Seattle, WA

Two links I want to pass on before I forget. One is a link to some wine tour packages for the Yakima Valley. They are very reasonably priced but then it’s not a real fancy area. It’s mostly a lot of nice country folk. There is an opportunity there for an enterprising person to set up a nice B&B and perhaps offer a bus tour that takes you around to each winery.

The second is a link to “Go Taste Wine”, a website that maintains a calendar of Washington Wine Festivals & Events.

Next on our stop is:

Portteus Vineyards
5201 Highland Drive,
P.O. Box 1444, Zillah 98953
Hours: Daily 10-5
509.829.6970
Fee: Free for the first 7 wines, $1 for each additional wine & their port

The drive into Portteus Vineyards was undoubtedly my favourite and takes you right through the vineyard. They have a beautiful new tasting room with a helpful and knowledgeable wine steward.

Portteus boasts that they have been the “red-wine lovers destination for over 20 years!” which was enough to tempt us into their wine tasting room. Not that we need a lot of encouragement. Right off the bat I noted that they had 3 red wines priced at $10. Even more impressive is that they were all decent wines. We decided to just go for it and try all their red wines as well as their port. There really wasn’t a bad wine in the bunch. Their 2004 Rattlesnake Ridge Syrah was particularly nice and well priced so we bought a bottle. The passport deal for Portteus was half price on their 2004 Estate Bottled Reserve Red Wine so we gave it a try and found it to be a nice full-bodied red wine so we bought a bottle of that as well.

Finally, we tried their 2003 Portteus Port. Oh baby! I could have sat sipping that port all day. It’s a ruby port with lovely complex layers that just roll across your tongue. It starts off sweet on your tongue but it doesn’t end there, it goes on to many more layers of flavour.

Part One in this series
Part Two in this series
Part Three in this series
Part Five in this series

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