Taste Washington: The Super Bowl of Wine Events

Screen Shot 2014-02-17 at 12.02.23 PMMarch is officially Washington Wine Month, although we celebrate the state’s fabulous juice every month.

The March festivities culminate on March 29-30 at Taste Washington, the country’s largest single-region wine and food event. That’s just one of the reasons we call it “the Super Bowl of Washington state wine events.”

More than 200 wineries will be pouring at Century Link Field, 70 restaurants will be preparing tasty bites, and you can discover more about Washington wine at special seminars about the state’s wine industry, in addition to learning about wine-and-food pairings, wine blending and cooking with wine.

We highly recommend that you develop a plan for Taste Washington’s Grand Tasting before you enter the doors. Because once there, you will be hit with an explosion of taste potentials — and it can be overwhelming.

For example, one year we decided to only taste wines made from Cabernet Franc, as a standalone varietal. Another year, we decided to visit booths of some of our tried and favorite wineries plus five new ones.

Below is our initial list of the winery booths that we hope to visit this year. We will narrow the list down before the event, where we will taste at some booths and just stop by to say hello at others. And chances are something will catch our eye occasionally as we walk through the aisles, and we’ll make an on-the-spot decision to deviate from the list.

Note: We recommend tasting and spitting wine (or pouring it into the buckets at each booth) at this major event, but if you think you might want more than a sip or two, many hotels in the area are offering special weekend packages. Otherwise, be sure to have a designated driver, or take cabs or local transit home.

Of the 200 wineries pouring at Taste Washington, here is our long list of 35 of our favorites (in alphabetical order):

  1. Alexandria Nicole Cellars
  2. Amavi Cellars
  3. Andrew Will
  4. Avennia
  5. Barrister Winery
  6. Bartholomew Winery
  7. Betz Family Winery
  8. Boudreaux Cellars
  9. Buty Winery
  10. Charles Smith Wines/K Vintners
  11. Cooper Wine Company
  12. Double Canyon
  13. Doubleback
  14. Dunham Cellars
  15. EFESTE
  16. Fall Line Winery
  17. Fidelitas
  18. FIGGINS
  19. Force Majeure Vineyards
  20. Forgeron Cellars
  21. Gilbert Cellars
  22. Gorman Winery
  23. Guardian Cellars
  24. JM Cellars
  25. L’Ecole No 41
  26. Lauren Ashton Cellars
  27. Long Shadows Vintners
  28. Matthews & Tenor Wines
  29. Obelisco Estate Wines
  30. Sinclair Estate VIneyards
  31. Sleight of Hand Cellars
  32. Sparkman Cellars
  33. Va Piano Vineyards
  34. Walla Walla Vintners
  35. Woodward Canyon

We hope to see you there!

Cheers!

 

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About Margot

Margot has been writing about wine since 1997 at KOIN-TV in Portland, Oregon; ten years later, she created this blog. Write for Wine focuses on the fine wines of Washington state, with additional posts about Oregon, B.C., California, ANZ, France, Italy, Spain and more. A former national journalist in Canada and the U.S., Margot has been a Washington wine enthusiast since moving to Seattle in 1999. Her motto: “It’s wine o’clock somewhere.”