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

Only Ween could possibly capture the loco-ality of my harvest (in)sanity this chilly, fine October evening. One ton of Chardonnay grapes from the Bryan Vineyard in Quincy sit on the tarmac of The Blending Room awaiting the green light from our newest piece of tin.

Meet our mutilator/destemmer: harvest emergency purchase: new best friend:

Maude Elle Tee

And her parts. Henry Ford would be proud. (Except she’s Italian.)

It’s always a love~hate relationship in the wine industry. If you can find romance in that than you belong right here with me. Just listen to this song and you might understand the cognitive dissonance of THIS harvest moment and its wine~music inspiration. So soothing are the rhythms, yet so queer are the lyrics. Thanks Ween for making my evening more bearable.

Mutilated lips give a kiss on the wrist of the worm-like tips of tentacles expanding in my mind, I’m fine accepting only fresh WINE you can get another drop of this yes yeah you wish.

Mutilated Lips off The Mollusk by Ween

Cheers,

Sassy Frassy Lassie WeenGirl

One of the newest places to find our wines is in Renton, WA at the Red House. They feature fine food and a large selection of beers and wines from local makers and from around the world. They say the atmosphere is “sophisticated and casual” and I would agree. I recently poured our Firás and Kamaris at their weekly Wednesday wine tasting event. Trucking over from Manson was a journey, but worth the trip. The Red House is a cozy place. People were very friendly and in good spirits throughout the night sharing stories and laughs with old and new friends. The wines were well received and the food provided for the event seemed to compliment nicely. The 2010 Firá Cabernet Sauvignon and 2010 Kamari Black Label Reserve Red Wine Blend were the hits of the evening.

The Red House now carries WineGirl Wines’ 2009 Firá Gewurztraminer, 2008 Firá Cab Sav, and 2008 My Derby Wife Merlot. If you need more reason to check them out, look at their full menu online. After the event wound down, I had a chance to enjoy their Red House Paella and it was a delicious and hearty meal. I’d order it again next time and pair it with our Firá Cabernet Sauvignon for a savory sensory experience.

A growing list of where to find our wines is here.

J.H.

It’s that time of year again for another Label of the Month. This month’s label is brought to you by my stoopendously funny girlfriend Shaina inspired by her recent trip to Kelowna, BC.

Princess Shaina

Blasted Church Vineyards is another in the line-up of “modern wineries,” by which I mean keen, out-of-the-box marketing strategies applied to a product becoming increasingly commoditized. In an attempt (successful I might add) to differentiate themselves, Blasted Church have developed seriously fun labels in line with their dynamite church theme. From their website:

The plan called for a controlled blast of four dynamite sticks inside the church in order to “loosen the nails”. Odd as it may seem, the explosion spared the wood from damage during dismantling. Save for losing the steeple, the plan succeeded. Now, the 108 year old wooden church stands proudly in its second home of Okanagan Falls.

I’ve chosen Hatfield’s Fuse as the example label. Wow, talk about the kitchen sink of wines (in terms of a white blend), Hatfield’s Fuse has 53.5% Gewürztraminer, 17.1% Optima, 14.2% Pinot Blanc, 8.2% Chardonnay, 4.0% Ehrenfelser, 1.5% Pinot Gris, 1.0% Riesling, and 0.5% Sauvignon Blanc. According to the website, the wine has notes of citrus, lychee, melon, floral, apple, and tropical fruits.

Hatfield's Fuse

Kelowna is a fantastic place to wine taste and travel up through the Okanogan Valley in Canada. Awhile back my parents and I went for a preliminary tour of the valley and had a blast hitting eight wineries in the one day including Blasted Church.

Dyn-o-mite,

WineGirl

A few others:

Last Friday October 8th, we selected our Firá Chardonnay, Firá Cabernet Sauvignon, and Kamari Black Label Reserve Malbec to host the evening. Lake Chelan Cheese brought over a fancy aged Champagne Cheddar, a soft-ripened Double Crème Brie, and a classic from those crazy folks in Northern California: Humboldt Fog.

Firá _Chardonnay	Firá Cabernet Sauvignon	Kamari Black Label Malbec
Champagne Cheddar	Double Crème Brie	Humboldt Fog

The fan favorite was certainly the elegant and luscious Humboldt Fog, with its characteristic grey vegetable ash streak down the center, paired perfectly with the bright cherry notes of the Kamari Black Label Reserve Malbec. Come down this Friday for another round of cheese and wine shenanigans at The Blending Room in Manson.

Cheese,

WineGirl

Saira’s Saturday activities included the Manson Farmer’s Market at the Manson Grange as well as the Manson Public Library book sale before she came to hang out at The Blending Room to sip a succulent glass of our Firá Chardonnay. Saira’s heading to a BBQ tonight and of course watching the Chelan fireworks before she’s off to bed to catch some beauty rest for Sunday.

Why does she need to rest up for Sunday, you ask? Well, Sunday is jam-packed with Kiwanis BBQ Chicken and the annual classic car show Rods and Wheels. My oh my! But then, what better way to end a July 4th weekend than with a second showing of booms and bangs sure to delight. The little village on the bay will host the Fourth of July fireworks for all to see. I sure can’t wait!

Good luck Saira! We hope you can fit it all in and get some serious sun time before heading back to Seattle. It was a pleasure to host you and your friends!

Busy Bee Saira

Cheers,
WineGirl

WineGirl and her helper, Delice, rolled out the small but mighty plate filter for some action. It had been in the closet for a while, but performed its duties very well. Delice took to the sometimes hectic process with quick feet and cool attitude.

As always, there is lots of cleaning and sanitizing in winemaking, which makes for lots of water everywhere, especially down my boots. Our new helper came out relatively dry though. There were lots of hoses on the ground too. No one tripped and no one fell. The wine got filtered, and it was good.

Success.

J.H.

Now Seattle Magazine has named Lake Chelan the state’s ‘Best Emerging Wine Region’ in a recent article, 2010 Best Washington Wines.

Here’s a quote from the piece:

Though it currently has only 260 planted acres, the area is developing a reputation for excellent fresh, crisp Riesling and Chardonnay, as well as Pinot Gris and Sauvignon Blanc. “This area has potential to produce world-class whites,” Bob Jankelson says.

WineGirl Wines agrees. We’ve been sampling wines around the area as long as they’ve been making wines and have been excited by the potential for growing great wine grapes around this beautiful lake. That’s why we moved here. And the wine community here is a good one. We’ve hosted wine release parties here for years, always with a good response from great people. The area is getting some deserved recognition and we’re glad to be a part of its future.

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.