The other cure for a hangover is more drink. I suppose that is why we started more wine tasting at 1045am. Today's wineries were:
*Ensemble Cellars - A winemaker needed a way to pay for his hobby so he decided to sell just enough cases to cover most of his costs - about 500 cases of a single wine each year - and let me say that this stuff is AMAZING; Craig Nelson was so much fun to talk to and it didn't hurt that he totally stroked Paul's ego.
*Tamarack Cellars - The owner is generally unhappy and drunk - Paul says that I should say that in a good way so let me say that he was amusing in his own way; the wines have won awards for almost all of their releases in the 1990s which sounds like it was back when the owner liked his job.
*Northstar - Very commercialized but tasty; Paul doesn't like their "buy 2 and you have the right to buy this special vintage" and "buy 6 of this and you can be on our mailing list" and "if you automatically deposit your paycheck into our bank account we might let you buy some of our new releases"
*Pepper Bridge Winery - too pricey; too processed - the wine, the image, and the uptight and pretentious employees; and the worst sin of all: they use Papyrus font
In a secret ballot poll, the unanimous Walla Walla winery winners for both Paul and me were Ensemble Cellars and L'Ecole No 41.
After drinking up all of the goodness that Walla Walla had to offer, we headed off to the North Cascades. There was a slight detour to the outskirts of Seattle so that Paul and I (I am so embarrassed to admit this) could rent a monthly storage space to store our new wines... and most of our belongings. I can explain: we were about to go on an extended backpacking trip and it was ridiculous to leave all of that in the car in a national park parking lot.
Since it was late, we camped in some park outside of the Cascades. It was located right next to some scary backhills bar - so it was just a bit rowdy all around us.
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