The Wine Knows

One item of note as we prep for our Riesling competition this weekend: The noble white wine grape of Germany and Alsace is produced throughout the Pacific Northwest. In fact, I'm a bit amazed at how many various appellations are represented on wine bottles.

For the second consecutive year, a wine from British Columbia has won best of show at the annual Northwest Wine Summit. This year, however, the victorious wine was more "traditional."

The winner was Mission Hill Family Estate for its 2006 Select Lot Collection Riesling Icewine.

Up here at Timberline Lodge, we ran into a bit of a mystery over Ste. Chapelle's Sparkling Riesling. On the bottle, it is listed as a nonvintage American wine.

Northwest Wine Summit Director Parks Redwine bet me $1 that it used California grapes, based on the fact that it says in small type on the back of the bottle: "Vinted & bottled by Ste. Chapelle, Madera, Calif."

The other evening, I was pouring wines at a charity event. It's safe to say that most of the folks there did not know a lot about wine, so part of my job was to make it educational as well as entertaining.

I brought a couple of bottles from Sawtooth Winery near Nampa, Idaho. A woman came up to the table looking for a glass of red.

"How about a Syrah from Idaho?" I asked with enthusiasm.

Two red wines I've tasted in the past three days have been especially remarkable.

Wine Press Northwest is tasting 133 Northwest Pinot Noirs today and Saturday. In the magazine's 10-year history, this is our third "big Pinot tasting" - and some of these Pinots are big.

Said one judge after the second flight: "Some of these folks sure aren't shy with the alcohols."

We recently caught up with Stu Scott, owner/winemaker for Camas Prairie Winery in Moscow, Idaho.

Stu is quite a character with a fascinating background. He makes a dizzying array of wines - everything from a Champoux Vineyards Cabernet Sauvignon to a mead that uses Ethiopian hops (and it is really, really good). He also has an intriguing military history. All of these factored in when we selected Camas Prairie as our 2007 Idaho Winery of the Year.

I ran across a new blog that focuses on the area known as the Treasure Valley in southwestern Idaho, heart of the Idaho wine industry.

This is the first blog I've run across that focuses specifically on the food and wine of Idaho, so I'll definitely keep an eye on it.

We are giving away four copies of Braiden Rex-Johnson's latest book, Pacific Northwest Wining & Dining. Braiden, our longtime food-and-wine-pairing columnist, has penned a beautiful book that helps to further define Pacific Northwest cuisine, especially as it relates to Northwest wine country.

It's been a fascinating and news-filled year for the wine industries of the Pacific Northwest, with weather causing havoc during harvest, pioneers passing away, Ste. Michelle Wine Estates gaining as a major national player and an iconoclastic California winemaker setting up shop in Washington.