The Accidental Wine Tourists

For Memorial Day weekend Barb and I decided, about a week or so prior, to go camping.  We’d travelled quite a bit together and even slept in a camper sometimes when we go to Barb’s dad, but technically we’d never been “camping” together before.  So it would be interesting to see what each of us considered to be needed for a camping trip.  This was first tested when we went decided what to live in for this outdoors outing.  We couldn’t afford a 60 foot motor home, but were both happy to find a mid-sized tent at Fred Meyers where I could stand up in the middle and there would plenty of room for a blow up mattress and all of Barb’s luggage.  Hunh? who even takes luggage on a camping trip?

 

We’d also waited until the last minute to decide where to go on our camping trip.  By my method, you drive until you find a quiet clearing in the woods near a creek or lake, you hope it’s public land or a house nearby where you can ask permission, pitch your tent, build a fire pit, put your beer in the water to stay cold, and scrounge wood.  But where’s the bathroom and shower house, Barb asked?  Oh.  We’d need a campground with running water (the kind in a pipe), little staked off areas to keep the big motor homes separate from the riff-raff tent campers, and maybe even a bug truck driving through every few hours spraying toxic fumes.

As we started looking for that type of camping, it turns out Washington state has about a bazillion such places, many of them state parks with campgrounds attached.  It also turns out we were the last residents of the state to know this and plan a camping getaway for Memorial Day weekend.  There were a few first-come, first-serve spots left, but even then we couldn’t get away until Saturday so prospects of being near the water, running or otherwise, seemed slim.

Where to go?  Oregon? Been there a few times.  Idaho? Maybe, but their campgrounds seemed just as overbooked.  What about Canada?  They probably don’t even celebrate our Memorial Day (turns out this is true, the big Canadian spring holiday, Victoria Day, was the prior weekend).  The other advantage, we’d be able to do something besides taste wine all weekend.  Barb wanted something different, and even I admitted after approximately two years of weekend after weekend of wine tourism, something different sounded fun. 

So we looked north.  Vancouver and Victoria seemed nice, but not exactly campgroundy, and a pretty far drive.  Barb found an area just over the border on a pretty straight shot for us that seemed promising.  A nice camping site called NK’Mip on the side of a decent sized lake. NK’Mip is hard to pronounce until you learn to sound out the “En” and “Ka” and the mip is pronounce “Meep”.  So it was settled, a reservation was made on-line, shower houses and even a camp store were promised, and we could drive about 4 hours to “get away from it all”.  Osoyoos here we come.

Some internet research to find the other things to do nearby found… wine.  Lots and lots of wineries.  Barb had randomly picked the only lake in a country of 10 million lakes that was surrounded by vineyards; we’d be in the middle of Canada’s Okanagan Valley, which now that I thought about it I’d read about, totally by accident. BIG SMILE.  “But honey, we’ve already bought a tent and booked the campground.  I promise we’ll do something besides taste wine for three solid days.”  She knew I was lying, but agreed to still go anyway.

You may not know this, but Canada is a whole other country from the United States.  We had passports though and we were even able to find them.  I loaded up the family truckster with the tent, firewood (cherry wood bought during my cherry frenzy of ’09), campsized grill, cooler with hot dogs and fixings, and luggage. Hunh, who even takes luggage when going camping?  

The next big clue for us Canada was a whole other country was the giant fortress across Highway 97 above Oroville.  Maybe these borders have always been this secure, but I knew to be respectful and not joke around when you’re likely in someone’s crosshairs and the agent is wearing a blast vest.  He was cordial but serious and asked a standard list of questions.  Where were we going , how long, where do we work in the U.S., do you have any fruits and vegetables?  No fruit, just fruitwood, and some condiments for our hotdogs.  

“Sir, you can’t bring firewood into Canada.”  Fair enough, we’d give it to someone going the other way in the multitude of campers we saw.

“And you’ll have to discard your onion.”  Bananas from South America are ok, but apparently onions are contraband.  

So we turned around through the maze of gates and asked someone in the parking lot on the U.S. side if they wanted our firewood and onion. Strange looks ensued and we went further south to find a WA state campground.  Once there, there were plenty of open spots, but we were now committed to drinking Canadian wine, so we found someone in need of firewood and onions and headed back north.

