{flashing back to the seattle trip}
because my mom and dad are the coolest parents ever, while mike was at work one day, they hired a private driver and we spent the day visiting a bunch of wineries in woodinville. woodinville is about a 30 minutes northeast of seattle, and it’s home to over 90 wineries and tasting rooms representing all different parts of washington.
my parents are big on wine, and they’ve been to several different areas of “wine country” across the U.S. they usually hire a driver like they did when we there, but it was my first time tagging along with them [or at least since i’ve been 21+]. after the experience, i wouldn’t do it any other way! it’s safe, relaxing, and fun, and once the driver gets a feel for what you like, he/she is more likely to take you to wineries that fit your taste and likings. our driver was great. she picked us up in front of our hotel at 10:30 am, and we spent the next several hours hitting up some excellent wineries and tasting rooms in woodinville. we got to taste a lot of really good bottles, and throughout the day, she also told us the history and facts about the area and each individual stop that we made.
the first winery that we visited was the most well-known one: chateau ste. michelle. my mom had been there before, and even though it’s a little commercialized, she thought it was a good place to start off with, mostly just because the grounds are so pretty.
the second winery we went to was novelty hill januik. it was a very modern-looking building, and although we only moderately liked the wines, it was an interesting place to visit.
matthews winery was next on the list. it was very small and not as cool-looking as the other two, but we tasted some great wines, and the guy helping us was really knowledgeable and informative. we really liked the columbia valley 2009 claret and the blackboard red [i can’t remember if it was the 2009 or the 2010]. we bought a few bottles from here.
then we went to mark ryan winery, which was exceptional. dad proceeded to buy a bottle of every single wine we tasted here(!), but admittedly, every one of them was really good. if you ever see a bottle of mark ryan, i highly recommend purchasing it.
the last place we visited was airfield estates. this one was cool because it was “airplane-themed” – perfect for dad. the labels were extra cute! we brought home a couple of tasty bottles from here, as well as a t-shirt for dad. we also met some old fighter pilots who had some great stories to tell!
after that, we headed home, but what a day! it was such a fun experience and i loved every minute of it. thanks mom and dad!
xoxo