Road Trip: H3

I'll keep this short - I drove the 70 miles or so to Columbia Crest Winery near Paterson, WA today. It's located in the Horse Heaven Hills AVA and their place is huge... as it should be for the largest winery in the state. The barrel room was enormous, the picture below shows only a portion of what we were allowed to see, which is apparently the "small" barrel room. The photo also doesn't show the depth of barrels stacked 6 high.


The tasting was good, I tried a few wines which are only available to purchase at the winery - a 2004 Viognier and a 2003 Zinfandel. I bought the zin for a BBQ on Sunday, and there were only 6 bottles of it remaining. $15 retail, but industry discount is always nice. The facility is definitely worth a stop if one happens to be driving between Portland and Walla Walla.

From there I dissected the Horse Heaven Hills north-south-wise on 221, and the name is a misnomer -- it's actually quite flat. A quick stop in Red Mountain at Terra Blanca finished off the adventure. The staff was very welcoming at both places; it's always nice to get the VIP treatment. The wine industry might be a tough way to make large amounts of Benjamins, but there are plenty of perks.

The view from Terra Blanca's tasting room

Windmills of the stateline wind project just east of the bend in the Columbia