We are temporarily in Washington State and are going to visit Chateau St. Michelle and Columbia Valley in Woodinville in a couple of weeks. Has anyone been there and/or have any comments? This is our first time going to a winery and are new to this.
Besides being one of the larger ( if not largest) winery in the state of Washington, it has a nice range of wines and prices. You should be in for a nice time. I have never been to the winery itself but have tasted the wines on many occasions.
J~
Lori Hohn wrote:
There are plenty of other wineries in the area, so you don't need to restrict yourself to just those two, if you don't want. CSM and CV are almost directly across the street from each other, so you can walk from one to the other if you like. The grounds at CSM are gorgeous but I frankly didn't enjoy the winetasting as much as I did at CV, where things seemed a lot friendlier. But maybe I just caught CSM on a bad day.
The Redhook Brewery is right next door to CV, too, if you want lunch or just a break from wine.
I visited both wineries, and had the same experience. The tasting at Columbia was extremely friendly and relaxed. Nice array of wines, too. We visited there only because it was across from Chateau Ste. Michelle, and I'm glad we did.
Thank you all for you input, I am looking forward to going to both!
One of my favorite domestic wines is a partnership with Antonori of Italy and Chateau St. Michelle.
Col Solare. If they have a tasting, don't miss this one!!!
Lori, I would also suggest you go to Di Stefano and Facelli Wineries for a smaller more "family-run" experience. Last time I visited Facelli the patriarch was running the show and he was a lot of opinionated fun. I would miss Silver Lake (seemed very corporate), but would probably hit DeLille as well. They are all in the same area (with a few other wineries that I haven't visited) and you can easily Google a map for your convenience. Have fun, Tim
It's been a long time since I was out there - but I would definitely try to stop at some of the smaller ones - several of the best aren't normally open for tasting but there are plenty of others. Take a look at this site for info and a map:
Dale M
Yesterday, we were at a Costco in San Antonio, Texas. While browsing through the wine shelves, we noticed a small table set up at one end. There were a few bottles on the table, and it was being manned by a highly tattooed young man. The wines were all from Chateau Ste. Michelle, and it turned out that he was Ron Bunnell, the winemaker who is in charge of creating their red wines (they have another winemaker who specializes in their whites.) We had a delightful conversation, prompted by the association that my spouse is also a Washington state native.
Unfortunately, Costco does not have the appropriate Texas license for wine tasting. However, we purchased one of his Indian Wells 2002 Merlot, which he autographed for us with a Gold colored pen. I plan to hang onto this bottle for a while before tasting it, and shall report my impressions at that time.
Godzilla
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