 

We made it across on our second try and the weekend ahead was a neat adventure filled with lots of interesting wines, looneys, and more onions.

 I’ll talk about those next time around.

The Great Wine North

We entered Canada without firewood or onions.  What would we do?  Well we’d go wine tasting of course.  Because regardless of how far we drive, fly, snowmachine, swim, or row a boat, Barb and I seemingly always find our way to a tasting room or twenty.

We scouted this out much like we did our last Willamette, Oregon trip by posting queries on CellarTracker Forum, scanning the interweb, and stopping at the first travel hut in country to pick up a winery map.  We got some excellent advice from fries at CT and he/she seemed to know what we were looking for.  They listed the touristy, big name wineries in the area, then listed those “for a perfect anecdote to the excessive hype” of some of those.  We tried a few of each, but if you’ve learned anything from reading this blog, you should know Barb and I prefer the off-the-beaten-path experiences in wineries and in other stuff.  For some reason the wine tastes better to us when we’re surrounded by real people and less foo-foo.

Our first day targets were the wineries of the Southern Okanagan Valley, the Golden Mile, Osoyoos, and Oliver, the Wine Capital of Canada.  Before this trip I didn’t know Canada had a wine capital, but after this trip, I think Oliver makes a strong case.   A couple of the larger places, while very beautiful and classy, caused us to turn around before tasting.  At Burrowing Owl, the tour buses and general push of the crowd caused us to stop not much past the foyer.  At Black Hills, which we had heard was a nice place with fantastic wines but needing an appointment, the experience was rather odd.   We drove by, notice a sign “OPEN” and decided to stop.  OPEN must mean something different in Canadian English than American English. Because at Black Hills, OPEN meant open if you have an appointment and want to spend a couple of hours at the alloted time touring the winery to have a chance to buy some “sold out” wine at exorbitant prices.  The wines were sold out unless you wanted to buy a gift box (very lovely btw) containing 4 bottles. We passed on the chance to sign up for a tour at some later time and date and a chance to buy sold out wines.

The other stops at Twisted Tree, Desert Hills, and Stoneboat were more interesting and we found good wines that covered an array of varieties we’d never tried before, Tannat, Gamay, Carménère, and a whole host of heirloom German whites that I can’t spell, much less pronounce, at Stoneboat.  We also found our favorite stop of the whole weekend, Fairview Cellars. Yes, it’s on a golf course, but that’s just a coincidence. The place is a small logish cabin type tasting room (pictured), and though I didn’t have to go, Barb was quite impressed with the display of glassware and winemaking equipment present in the restroom. It was sanitary though, and Fairview’s wines, primarily Red blends, Cab Sauvignon and Merlot, were very good, in addition to being a surprize. We had read about ice wines, Rieslings, and other cold weather grapes from Okanagan, but these Bordeaux reds I’d compare to anything from Washington, or even… gulp, Napa.

Our Day Two in Canada included a brisk morning, a fantastic breakfast at Smitty’s in Osoyoos, and vain attempts to use the shower house.  Barb had scouted it the day before and learned that coinage was needed to operate the showers.  She loaded up on Canadian quarters and we were set.  I entered, stripped down to my flip flops and prepared to quickly get my money’s worth: Looney for 5 minutes.  The quarters went straight through the slot in all three stalls.  No shower for me.  Later we learned a Looney is NOT the word for shower, but rather the $1 coin with a Loon on the backside.  Oh well, if we stunk on the second day at any of the tasting rooms, we’re sorry.  

The wine took us further north past Okanagan Falls, where some campers had actual fires going at a provincial campground; we’ll keep that one in mind for future trips, and up to the Naramata Bench.  Another absolutely gorgeous lake and several neat tasting rooms La Frenz, Lake Breeze (the Pinot Blanc was my favorite wine of the day), and Zero Balance.  Elephant Island Orchard Wines was also a favorite (even though I like my Bing wine better), as was Blasted Church, not only for the wines, but also the creative label art (I got a poster!) and the story behind the winery’s name.   Late afternoon stops back in Oliver included Road 13, interesting Syrah, and Antelope Ridge.  The proprietor of Antelope Ridge was a very sweet French lady who knew Washington wines.  “Ah, oui, do you know Christophe Baron?”  Yes, we know of Christophe but haven’t really had a chance to sample or buy his wines.

