Selling Ice to Eskimos – Cascade Wine Company – Yakima, Washington

As you may have noticed, Barb and I have spent a LOT of time touring and drinking wine at the various wineries, tasting rooms, and events around the Yakima Valley and beyond over the past two years. By going place to place we get an opportunity to meet many of the people in the winery business, tromp past the rows of vineyard, and sometimes see the inner workings of the production side of the wine business. In the tasting room, we typically have the opportunity to taste through a line-up of several of a winery’s wines; for a small or newer winery sometimes ALL of their wines. Many times tasting is (still) free in the Yak, sometimes for a small fee. Practically every weekend, and even some weekdays, there is some sort of wine event in wine country where anywhere from a single; to a few; to over a hundred wineries are there pouring wines. Through these methods, Barb and I have tasted through literally thousands of different wines over the past two years. And, as our bank accounts can attest, we have bought hundreds.

About a month or so ago I was looking for the wine for one of Sean Sullivan’s virtual tastings (he always misses what we already have), so I went back into Cascade Wine Company. The store had moved from its previous location and is now on Yakima Avenue between 2nd and 3rd Avenues. I introduced myself to Jim Collins, the store owner, told him what I was looking for, which he didn’t happen to have, but just browsed the store for a while. This time, somewhat to my surprise, my perspective of what was on the shelves was a totally new experience.

I now recognized at least half of the wines and wineries in the Washington and Oregon sections, this comprises about half of Cascade’s inventory; and for the California and import sections of the store, I now had an interest again. Barb and I have realized our wine palates, while they have evolved over the past couple of years, have become pretty geographically narrow. Not that there’s anything particularly wrong with that, but as we’ve done when we’ve traveled outside the state for the past year or so, it’s interesting to us to test our new palates, honed to Washington wines, against what else the world has to offer, whether it’s Virginia, California, British Columbia, or New Jersey.

Cascade offers wines from all over the world, and on that first visit back there I sampled a Spanish Rioja made from Tempranillo and Garnacha (Grenache), and some other grape that I don’t remember. My palate recognized the flavors and it’s interesting to expand and learn. As an aside, one thing Barb and I keep meaning to do is to buy some of our old standby wines from when we lived in Illinois, typical for us would be a Fonterra Chilean Cab/Merlot blend, $15 per 1.5 Liters, and see how our wine palates now react. Good? Ok? or What were we thinking?

Anyway, even with the Washington wine labels I know, I could now survey these shelves and pick out wine I either like or producers I know. Sometimes the wines are the same as tasting room line-ups, but often the vintages was different than what I had sampled, and it’s interesting that many times the wine now on the retail shelf is “sold out” at the tasting room. I’ve even seen wines that have long been sold out at the wineries on retail shelves and have stockpiled a few favorites that way. Cascade gets new releases too, and I’ve sampled many wines I haven’t seen yet traveling the tasting room trail. Though it seems like we may do this at times, it’s impossible to hit 100 plus tasting rooms every month.

Besides the Yakima Valley labels that I know (and love), Cascade’s Washington wine section includes many West Side wineries, I first bought and sampled a Kennedy Shah Malbec based on Jim’s recommendation, as well as Walla Walla, Columbia Gorge and other Washington wineries. This even includes local wineries such as DavenLore and Southard that are grown and made in the Yak; they just don’t yet have public tasting facilities.

Cascade has daily, or almost daily, tasting of wine as well, and Jim often has guest wineries and winemakers come into the shop to pour their wine and meet the Yakimites. (I’m not sure what actually sure Yakima residents call themselves, but I like Yakimites.) After my first revisit, Jim invited me back for a New Zealand themed tasting where they were going to be serving mutton. I’d just had mutton the day before, so I passed on that event.

The thing that I’ve realized that is the most attractive about having a Cascade Wine Company close by, even though we live in the middle of literally hundreds of tasting rooms, is that I’m basically lazy. I can go to Cascade and buy a case of mixed favorites, new tries, and long shots all in one place. My last trip in there I bought a wine gift for a friend which was a wine I had in my cellar at home, but I was giving the gift on the spot so this was my typical last-minute shopping. I also bought a bottle of California Zinfandel Jim recommended and a Gilbert Cellars Rosé of Mourvedre. This last bottle was the ultimate lazy convenience since the Gilbert tasting room is about a block east of Cascade Wine Company and within sight.

So, if you’re in Yakima and have a hankering for some mutton, or are inherently lazy like me and want to sample some of the area’s finest wines side by side with wines of the world, even California, try out Cascade Wine Company, now on Yakima Avenue, not 1st Avenue, in downtown Yak.