This past Saturday, (May 4^th) was Spring Release Weekend in Walla Walla!  At 11 am, I headed to Walla Walla to enjoy some of the latest wines being crafted by Walla Walla winemakers.  My 1^st stop was Seven Hills Winery in the downtown area.  Each tasting room I visited had a unique spread of hors d’oeuvres and finger foods to complement the wines.  But on this day, I was not interested in food at this early stage of the day.  It was the wine that called to me.  The wine that compelled me to buy was the 2016 McClellan Estate Cabernet Sauvignon.  It was very approachable but will only become more elegant with time in my cellar.  Their 2016 Malbec was also of note, and is a great buy for those who enjoy a delicious Malbec.

The next stop was Armstrong Family Winery.  I really enjoy the wines here, and the staff is outstanding, knowledgeable, and great with customers.  Scott Brown and I had a really good chat about gourmet food preparation, and of course Carl Brindle provided me with all the details of their 2015 Scotsman Syrah and their delicious food pairings.  I couldn’t leave this winery without this succulent Syrah from the Discovery Vineyard in the Horseheaven Hills AVA.  It received 92 points by Wine Spectator and likely deserved an even higher rating in my estimation!  The price of this gem is quite reasonable too, in the mid-$30s.

From the downtown area, I headed out to the Airport district.  We had a Club Shipment waiting to be picked up at one of my ALL-TIME favorite places – Palencia Winery.  Due to weather pushing out the club pick-up party date, winemaker and all-around wine-GOD Victor Palencia decided to hold the pickup party on Spring Release weekend.  It made for a great two-for-one experience!  The spread was really outstanding, and included many different imported cheeses, nuts and meats, cream cheese stuffed sweet peppers, and much much more.  The latest is that the 2015 El Viñador Petit Verdot is really drinking nicely, and this one is gonna be a star!  But everything this guy touches turns to Gold (or should I say Platinum!).  So as I’m making the arrangements to pick up our club shipment, I’m chatting with Victor’s sister Brenda Palencia-Armenta, and she mentions that there are still a few bottles left of the 2014 Mourvèdre that I thought was extinct!!!  I was like a kid in a toy store.  I really enjoyed this wine a few years back.  So Allison Hann takes me back into a secret ante-chamber, hidden deep within the Palencia compound, and she shows me a case of this juice of the Gods!  At that moment, you could hear angels sing and a ray of sunlight broke through the window and hit me straight on the forehead!  I was a lucky man.  So I left with a case of this fantastic wine on top of our shipment!  What a fantastic day it was!

I didn’t have to walk far to visit my next stop.  Just next door to Palencia is the tasting room for Eternal Wines and Drink Washington State Wines.  As I walk in the door, it’s hard not to notice just how many wines Brad Binko (winemaker and international wine-man of mystery) crafts.  A few years back I had the pleasure of being introduced to Brad via one of Brad’s colleagues and fellow winemakers – Victor de la Luz when Walla Faces had a tasting room right here in the same complex.  As I sat down to taste, we had the opportunity to chat about what motivates him to create such a diverse array of wines, and we also talked about his experiences in Chile recently as well.  Brad is really approachable, very knowledgeable about his craft, and the kind of guy people simply enjoy being around.  His winery is on the small side of production, with just over 3000 cases produced per year, but he makes some very good wines that span flavor profiles for everyone from the novice wine drinker to the connoisseur.  As I went through the tasting, many wines jumped out at me, but the two that really captured my palate were the 2016 Carménère and the Eternal Passion – 2015 Reserve Blend.  The Reserve Blend is a big wine that is really delicious and will continue to evolve in elegance as I cellar it for a couple years.  However…the Carménère is yet ANOTHER beautiful wine in a series of Carménères that Brad has created over the past several years.  His 2014 and 2015 versions were also really outstanding.  I have 2 of the 2014’s and 3 of the 2015’s in my cellar now, and am really looking forward to conducting a vertical tasting at my next wine party of Brad’s 2014-15-16 Carménères!  I can only say one thing….Brad is the KING OF CARMÉNÈRE!  Finally, as I was about to leave the tasting room, not only was I was able to buy a Drink Washington State stemmed & logo’d wine glass to add to my collection, but I had the opportunity to meet Grace Johnson Clarke who is in charge of PR and Marketing for Brad’s fine establishment.  Grace is a breath of fresh air and we discussed the possibility of coordinating an interview with Brad and Aaronswinechronicles.com in the near future, as well as the potential for some wine reviews and promotions of some of the wines Brad crafts.  Looking forward to future engagements with this powerhouse team of wine experts so stay tuned!

As I was leaving the airport district I noticed a new tasting room I hadn’t seen before, right next door to CAVU Cellars.  This new tasting venue was called Nocking Point Wines.  They had a really unique and diverse set of wines, and their price points were all very reasonable.  Most of my questions about the wines I tasted, could not be answered by the tasting room staff, which somewhat surprised me, but nevertheless, I ended up walking away with a very approachable Cabernet Sauvignon that sold for under $30!

The final stop of the day was another of my all-time favorite wine tasting destinations.  Long Shadows Vintners.  Winemaker Gilles Nicault was on-site today as were a huge team of support staff providing club-member only tastings as well as general public tastings in their facility high-bay area.  The various Panini bites were really delicious, and the wines (as you might already appreciate) were simply amazing.  For those who aren’t familiar with Long Shadows, they craft crème de la crème wines from Eastern Washington grapes and the price points are not for the meek, but the wines are built to last and are delicious every time.  I ended up with a bottle of the 2016 Feather (Cabernet Sauvignon).  I simply could not pass it up!