Woodinville Wine Tasting

Wowee, we had an amazing time in Woodinville today! My best friends, my husband and I met up at Chateau Ste Michelle first. They had a beautiful Christmas display, but we all felt that the wine was pedestrian and moved quickly on to Mark Ryan Winery.

[Image from Mark Ryan] My best friend and I loved the tasting room, especially the neat yellow cupboard serving as a tasting bar!
The wine HERE was stunning. It was understated and excellent. It's pricey but worth it.
I absolutely love their bold red wines. We all enjoyed the Long Haul and the Dead Horse especially. The tasting room itself was a interesting juxtaposition of rock/hip-hop album covers and wine paraphernalia.

My favorite piece of art was the print of the Grey Album album cover by Justin Hampton. The Grey Album is a favorite of my husband's and mine. DJ Danger Mouse remixed the vocals from Jay-Z's The Black Album and the Beatles' White Album into a masterpiece. Brian Burton (Danger Mouse) is quoted as saying:

"A lot of people just assume I took some Beatles and, you know, threw some Jay-Z on top of it or mixed it up or looped it around, but it's really a deconstruction. It's not an easy thing to do.' 'I stuck to those two because I thought it would be more challenging and more fun and more of a statement to what you could do with sample alone. It is an art form. It is music. You can do different things, it doesn't have to be just what some people call stealing. It can be a lot more than that." [Quote & Image from Wikipedia] Check out this music video as an example of the Grey album.

In addition to great company, art, and wine, we had the pleasure of meeting Mark Ryan, the winemaker too. He quoted Pearl Jam and poured us some tasty wine.
There was even a neat vintage Indian motorcycle in the Mark Ryan tasting room!
Next door was the J. Bookwalter tasting room...
The main stop was the fun Stained Tooth Society wine club party at Dusted Valley!
They had festive harvest and wheat decorations, typical of their wine labels. The four of us all agreed that the Walla Walla Reserve Syrah was utterly fabulous and worthy of purchasing.
We all got a kick out of the etched magnums, with their skeleton bikers and flames!
Our last stop of the day, was right next door to Dusted Valley. Brian Carter Cellars was nice cap to our wonderful wine tasting afternoon.
There was a wonderful sunset as we left Brian Carter. Overall we had fun wine tasting, but it lacked the familiarity and personability of a non-retail oriented wine experience like our favorite Walla Walla tasting rooms.