| Wine
Tours Northwestern Washington & lower mainland British
Columbia
Carpenter Creek Winery
By Tara Nelson
Location: 20376 E. Hickox Rd. Mt. Vernon
Contact Info: 866 WA-WINES
www.CarpenterCreek.com
The Taj Mahal in India was inspired by love. So was the
2004 Carpenter Creek signature “Green Apple” Riesling.
And, while it may not exactly be the Taj Mahal of wines,
this semi-sweet, fruity wine of Skagit Valley is proving
to be a favorite among locals there, Jeff Hammer, owner and
operator of Carpenter Creek vineyard in Mount Vernon, said
he created the wine - note there are no green apples in it
- when his wife wanted something other than the dry wines
he had been creating. “I had been making wine for some
time and then my wife said, 'You know,why don't you make
a wine that I actually like to drink,'” he said. “So
I started researching sweet Rieslings and from day one, it's
been our best seller.” Hammer said although Rieslings
were once well-liked, they fell out of popularity in the
late 1980s. “It used to be considered a junk, sweet
wine, but now it's making a comeback,” he said. “A
lot of wineries a restarting to reintroduce it. It's a pretty
diverse grape with a lot of complex characteristics.” In
2001, Hammer and his wife, Tara, opened Carpenter Creek Winery
just south of Mount Vernon on East Hickox Road. Business
has been better than expected, she said. Last year, the winery
sold 2,300 cases and won two awards from the Seattle Enological
Society - a silver medal for their 2004 Syrah and a bronze
medal for their 2004 Semillon. They also earned a silver
medal from the Olympia Food and Wine Festival for their Semillon
Ice Wine. The ice wine ($17.99) is a nectar-like concoction
made with Semillon grapes left on the vine through December
and pressed while frozen. This process creates an intensely
sweet, full-bodied desesrt wine with lots of banana and other
tropical flavors. Tara said although the price may seem high,
it reflects the labor that goes into the wine. If the frozen
grapes are allowed to thaw during the winemaking process,
for example, it will lower the sugar content of the wine.
As a result, winemakers must act quickly to extract the juice. “It
took Jeff about four days with 10 hours of sleep to press
it,” she said. Most of Hammer's wines are made with
grapes from Eastern Washington. Last year, Hammer said he
bought more than 41 tons of hand-picked Venifera grapes from
the Yakima-Prosser region but the two have planted three
acres of Siegerrebe grapes at their estate vineyard to keep
up with the growing demand for their wine. Hammer said the
grapes should be ready by next year. In addition to about
a half-dozen red and white varieties, Hammer said he's thinking
about experimenting with a fireweed honey mead and a Cabernet
Sauvignon port next year. Carpenter Creek Reisling sells
at $9.50 a bottle. Prices for other wines range from $9.95
for the popular American oak, barrel-fermented Chardonnay,
to $38 for the Syrah, which is aged 20 months in French oak.
The winery is located at 20376 E. Hickox Road in Mount Vernon
and can be reached at 360/848-6673. The tasting room is open
from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday year round,
and by appointment.
Domaine de Chaberton
By Jack Kintner
Location: 1064 - 216 St. Langley
Contact Info: Winery: 604-530-1736
Bistro: 604-530-9694
The Wine Boutique is open 10 am - 6 pm Mon-Sat and 11 am
- 6 pm on Sundays.
Like the oldest Oak tree in Stanley Park, Domaine de Chaberton
is in a league all its own as a Fraser Valley winery. It
was started by Frenchman Claude Violet and his German wife
Inge in 1981, when they bought 36 acres in the upper reaches
of the Little Campbell River watershed in Langley. That same
year they hired a young Ron Kools who today is manager of
a vineyard that's grown to 50 acres, plus five more for buildings
and their restaurant, the “Bacchus Bistro.” Violet
took 10 years of preparation and culturing his stock before
producing his first bottle in 1991, but the results speak
for themselves: the year he opened he won a gold medal with
his Chaberton Blanc, and since has won 10 percent of all
the medals won by Canadian wines. The South of France is
one thing, but Langley as a wine growing region at a time
it was more famous for cattle and horses is quite another,
and Violet found himself up against skeptics early on. But
persistence, expertise and a kindly and engaging European
manner eventually convinced everyone that he knew what he
was doing. Behind that was his company philosophy that success
is based on confidence, endurance, very hard work and the
strength to fight it through, plus good long term planning.
Very long term, in fact, as Violet's family has been producing
wines in southern France for almost 400 years. By the time
the neighboring wineries in Langley have that kind of experience,
wine grapes could be growing on the moon. They raise Bacchus
and Riesling grapes, and lead tours of their extensive production
facility three or four times a day, depending upon demand,
all year long, giving visitors a chance to see the process
in all its phases,from pruning in March to the spring flowering
to the fall harvest. Chaberton produces a third of a million
litres of wine each year, evenly divided between white and
red. The whites are primarily from their Langley vineyard
while the reds come from carefully selected sources in the
Okanagan. Their neat but informal restaurant, the four-year-old
Bacchus Bistro, is located in the rear of the winery production
area in a building that looks like a giant wine barrel on
its side. It's French, of course, with a dinner menu that
includes a Boeuf Bourguignon entrée for $20 Canadian
and a Foie gras chaud du moment appetizer for $17. As in
France, it serves lunch from 11:30 a.m. until 2:30 p.m. and
then closes in order to prepare for dinner, reopening on
Friday and Saturday at 5:30. The “Wine Boutique,” the
tasting room at Chaberton, is large and commodious, and each
tour ends with alesson on how to taste wine. The free winery
tours/wine tasting combinations are at 2 & 4 p.m. and
take about an hour. The Wine Boutique is open Monday through
Saturday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and on Sunday from 11 a.m.
to 6 p.m. No reservations required, but for the Bistro they're
strongly recommended by calling 604/530-9694. Their extensive
web site is at www.domainedechaberton.com.
