Just in time for the holiday season, here’s a guide to few nearby travel adventures. Trekking to special places is a marvelous way to celebrate the holiday season with family and friends and accomplish a little holiday shopping, too.
One particularly distinctive place to visit is the newest Puget Sound AVA winery, Sailor Vineyards, just outside of Port Townsend. The winery is distinctive for three reasons: the owners’ nautical background, 3 acres of vineyards in the scenic hills above Port Townsend and the grape variety planted — Marechal Foch.
After years of sailing the seven seas, Kit and
Claire Africa cruised into Port Townsend and traded in their sails
for shovels and hammers. Their background as researchers came
in handy for this new tack in life.
in 2009, they began the arduous task of planting their vineyard. And because of their scientific data-gathering background, each row is numbered and each vine in the rows is also numbered.
And what they found was Row 18, vine 2,
“nicknamed Bellwether,” is uncanny in its ability to predict days
to harvest. When 18-2 grapes hit veraison, it’s exactly 55 days to
harvest. And then there is Row 13, vine 13. Out of 2 acres planted
in 2009, here is a vine that has yet to ripen.
Coincidence?
Marechal Foch (Mar-a-shal Fosh) is a French hybrid that’s an early ripener, resistent of disease and cold hardy. Foch is an unusual red grape because even the pulp is red. It’s versatile, produced in styles from a fruit-forward, similar to Beaujolais, to a more extracted wine with glass-staining properties.
The hardworking owners are minimalists when it comes to enology, the science of winemaking. No fining, filtering or added sulfites. The newest vintage named Dogwatch Red, is a nautical term used for the short watch period, generally used to rotate the system of six-hour watches.
The small production makes this wine a very
special, very local gift to give for the holidays. Sailor Vineyards
doesn’t have official open hours so catch up with it either their
website or on
Facebook. 
The next stop is Finn River Farm and Cidery in nearby Chimacum — an award-winning sustainable business that farms and ferments from its orchards and other orchards in Washington.
Finnriver is on a former dairy farm just south of the Chimacum crossroads. This working farm is a great place for all ages to connect with nature strolling the orchards, observing the working geese and lambs who assist in managing grass and weeds and, of course, tasting some really delicious ciders.
Finnriver offers “unique interpretations” of traditional and innovative ciders. There are more than 50 varieties of apples used that range from desserts and russets to the more traditional bittersharps. Old European and early America varieties with names like Wolf River, Tom Putt and Cox Orange Pippin are fermented together.
Here you can enjoy at least over 25
bottlings
in traditional, craft,
botanical and the orchard series. Some ciders are blended with
other fruits, some use wine yeast and some use beer yeast. And for
designated drivers and those underage, try the root beer and
non-alcoholic cider.
Finnriver is open daily from noon ‘til nine. Wander the orchard, learn about the apples and enjoy a taste in the Garden Pavilion. Finnriver hosts food vendors mainly on weekends, with wood-fired pizzas, Hamma Hamma oysters and bratwurst. So, bundle up, pack up the kids and go!
Bainbridge Island’s Good Egg Bakery &
Cafe 
expertly organizes unique
events, pop-up dinners and private parties. Good Egg was opened by
Alice Hunting and Lena Davidson a year ago, and they cook up both
simple and fancy affairs for breakfast, lunch and special
occasions.
One recent special occasion was a pop-up event for the worldwide Beaujolais Nouveau release. Beaujolais Nouveau is the first wine of the vintage and is always released the third Thursday of November. It’s a festive start to the holiday season.
I love tasting this wine to get a
glimpse
of what France’s newest
vintage has produced before it’s released two or three years from
now. 2018 harvest looks to be very good.
Good Egg tapped a cask of this and served up some delectable dishes. On the menu: Salmon Mousse Tartine, Roasted Half Chicken with Carrots and Lentils, Polenta in Delicata Rings with Beet Relish and crispy Kale, and Cabbage Rolls with Merguez and Rice. The atmosphere was warm and welcoming, a nice place to be.
If you’re interested in these wine related pop-up events, join the restaurant’s mailing list or check out the events calendar at www.goodeggbi.com.
Hunting’s enthusiasm for wine began while working for a full service wine cellar in Seattle. After she and Davis opened Good Egg on Bainbridge Island, they collaborated with Harbor Square Wine Shop and Tasting Room for these wine related pop-up events.
Soon celebrating 12 years, Harbor Square Wine Shop and Tasting Room is a great place to pick up a few bottles for gifts and for those special dinners. They have one of the biggest collections of large format wines in Washington State including magnums, Jeroboams, Methuselahs and other larger formats named for Persian kings.
Located on Winslow Way East, there are over 1,000 wines from all around the world with particular emphasis on wines from the Northwest, France, and Italy. Wines include selections for everyday, special occasions and your cellar.
The Wine Bar is also a wonderful place to hang out. Wines by the glass are poured from a twelve tap system that keeps the wine under a nitrogen blanket to prevent oxidation or vinegar bugs taking over. This system allows the Wine Bar to feature boutique wineries with higher quality than is usual for selections of wine by the glass.
Did you know Seabeck has a winery? Yes, in scenic Seabeck a family-run winery is making wine from grapes harvested from the Red Mountain AVA. While Seabeck Cellars is not yet open to the public, you can find their wines at Seabeck Landing General Store and Lone Rock Mercantile both on the Seabeck Highway.
Holiday in the ‘Hood 2018 takes place on Dec. 16. Party with Grape Killers Guardian Cellars, Baer Winery, Stevens Winery, Mark Ryan’s Board Track Racer and Sparkman Cellars in the Woodinville Warehouse District wineries and tasting rooms. They’ll be serving up killer wines, tasty snacks and “the crazy antics you could only expect at a Grape Killers event.” Tickets can be had from https://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/3907731.
Cheers and happy holidays!
