So, I took Friday off work last week so I could hang out with Muffin and JO. We decided to make a trip to the Eastside and visit the Chateau Ste. Michelle and Columbia wineries as well as the Red Hook Brewery. These places are all conveniently located across the street from one another and 5 minutes from where Beard Boy works (so he could drive us home).
We arrived at Ste. Michelle around 1-ish and decided to take the 1:30 tour. It was a nice short tour that started with the bottling machinery - which of course reminded me of the winery in Put-in-Bay, Ohio that showcased where they put the caps on. Sadly, or luckily, depending upon your point of view, the school-marmy tour guide assured us they do not use screw-tops. Note: it was NOT me that asked. Double Note: Muffin was scared of the guide. Wus.
During the tour, we saw the huge steel vats and heard the requisite Sideways question about Pinot Noir (again, not me). More questions were asked and answered. JO and Muffin got in trouble for trying to wander off for a picture. "We all have to stay together, people!" There was a group of rude French people (and no, I don't think that's redundant) who were talking loudly the whole time and very impatiently waiting for their free tastings. But none of that, none of it, can compare to the question that this group of ladies asked.
Tour guide matron: Blah blah blah combining grapes for different wines blah blah blah wine process.
Silly lady: And where do they put in the plum juice and stuff like that?
Tour guide matron: Wha?
C Ro's eyes: POP!
Silly lady: You know, when a wine is described as having plum and berry flavors, when is that added?
Tour guide matron (emphatically): Nooo, we don't add plums! Blah blah blah goes on to describe, nicely I should add, how it's natural to the wine and where the grapes grow and yadda yadda yadda.
Silly lady and friends: Really?! Wow!!
They seemed genuinely surprised! How awesome is that? I mean, I regularly drink wine from Chateau Le Box and even I know they don't add no damn plum juice. And besides, plum juice? Ain't that prune juice and who drinks that besides The Economist and his grandma?
But aside from the great question, it was very clear that everyone else on the tour, except for the French because they weren't paying attention, everyone else but the French, hey that sounds vaguely Monty Python-esque, everyone else but the French and me too, because I was staring at them with these really big eyes were trying really hard not to look at the ladies in astonishment. Seriously, the whole group got really stiff and would only stare forward at the tour guide. It was pretty funny. But, I guess the ladies got me back for staring at the Columbia Winery when they shouted out, "There's the girl that got carded!" And yes, I was the only one who got carded even though, as Muffin pointed out, I was the oldest of the three of us. Karma.
It was also awesome because as we got more sauced JO and Muffin and I kept talking about the chocolate sauce barrel or the earth barrel and well, everyone knows how funny drunks think they are. We had fun.
Needless to say, we didn't make it to the Red Hook tour, which I totally recommend to people visiting the Seattle area. $1 gets you a really short tour (walking wise), "tastes" of all their beer flavors, and a souvenir glass that's really glass and not some plastic bs thing.
p.s. As everyone knows, the above illustration is by the awesome Drew of Toothpaste For Dinner.
Had your tour companions read the following from David Mitchell's novel Cloud Atlas:
"We toasted Bacchus and the Muses, and drank a wine as rich as unicorn's blood"
They may have been asking where the unicorn abbatoir was instead.
The times I was at Put-In-Bay (grew up in Perrysburg), I was too young to drink the wine (Lonz was the name of the winery on Middle Bass, no?). I think that was a break - don't they make that awful sweet Catawba Pink?
Also, saw a wine in QFC yesterday called Screw Kappa Napa.
Posted by: Phil | November 04, 2005 at 01:52 PM
Unicorn blood! Awesome.
And oh yes, Catawba or whatever it is. Sickly sweet, I couldn't even drink the free sample. The highlight of the winery is the awesome "Crystal Cave."
Check it out: http://giantcrystals.strahlen.org/america/celestite.htm
Posted by: C Ro | November 04, 2005 at 02:35 PM
You don't need a tour to get a Red Hook glass. All you need is a really big purse.
Posted by: Muffin | November 17, 2005 at 10:40 AM
See, I wasn't going to out your kleptomania like that.
Posted by: C Ro | November 17, 2005 at 12:03 PM