Join the Club (Part 1)

by Chris on Sep 18, 2010

Wine clubs is a topic I’ve intended to write about since I started this blog.  I don’t know why I haven’t before, and even though I read a lot of wine blogs, I don’t recall ever reading a post devoted entirely to the subject of wine clubbing.  So, here goes.

There are all types of wine clubs, and I’m sure there are some I don’t even have an awareness of, but the ones I’m familiar with probably fall into three (maybe four) main categories, what I’ll call “post card” wine clubs,  then there are social wine clubs, and the last one (or two) winery clubs.

Post card wine clubs are what we knew about when we lived in the large, unwashed region of the country known as Not Wine Country.   This type of club posts ads in magazines, or send alluring mailers to prospective winos (I’m not sure how we got on their mailing list), and there are pictures of far away places (California or even France!) draped in luxurious grape wines with shiny glasses of wine, beautiful people, and constant sunshine. The offer is typically 6-12 bottles of wine for a low, low introductory cost.  We’ve bit on a couple of these and I’ll say that for the uninitiated who wants to try some wine types or wine regions for the first time, this a fairly inexpensive way to get in on the ground floor.  The problem with this type of club is that it’s pretty much a crap shoot on quality and preference. You are very likely to get some wines you don’t particularly care for either because they are not your style, or they are simply plonk.  And that’s because there is obviously no way to taste the wine before the box arrives at your door.  The pictures on the post card ad don’t really tell you much and they don’t even have a scratch and sniff section for the wines on the menu.  We dropped the post card clubs when we moved to nirvana, aka, wine country.

The second type of club are the geographically based social clubs that cater to winos in a particular area.  These clubs are likely to exist anywhere I guess, but they appeared on our radar when we moved to wine country and in the Yak the ones I know of are the Tri-Cities Wine Society and the Yakima Enological Society.  We joined the TCWS at their annual Tri-Cities Wine Festival competition last fall and have been to several of their monthly get togethers where folks typically pay a fee which covers food and wine for the event, and the group meets for a themed wine tasting: Champagne style wines, Rhone style wines, wines of the Columbia Gorge, etc…  These events are very educational and it’s been fun to meet and get to know some fellow wine geeks through the TCWS.  Since our move, the YES is much closer to us and I’m guessing we’ll switch social wine clubs for the monthly events, but still trek down to Kennewick for the annual TC Wine Festival.

The last type(s) of wine clubs, that I’m familiar with at least, are clubs associated with specific wineries, or winery clubs.   These clubs are more or less a marketing tool for most wineries, where individuals are invited to join the winery club in exchange for certain benefits of membership, discounts, private event invitations, special tastings, and the priviledge (and obligation) to buy the winery’s wines at some frequency and quantity.  These winery clubs come in all shapes, sizes, and forms, and some wineries are more agressive than others in soliciting membership.   Barb and I belong to 10, 11,  er, a lot of winery clubs and since we have so much experience, mostly good, some not-so-good, with these winery clubs I think I’ll do a “part 2″ to describe in more detail the joys, advantages, and occasional tribulations of winery club membership.

I’ve alluded to a fourth type of club, which, as you can see, I consider a subset of the winery clubs.   These last winery clubs are more or less the pinnacle of wine clubbing. This is because the wineries involved have been so successful in alluring buyers that they have (mostly) been able to sell out their entire inventory through a wine club or mailing list system, and the membership is a closed club.  These winery mailing lists belong to those wineries that have reached “cult” status such that there are waiting lists to be on the list.  And there may even be waiting lists to get on the waiting list.  I kind of think of this like season tickets to the Green Bay Packers; the folks on these lists treat membership like a family heirloom and write it into their will who will inherit it when they die.  I can’t really fault this type of winery club since it makes most business sense for the wineries involved if they can reach this level; they are able to sell out without going through distributors or really marketing very hard, their wine is obviously very good, and they have a captive buying base that they can count on every quarter, year, or however often the list goes out.    Buyers on these lists typically love the wines so much they’re willing to forego food and shelter to buy the wines (hence the cult comparison), and for the most part all those inside the club are pretty happy about the situation.  At least it appears that way to those of us on the outside.

 So far, Barb and I don’t belong to any of these mailing list clubs, we’re on a waiting list or two, and I don’t know what we’d do if our number came up on one of those waiting lists.  The other possiblity is that one or more of the winery clubs we already belong to will reach the point that they will convert to a mailing list only winery.  If that were to happen, we’d be initiated with the true crown of winery club achievement, if there is such a thing, a charter/founding/legacy/grandfathered member.

