It’s baaaack!

The annual Passport to Woodinville returns this weekend, April 21st and 22nd from 11 am to 4 pm, to celebrate the  unique haven of wineries, large and small, and the singular passion for crafting world-class wine.  Tickets are $65 for a Sunday only pass and only $75 for a two-day Saturday and Sunday pass. Your ticket gets you free tastings at over 35 wineries as well as a wine glass which you will receive when you pick up your ticket.

Trust me, you will drink and eat well!

I’m sure you’ll find your favorite local winery on this list! Participating wineries to date include: Airfield Estates Winery, Anton Ville Winery, Apex at Alder Ridge, Brian Carter Cellars, Bunnell Family Cellars, Chateau Ste. Michelle, Columbia Winery, Convergence Zone Cellars, Covington Cellars, Davenport Cellars, Des Voigne Cellars, Domaine Ste. Michelle, Elevation Cellars, Finn Hill Winery, Goose Ridge Estate Winery, J. Bookwalter Tasting Studio, Kestrel Vintners, Matthews Estate, Michael Florentino Cellars, Northwest Totem Cellars, Otis Kenyon Wine Tasting Room, Page Cellars, Patit Creek Cellars, Patterson Cellars, Piccola Cellars, Pondera Winery, Silver Lake Winery, Tefft Cellars, Tempest Sol Winery, II Vintners, William Church Winery, Woodinville Wine Cellars, XSV Winery.

Enjoy and please be safe – designate your DD (DD’s can tag along for free and may also purchase a shuttle ticket).

The $10 Shuttle Express option you can “Hop on and Hop Off” at Shuttle Express stops all around Woodinville Wine Country during Passport weekend.  Be responsible!

Cheers!

In an effort to start planning ahead more often – I present to you, Arcade Lights taking place NEXT Friday, April 20 at the Pike Place Market. Arcade Lights is a celebration of local artisan foods and beverages and live music all in the name of a good cause: The Market Foundation.

What/Why:

At this fun festival of culinary delights for guests 21 and over, more than 60 local artisan food and beverage purveyors will sample a variety of sweet or savory foods, including seafood and sausage, doughnuts and ice cream—and tasty beverages including beer, wine, coffee, hard cider and sodas. Enjoy live performances of jazz, acappella gospel, folk and rock, performed by Market buskers. Ticket includes 10 tokens event-goers redeem as they choose. Proceeds benefit the Market Foundation and the preschool, senior center, food bank, and medical clinic that serve those who need a helping hand.

There will be no shortage of delightful establishments on hand. Check out the full listing of participating wineries, breweries, coffee roasters, sweet treats and big bites here.

Tickets are $25 in advance (this is where the planning ahead part comes into play) and $30 at the door. Proceeds benefit the Market Foundation and the preschool, senior center, food bank, and medical clinic that serve those who need a helping hand.

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It’s back! What better option is there for a (predicted) rainy Saturday? None!

Saddle up to your favorite Washington wineries and restaurants for the annual two-day Taste Washington! event at the CenturyLink Field Event Center. Beginning Saturday (2pm-5pm), more than 200 Washington wineries uncork their award-winning bottles, and the region’s top restaurants dish up their world-class bites.

You thought Costco on a Saturday was the jackpot for samples and cheer? This event takes the cake as you will consume meal and wine pairings from the State’s finest institutions and wineries including Canlis, Cooperleaf Restaurant and Bar and Aqua by El Goucho.

And if you bail on Saturday, Sunday’s agenda will still knock your socks off. Wine tasting in the  Vineyard Tasting area and noshing on mouth-watering bites for four hours sounds delightful. Sunday also offers wine and food lovers the chance to meet Tom Douglas.

I don’t know about you, but the weekend can’t come fast enough, especially one flowing with wine and good bites!

Cheers!

The Puget Sound Blood Center and its Young Professional Ambassadors (YPA) network are hosting a beer and wine tasting event and fundraiser to raise money and awareness. Taste for Life is taking place on Thursday, June 23 at the Paccar Pavilion, Olympic Sculpture Park.

