Meet the rollergirls each representing their featured wines:

2007 Killer Bee-otch Merlot

2008 Scarlet Leather Merlot

2008 Sheeza Brickhouse Cabernet Franc

2008 Cosmic Rains Cabernet Sauvignon

2008 Sara Problem Malbec

2008 Deadly Aim Red Wine Blend

2009 Foxy Throwdown Gewurztraminer

2009 Selma Soul Chardonnay

Read more on Wine World’s weblog.

Oh and if you so please and you have a pair of skates. Bring em. There’s plenty of room!

-Killer Bee-otch 36 sides to a honeycomb

Retired (to make wine) Grave Danger of Seattle’s Rat City Rollegirls

This is a rough and tumble wine we’ve been holding onto for a while now. Bottled in June of last year, this bottle has been in the cellar until the time was right for it’s unveiling. Now you can try our ’08 My Derby Wife Cabernet Franc at The Blending Room. It’s 100% Columbia Valley Cabernet Franc with that peppery spice and a medium body. This Derby Wife is only available from our online store or at The Blending Room in Manson. Contact us directly for quantity purchases or special deliveries.

Rat City Rollergirls‘ have a bout this evening at Key Arena. It’s the Home Team Standings bout with DLF challenging Grave Danger and the Sockit Wenches going up against the Throttle Rockets. The doors open at 4:30 and you better find your seat by 5:30. Tickets are still available as of this writing but the last bout sold out, so don’t wait to get over to Seattle Center.

Have fun and good luck to Grave Danger.

J.H.

This Wednesday, January 19th at 5 pm, we will be pouring Firá and Kamari wines at Tastebuds Coffee and Wine in Wenatchee, WA. On the tasting menu will be our ’09 Firá Gewurztraminer, ’08 Kamari Cab Franc, Malbec, and Black Label Reserve Blend. We look forward to meeting some new wine fans on Wednesday.

Tastebuds’ address is:
212 Fifth Street #2b
Weantchee, WA 98801

Their phone number is:
(509) 88T-ASTE (888-2783)

Check out their website and facebook page for more info on Tastebuds.

Hope to see you there.

J.H.

Just when I thought harvest was nearing an end after pressing the stubborn Red Mountain Cabernet Franc, I came into an AVA lot of Lake Chelan Syrah.

So, when even those in the last-to-pick Willamette Valley were wrapping up their harvest duties; we here at The Blending Room were starting harvest over again, crushing enough grapes to nearly double our production for the year! The redundancy began to sink in as sticky grape juice became the Something About Mary of my hairstyle; the delicate skin of my hands cracked and dried out in Man Hands fashion; and the triple-rinse sanitation mantra racked my brains like the industrial piano accompaniment of Regina Spektor’s Machine.

This song is a tribute to our current-future Red Mountain wine in the barrel-in the bottle. Like ourselves, we live in the future, daily, hoping for greater perfection and stumbling over our present blessings. Imagine, as the lyrics suggest, the robotic nature of life stemming from a creator jealous of our organics. It is analogue: the wine jealous of the winemaker’s organics? or exploiting them for its own purposes? And those purposes being for unconsummatable, consummate consumers… Am I deaf to the wine’s needs, its perspective?

Too deep, I know. But try reading Michael Pollan’s The Botany of Desire for a similar reversal of nature’s perspectives. Furthermore, enjoy the industrial piano strokes and dark coddling voice, a distant Tori Amos, this Regina Spektor; a Russian-born musician, limitless in her musical sincerity.

The future – it is here, it is bright, it is now.

To a perpetual harvest and eternal symphony,

Hooked into Machine, WineGirl

So, once upon a time, a sassy 18 year old girl was working at an Italian restaurant awaiting her acceptance letter to the University of Washington. A regular sitting at the bar inquired about her University status and she confirmed that she had yet to hear anything. As the kind and helpful regular that he was, he suggested that she register with the local community college since classes were about to start in three weeks.

Woah! Hang on a minute! Now we all know community colleges do great things, but she had already spent her time at a community college, not to mention a year at the University of North Texas. Community College? It hadn’t even dawned on her to have a back up plan. She was going to UW and she was going to study psycho-pharmacology and design brain candy and that was that.

Well, the community college suggestion got her thinking, so she sat down and made a list of everything that she wanted in life. She wanted to travel to amazing places, study languages and meet great people. She wanted to climb mountains, explore caves, dive beneath the depths. She wanted to be an artist, a scientist and a philanthropist. She wanted a farm with a vegetable garden so she could make her own peanut butter. She wanted horses and bees and especially a little piggy.

Now, I realize that the above was a huge wind up to this month’s LotM, but in my mind it makes perfect sense (of course).

