UMTravels

Got Joe to the airport at 10:30 with breakfast in our stomachs. Thanks for the visit!

At 10:45 headed out to the first of FOUR Trade Tastings today. The first stop was Vinum — after struggling to find a place to park. Imagine 20 stations (tables), each with a dozen or so open bottles from Champagne to Port and a jam of people. That doesn’t even count the table of Apértifs, Digestifs and Spirits which we entirely passed on. Huge platters of cheese and salamis, chafing dishes full of beef brisket and pork tenderloins alleviated the need for lunch today.

Next stop was down in the Rainier Valley at C&G Wines. A much smaller affair with a lot less people. Only 7 tables (times a dozen bottles) in this warehouse tasting. And yet more meat — bratwursts brought up from Portland and BBQ’d out front.

Don’t we look all respectable in our reading glasses. There was a whole lot of spitting going on, even me. The only ones I swallowed (but still dumped) were some of the $100 plus bottles such as:

There was a stunning Balthazar (12 liter) size bottle of Champagne which you can see sitting on the floor behind the Champagne station ($740 wholesale if I remember correctly):

If you want a link to the various names for big bottles of wine and champagne, check out this link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wine_bottle

Our next stop was Bordeaux Wine Locators which was being held at a private residence. Jimmy saved this one for the end of the day as the food was all stunning, AND homemade. The terrine with pork, chicken livers, duck and pistachios was almost as good as the cassoulet. And then there were the two dozen bottles of various Cremente and Boudreaux that were open. Not going to need much dinner tonight either!

There was one more Trade Tasting up in South Lake Union, but It was 5:30pm when we left and standing on concrete all day was killing me. Approximate total of wines available for tasting today (in the 3 out of 4 tastings we went to): 348, but we didn’t try all the ones from the first stop at Vinum, just the ones that Jimmy is considering stocking.

Dropped Jimmy back at his house and had a short cocktail business meeting about the wine database I’m building for the shop and then it was back home for me — arriving a little before 7.

Add Fish Tacos from the taco truck at the gas station in South Park at 8pm and working till well past midnight on the database, and I was pretty well spent. But it was a productive day — here is a small screen shot of what the database is looking like:

Off to bed.

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