Attention Seattle wine lovers and visitors to our fair city!
No longer do we have to trek hours away to Yakima or Walla Walla or make the 45-minute jaunt to Woodinville in search of winning wineries, atmospheric tasting rooms and face time with working winemakers.
Instead, every Saturday from 2 to 5 p.m., for the reasonable sum of $50, we can take the Urban Wine Tour. Within a post-to-post route of a few short miles, we'll experience four wineries and the Wine Outlet, along with an intriguing array of food-and-wine pairings.
Pick up the Urban Wine Tour at 106 Pine, a Northwest-centric wine bar and retail store that opened in early February near the Pike Place Market. The richly hued, intimate slice of a space is the brainchild of Michel Brotman, a successful Seattle retailer for the past 35 years, and buyer Valerie Brotman, his wife of 24 years.
The atmospheric store - which offers some of the city's most interesting and beautifully displayed wines, wine and cooking accessories, wine-related books and glass display cases full of charcuterie and hand-made chocolates - is overseen by beverage manager Shannon Borg, a well-respected Northwest food-and-wine writer and author. Julia Wayne, who writes The Cheese Plate column for Edible Seattle magazine, serves as "cheese guru."
Together, this dynamic duo have crafted fascinating "This & That Pairing Boards" that are served on long, rough-hewn wooden planks. The "Ladies Who Lunch" board pairs Samish Bay Ladysmith Cheese (a cow's milk cheese from Washington), prosciutto, Pink Lady apple slices, Woodring Orchard's Tart Cherry Compote, marcona almonds and a Lesley's 72% Raspberry Heart Truffle with The House of Independent Producers 2008 Chardonnay ($12).
As you'd expect, Northwest wines are available by the taste or glass. Themed wine flights include Bright Whites; White & Red, Bordeaux Style; and Pinot Evil.
Talk about one-stop shopping! Within the same block, the Brotmans also own and operate Simply Seattle, a popular souvenir shop, and Chocolate Box, which offers sweet treats from the Northwest's best chocolatiers.
Two years ago at Chocolate Box, the Brotmans began offering the Tour de Chocolat, which highlights a handful of Seattle's leading chocolatiers. The chocolate tours proved so popular, the couple decided to offer wine-themed tours as well.
A couple of months ago, one weekday after work, I signed on for an abbreviated version of the Brotmans' Urban Wine Tour that was offered to the couple's friends and members of the media. Borg, who led the tour that special evening, told us that on a typical Saturday afternoon, 85 percent of wine-tour participants are locals and 15 percent are tourists. The groups gather at 106 Pine, where they're greeted with a glass of bubbly along with a general overview of the Washington wine industry.
That evening toward sunset, our comfortable 16-person van made its way through rush-hour traffic and, within minutes, we arrived at Ward Johnson Winery, a 600-case boutique winery that bills itself as "Seattle's Urban-Family Winery."
Once inside, we met winemaker Kurt Johnson, who tasted us through his 2008 Counterbalance Chardonnay, from Washington's Columbia Valley, and his 2007 Syrah from Red Mountain.
For this group of foodies and wine lovers, it was both challenging and fun to see which wine - the brightly acidic, green-apple Chardonnay or the lushly textured, peppery Syrah - paired better with Mt. Townsend Creamery Cirrus, a Camembert-style cow's-milk cheese. Me? I voted for the Syrah.
We didn't have time that evening for the tour's customary second stop at the nearby Wine Outlet. But Borg told us this is where owner Richard Kinssies, longtime Seattle wine columnist and founder of the Seattle Wine School, shares his thoughts on the basics of food-and-wine pairing and presents a tasting of local wines.
Who knew they were making wine in the shadow of Safeco Field? Our bus headed toward SoDo - the warehouse space south of downtown Seattle - for a stop at 85 Atlantic Avenue. This wine co-op is made up of four urban microwineries, where the talented winemakers share expertise and costly equipment and do everything except grow the grapes.
Here we enjoyed meeting the winemakers and tasting and comparing barrel samples, as well as finished wines, from Stomani, Falling Rain and Sodovino Cellars.
The tour concludes back at 106 Pine with a spicy chocolate truffle and a glass of raspberry wine to warm the heart, plus a cappuccino or shot of espresso to perk the palate.
In a blog posting written on the website shortly before 106 Pine opened, Michel Brotman recounts an epiphany he experienced during the first dry run of the Urban Wine Tour.
"The moment during the tour when I tasted some fresh Rollingstone goat cheese along with a glass of sparkling white wine from Masquerade Wine Co. in Kennewick, the entire reason for our store's concept and the tour exploded into my brain," Brotman says. "I liked the cheese! The combination of the wine and the goat cheese created an entirely different experience. Wow! I think we're on to something!"
Indeed.
Coordinates: 106 Pine is just east of the Pike Place Market between First and Second Avenues. Make reservations for the Urban Wine Tour by visiting the website at 106pine.com or calling 206-443-1106.
Braiden Rex-Johnson has been writing about Pacific Northwest food and wine for more than 20 years. She is the author of seven books, including Pacific Northwest Wining and Dining (Wiley, 2007). and is a regular contributor to The Seattle Times Pacific Northwest magazine and Amazon.com's Al Dente blog. Visit her online at NorthwestWiningandDining.com.
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