Fight the Winter Blues - Go Wine Tasting!

Winter time blues hitting you yet wine friends? December has been a really cold month here in the Pacific Northwest. The temps have been south of the freezing mark way too often for my liking this winter. What’s a good way to fight the winter blues? Wine tasting, of course!

I decided to avoid the crowds, as well as the price of admission to the annual St. Nick’s weekend in early December (for those of you who aren’t locals, this is the Holy Grail of winter wine tasting weekends for folks in the Seattle area), and instead go wine tasting in Seattle. Choosing places that had free tastings on Saturdays I packed up some family members, a bag of cheese and some crackers to share, we set off on a mission to taste wine in downtown Seattle.

We started our wine tasting adventure around noon at Champion Cellars on Denny in downtown Seattle. Open since 1969, this is the oldest wine shop in Seattle. When we stopped in this shop, the owner, Emile Ninaud, was behind the counter pouring wine, along with a gentleman in a beret. Emile, the original owner of Champion Cellars, told us he’s originally from Nice, France. What? How? From France to Seattle? I didn’t get the story of why he moved to Seattle but I’ll ask him the next time I stop in his shop. Anywho, he was pouring three wines from Portugal, all of which were delicious, and he provided a little history about the areas the wines were from as well. He seems like a genuinely nice man and he carries a pretty large selection of wines from all over the world. That was my first time in his shop, and I enjoyed myself so much that I vowed to stop in again.

Next, our little adventure took us to Esquin on 4th Ave South, in the SoDo (South of Downtown) district of Seattle. We were in for a treat! Small Vineyards (http://www.svimports.com/index.html), a wine importer from Seattle that imports wine from Italy, was pouring wine at Esquin that day. Just like the name implies, Small Vineyards not only imports wines from small vineyards in Italy, they actually go visit the winemakers/owners in Italy and see, smell, and taste the grapes and wine before they import them for all of us lucky, lucky winos. All of the wines we tasted that day were wonderful – keep up the good work, Small Vineyards!

The last stop on our Saturday wine tasting adventure took us to DeLaurenti’s in Pike Place Market. When I worked downtown (before I became a pseudo BORG for the Evil Empire in Redmond), I used to visit this Italian specialty store often. They not only have a wine shop, but they also have a huge selection of Italian foods, many of which are imported. But we were there to focus on wine, so we all trekked upstairs to the wine shop to partake in the highly-anticipated wines. We were very excited to see that two of the wines they were pouring were Champagnes. The other two were from California and were pretty delicious as well. AND they gave us a different cheese sample with each wine. Heaven!

After we accomplished our mission, we were starving so we headed over to the Copacabana Cafe in Pike Place Market for lunch. I had my first plate of Paella ever and it was amazing! Why did I wait so long to try this dish? Also, the view from this restaurant of the Puget Sound and the Olympics is gorgeous. I highly recommend!

An afternoon of wine tasting in Seattle is never complete without a trip to a chocolate shop, so we hit Rose’s Chocolate Treasures (http://www.roseschocolatetreasures.com/) in Post Alley. Her chocolates are not only delicious, but they’re works of art.

What a fantastic way to spend a Saturday afternoon. Did I mention that all of the wine tastings were free? I believe I did. So what are you waiting for?

For business hours and where to find the wine shops mentioned above:
Champion Wine Cellars:
http://www.championwinecellars.com/

Esquin Wine Merchants:
http://www.esquin.com/

DeLaurenti Speciality Food & Wine:
http://www.delaurenti.com/