I’ve sort of layed this wine club discussion out without a whole lot of critical commentary on the pluses and minuses of wine club membership.   Next time around I’ll go more in depth into the type of clubs we’ve become most familiar with, winery clubs, and I’ll share what we see as the things that make a winery club a good thing and worth belonging to, and those those things that sometimes make you go “hmmm??? ” when you…

Join the Club.

Out of the Blues – Whisper Ridge – 2004 A Voix Basse – Washington State

by Chris on Sep 11, 2010

Just like that, summer is over. Maybe it was our huge events in June and July, the Wine Bloggers Conference in Walla Walla, the Wedding of the Century in Illinois, and moving all of our worldly possessions. Maybe it was the lengthy cool spring. Or maybe it was just that I’m now officially old and all of my memories are now of nostalgic lazy summer days, even if it was just last week.

How Yakima Rolls: A Sushi Primer

by Heather Caro on Sep 10, 2010

That’s How Yakima Rolls: A Sushi Primer [slideshow id=39]

By Erick Peterson

Photos By Sara Gettys

When Molly Ringwald ate sushi in “The Breakfast Club,” it’s likely that the rest of the Western world joined Judd Nelson in asking, “What’s that?”

Now, 25 years later, we all know something about sushi. Even a visit to a concession stand at Seattle’s Safeco Field will bring you face to face with an “Ichiroll,” named after Mariners outfielder Ichiro Suzuki.

Though now a household name (if not a household food), sushi still manages to surprise diners with both new tastes and old facts. For example, while most of us know about the California roll (and now the Ichiroll), many of us are unfamiliar with the Yakima roll. Newcomers to sushi may also feel confused when looking at a menu’s long list of sushi varieties or at the various condiments served with sushi.

Fall in love with the Columbia River Gorge

by Heather Caro on Sep 10, 2010

Maryhill Museum surrounded by a sea of sage and lupine. Photo by Nayland Wilkins courtesy of Maryhill Museum.

By Heather Caro

Fall is the time of year when it’s easy to appreciate living somewhere with four seasons. The air is crisp and we can drive with our windows rolled down … finally. A great way to end summer and rev up autumn is with a road trip across Satus Pass. Grab a sweater (and a camera) and hit the road for a weekend filled with unexpected gems in the Columbia River Gorge.

Perched high above the Columbia River, the Maryhill Museum of Art defies convention. Landscaped gardens rise as though from an oasis in the middle of endless sage-flecked hills. The contrast has prompted many a passer-by to mutter, “Why in Sam Hill would anyone build a museum up there?”

And yet Maryhill’s origins are as interesting as its location.

In 1907, Sam Hill (interestingly enough, not the Sam Hill from the expression), a Harvard-educated, wealthy businessman and Quaker pacifist, purchased more than 5,000 acres along the Columbia River with the hopes of establishing his own Quaker farming community. In 1914, construction began on the hilltop mansion slated to be Hill’s home. However, the remote location of the site and the lack of irrigation eventually caused Hill’s utopian venture — and dream — to fail. By 1917, construction of the mansion (dubbed “Maryhill” after his daughter) had ceased.

But this was not the final page of the Maryhill story.

From Outdated to Outstanding

by Robin Salts Beckett on Sep 10, 2010

By Robin Salts Beckett

Photos by Chad Bremerman

[slideshow id=40]

It didn’t always look like this.

That’s the first thing Yakima’s Jennifer Bliesner says when asked about her home’s recent kitchen remodel.

Bliesner’s home, perched above the Yakima River near Selah in a neighborhood called Highpoint, was built in 1978 — not exactly architecture’s zenith. When Jennifer and her husband, Terry, bought the home in 2003, it looked every bit its age, with a dark brown exterior, a yard full of gravel and overgrown junipers, and rooms covered in wallpaper and wood paneling.

But with a knockout view and an affordable price tag, the couple was willing to “paint their way in.” They immediately set to work, peeling wallpaper and painting the exterior themselves on the weekends. Bit by bit, the couple put in long hours to update the home’s look — replacing a dated bathroom vanity here, switching out old fixtures there — and they didn’t enlist the help of professionals until their first major remodel, which incorporated the master suite, in 2006.