William Pollard Jr | aka: Wild 4 Washington Wine

Tonight is the January Virtual Wine Tasting. Ready for Virtual Tasting. My tasting notes and feedback from the virtual tasting. I encourage you to join us when you can. The January Virtual Tasting wine was the Stonecap 2010 Cabernet Sauvignon Columbia Valley . This wine retails for around $10 and is widely available in Washington. The tasting took place on Wednesday January 30th from 7-8 pm PST. Tasting Notes: In general, my fellow tweeters and virtual tasters were no big fans of the label, except that it was easy to spot on the shelf (there's value in that).  Someone tweeted that the 2011 label is better. At first, some herbal notes on the nose, menthol in background, pencil shavings, cherry, bit earthy/mushroom. After 30 minutes, some lovely big, Bing cherry on the finish. Not too dry, not too  bright, with a medium finish. Bit of espresso vapor appeared too, and some green tea and mushroom in that palate. After 45 minutes, a hole opened mid-p...

As we say goodbye to summer, the Columbia Valley is under a blanket of smoke. Thousands of firefighters are fighting dozens of wildfires. It's been a perfect growing season, a warm, dry summer, with no rain. Earlier this month, lightning started the fires on the east slope of the Cascade Mountains. Locally, in the Tri-Cities and in Walla Walla, air quality has been listed as unsafe for sensitive groups.  In the Wenatchee area, closer to the fires, air quality is listed as "hazardous." Weather forecasters do not expect the smoke to clear any time soon. The forest fires rage on. Yuck. Photo: View east August 2012 Rattlesnake Mountain visible in background. Photo: Smoky view east on 20 September 2012. Photo: Today's smoky view on 21 September 2012. Yesterday, in spite of the smoke, I made time for a brief visit at  Goose Ridge Winery . The Goose Ridge tasting room is located on Dallas Road, in Richland. My visit was short, but I managed to tak...