Without my wife Stefanie, there would not be a winery. She has provided me with support and a lot of leeway to follow my dreams. When I think back – she allowed me to start this project with 6 month old twins at home! I owe her big time!

3. What keeps you up later at night, worrying about what your wine is doing in-barrel or your twin sons?

For the first two years of wine making, I would definitely say that it was wine keeping me up at night. It didn’t help that I started making wine during two of the most challenging vintages in Washington State (2010 and 2011). Now that I have three vintages behind me, and more confidence in my decision making, I’m not as uptight as I used to be. I’m still very focused and obsessive about quality but I have better feel of how wine from each of my vineyards develops and generally what to expect and when. Lately, it is Microsoft keeping me up at night.

4. What’s your winemaking jam that you really get into listening to while doing what you do?

Alison Krauss and Union Station. Harvest is so intense that you really need peaceful music playing.

5. What’s been the most eye-opening thing for you in your winemaking “career” so far?

Everything in the cellar takes twice as long as you estimate. I think every winemaker will agree on that.

6. When dining out with family, friends or colleagues do you bring wine with you to the restaurant or select from the menu? If yes, do you ever bring your own wine?

I wish I could say that I go out to dinner a lot, but most nights it dinner at home with my family. On the occasions when Stefanie and I do go out for dinner, most of the time we buy off the list. I like to pick out wine that will pair well with dinner – so bringing wine in advance is hard. Occasionally we will bring a special bottle from the cellar if we know what we are planning to eat (usually a steakhouse). Regarding my wine, I taste enough of it at home and when we are out I like taste new things!

7. How did you get into Rhone wine and will the Rhone (among others) continue to inspire what you do with your wines?

I was introduced to the wines of the Rhone and the Languedoc-Roussillon region of Sothern France early in my exploration of wines throughout the world. I was, and continue to be, drawn to these wines. There is something about the earthy, spicy and fruit driven wines from the Southern Rhone and the mineral driven, lush but lively wines of the North that fascinates me. These wines definitely continue to inspire me in a stylistic sense – which is to keep the new oak low, focus on the fruit and make a balanced wine which expresses the terroir.

Who’s next?

We’re already working on a few future 7.5 candidates, and will continue to feature them here. In the meantime, please feel free to share suggestions, and let us know what you think about Kevin and his wine below!

Tuesday Take: April 3-23, 2013

Okay, so it’s been a few weeks since the latest Tuesday Take, but we’ve been busy busy! And yes, I know that it’s Thursday.

  • Temple Billiards – Aside from the fact that you can’t beat an afternoon hanging with your best ECS buds, thought this was a pretty cool spot to hang on a weekend afternoon to watch a game and shoot some pool. Good local beer selection, and the pizzas were solid. Great place to catch a Sounders away game (or a home one, if you’re without tickets).
  • Steelhead Diner – This has definitely been a bit of a go-to spot for lunch, business or otherwise. Aside from the pretty solid view of the Market and Elliott Bay, it’s a good portion of food for the price. Now, about the wine glasses…
  • Rione XIII – still one of the best bang for the buck restaurants of the Italian type – even with a corkage fee. Fun servers, good people watching (inside and outside), and a nice buzz, something that RN74 brings to the table as well. As an aside, we’ll be dining there on Thursday night for Dining Out for Life, as they’ll be donating 30% of our tab to Lifelong AIDS Alliance.
  • Ma’ono Fried Chicken & Whisky – We finally sat at the bar for brunch, and aside from the fact that we were thismuchcloser to the unlimited mimosas, it was just as fantastic as sitting in a booth or at a table, especially when the people watching factor comes into play. Aside from that, if you want to talk about great marketing, I’m pretty sure their proactive tweet @ Brittany Tracy and I about what the quiche was that weekend was a win. How could we not go in that weekend?

  • Cinnamon Works – Friends, Seattleites, Washingtonians, lend me your ears so you can follow me to this bakery and get your nom on. You really need to try the vegan banana chip muffin [photo: right]. Wanna get your gluten on? Done. Want some gluten-free options? Done. Cookies? Yep. Nice staff? Definitely. A fantastic perk of a place in Pike Place Market.

  • Restaurant Zoë – It’d been a few months since we had been to Zoë, and there’s really no good reason other than the amazing options we all have to dine at in Seattle. We visited during Restaurant Week, which was a fun way to try a few things on the menu that we might not have gone with otherwise. As always, Derek and the staff were super welcoming, the restaurant has really grown into the space on Cap Hill over time, and the burger is absolutely fantastic. Yep, even when you take home half of it and eat it a day and a half later for lunch.
  • Barrage Cellars – Kevin and Rebecca had their latest release a couple of weeks back, and we continue to enjoy visiting with them and trying their wines. The Outcast Cab Franc is always solid (I’m still a fan of the last vintage, but a lot of people were enjoying the 2010), and this year’s Syrah is drinking really well right now, for a new release. Really gotta complement them on doing “verticals” of this year’s and last year’s vintages of a number of their wines, giving a fun chance to see how the wine program has grown and what the future holds for the wine you’re about to walk away with.
  • Artusi – How have I not gone here before? Other than the fact that it feels like I’m cheating on Spinasse (they share a restroom, among other things) by going there, this is a great spot for an adult pre-game (read: a drink or a bottle of bubbles) before a nice dinner and walk around the Hill. The staff was great to chat with, and it was a fairly unpretentious spot to learn a bit about Italian wine while sitting at a bar.

