Cooper Wine Company 6/15/10

Red Mountain Tour

A beautiful (cool & sunny) day in Red Mountain started with a tasting at Masquerade. We enjoyed ourselves so much, we forgot to take pictures! We have another excuse to go back again for more Sparkling Wine, Gewurztraminer, and Malbec (and hit a few golf balls while we're at it). Thanks to Bill & Jennifer Kimmerly for opening up just for us.

Our second stop was the new COOPER. Neil and D.B. Cooper greeted us outside and then showed us the new digs - all spiffed up and ready to show off his awesome wines. We can hardly wait until we can buy them.

Neil Cooper

Third stop was at Eve & Ed Shaw's Portrait Cellars. Ed was somewhere buying some new winery toys and missed out on a wonderful lunch and tasting. Eve sneaked us down into the cellar to try the newest Riesling and Cab that will be bottled in the next few weeks. We will want some of THAT, too!

Portrait Cellars

Our last stop was to Linda Andrew's Art & Glass Studio. We were in awe of all the techniques she uses. See for yourself in these photos. A very successful day in Red Mountain.....

Have fun on your vacations and we'll see you on August 13.

Don Carlo Vineyard

Don Carlo Vineyard, established in 2007 and located in Milton-Freewater, is owned and operated by Tim and Lori Kennedy.  Prior to owning the vineyard Tim made potato chips.....awesome potato chips.  In fact, Tim is the Tim in Tim's Cascade Chips!  I was quite excited to learn this because Tim's Chips have been my family's favorites for years.  And after tasting the Kennedy's wines, it's obvious they put as much love into their new endeavor as they did the last. 

                      

   

This picture of the vines being planted was very cleverly taken by Karen Sowers - it's actually a picture of a picture!  Looks real doesn't it? In the previous picture you can see Lori showing/explaining to Michelle the various stages of the vineyard's progress by using the pictures on the coffee table.  It is from one of these that Karen took her picture.

We're on YouTube!

Here is Catie's video from our Walla Walla tour

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNCsRyiBs9Y&feature=autofb

Petit Noirs Chocolates

   

Va Piano

Balboa

Balboa, a spur of the moment stop, is where we had lunch....Gayle called a few minutes before we descended to ask permission to have our picnic lunch in their tasting room - the weather was too cold to have it where we had originally planned. Not only were we welcomed, but they moved their bistro patio tables and chairs inside for us....all in about 5 minutes! This was a really fun stop and their wines were voted "fav of the day" by many. Thanks, guys!!

  

Saviah

Traditionally, lavendar is planted at the ends of the rows of grape vines to attract bees for pollenation and to ward off unwanted insects.

Longshadow

Monday, May 10th

We stepped it up and went to FIVE wineries & a chocolate boutique in one day. We definitely needed to pace ourselves.

1. Don Carlo
2. Petits Noirs FABULOUS chocolate
3. Va Piano
4. Balboa ~ picnic here
5. Saviah Cellars
6. LongShadows

Catie McIntyre Walker joined the 11 of us ( she's the Wild Woman of Walla Walla) See her blog link ~ Through The Walla Walla Grapevines.

This Month's Wineries: Upland Estates & Goose Ridge

The wineries Gayle chose for us to visit this month were incredible! We started with Upland Estates located on Snipes Mtn, Washington's 10th AVA. While we were tasting several of their wines, proprietor Todd Newhouse, shared with us some of the truly remarkable history of this family owned and operated winery. This is a picture of one of the vinifera grapevines planted by William B. Bridgman in 1917 and is the actual vine used on their label today. It kind of looks like the Keeper-of-the-Vineyard to me..... Established in 1934, Upland was the first winery in Washington to commercially produce fortified wine - the wine we drink today. For more history about this award winning winery and the mountain on which it sits, visit http://www.uplandwinery.com/

The view from atop Snipes Mountain. Approximately 800 acres are devoted to wine grapes used in Upland's wines and in 20 other wineries. An additional 500 acres are devoted to cherries, apricots, nectarines, peaches, prunes, pears, apples, juice grapes, and table grapes.

The fruit trees are all in bloom - beautiful!

Our ubiquitous dust devils. They're actually pretty cool to watch. All of a sudden they'd appear...then just as quickly...poof...they're gone!

 

"Hmmmm, I wonder if I could do something like this...."

It's wild to think that these vines are almost 100 years old and still producing!! I bet they're really spooky looking in the dark...with a full moon....


Goose Ridge was our last stop. Their new facility is beautiful - to the left there's a big fireplace (they had a fire going for us) with big comfy leather furniture in front of it, in the center there's several pub tables with bar stools around them and the tasting room is to the right. Everyone brought an appetizer/salad/desert to share and as usual it was awesome!