The Wine Knows

I could not be more jazzed about our big judging Friday for the Fall issue of Wine Press Northwest. We've gathered about 70 Italian red varieties from throughout the Northwest.

I figured we'd end up with a lot of Sangiovese and a bit of Zin and the odd Nebbiolo. Here's how it stands at the moment (with a couple of more wines showing up Thursday morning:

-- 32 Sangioveses
-- 11 Zinfandels
-- 11 Barberas
-- 6 Dolcettos
-- 3 Nebbiolos
-- 2 Primitivos
-- 1 blend (Sangio, Nebbiolo, Zin)

The vast majority are from the Columbia Valley, but we also received wines from the Wahluke Slope, the Horse Heaven Hills, the Yakima Valley, the Walla Walla Valley, the Applegate Valley, Red Mountain, the Umpqua Valley, the Rattlesnake Hills and even the Willamette Valley.

All of these are emerging varieties in the Pacific Northwest, so it will be especially exciting to see how they turn out.

(And before someone correctly points out that Zinfandel is, in fact, not Italian, yes we know. We're sticking with tradition on that one.)

Ciao for now.