We’ll have more next Tuesday (I promise!).

Taste Washington! 2013 – Day Two

After a pretty fantastic Day One of Taste Washington! 2013, it was on to day two. Much like Sundays in Woodinville, Sunday at Taste! was a bit mellower than Saturday, not to say it wasn’t also busy and enjoyable, not one bit. Sunday featured an opportunity to continue visiting new wine and food options, or revisit those you’d had a moment to savor and think about – or choose to reconsider.

While last year’s Sunday saw AQUA and Taylor Shellfish having cruised through hundreds of dozens of oysters with nothing left to shuck shortly after the grand tasting opened, this year’s was most certainly not a repeat.

For those of you whose heads have begun to spin, 800 dozen would be 9,600 oysters.

Much like Bob, here are a few comments and thoughts, in no particular order, on what I saw and experienced. There are plenty of other great wrap-ups and commentaries out there on Taste!, so I felt I’d share a bit of what one might end up seeing, doing, finding out about while on the event floor.

  • (Re)visiting a few favorite wineries, including pours of DeLille‘s 2011 Chaleur Estate Blanc, Boudreaux‘s 2008 Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon, Barrage‘s Nuclear Blonde Chardonnay and Guardian‘s Chalk Line, to name a few, was a nice way to fill out the “schedule”
  • Getting food pointers from Chris Gorman of Gorman Winery while sipping on his ’09 The Bully was fun, especially after bumping into him the night before at everyone’s favorite wine hot spot, RN74
  • Huge props to the Taste! organizers and Talking Rain for seemingly infinite amounts of water to keep us hydrated
  • Bacon cupcakes? Yes, please. Enjoyed a chat with the Yellow Leaf folks about their fine establishment and what goes into making awesome bacon-y cupcake goodness.
  • Tried the ded.reckoning 2010 Reserve Syrah and perhaps it was just timing on my part, but it didn’t strike me as well as I’d like for an $80 bottle. Would love others’ POV on this wine as I know people dig Compass Wines so perhaps it’s just my palate…
  • Chatted with RN74′s Chris Tanghe about super cool wine storage spot Phenol55, something that I fear I may be approaching a need for soon, given our ever-expanding cellar. Well that, and our propensity to bust out a 1998 Barolo and take it to dinner randomly. More from GeekWire on Phenol55 here.
  • Did we talk about “secret” pours yet? Almost forgot to mention the 2006 M. Chapoutier Ermitage Le Méal we scored on Saturday, or the DeLille Grand Ciel on Sunday. Ask nicely (or at least search for the “passwords” on Twitter!)!
  • Lots more spit cups than I’d seen at previous wine events, so perhaps the word finally got out. Also seen: less visibly inebriated people.
  • Really liked the new “Taste the Vineyards” option this year. Much like being able to try out AVAs is always enjoyable (and a great way to avoid lines for some of the wines you might be looking to enjoy), this was a very cool thing. Felt very much like how the regional enotecas in Italy worked out, giving you an opportunity to give a number of things a try without trekking around too much, or missing out on things you just couldn’t get to.

Most definitely learned a lot at this year’s event and found myself spending just as much time chatting up fellow foodies, winery and restaurant staff and event folks as I did chowing down on some fun bites and tasting new (and familiar, in some cases) wines. Taste! has definitely grown on me as events go, partially because of the two-day format, and partially as we’ve met a number of great people in the space, as it makes for far less “trade show”-like atmosphere, and more of a fantastic way to do a zillion things in a compressed period of time.

While the scale and volume of everything in the event space is definitely daunting at first glance (and second, third…), it’s really a manageable event to attend and feel as if you got your “money’s worth” and came away with something valuable. Kudos to the event teams, kitchen staffs, winemakers and their crews and everyone else involved for cranking out another solid year of sharing some of the great things about Washington State.

Taste Washington! 2013 – Day One

Saturday marked day one of Taste Washington! 2013, a wildly popular event for those in Seattle and the PNW, and the largest single-region wine and food event in the U.S., for those not in the know. It’s a huge event featuring opportunities to taste wines from more than 200 wineries and food from 60 dining establishments that spans two days, while also offering seminars on everything from wine education to cooking how-to’s. Simply put, it’s a whole lot of event that you absolutely have to pick your spots on.

Personally, I’m a Leslie Kelly strategy kind of guy.

