Our Weekend in Walla Walla

2009 Walla Walla Wine Country

Last weekend our family of three, along with our friend Valerie, went to Walla Walla to visit wineries and just 'kick back'. I wrote captions under many of the photos. If you click on the slide show I think it will take you to Webshots and then you can read more about what is in the pictures. I love wine tasting and yes, I do spit but not all the time. If you visit 5 or 6 tasting rooms in a day you better spit. I taste, I talk with the pourers and confer with other tasters and yet I still am in the dark as to really being able to definitively know at that first sniff and sip if I am tasting a good wine or a great wine. I know I like reds more than whites but I did sincerely try to branch out and we came home with 4 whites; a Riesling, a Chardonnay/Semillion blend from The Foundry (my favorite), an Orange Muscat (too sweet for the man of the family, but us girls will enjoy it for a desert), and a Viogner. I lusted after but did not buy The Boy from K Vintners. The reds we DID buy: Sangiovese, Malbec and a 2006 Syrah from the vintner with the best story, Otis Kenyon. Wine alone does not fill a weekend. We went to Rook Park and chose to skate, run or walk. We also went BOWLING! Certainly it was not part of any plan but there was this alley only two blocks from the condo where we stayed and they were celebrating their 50th anniversary with 50 CENT games and there was disco music playing! Not that I like disco, but it was fun bowling music. I don't think I have bowled in a dozen years or more. I didn't do half bad.First game I scored 96 and second game 136! I think I made the hubs sweat a bit. He had to really 'work it' to get 158 and beat me. Even today he whined about sore gluts from "THAT GAME". We ate out but the food was not as noteworthy as two years ago, so I will leave it at that. We went to the Farmers Market and I bought the most delicious watermelon called Yellow Doll. It is small and has vivid, yellow meat and yes, there are seeds to contend with, but not many. Wow! It is SO juicy and sweet and only cost meet $2.00. Who cares if the other two family members don't like melons. That means more for me! We also stopped and bought a box of yummy nectarines and some big red tomatoes. The dehydrator is humming away, drying fruit as I type. Since returning to Seattle we have been blessed with rain. More of a blessing than usual for me because we have been painting our living room and I sure would hate to be cooped up in the house with paint fumes on a HOT day! My plants are really happy with the return of wet weather too. The tomatoes are ripening and I have plenty of beans and lemon cucumbers to share. The carrots are my treasured crop, they are growing just fine but not as fast as I like to eat them. Next posting will be garden pictures because I can feel it already; alas, the season is winding down.