By Day Three we had the system figured out, used a couple of Looney’s each to wash off the campground, and headed for home.   On the way, another detour for wine tasting took us into another gorgeous valley, the Similkameen.  If Canada is off-the-beaten-path for wine touring, the Similkameen is off-the-path of off-the-path.  Our kind of place.   Sascha at our first stop, CrowsNest, was an absolute hoot and we spent quite a while discussing the Canadian terroir, shipping rules, tariffs, sausages and bread.  Sascha is the breadmaker and cook for the family hostel; his sister Ann, the winemaker.  Other wine finds included Orofino, our favorite Merlot in Canada,  Eau Vivre, and Seven Stones.  We even bought some Chardonnay from the Similkameen.

We also had another interesting encounter with the border patrol heading back into the U.S.  All weekend we’d heard various versions of what duty we’d need to pay for any wine we were carrying home.  Something around $2/case going this way, outrageous 150% or more tariff going US to Canada.  We were prepared to pay going South, kept all the reciepts and approached the gatehouse at Nighthawk.  Nighthawk doesn’t appear on any maps, and the border station agents there were quite surly that we’d chosen that spot to re-enter our homeland.  It was the straightest route out of the Similkameen, so they couldn’t really complain, but they did.  They also couldn’t collect the duty; didn’t have the forms or whatever, so I suspect they thought we were intentionally bypassing the duty.

No, but we did have another onion we’d bought for our hot dogs. That made them really mad, but since it was only half a yellow onion, we were allowed to come home.  A green onion apparently would have sent us to Leavenworth or Alcatraz for a dime. 

So any Canadians coming to WBC’10 at Walla Walla, leave your onions at home and enjoy some of the finest the U.S. of A. has to offer.  Forget about those Georgia Vidalia’s, Walla Walla’s are where it’s at when it comes to sweet onions.  Walla Walla onions go especially good with Christophe’s Cayuse Syrah.

Or so I’ve heard.

Ten Other Things

Today is the beginning of the Wine Bloggers Conference 2010 in Walla Walla.  Well technically, the WBC’10 itself starts tomorrow, but it starts today for Barb and me with the pre-excursion tour of the Yakima Valley.  Odd in a way for us, since we’d have to drive somewhere else to get on one of the buses that’s coming here if we were joining the tour group for transportation.  Fortunately Reno at Zephyr had the good sense to let us drive our own car to today’s venues.

 

One thing I’ve noticed about the events today is there’s a heck of a lot of bandwagon jumping by the wineries.  When it was first announced the Yak Attack was happening, there were four vineyard owners and a few wineries announced participating.  Now that list is 20-25 wineries long and it’s caveated “and more”.  Great for them, but it means we’ll get to see more familiar faces.  Fun!!  The dynamic will be interesting if and when they recognize Barb and me.  Because although a few know us well and know about this blog, I’m certain some others don’t and will wonder where the fat guy and his beautiful bride get off crashing this party (too).

I’ve seen lots of wine bloggers handing out awards and advice over the past day or so, or announcing their own version of planes, trains, and automobiles as they descend upon Eastern Washington.  I thought I’d offer my own local insight on things folks should do or look for (besides the wine) that might make their long weekend more fun in the area we now call home.

Dave Letterman Style:

10. Eat a cherry straight off the tree.  The early red varieties are getting ripe (a little late this year) and the trees with the dark green leaves of the Yak are absolutely loaded.  It’s better to rinse them off with water to remove any spray but a warm cherry straight from the tree, the way God and the WSU scientists intended, is a must.

9. Drink a beer made with local hops.  Actually just about any beer made in the U.S. is made with hops from this area, but my local favorites are Snipes Mountain Coyote Moon (Sunnyside) and Whitran Highlander Scottish Ale (Prosser).

8. Eat some asparagus. That season is almost over amd Walla Walla onions will be promoted daily I’m sure, but the fresh asparagus is pretty good stuff.  Barb and I are almost tired of it having had it as our green vegetable for every meal for the past 6 weeks.  

