Our Favorite 50 Washington Wineries

NYE WineHappy New Year! As we begin 2019, it’s time for our annual Favorite Washington Wineries List for the previous year. The way to get on our list is fairly simple: wineries must offer great juice and good people who provide an excellent wine experience.

Perhaps we had fun or learned something in a tasting room, a wine shop tasting, or at a wine event. Perhaps someone from the winery gave us a call, or sent us a personal note or samples. Or perhaps we were invited to an incredible winery party.

These people who made our experience special include the winemakers; the winery owners; the hard-working staff in a tasting room who went out of their way to make us feel welcome; and the amazing workers in the vineyards where it all begins.

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Rosé Round-up – The Perfect Summer Sipper

To us, the warm weather means it’s time to sip rosé on the deck or patio, lakeside, oceanside or poolside. Drink pink!

Rosé can be paired with seafood, shellfish, smoked salmon, salads, pasta and Asian dishes. Or simply drink rosé without food, watching the sunset reflected in its pretty color.

Here are seven summer sippers that we enjoyed, listed by price — five from Washington state, one from Spain and one from New Zealand.
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Our Top 50 Washington Wineries

NYE WineHappy New Year! As we begin 2018, it’s time for our annual Top Washington Wineries List. We have returned to our original list of 50, after it climbed up to 65 wineries last year. Why? As time goes on, our palates change, and our wine experiences become more focused. In addition, in 2017 we visited Walla Walla again for the first time in a few years, which shone the light on some new favorites.
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Amavi Cellars

A few months ago, we had a wonderful time at Amavi Cellars in Walla Walla, thanks to the friendly, fun and knowledgeable tasting room manager Lynne Anderson and associate Bryant Williams.

We tasted pours from five bottles of wine — three beautiful reds from the warm 2014 vintage and a 2016 white and a rosé. As we sipped through the wines, we noticed that Amavi tasting notes give you everything you might want to know before buying a bottle. So we decided to share their winemaker notes here, instead of our own. Thanks to winemaker Jean-François Pellet for outstanding wine and impressive tasting notes.

We enjoyed every single wine that we tasted, which is not always the case in our winery travels.
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