This month’s label is from the Cayuse Vineyard wine portfolio, the Flying Pig. It’s a Cabernet Franc dominant red blend. I certainly have an infatuation with pigs and wine, so naturally it’s the perfect selection for September. Not to mention that the wine is amazing! Who says fantastic wine can’t come with a fantastically playful label? Come on, the pig even has a jet pack. I’m adding “learn how to fly out of this world” to my list of things to do in life.

Flying Pig

I’m outta here,

WineGirl

PS: I found two other flying pig labels, but they don’t rock nearly as much as THE Flying Pig wine. I included them for fun anyway.

Flying Pig 2

Flying Pig 3

Unfortunately there’ll be no photos today. While pouring wines at a most recent event in Seattle, our vehicle was burgled. Stolen was our laptop and digital camera among other things. We lost the machine itself as well as 6 months of wine artwork and photos. It’s a major bummer at an extremely busy time for us. But we’re pushing on, friends.

After deciding on our blends, we set up for the bottling line. As a true nano-winery, we bottle by hand which means washing, sanitizing, rinsing, sparging, filling, corking, foiling, and labeling the bottles pretty much one at a time. It is quite an operation to get up and running. On the first day, there are always a few snags and snaggles as we try to remember how the equipment works and what is the most efficient system of bottling. We usually call in a few dedicated winos to volunteer on the line.

After two sessions bottling, we have our 2008 Kamari Cabernet Franc and 2008 Kamari Malbec in bottles and resting in the cold room for a little while so they can deal with their bottle shock in cool, humid peace. These are long days, usually around 15 hours, after which we stumble home for a “nap” before the next day of flying water and flowing wine.

The Blending Room, our winery and tasting bar, on the North Shore of Lake Chelan, is open for business while we work. Come check us out for a taste or a case, ask questions, and watch out for the errant hose sprays from the bottling line.

J.H.

Marketime is in Fremont at 4416 Fremont Ave N, Seattle, WA, 98103.

See where else you can buy bottles of WineGirl Wines here.

J.H.

UPDATE:

The 2007 Cab. Franc is sold out, but MarkeTime is now carrying WineGirl Wines’ 2007 ‘My Derby Wife’ Merlot in addition to the 2008 Firá Chardonnay.

For those following along at home, the rules to the game have changed. In an effort to get our followers out and into the shops that are carrying WineGirl’s bottles on their shelves, we’re taking Where’s Wino? to the real world (in part). Here’s how it works:

1. We will post on this weblog, the name of a particular new retail shop that are carrying our wines.

2. You will go to the shop and take a photo of yourself next to our bottles on the shelf (everybody’s got a camera-phone, right).

3. You will submit the photo to us by email.

4. We will display the first photo of the correct location on the blog.

5. We will award the winning wino a fabulous prize.

And so, for the next installment of Where’s Wino? we’re sending you to Malt & Vine in Redmond, WA. It’s a lovely little shop that sells beer and wine to go and pours glasses to enjoy there and then. They have many interesting and seldom seen beers of the world available in bottle and on tap. Their wine selection is full of obscure labels from the Northwest and around the world. It’s a very intriguing collection of fine wines. If you’re into more than the usual bottles in the beer and wine aisle, Malt & Vine is worth checking out.

This is what our wines look like on the shelves without you there posing in the shot. They are carrying WineGirl Wines’ 2007 Kamari Cabernet Franc and our 2008 Firá Chardonnay. You don’t have to buy anything from the shop, but it may be hard to leave without something, and it certainly wouldn’t hurt the cause. Have fun.

J.H.

To make the polenta, I mixed the coarse ground yellow cornmeal into boiling water until it was the consistency of mashed potatoes. I poured the mix into a baking pan and baked for nearly 20 minutes until the top was slightly crispy. I sliced the polenta into squares and served with the bean mixture on top with  shredded sharp cheddar and jack cheeses and diced green onions. I added sauteed chard on the side to add some green color and flavor.

Our 2007 Kamari Cabernet Franc was a perfect compliment to this meal. The peppery and earthy flavors of the wine went well with this hearty polenta dish. The soft fruit flavor in the Cab Franc added another dimension to the taste experience. Try something like this at home and you will not be disappointed.

J.H.

Also, this week Full Pull Wines selected Kamari Cabernet Franc and Firá Chardonnay to be part of its growing wine list. Full Pull specializes in offering boutique Washington wines to its followers via email. The founder of Full Pull also writes a blog called Swordfern Wines describing adventures with the fine wines of Washington.

It was an exciting week in the effort to offer WineGirl Wines’ releases to the world. Of course, you can always check out winegirlwines.com to get bottles directly from the source.

J.H.