Two decades ago, McCrea was the pioneer in making Rhône varietal wines in Washington. Now there are many others but McCrea still ranks with the best. This small production winery constantly produces great wine year after year. Join us this Saturday and taste some of our current favorites.

2009 Sirocco Blanc $25
43% Grenache Blanc, 41% Marsanne, 10% Picpoul and 7% Rousanne.
Boushey Lower County Line Vineyard.
From grapes planted especially for McCrea by Dick Boushey, this white Rhone blend is a great mix of spicy, dry fruit flavors.

2009 Marsanne $25
Boushey Lower County Line Vineyard
Fermented in neutral oak barrels to give texture but no oak flavor, the Marsanne shows melon overtones, full-bodied structure and heavy minerality.

2008 Counoise $29
80% Counoise, 20% Syrah
Ciel du Cheval Vineyard
A great wine by McCrea from a very obscure Rhône grape, the Counoise has been described as “like being beat on the back of the head with a silk stocking filled with raspberries.” That is a good thing.

2008 Syrah $25
Boushey, Ciel du Cheval and Elephant Mountain and Sugarloaf vineyards
This Yakima Valley blend is a fresh and well balanced Syrah with lots of black cherry, spice, and sage notes and a little earthy mushroom.

2007 Cuvée Orleans Syrah $40
94% Syrah, 6% Viognier
Boushey, Ciel du Cheval and Elephant Mountain vineyards
McCrea’s flagship wine, the Orleans is from some of the oldest and best Syrah vineyards in the state. It is an opulent wine with floral aromatics, intense fruit and integrated silky tannins. 

We are celebrating Earth Day by showing off some of our Sustainable and Organic wines. We don’t choose wines for their eco credentials, but it is great when politics and pleasure align. Green can taste great. Stop by and join us.

2010 Yealands, Sauvignon Blanc $13
In Marlborough, New Zealand, Peter Yealand farms his estate winery using such sustainable practices like using sheep to prune and mow instead of tractors and running wind turbos that produce more power than the winery consumes. It also doesn’t hurt that the vineyards exposure to high sun and wind, coupled with cool nights and low rainfall produce a smaller, thicker skinned berries with intense fruit flavors. The wine has fresh grass, herbal aromas along with citrus, guava flavors and wet stone minerality.

2009 Feudo di Santa Tresa, Purato, Nero d’Avola, Sicily (Organic) $13
100% Nero d’Avola
The Purato is made from organic vineyards in Sicily. The winery has been growing grapes for generations and uses all natural organic methods such as cover crops, organic manure and natural herbicides, allowing them to completely eliminate the use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides. The bottles and labels are all from recycled material. The wine is rich with big berry and cherry flavors balanced out by dry tannins and good acidity.

2009 Moncaro, Rosso Piceno, Geos $12
60% Montepulciano, 40% Sangiovesse
Moncaro is located in Marches on the east coast of Italy where they practice sustainable agriculture, low environmental impact & organic farming and have since 1980. The Geos is a tasty full and rich Piceno. Good with food or just by itself.

2010 Würtz Rheinhessen Trocken Riesling $30 / 3 ltr.
A dry and spicy Riesling that has much more complexity than you expect from a box wine. Each box is equal to 4 bottles, so that is $7.50 a bottle. And it is organic and the packaging is environmentally friendly. Keeps in the fridge for many weeks. Great for camping, boating or just hanging out.

Some things just need to find the right space to blossom. If you are talking about Malbec, Carménère and Torrontés that place is South America. Malbec and Carménère were both blending grapes in Bordeaux, but never really hit their own renown until they hit the shores of the new world and found their niche in Chile and Argentina. Nobody is quite sure where Torrontés came from but it has made its home in South America. Stop by this Saturday when we’ll be pouring some excellent examples from the Southern Hemisphere.

 
2010 Tomero, Torrontés $12
Located in the Ucco Valley, Tomerro is named after 100 year-old system that controls the life-giving flow of pure Andes snow runoff water that irrigates the vineyard lands and enabled Argentina’s wine growing appellations to flourish in one of the wine world’s most arid regions. The Torrontés has flowery aromas of rose blossoms and jasmine with a fresh citrus flavor and nice mineral accents.
 