Crafting a well-mapped route for Taste Washington might be much more efficient, that’s true. But it wouldn’t be nearly as much fun.

Generally speaking, it’s a good idea to have a pretty good handle on what’s there, but I also really like being surprised. Hearing on Twitter (the #TasteWa hashtag doesn’t get as much play as it deserves, but it works) what’s hot, where the “secret pours” are or what chef just showed up unannounced is kind of fun. Having someone you know from a restaurant you dine at mention that “you should absolutely try so-and-so’s something” is a bit of a trip.

On Saturday, we approached Boudreaux‘s Rob Newsom early on in the 2pm hour, and he asked if we were having whites (too many people stick only to red and miss out, IMO), and suggested we try Array Cellars‘ Dijon Clone. Naturally, we immediately popped over to Array, and tasted through their all-Chardonnay lineup (2010 & 2011 Columbia Valley Chardonnay, 2011 Dijon Clone), and definitely enjoyed the lot.

That said, there are lots of great tips to enjoying Taste Washington (and other events of this type), some of which Bob Silver lays out in his blog, WA | WINE | PR. In one post, he’s got a brief Q&A w/ Steve Warner, the Washington Wine Commission president, and his second entry on the subject features commentary from a few fine folks in Seattle and points thereabout on how to enjoy yourself and get the best experience you possibly can.

But back to the topic at hand – Day One. Some thoughts/highlights on the wine front, in no apparent order.

  • It was great to meet Sean Sullivan and Annie Hong in person, after lots of tweets, blog comments and so forth. They’re also pretty good tipsters, so if you see them, say hello!
  • Chateau Rollat – after a truly negative experience in the tasting room a few years back (it was honestly quite awkward), we walked right up to their table to try the 2008 Rollat Cabernet Sauvignon and 2008 Edouard Cabernet Sauvignon, and were genuinely in tune with things this time around. Both were pretty smooth, and expressed really nice color. We’ll keep an eye out.
  • Kerloo Cellars - we’d already heard people talking about the latest Rosé that Ryan Crane (ed: check out our 7.5 w/ Ryan from last year) was pouring after having tried it on Friday night at Pike & Western, so it was nice to see it on the table when we arrived. We dig Ryan’s juice, and I think this grenache rose is super bright and just what the doctor ordered for that type of bottle. If only there was more room in the fridge.
  • Kevin White Winery – where’d this come from? Kevin was pouring a 2011 La Fraternite Red Rhône Blend and 2011 En Hommage Red Rhône Blend, both hailing from Yakima Valley, and a tease of a 2010 he still had handy. Genuinely enjoyed all three, and think there’s that “something” there that you like to see from relatively new winemakers. Thought it was interesting to get one pretty down comment about KWW wines from a local media person, but that’s the only real “negative” we heard from anyone that tried the wines. What did you think?
  • Owen Roe‘s Red Willow – all three Owen Roes were solid, but the Red Willow stuck out.
  • Reininger 2009 Syrah – something about having “current” wines that aren’t all 2010 or 2011 is kind of nice, and while you can make the argument against having juice in barrels so long, much of what we’ve had from Reininger for years now has really shown well, whether we let it sit for six months (or more) or opened it the night it was purchased. Another great Bob Silver tip was to stop by the TR for these folks, and we’ve made it an absolute must each time we go to Walla Walla. They were pouring two other wines – a 2010 Cab and 2008 Merlot, which we’ll hopefully try today, but were trying to experience a few wineries that were new to us. Total underdog player, and if you can snag some Carmenere or the Chardonnay you won’t be disappointed.
  • We also tried some Doubleback, Betz, Waters, Maison Bleue, Côte Bonneville, Buty, and Cave B throughout the day.

If there’s one thing you must do while at Taste, it’s eat something. Oh, and drink water. There’s so much great food to choose from, and we tried a fair amount, and are excited about what Sunday might bring. Here are a few highlights from the “plate” side of the event, not that anything stayed on one very long…

  • McMenamins Six Arms‘ hammerhead BBQ pork sliders just about made my afternoon. After a lackluster brunch at a location who will remain nameless, this was a grand find. Just the right pork-to-bread ratio, nice sauce, and well put together. I guess we’ll have to make the few block walk up the hill and stop in one of these days, lazy me.
  • RN74‘s Chévre cheesecake definitely worked for Brittany Tracy, and I know that Kim Mahar was excited to make something other than beignets that people adore. They’ll be rocking goat cheese on Sunday, too, from what I hear.
  • Seattle Salads may as well have filled a plate with awesomeness, so there’s that. A nice way to mix it up.
  • Collections Cafe had gambas, chilled prawns in a garlic chili sauce that I enjoyed.
  • Yard House‘s ahi crunch salad was pretty good
  • Belle Epicurean‘s caramel pecan brioche bun was really nice, as someone who enjoys a morning bun on occasion (read: all the time)

Really looking forward to Day Two…what were some of your favorites?