April 26, 27, 28
Paul, the Man in the Wild Pants, has been hosting Spring Barrel Tastings since 1985, both in Spokane and the Yakima Valley. Approximately 46 separate events. He has tried to make each one different and an opportunity to learn more about the complexity that is wine.
For the first time since 1985, Paul won’t be doing a tasting with barrels!
In the pursuit of providing an insight into elevating grape juice to a beverage used in religious services, and celebrations, and making food, family, and friends better, Paul has provided educational seminars on every (?) aspect of barrels.
This year we will explore wine’s elevation by finishing its fermentation in a bottle. Yes, sparkling wine, bubbly, fizz, or our term Wiggly. Wiggly? Yes, due to the way the bubbles stream through the wine.
We will contrast the gold medal Xarel•lo still wine produced by Yakima Valley College students from our grapes and our 2023 Xarel•lo bubbly in process.
We were the first in North America to plant Xarel•lo. We tried several methods of winemaking with it. The results weren’t worth sharing.
We gave the college most of the grapes in 2022. They released the first American Xarel•lo in 2023. It promptly won a gold medal and quickly sold out. We are pleased it helped fund the wine program.
And as always, a plate with tiny morsels to explore how our wines are meant to be another food on your table. After the micro-mini seminar, we offer a micro-mini-10-course winemaker tasting, 10 teensy tiny bites of food to go with our 10 different wines. Sip, Sip, Bite, Sip!
We start with our famous Rosé Paradiso and Mushroom Pâté, Chèvre à l’Estragon and our Oyster White, Paul’s Peanut Sauce with our Sève, and Pasta Arti-Pesto with our B’s Blend. Next are our reds—with our Sangiovese we are serving Glondo’s Pepperoni. Rojo Paradisos is our pizza wine; we would love to have pizza, but it just doesn’t seem to work as a small-bite option, who can eat just one bite? So instead, we have another Glondo’s yummy, their salami. With our Cabernet Sauvignon is our ever-famous Bleu-Cheese Dip. PMS Paul’s Mocha Stuff is served with a tiny bite of dark chocolate from Intrigue Chocolate; we suggest you melt this in your mouth rather than bite. With the Zort, we have another bite of dark chocolate from Intrigue Chocolate. Last, but not least, is our Angelica MRS. We have a skosh of Vegan Pumpkin Custard to go with that.
We know it is hard to choose which wineries to visit, so we hope you come to visit us. Our $15 tasting fee is applied towards a purchase of at least $30. 20% of every tasting fee paid is donated to Yakima Humane Society. Club members and returning customers receive 10% off your purchase of 2 or more bottles and 30% or 50% off case purchase on selected wines. For Spring Barrel Tasting, groups of 8 or more will be turned away if they don’t have a reservation. Come Taste Paradise!