The ‘taste’ part of Taste for Life will include samplings from these distilleries, wineries, and breweries: Chinook Wines, Effen Vodka, Fremont Brewing Company, Lazy River Vineyard, OS Winery, Pandora Cellars, Red Sky Winery and Widmer Brothers.

And the ‘life’ part comes in when you support the Puget Sound Blood Center with the $35 ticket to the event. The money supports blood research that makes cures possible. (And in case you didn’t know, every person that donates one pint of blood (every eight weeks) saves three lives.) You can register here.

For $5 you can also enter to participate in a wine toss game (throw a ring around the neck of a wine bottle) for a chance to go home with a bottle of wine.

I’m the first person to admit that I do not find enjoyment in dining or entertaining in Capitol Hill – I always seem to get myself lost, I have poor luck finding street parking, not to mention I’m never really sure where Capitol Hill begins or ends – which causes me to feel like I’m in this strange euphoria of wine shops, novelty pet stores, eclectic restaurants and a random selection of car dealerships with no way out. BUT, I have found a new love: Bar Ferd’nand.

Photo courtesy of www.ferdinandthebar.com

Bar Ferd’nand is located inside the Melrose Market, a rustic indoor marketplace with barn-like high ceilings, carefully lined with vendors serving enticing eats, from cheeses and sandwiches, to delectable bites from Sitka and Spruce and a graphic display of meats from a full service butchery featuring all local meats and house-made charcutiere. The atmosphere of this building is just charming. The original buildings were once two automotive warehouses built back in the early 1920′s, respectively. Today, the market prides itself on serving some of the best locally-based, sustainable fare in the city.

While dining at Bar Ferd’nand, the people watching is at its best as shoppers and eaters swing in to pick up dinner’s main course from the meat counter, a quick sandwich on the run or a lesson on the perfect wine from Bar Ferd’nand’s wine shop.

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Photos courtesy of hopscotchtasting.com

This weekend, Friday night and Saturday afternoon/evening, the Seattle International Film Festival (SIFF) is throwing the annual Hop Scotch Spring Beer and Scotch Festival at Fremont Studios. Enjoy beer, wine, and scotch tastings. Or attend the Scotch seminar with Master of Whiskey, Breck Taylor. Friday, April 1, 5:00pm-12:00am and Saturday, April 2, 1:00pm-12:00am.

Fremont Studios transforms into a swanky beverage tasting lounge featuring over 80 libations to swirl, sniff and sip. You’ll find everything from premier beers, Scotch, wine and spirit tastings all benefiting the SIFF. (more…)

The Washington Wine Commission‘s flagship event is this weekend; Taste Washington. It is a huge party celebrating all that is good about our state’s wine industry and one that is worth experiencing. Throughout March, local wineries, restaurants and retailers celebrate Washington Wine month leading up to the grand event.

Tickets are on sale through ticketmaster for Sunday, March 27th’s Grand Tasting (at the Qwest Field Event Center) and also available at several local wine retailers including: Arista WIne Cellars, Cellar 46, Esquin Wine Merchants, McCarthy & Schiering, Pike & Western Wine Merchants, Redmond Fine Wine & Cigars, Soul Wine, The Grape Choice, The Wine Alley, Wine World – $75 General Admission $125 VIP or 2 for $240. VIP ticket includes an extra two hours of wine & food tasting (2pm-4pm). VIP tickets are limited to 1000. Ticket prices include all wine and food samples.

More than 200 wineries will be on hand at Taste Washington Seattle, pouring up to three of their wines. Try new releases of old favorites, or new varietals from some of Washington’s many brilliant new wineries.

Around 60 Seattle-area restaurants will be on hand, to prepare their favorite treats. Hip, new restaurants and historic establishments alike will tempt you with delicious fare.

Download the event program and start planning your tasting route. And don’t forget to get a DD.

If you’re craving vitamin D this post won’t help you. But if you’re craving the delicious smells and tastes of authentic Hawaiian cuisine, read on! Two events that will get your hips hula-ing to the tropical sensations of the islands of Hawaii. Take part in the Flavors of Hawaii all month long, starting with tonight!

