Feast Walla Walla is taking place in downtown Walla Walla next week on Saturday, April 10. It is organized by the Downtown Walla Walla Foundation and features some of the best wine and food in our lovely valley. You can also expect art and music as you roam around the tent with your complimentary wine glass and and small tray full of food samples. And when we say food, we also mean delicious desserts. And when we say wine, we also mean delicious beer.
They are expecting 34 wineries and over 15 restaurants this year. The cost is $45 per person which gets you 10 tokens that can be used to sample Walla Walla Valley wine or sample food prepared by some of the best chefs in town. Wine and Dine Walla Walla will be covering the event so stop by our table to say hello.
We’ll be walking around the tent with a camera and interviewing local winemakers, chefs and random people enjoying the festivities. If you can’t attend, we’ll be shooting short video profiles with all the participating wineries and restaurants. We’ll try to post those throughout the day. We will also be setting up an … Continue Reading
Representatives from Walla Walla area wineries showed up at the Otis Kenyon tasting room to take part in the #WAMerlot festivities. The #WAMerlot Tweetup was organized by Josh Wade of DrinkNectar.com
Gary Vaynerchuk weighs in on the upcoming WA Merlot event which is taking place in the Twittersphere on March 25th. In preparation, he took a few Washington Merlots for a spin, including: 2008 Charles Smith Velvet Devil Merlot and 2005 Bergevin Lane Merlot. Don’t forget the Twitter hashtag is #WAMerlot. Locally, we’ll be over at Otis Kenyon taking part of their #WAMerlot party.
Walla Walla’s showcase event for food and wine will bring some new flavors to the table this year. Fish tacos, draft beer and hard cider among them.
Organizers of foodie festival Feast Walla Walla are getting tongues wagging for the third annual event, signing the largest number of food participants yet.
Fourteen food purveyors — from longtime chefs to culinary arts students — will serve everything from pub grub to fancy fare at the April 10 event, according to an announcement from the Downtown Walla Walla Foundation.
The $45 tickets are on sale now for participants 21 and older. The three-hour event starts at 1 p.m. that Saturday. Here’s how it works: Guests at the entrance of a 400-foot heated tent on First Avenue between Main and Alder streets trade their tickets for 10 event tokens and a commemorative wine glass. The tokens are exchanged at stations set up throughout the tent for samples of food and wine. … Continue Reading
We stopped by for a quick visit with Ronn Coldiron, owner and winemaker at Glencorrie Winery. He gave us a little background on the winery and shared some future plans. In case you are wondering Glencorrie is made of two Gaelic words that mean “field” and “pot-hole.” Ronn explained that pot-holes are part of the Columbia Valley geography. He also gave us some details about an upcoming baguette-making class that will be hosted by the winery in the month of March. Ronn has apparently perfected a recipe that will allow anyone to bake a Parisian-style baguette in a conventional oven. We may be back to check out the class. If you want more information about Glencorrie or want details about the baguette-making class, check out their site, glencorrie.com or give them a call at 509.525.2585.
Jennifer Northam talks with Tom Maccarone about Olive Marketplace. Get a sneak peak at the new digs before it’s open. Only on the Downtown Buzz, sponsored by the Walla Walla Downtown Foundation.
Living in wine country – there are magazines published, books written and even entire furniture lines targeted to the “lifestyle” – but what does it really mean?
We are fortunate enough to live within a couple of miles from some of Washington’s most prestigious wineries and tasting rooms so I decided that I want to get a first hand look at what the average visitor to Walla Walla experiences when they enter a tasting room here in the valley. And I want find out how they decide where to go during each visit to our “wine country.”
My first stop on this quest is Dunham Cellars. Dunham is known for their busy tasting room, their great wine club parties, a knock-out line-up of single vineyard reserve wines and of course the dogs!
I went tasting on a Thursday afternoon last week; not their busiest day of the week but what Jordan Fitzgerald, my guide during my time at Dunham, tells me is a steady day. She can expect to see about 15-20 visitors on an average weekday, but during harvest season weekends the small tasting room bursts at the seams seeing over 100 people on a given Saturday. Dunham Cellars does charge a $5 tasting fee but the day I was there they were pouring 10 wines and they offered the tasting fee back towards my purchase.
During my tasting experience, a couple small groups came through. Both happened to be ladies’ groups that were in town from the Seattle area having a “girls weekend.” They had assigned a fearless leader to chart the entire tasting weekend. And she was armed with maps, visitor guides and a legal pad full of notes. Every place they went, she said, everyone told them to make sure Dunham was on their list.
One of the misconceptions about Walla Walla wines is that we only do reds but I found that not to be the case, at least not at my first stop. Dunham Cellars provided quite the range for my tasting from a dry lightly oaked chardonnay to a full bodied, jammy single vineyard Lewis syrah. I even got a little dessert in a glass with a 2008 late harvest Riesling.
The Dunham’s have capitalized on their own family talent. Their winemaker, Eric Dunham, not only provides the artwork to decorate the World War II hanger attached to the tasting room but also designs the artwork on their single vineyard selections as well. If bringing in 18 tons of fruit on a given day in October isn’t enough Eric doubles or triples as it were as the chef at harvest lunches and occasionally for a winemaker dinner hosted at the winery.
Dunham Cellars tasting room is open daily from 11-4. They have been hosting harvest lunches earlier in the fall and will continue their Winemaker Dinner series throughout the winter. Check out their website for more information on Winemaker Dinners and area events that Dunham participates in: www.dunhamcellars.com
