Last week I risked life and limb to make the drive across the Snoqualmie pass in the snow, although Mrs. Vinotology and I chickened out and took a longer route with less snow coming back, and thereby avoided the kind of mess that this video captures (courtesy of a tweet from my friend Claire McCool). Anyway, my trip was due [...]

It isn't often that you get a truly unique experience at a retail wine establishment. Sure, there are lots of stores that I have their niches, but for the most part you always come away with an experience that you have had a thousand times before in other shops. Last week I visited AVA Wine Rooms, a local wine room [...]

When you think of fine dining, where is the first place that you think of? A trendy downtown restaurant? Maybe even some obscure and off-the-beaten-path place that is cool enough to make people go search for it? What about a hotel? While the hotel used to be a destination for fine dining, that association has long since dissipated, but the [...]

One of the great things that I am finding about Washington is that there are so many different experiences within an easy driving distance. The East side of the state, where I am currently living, is all high desert. The desert has its own kind of beauty, with the rolling hills and rivers flowing in every direction, but drive a [...]

The Good The Good this week is the launch of a new blog focused on white wines from the Northwest. Ryan Reichert, one of the genuine nice guys and outstanding writers in the wine blogging scene, started this new project this week. The site looks great, and I love the highly focused nature of the site. I think there is [...]

There are some names that are instantly recognizable to most people when it comes to wine regions, Bordeaux, Napa, and of course, Prosser. Okay, so maybe Prosser is not on the list of most recognizable wine locales, but for those who live in the Northwest, it should certainly be a name to become familiar with. The city of Prosser is [...]

With the help of some great friends, including Scott Abernathy (wino4ever on Twitter) and the good people at Mercer Estates Winery in Prosser, I have been working on organizing my first Washington State tweetup. Mercer Estates has graciously offered their tasting room in Prosser to host the event, and you are all welcome to come participate in a tasting of [...]

The Good There was a pleathora of great stuff this week, as always. One of the highlights of the week in my oppinion was the announcement of a new online wine sale opportunity brought to us by the geniuses at VinTank. The program is called Deals From the Vines, and is modeled somewhat after the flash sale sites, such as [...]

Many states have their little quirks when it comes to liquor sales, and Washington has quirks in spades. Washington is one of 18 liquor "control" states, in which the state runs all of the liquor stores. Although I come from Texas, not exactly a home of free market liquor policy, I was still astounded when I first heard about the [...]

For those of you who are regular readers of Vinotology, you know that I am a sucker for a winery with a great story. I always enjoy hearing about the history of the wineries that I visit, and I also love it when the winery does a good job of incorporating that story into their marketing. Of course, it doesn't [...]