Hawaiian Happy Hours

Leading up to the finale event of Flavors of Hawaii, you can take part in four happy hour tastings at local hot spots every Thursday for the next four weeks. During the month of January, Spring Hill (tonight), Wild Ginger (January 13), Dahlia Lounge (January 20), and Joey Lake Union (January 27) are competing for the Best Hawaiian Pupu Platter and you’re invited to attend, enjoy and vote.

Finale Hawaiian Dinner

Now this is where it’s at!

The Hawaii Visitors and Convention Bureau and Seattle Met are hosting an exclusive four-course tasting dinner featuring the flavors and traditions of Hawaii. Prepared by Tom Douglas, this dinner, celebrating the uniqueness of Hawaii fare, serves as the finale event for the pupu platter competition. Tom is servicing up kalua pig, wine pairings, Hawaii entertainment, and your very own flower lei. You can even win a five-day trip to Maui!

Tickets are $100 and well worth it if you’re the winner of that Hawaiian vacation.

I think I can feel the 85 degree sun already… Aloha!

How can you say no to champagne?

Say hello to Ivar’s Salmon House’ 2nd Annual Holiday Sparkler! Wednesday night (that’s tomorrow) December 1, the Ivar’s Salmon House on Northlake Way is hosting an evening of holiday cheer paired with bubbly and delicious bites. Cozy up to the waterside windows along North Lake Union, sip champagne to the tune of live jazz music, and enjoy the twinkle of the Argosy Christmas Ships as they sail by with downtown Seattle lit up in the background. Seasonally-inspired festive hors d’oeuvres will also be served from Ivar’s Salmon House executive chef Jason Bray.

But back to the champagne – The evening will feature samplings from up to 25 champagnes and sparkling wines from Argentina, California, France, Italy, Spain and Washington. See the full list here.
Tickets can be purchased for $35 online at www.ivars.com or through BrownPaperTickets.com. The evening begins at 5:30 p.m. until about 8 p.m.

The menu includes:

● Assorted imported and domestic cheeses
● Various artisan breads
● Sliced flank steak with mushroom demi-glace
● Shucked oysters
● Braised pork belly
● Prawn shooters
● Roasted and marinated vegetables
● Assorted dips and spreads
● Alder grilled salmon sides
● Assorted mini desserts

I don’t know if it’s something in the air, or hops, as it were, but there are three festivals in the next two weeks that celebrate the similarities and differences in that brew known as beer.

Next Saturday, head down to Leavenworth for “an-ale-of-a-party” at 2010′s Ale Fest. Thrown yearly to benefit the Leavenworth Nutcracker Musuem, Ale-Fest will feature beer tastings from 20 different micro breweries, “delicious foods and popular Northwest bands.” Tickets are already on sale here, and are $20 in advance, but $25 at the door. The festivities begin at noon and you must be 21 to attend.

One week from Friday marks the beginning of the two-day Hop Scotch Festival. While this event isn’t strictly about the hops, it does feature more than 80 different beers, wines and spirits. Proceeds from Hop Scotch go to support the Seattle International Film Festival (not surprisingly, an event that is near and dear to my heart). I’ll be volunteering, so stop by Fremont Studios on Saturday the 24th and say hi.

I’d recommend getting tickets in advance – especially if you want to attend any of the scotch seminars. One day entrance with a souvenir glass is $20 in advance, and the price goes up to $25 on the day of the event. Grand admission is $25 in advance, and $30 day-off and that gets you five extra tasting tokens. Hop Scotch starts at 5pm on Friday and goes until midnight, then starts at 1pm on Saturday. You might want to get in there early – once a beer runs out, you miss out.

Last, but certainly not least, the 8th Annual Hops and Props will take over the Museum of Flight from 7-10pm on the 24th. Unfortunately, member and general admission tickets are sold out, but there are a limited number of VIP tickets available. Tickets are $100, but aside from admission, VIPs are treated to an exclusive food and beer pairing event, the VIP Hops and Props Gourmet Soiree. If you do make it to the festival, you can look forward to catering by McCormick and Schmick’s, live music from the Dudley Manlove Quartet, a commemorative glass, an informational tasting guide and access to the Museum’s galleries.

Whatever your preference, spring certainly seems to be off to a hopping good start.