EAGLE HAVEN WINERY
Jim Perkins of Sedro-Woolley operates the 50-acre farm and
the tasting room with his wife, Lisa, his daughter, Mariah,9,
and his father, Tom. He hired longtime winemaker Chuck
Jackson and food smoker and carpenter Jerry Wiesendanger
to smoke salmon, sausages and local organic cheddar cheese.
Perkins is notably excited about all his wines. He helped
create their signature wine – a 50/50 blend of Madeleine
Angevine and Siegerrebe, as well as a Syrah and a blackberry
wine. But he doesn’t stop talking about his fruit
wines –particularly one that uses black currant she
has specially imported from Poland. “It’s a
light red wine,” he said. “It smells almost
like raspberry and cranberry and it’s got a light
carbonation. You won’t see the bubbles, but you’ll
feel them on your tongue.”
LOCATION: 8243 Sims Road in Sedro-Woolley, just off State
Route 20 CONTACT INFO: 360/856-6248 The tasting room is open
from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday,
year round and by appointment.
GLACIER PEAK WINERY
Susan and Steve Olsen,
of Mount Vernon opened Glacier Peak Winery in August, a three-acre
vineyard and tasting room on State Route 20, just east of
Rockport. Olsen said the two opened the winery as a post-retirement
hobby – and because they both enjoy good wine. Grapes
for their Syrah, ($18) a deep,oak-aged wine and their Cabernet
Sauvignon, ($18) a dark, rich wine with hints of chocolate
and cherries, come from the Yakima Valley region. They also
produce a 50/50 blend of the Syrah and Cabernet mentioned
above ($18). Next year, they plan to include a few more varieties,
including an Agria, a Pinot Noir,a Siegrebbe and a Merlot,
although they still plan to produce less than 1,000 cases. “Our
goal is to make really good wine,”Steve said, “not
a lot of wine.”
LOCATION: 8575 State Route 20,just past Rockport CONTACT
INFO: 360/770-9811 Tasting room hours are 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.,Saturday
and Sunday from May 1 to October 31.
MOUNT BAKER VINEYARDS
Mount Baker Vineyards and Winery. is
the oldest winery west of the Cascade Mountains. The winery
was founded in the early 1980s Mount Baker Vineyards and
Winery makes about a half-dozen varieties including pinot
noir, viognier,siegerrebe, chasselas, madelineangevine, and
a plum wine. Raspberries for their popular raspberry wine
usually come from the neighboring town of Lynden. Their 2001
Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon won a double gold award at the
San Francisco International Competition this year and their
2003 late harvest Viognier and Rosetta Rose varieties won
bronze awards in the same competition, just to name a few.
LOCATION: 4298 Mount Baker Highway in Deming. CONTACT INFO:
360/592-2300 Tasting room hours are 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily,or
by appointment.
Lotusland Vineyards
David and Liz Avery bought a 10-acre
piece of a large gravel quarry in 1998,and after some research
found that the place was not only suitable for growing good
wine grapes, it was potentially outstanding. After a few
years' wait for the first crop, they now produce several
hundred cases per season in one of the few organic wineries
in the area. Wine is often associated with hot climates,
but Lotusland is also distinguished as one of the few wineries
in the world where you can stand amid the vines and still
have a good view of glaciers on nearby Mt. Baker, less than
30 miles (50 km)away. Featured are Pinot, Merlot and Gewürztraminer
with sweetness codes of 0 to 2, plus a new Siegerrebe “off
dry” white, sweetness code 2, also produced as an after
dinner wine with a code of 4.
LOCATION: 28450 King Road,Abbotsford CONTACT INFO: 604/857-4188
Glenugie Winery
Contractor Gary Tayler
said it was “temporary
insanity that led him to retire as head of his own construction
company and build his five acre winery in Langley. The unusual
name comes from a farm in Scotland owned by his wife Christine's
grandmother, and the label features the tartan of Campbell
of Argyll. His production from his Langley vineyard is about
1,000 cases annually plus another 2 - 3,000 he makes with
grapes purchased east of the mountains. His popular 2000
organic Pinot Noir has sold out but as we go to press he's
bottling an organic 2002 Pinot that should be just asgood.
Tayler's wines have won a surprising number of awards for
such a new enterprise. His 2001 Pinot, while not organic,has
received over 13 prizes alone in competitions and tastings
over the past two years.
LOCATION: 3033 232 Street Langley CONTACT INFO: 604/539-9463 www.glenugiewinery.com
Tasting room open 11 a.m.- 6 p.m. 7
days a week.
Township 7 Winery
After six years learning the business
in the Okanagan, Corey and Gwen Coleman bought five acres
in the heart of Langley's horse country in 1999,turned it
into a winery and opened for business in 2001. The Colemans
bought additiona lacreage on the Naramata Bench east of the
mountains two years ago and a combined production and tasting
facility opened there last year. They also buy grapes from
Oliver, B.C., for their Merlots, Cabernet Sauvignons, Syrahs
and Chardonnays. They believe that the region produces a
superior product,and proved it when their oaked Chardonnay
was named the best white wine in Canada last year. The vineyard
itself has a nice self-guided tour that explains a lot about
the winemaking process.
LOCATION: 21152 16 Avenue Langley CONTACT INFO: 604/532-1766
Tasting room open daily 11 a.m. - 6 p.m. Jul, Aug.& Dec.;
noon - 6 p.m. Feb-June, Sept. - Nov.
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