7. Eat a sage rat.  No, don’t eat a sage rat, but look for them.  They are these tailless rodents somewhere between mouse and grain rat size that scurry all over the vineyard roads, occasionally becoming splattered along the way.

6. Drive or walk along an irrigation ditch.  These ditches are an engineering marvel that deliver water to the vineyards, orchards, and row crops everywhere you look.

5. Look at the mountains.  Take the time to learn which snow covered peak is which.  Mounts Hood, Adams, and Rainier are the main ones in view from this part of the world.  St. Helens used to be over there beside Adams until she blew.

4. Eat some salmon.  Even if you are not a fish eater or a seafood person, you MUST eat some Northwest Salmon while you are here.  Summer fishing season just opened and though I’m no expert, I think it’s the big Chinooks that are running now.  And ask for the fish by variety at the restaurant, Chinook, Sockeye, Coho… not just “salmon”.  That’s the equivilent of asking for “wine”, when you really mean Cab Sauv, Gewurztraminer, Malbec, Syrah…

3. Drink the coffee.  I realize Starbucks are everywhere now, but they started in Seattle, and the entire region is dotted with little coffee shacks where you can pay anywhere from $2 to $10 for a high octane beverage.  It took us a while to adjust to caffiene level of these drinks, but now we’re just as wired as everyone else.

2. Kiss a farmer.  The crops growing here, there, and everywhere, that make up one of the richest agricultural basins in the world, didn’t grow here naturally.  Oh, there are plenty of organic certified and other “natural” crops, but the men and women who work their tails off maintaining the irrigation lines, turning the soils, and building the elaborate trellises deserve our love.  Give it to them.

And the Number One thing to do while in the Yakima Valley today….

1.  Make the bus driver stop at the DariGold Factory Shop in Sunnyside.  In addition to a self guided cheese tour, they have a fantastic ice cream stand and flavors change daily but always about 20 or so choices.  A single cone for $3 contains about a half gallon of ice cream.  And the amazing thing is that it contains NO calories.  You’re on vacation, Ice Cream Calories don’t count.

SCREAM FOR ICE CREAM!!!

Social Pages May/June

Social Pages March/April 2010

Yakima Girl’s Picnic in the Park

The weather has been so nice that Yakima magazine and blogger Yakima Girl (aka Jill Baer) decided to have a picnic with Jill’s family in the new performance park on Second Street in downtown Yakima.  Want to have a picnic in your own backyard?  Here’s where to get the goods.

Mixed Greens – 10 to Tee in the Yakima Valley

With nearly 300 days of sunshine in the Yakima Valley there is more than ample opportunity to get in a few days of golf. Lucky for us, we also have plenty of fabulous golf courses right here. Whether you are a casual weekend golfer or a tournament pro, there is a course to suit any skill level. So dust off your plus fours and book your tee-times, Yakima – the greens are calling.

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Zip-It Good!

By Heather Caro

Those who have done more stay-cation than vacation over the last couple of years may have missed the adventurous ecotourism trend of zip-lining.

Showing up everywhere from cruise ships to rain forests, zip-line tours promise an exhilarating ride without leaving a big footprint on the landscape below.  But you don’t have to travel to Cancun or Hawaii to enjoy the high-altitude perspective – Heritage Farms Canopy Tours in Washougal, Wash., is just a day trip away.

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Neato Mojito

Santiago’s makes their mojito with local mint, muddles with ice and mixed with rum and lime juice.  What makes theirs different, says owner Jar Arcand, is the coconut-flavored rum that’s floated on topo.  “That’s our special twist,” he said.

Santiago’s Restaurant

111 E. Yakima Ave.

Yakima

(509)453-1644

Happy hour, Monday-Friday

4-6 p.m. in the lounge

Farmers Market Eats!

By Robin Salts Beckett

Photos by Sara Gettys

Yakima’s Farmers Market on Yakima Avenue and Third Street has long been known as the place to find fresh, local fruit and vegetables for dinners at home, but it also offers a delicious array of food that’s ready-to-eat; in fact, it’s a veritable outdoor food plaza, with dishes like pad thai, lumpia and even the decadent and ever-so-French pain au chocolat beckoning hungry shoppers to stop and stay awhile. Visitors can follow their nose, grab a bite and find a nice place to sit and taste the flavor of the market right there on Third Street.

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