Somehow I did it. After a two hour nap, I jumped in the car at 4am Wednesday and drove to LAX where I made my flight, connected with my friend the painter Fred Betz, and we found our way from the airport to Chateaus Ste. Michel in Woodinville and caught up catch up with the other wine bloggers on the WBC-or-Bust bus just in time for a lesson in food and wine pairing. Pictured at right is the way the sunlight pours into the room leaving a pattern on the concrete floor.
Needless to say, all of the food and all of the wines were fabulous.We started 
with four different reislings paired with Asian inspired cuisine, then four merlots with some manchego cheese and tender duck breast, and finishing with a late harvest riesling infected by the “noble rot” paired with a simple cookie and fresh raspberries.
For more details about what I learned, and to see more iPhone photos, keep reading!
(These are my notes–I’ll clean them up some and add links and check spelling etc but there’s another tasting to get to!)
Weds morning June 23
I made it -just in time for a wine and food pairing at CSM! although I almost was stuck in some sort of business meeting–I said these are not my people…
we’re in a lovely room,
Guided tasting with the winemaker a reisling master specialist and with the head of culinary team
1972 CSM resiling won a major award and put them on the map
there’s no dump bucket –oh dear! can just leave wine in all the glasses I guess and just gonna have to swallow!
monthly chef dinners, lunches, wine and culinary classes
The food!
the hotter the food the more RS, the richer the food the dryer reislings work best
so take a bite of food and taste the food–taste bite sip
1–08 eroica 1. ? rs?
been making it for 11 years with fruit used to be warmer but now fruit from more cooler regions
more germanic influences, cool year in 08
warm days cool nights makes more acid essential for fruit
2–09 eroica-blend of reislings 1.6 rs
more acid, dryer really awesome, more elegant style
left a little more sugar to balance acid but it does NOT taste sweet–love the acids in this wine
more lime and lemon not tropical fruits
a bit frisky on the tongue!!
reisling goes with everything, nothing you can’t put reisling with that won’t work
just back from China and it really worked with the cuisines
desserts–why do a dessert wine and dessert pairing? a dessert wine is dessert!
but a sea salt, choc caramel did work recently
3–dry reisling columbia valley
blend of a number of regions
trying to show the peach, apricots the typical characteristics rs .7
is wine a beverage?
reislings needs to be colder than other white wines so that the sugar and acid balance
so drink it ice cold!
hard to hear!
#4 cold creek reisling
one of the warmer sites in WA state
soils in general not fertile, very minerally
concentrates the fruit but it’s still delicate
trying to keep them from being too big and blown out because of the heat
upcoming event July 11 and on huge resiling roundevous huge event with winemakers coming from around the world
useful resiling taste scale on back of bottles now–shows sweetness!
onto the reds merlots from WA state
impact of sideways on merlot consumption? studies show it didn’t
as much as sideways put down merlot and promoted pinot, the price disparity made it such that people didn’t change that much–pino is too expensive and there’s great merlot at great prices, esp WA merlot.
here they often put the merlot after the cab in a tasting because it’s more fuller and finesse makes it a closer (YeS! I see!)
5 canoe ridge horse heaven
6 cold creek
(cab has a zippy character too)
matched with lamb game rich fatty foods so we did duck
manchego
aged cheeese works well with tannic wines
but also goes some middle taste sensations, those after you swallow, so lose tannins and complexity
7 meritage bordeaux blend
petit verdot started small and added more and more still small adds color and structure, mostly merlot though
I like this one–ccan’t get a bead on it, have to taste the whole thing!
can’t make a bordeaux unless you’re in bordeaux! (hah)
not a big fan of the sauce with the duck…but the duck is fab, perfectly cooked little gem
a bit spicy? makes the wines seem more tart, less juicey and usually duck and wine (syrah) different) and v dif than exp of merlot pre tasting today and before today
1976 opened visitor center #1 tourist attraction–they borught the wine to woodinville make it easy for people
2005 ethos late harvest reisling
makes every year from horse heaven hills a depression where they get botritis every year
I could just smell this wine all day
hand selected every cluster to make sure 100% botritis
elegance and purity of fruit
botritis acetone, paint thinner, acid edge not concentrated not bad more like lime marmelade
what to “eat” with it?
fresh fruit doesn’t work unless you put a peach in a glass and let it sit and drink it
cooked fruit does…
ok that’s what I got! gotta hit publish and keep on tasting and blogging! lots more to come!
wine predator.............. gwendolyn alley 