Last week I was gently reminded that I now live in Washington, the second largest wine producer in the United States, so why am I still writing about California wines. I had to agree I had fallen into a habit of buying and tasting wines from regions I was familiar with. I needed to shake things up and go shopping, wine shopping, not that shoe shopping isn’t also just as important, but for now I’m doing okay on shoes. It is wine, Washington wine I need, and that’s what I did, went wine shopping. Mitch stood there and watched as I filled my cart with bottle after bottle.

He said, “I didn’t think we were out of wine.”

I said, “We’re not, but it won’t go bad, right? It never hurts to have a bottle or two around.” A case later he just shook his head and carried the box to the car.

Tonight I fixed pork chops for dinner and to go with them I opened a red blend from Columbia Valley, Washington. See, a Washington wine. The wine, Wild Haven, Blazing Red vintage 2013 had an alcohol content of 12.8% and very fruit forward. The wine was a very dark red color in the glass and smelled a bit of smoke, maybe a little like pipe tobacco. It was dry but not super dry, fruit forward almost jammie and had a nice finish that tasted like plums and currants.

This was definitely a wine I will buy again, super tasty.

I am working harder at trying more blends. Blends have always been a bit of a mystery to me. Single variety wines are easier, because you have a preconceived idea of what it should taste like, but with a blend, all bets are off. I never know what I’m going to taste when I open a bottle.

One thing I’ve found when I search online for Washington wineries or vineyards is that they are hard to find, not like California wineries. California vineyards and wineries have websites everywhere and are super easy to locate, but not Washington wineries. It’s like they are hiding and I have to go on a scavenger hunt to search the wineries out. Oh well if Washington wants to make it a bit of a quest for me find their wines, I will just have to work a bit harder. I do love a challenge.