2009 Vistalba, Corte C $13
80% Malbec, 20% Cabernet Sauvignon
Carlos Pulenta’s family estate is located in Vistalba at the foot of the magnificent Cordon del Plata within the Andes Mountains. The rough characteristic of the soil produces prime Malbec. The winery is constructed to utilize gravity transfer of the wines with temperatures controlled by an elaborate water system. The Corte C has spicy aromas along with cigar box and cedar, cherry fruit with a hint of chocolate.
 
2010 Viña Ventisquero, Yali Wetland Red $9
60% Cabernet Sauvignon, 40% Carménère
Viña Ventisquero, located in the Colchaqua Valley in Chile, produces their wines exclusively from sustainably-farmed estate-grown grapes. This Carménère/Cab blend has ripe cassis, plum and cherry flavors (from the Cab) and spicy notes such as black pepper (from the Carménère) along with hints of vanilla and chocolate imparted by barrel aging.
 
2009 Viña Ventisquero, Queulat Carménère $15
95% Carménère, 5% Syrah
The Queulat is Viña Ventisquero’s reserve wine from a single vineyard wine from the Maipo Valley. Full of Carménère character, the wine has aromas of black fruits, sweet spices, an earthy note and a touch of dark chocolate. The mouth offers a rich structure with fat, velvety tannins which give it that full, round finish with an aftertaste evoking chocolate and tobacco.
 
2010 Bodega Noemia de Patagonia, A Lisa Malbec $20
90% Malbec and 9% Merlot and a 1% of Petit Verdot  
The Rio Negro Valley in Patagonia has a considerably cooler climate than the other Argentinean wine growing regions, with a long, drawn out growing season. The A Lisa has lots of aromas of black fruit anise, iron and leather. The body is full and sinuous.

This Saturday we’ll continue exploring Spain, with a great line up of Verdejo, Albariño, and Tempranillo. These wines are just a handful of our Spanish favorites. They are all packed with character, flavor and complexity. The wines match up with everything from Tapas and Paella to Jamón. Stop in and see a little of what Spain has to offer.
 
2009 Bodegas Pedro Escudero, Valdelainos Verdejo, Rueda $12
A family estate founded in 1852, Pedro Escudero’s Valdelainos comes from prime vineyards in Rueda, where Verdejo excels. The wine is bursting with citrus flavors and a rich medium-bodied palate that is dry and refreshingly tart but still round enough with flavors of lemon verbena, grass, tropical fruits and lime.
 
2009 Viña Almirante, Pionero Macerato Albariño, Rías Baixas $15
Viña Almirante farms 35 hectares of estate grapes in Rías Baixas where Albariño thrives. The wine has good herbal aromas that blend with the fruity notes, with lots of citrus fruits standing out. 
 
2000 Bodegas Lozano, Gran Oristan, Gran Reserva, La Mancha $12
Tempranillo and Cabernet Sauvignon
Bodegas Lozano is a third generation winemaking family in La Mancha, Spain’s largest wine growing region. Their Gran Oristan is no quixotic adventure. This Cabernet and Tempranillo blend sees 24 months in barrel and you can count the years in bottle. The wine has lots of cherry fruit with a dark subtle complexity.
 
2009 Bodegas Arrocal, Ribera del Duero $15
Tempranillo
Arrocal is an organically estate winery in Ribera del Duero which operates by gravity flow (the grapes going in at the top and the wine coming out at the bottom). In between it is aged for 6 months in French and American Oak. The Arrocal has plentiful blackberry and blackcurrant aromas including baking spices and floral qualities. Soft, silky and impressively pure, with vibrant dark berry flavors and fine-grained tannins.
 
2005 Bodegas Valsacro, Dioro, Rioja $25
Tempranillo, Grenacha,
A reserve wine but not a Reserva, the Dioro undergoes a four-stage selection process: an initial field selection of the fruit followed by a second table selection as the grapes at the winery, after fermentation wine best tanks are transferred to new French oak barrels for 12-14 months of barrel age, and finally the best of those barrels are chosen for the Dioro. It is a big and complex modern style Rioja. “Perfumed, oak-accented nose displays cherry-vanilla and blackberry preserves, with a sexy floral note and building spiciness. Full-bodied and velvety, offering palate-coating flavors of macerated cherry, dark berries and vanilla bean. Finishes very long and sweet, with persistent spiciness and a hint of smoke. ” Tanzier