Woodinville Wine Country - January 1, 2018

Since it’s the holiday season, we explored very close to home enjoying a favorite pastime of ours…wine tasting in Woodinville Wine Country (WWC).
There really couldn’t be a better place than Woodinville to try so many amazing wines within a small area geographically.  At last count, there are 118 Wineries & Tasting Rooms in Woodinville in four districts (Hollywood, West Valley, Warehouse, and Downtown).  For this exploration, we stuck to the Warehouse District that has over 50 wineries alone.  Even within this area, there are three separate areas highlighted (Warehouse, The Junction, and Artisan Hill).  
We ventured to the original Warehouse district that admittedly looks like a strip mall on the exterior marked by dozens of sandwiches boards at the entrance off 144th Avenue NE. Inside the wineries and tasting rooms, however, it is quite a different story.   The places we visited offered very warm welcomes with beautiful décor. 
We visited a few, but we really enjoyed our visit to Elevation Cellars where we had the chance to meet the owner (and winemaker) Steven Stuart.  As I mentioned previously, we enjoy wine tasting but are definitely novices when it comes to varietals, aroma, age, taste, etc.  Thankfully, Steven was able to spend a little time with us and walked us through each of the samples we tasted.
Steven’s story is interesting although my guess is there are many of the winemakers in WWC that have stories that are just as interesting.  According to the Elevation Cellars website, Steven wanted to make wine as long as he could remember.  He was living and working as an engineer in Colorado, and as fate would have it he was offered an engineering job in Woodinville in 1997.
He started making wine on his own and then eventually with a group of “garagistes” while at the same time building relationships with some of the best vineyards in the Columbia Valley.  Through the years, he continued to hone his craft and now Elevation Cellars wines are distributed around the region.  All we know is that the wine was delicious, and we really enjoyed ourselves.  
As I mentioned, there are about 50 wineries and tasting rooms in the Warehouse District alone so you have may to choose from including….Ambassador Wines, Ancestry Cellars, Armstrong Family Winery, Auclair Winery, Baer Winery, Barrage Cellars, Beaumont Cellars, Bunnell Family Cellar, Callan Cellars, Chatter Creek Winery, Covington Cellars, Cuillin Hills Winery, Damsel Cellars, Davenport Cellars, Des Voigne Cellars, Descendant Cellars, DiStefano Winery, Efeste, Elevation Cellars, Eye of the Needle Winery, Five Stars Cellars, Flying Dreams, Gard Vintners, Genoa Cellars, Gorman Winery, Kaella Winery, Keira Cellars, Kevin White Winery, Long Cellars, Love That Red Winery, Michael Florentino Cellars/Gecko Cellars, Newhouse Family Vineyards, Newsprint Wines, Ovelisco Estate Winery, Page Cellars, Patterson Cellars, Pomum Cellars, Pondera Winery, Refuge & Prospect Winery, Robert Ramsay Cellars, Savage Grace Wines, Smasne Cellars, Sol Stone Winery, Sparkman Cellars, Stevens Winery, Tenor Wines, Three of Cups Winery, Two Vintners, Upland Estates Winery, Warr-King Wines, William Church Winery, and W.T. Vintners. (I apologize if I inadvertently omitted any wineries in the warehouse district.)
We’ll be back for sure and definitely plan to try the other districts as well.  Please “Don’t drink and drive” when you head out for your own tasting exploration.
Elevation Cellars · 19495 144th Ave NE Suite A-115, Woodinville; 425-483-2800; elevationcellars.com
Woodinville Wine Country; woodinvillewinecountry.com

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