My Vacation to Wally World!

You know, summer is made for vacations, and with the release of a new National Lampoon Vacation movie this summer I figured I should go on vacation too, and I'll even go to "Wally World" or in my case, Walla Walla, Washington to do some phenominal wine tasting!  To give you a taste (get it?) I've decided to make an intro post to what will be a good week's or two week's of posts dedicated to the wonderful people and wines I encountered on my vacation.  First some thanks to my Company, and it's subsidiary, Thor Motor Coach for letting me use a phenomenal motorhome for these 10 days to drive across the country and see the most beautiful scenery on my way so seeing some of the greatest wineries in Washington!  I've driven 2,200 miles, through Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska (that state is way longer than it should be), Wyoming, Utah, Idaho, Oregon and now Washington!

Now that I'm here and fully immersed in tasting some really great wines, I'll give you a sneak preview.  I've tasted some great food, had some wonderful sushi and sashimi the first night at Shiki Sushi, which recently opened in Walla Walla.  It was delicious!  Then today I had lunch at one of my perennial favorites, Brasserie 4 where I enjoyed the Moules Frites for lunch.  We'll see where I end up for dinner tonight.

As for wine tasting, I started yesterday on the west side of US 12, tasting and visiting at L'Ecole No. 41, Woodward Canyon and Reininger.  Today I had the greatest of intentions of visiting many tasting rooms, but as always happens, I get distracted, so I started the day at Seven Hills, which was a terrific visit (I can't say enough how much I love Casey, Vicky, Julie and all the gang at Seven Hills), then I had lunch at Brasserie 4, then off to a tasting at Doubleback, followed by some tasting at DaMa, then finishing at Spring Valley Cellars.  I meant to do so much more but that's as far as I made it!

For future postings, I will tell you it will be different from my last visit to Walla Walla.  Back in 2013, I basically gave you a time line of each day's activities.  This time, I think there are some wineries that will get their own posts in their entirety, so you can really get a sense of what I really loved about them.  In other cases, we might have posts summarizing multiple tasting room visits, for those which I don't think deserve their own post (this may not reflect at all on the quality of the wine, but reflects only on the length of my experience).  So as I type this, dirty martini in hand, I hope you'll enjoy living vicarioustly through me and my summer vacation in Walla Walla!