Postcards from the Trail

Riesling, one of my favorites. It is such a great wine to pair with food especially seafood. Riesling grows well here in the Northwest but for a long time it has not been well done. It was often an over powering sweet wine.

But recently, there has an effort to improve the Riesling produced in the Pacific Northwest and make it more 'serious'. And it has been very successful. The most well known is Eroica made by St Michele and Ernst Loosen from Bernkastel in Mosel valley Germany. It has been highly rated and is excellent. There is also a group of winemakers which has been formed to promote Oregon Rieslings. Dave McIntyre's WineLine describes their efforts and the unfortunate recent death of winemaker Jim Brooks of Maysara who also made some very interesting Rieslings.

So I went in search of a Riesling from the Pacific Northwest and found the Amity 2001 Oregon Dry Riesling. The label says:

Our Riesling is made in a clean, crisp style that is excellent for sipping or with a meal. It is the perfect match with fresh crab, scallops, shrimp and ham. Although excellent now, it benefits from bottle aging. Vineyard profile: 59% Amity, Amity, 40% at Sunnyside, Salem and 1% at Bois Jolie, Amity. The 958 Cases of 750-ml bottles and 130 cases of 375-ml bottles were bottled in May 2002. The alcohol is 10.5%, the acidity is 7.7 g/L, the pH is 2.98 and the residual sugar is 1.05g/l.

Further notes

The 2001 Dry Riesling is a pretty, delicate wine. The nose has hints of peach, apple and honey, while the palette starts with tart apple that leads into honeyed peach.

It was perfect with our Sunday dinner of a fresh cracked Dunguness crab, sourdough bread and green salad. It had a good balance with some sweetness. You could also tell had been aged and mellowed. There were flavors of citrus and honey with mineral undertones. The color was golden. I would definitely purchase this one again ($14).

Several years ago I visited their winery located south of McMinnville in the Eola hills of Yamhill Valley. It is a great location with wonderful vistas over the surrounding hillside. I highly recommend stopping by the winery if you are touring the Yamhill Valley.

Last Thursday we went downtown for the art walk. It has been a while since we visited the galleries. It was the perfect way to spend the evening.

We started the evening with dinner at a rather new restaurant called Crow. It is located on lower Queen Anne. It was fun. They have gotten several good reviews and the restaurant was listed in the Seattle Times Sunday Magazine as one of the hot bistros in town.

We went early (5:30 pm) and we were a bit surprised to find that it was going to be difficult to get a table. There were only one or two tables taken. They usually allow 2 hours for each seatting and had full seattings at 6:30-7:00pm. I explained that we were planning on a quick meal because we were heading out to the Pioneer Square galleries. Perfect. As long as we were out by 6:30 or so, they could seat us.

I don't remember what used to be there. The room is large and open. You can see from the bar through to the kitchen. They have seating around the kitchen which look really fun. You can watch them prepare dinner. I've got to try that.

We looked over the menu. G doesn't eat meat but does want fish on the menu. They only had the fish of the day which was seared scallops with bacon. I know... we could request them to make the dish without the meat. We'd probably do that but we have had a very bad experience at another restaurant where we requested that they not include the meat. The waitperson brought the dish and immediately grabbed it back and said that it was prepared with the meat! So there I sat eating my dish while we waited for them to correctly prepare G's dish. Plus it made us feel so awkward when they quickly grabbed the plate back after sitting it down. It has made us very reluctant to try it again.

Okay, end of long story. We decided instead to order a couple of the small plates along with salads. I ordered the iceburg lettuce wedge with blue cheese. Nicely prepared with an ascertive blue. It came with a half of hard boiled egg and a crinkle cut raw carrot. G had the greens with blue cheese, pear and walnuts. I had a taste and it was nicely done. The vinagrette had a touch of tarragon.

For the small plates, we ordered the curried mussels, Brandade fritters. Both were wonderful but I really liked the curried mussels. We sopped up the broth with the crusty bread. Along with this we each had a glass of wine; G had a glass of Fairview Sauvignon Blanc from South Africa and I had a glass of Kris Pinot Grigio from Alto Adigo area of Italy. We have had both wines before and they were good. My only small complaint is the small pour they do for the glass of wine.

Off we went to the galleries. Our favorites ended up being the two we first visited; Linda Hodges and Global Art Venue. We were amazed at the watercolors by a Polish artist at Global Art Venue. There was also some nice glass.

It was a nice way to spend a Thursday evening.

It can be so tough here in the far corner of the US to get in the holiday spirit. It is cold, drizzly and dark. The sun comes up around 8am and sets shortly after 4pm. Eight hours but it can feel even shorter when the day is dark and cloudy.

We are not giving gifts this year so we don't have the pressure of running around finding the perfect something. We have gone downtown for breakfast and to look around. It is great not having to be obligated to make purchases.

We also do not have a Christmas Tree. We got out of having one when our kitties were little. We didn't want them to terrorize it while we were at work. We just didn't get back into having one.

But we do like to have a lot of light during this time and do as much as we can outdoors. We have strung lights around the living room and on our fig tree. I purchased a wreath and have a nice bouquet of white flowers, seasonal evergreens and holly. I also pull out a lot of candles to add a warm glow to the room.

This year has also been very mild. It has not snowed this year and there have been few frosts. And we have had several warm sunny days. We have been able to get out on the trail on Saturday. Last Saturday, we went to Tiger Mountain. It had rained heavily the day before and the lower part of the trail was almost a stream. Fortunately, the trail is well constructed so the water is directed off and you can get around the it. It was cool at the top but not freezing.

This Saturday we went to Rattlesnake Ledge. It was so warm that I hiked in just a polypro top. I started out with my wool sweater but got too warm. It was busy. From the view at the top towards Snoqualmie Pass, there was very little snow.

But what else has been nice this year is the mild weather has allowed us to attend several of the outdoor seasonal events. Last Saturday, we went to the Pathway of Lights. We got back from Tiger and remembered it. It has been rainy the past several years so we couldn't pass up the chance to see it without the rain.

We got there shortly after 6pm and they were just finishing lighting the 4,000 luminaries. We parked at the Bathhouse and headed out. It was already crowded. Most people were walking without lights. It was kinda spooky since you really couldn't see if you were about to walk into someone. But it was also so cool. A few people had on short strands of Christmas lights. Several of the dogs had blinking lights on their collars. Around 7pm, the several lighted canoes launched from the Aquatheater. They glided along reflecting from the lake.

On Tuesday, the Christmas Ship sailed from Edmonds to Richmond Beach. The Christmas Ship is pretty commercial but there was a planned bon fire at Richmond Beach. That sounded really cool. Again, it was a rain free night. The ship left Edmonds at 7:00pm and was supposed to arrive at Richmond Beach around 8:10. We ate dinner and headed out around 7:30. It was already quite crowded when we arrived. I didn't even attempt to try to park in the lot but parked a block or so away. You could see the fires from the top and the ships were just coming into view. We walked down the stairs and onto the beach. It was a great fire. It was stacked high and roaring in the breeze. You couldn't stay very long facing it.

The boat arrived and the choir started. They were okay. We walked down along the water to cool off as they sang. We walked back up to the second bon fire as they finished. Looking up the hill, you could already see the cars streaming out and a traffic jam. We decided to stick around and let everyone leave. There is just something about standing around a bon fire on a cold winter night. We went home and had a hot chocolate.

Happy Holidays From Rattlesnake Ledge!