Winery Visit - Chateau Ste Michelle

My first winery visit for this class happened just outside Seattle, WA at the Chateau Ste Michelle. I chose this winery because every time I go to a restaurant, I see one of their wines on the list to choose from. The picture above is the entryway when you turn in off the street. On the drive out here, I kept thinking to myself, "there is no way there is a winery out here!" And then all of the sudden I appeared and it was gorgeous and classy!

This is the driveway once you make it in the gates. During the tour, the guide explained that the original owners of the property loved holly trees and planted them all along the drive. The property was not originally a winery, it was a dairy farm. Because of all the holly trees, it was named Hollywood Farms. Interesting fact, all the local shops and restaurants still contain the Hollywood name because of these trees! The owners didn't really like farming so they decided to give it a go at a vineyard. The wife was a horticulturist and she planted the original vines in 1934, thus establishing Chateau Ste Michelle.

After parking in the lot, you walk through some trees and then it opens up to this beautiful "house". This is the front of the production facility and off to the right is a similar looking building that is the visitor's center. In the production center, there is a cozy lobby with couches and fire place where you can wait for your tour. They do them every hour during the week, and every 30 minutes on the weekend. 

When you sign up for your tour they give you little tickets. (On the week days they include a free wine tasting! Weekends you have to pay $10 for the tour and the tasting) They have a big box with all the laminated cards and times on them. Very organized. 

This is a cap of one of the barrels (pretty sure this was purely for decoration though). As you can see, they are HUGE! I'm 5'5" though, so maybe not that tall. :) 

This is the fermentation room. It seemed like it went on for MILES!!!! We were on the 2nd floor and the steel tanks were easily another floor above us and below us. 

This is a closer look at the fermentation tanks. From what the guide was telling us, this facility only bottles white wines. They have multiple vineyards all over the Columbia Valley and they press the juice at the vineyard and then bring it to this facility to ferment, age, oak and bottle. They ferment, oak, age and bottle the reds elsewhere. This seemed like the Wal-Mart of wine. They bought out several private vineyards, although keeping the unique names, and then use those grapes to make their wines under their name. 

It's kind of hard to see, but this is a banner with all the grape varietals that they grow and produce. Seemed like one of everything.

This wall contained pictures of each vineyard they owned and what type of grapes they grew at each. 

As far as awards....well....there were a ridiculous amount. I tried to take a picture of all the plaques that described what vintage and award and varietal they won the award for. The above 4 pictures are all that I could get on the tour. The guide was a fast walker! As you can see, they have quite a selection of popular award winning wines.

After the tour I did a wine tasting. They partner with the Col Solar vineyard to make limited release bottles. It was $20 for a flight tasting. They gave a full glass of wine and some goat cheese and almonds with truffle oil on them. Above are the bottles and the little tasting sheet they provided.

The first wine was a Cabernet Franc. This had a beautiful burgundy color. It smelled like a peppery cherry goodness. It was 98% Cab Franc and 2% Cab Sav. Alone, it tasted very oaky and tannic and had a lime zest type finish. It had a slight hint of cherry, but was overwhelmingly oak. I think this needed to be aged a bit more to mellow out. With the cheese and the almonds, it had a sweeter finish and tasted like cherry wood. This bottle was $85. I purchased this bottle. If you look close at the label towards the top, it has a brighter gold slice. They told me this was the plot of the vineyard the grapes were grown. I thought that was pretty neat.

The next wine I tried was the Malbec. It had a lighter red color with an orange hue around the outside. It smelled of dirt or forest floor and a warm spicy feeling. It was extremely tannic and sour. Like sour cherries or unripe strawberries. With the cheese it tasted a bit sweeter, but was still pretty bitter. This bottle was also $85, but I didn't not buy this one. 

The next wine in the flight was the Syrah. It had the same beautiful color as the Cab Franc. It had a honey sweet smell with an after note of cherries or strawberries. By itself, it had a smoky start, but had a red berry finish. It is probably the mildest, smoothest Syrah I've had. With the cheese, it combine the amazing flavor of the cheese with the smoke and was absolutely incredible. Again, this bottle was $85 and I purchased this one too. 

Lastly, I tried their 100% Cab Sav. This was not on the tasting flight, but he happened to have a bottle open and asked if I wanted to try some. Of course I would!!!!!! Not only is Cab Sav my favorite, these wines were pretty darn good so I wasn't going to say no to more. It smelled of strawberries and almost a cinnamon note. It had the dirt, woody, oaky acidic taste that all good Cab Savs have. It was delectable. I would have also purchased this one....However, Oklahoma has stupid liquor laws and I could only purchase 2 bottles.....even if I shipped them home myself. Next time i'll drive out here instead of flying! Which brings me to the next picture...…………….wait for it...…..wait for it...…

This is a quarter of the wines available for purchase!!!! Their "store" was to die for. There were so many choices and so many varieties and so many vintages. I was super bummed that I could only pick out two. They ranged from $10 a bottle to $300 a bottle. There was something for everyone's liking. 

 

On the way out, they had grape vines planted along the driveway. The guide said that these were more for show than anything, but a good representation of what their actual vineyards look like. 

Prior to coming to this winery, I kind of scoffed at Chateau Ste Michelle. To me, they were equal to Kendal Jackson wines...….mass produced, but lacked quality. Now I do think they make some that leave you wanting more, but I do respect their craft more now after visiting. They do produce some very special wines here and I look forward to seeking out their more unique wines and finding a way to get there to my house. This afternoon was a fantastic adventure and I highly recommend anyone travelling to the Seattle area take the 20 minute drive to the outskirts and visit this winery. If you don't like this one, there are a ton of wineries within the same 5 mile radius.