Red Mountain's last land grab

This article announces a sale of the last open tracts in the tiny, and justifiably famous, Red Mountain AVA in Washington.

John Williams planted first on Red Mountain in 1975 (that land is Kiona Winery now), and since then the area has seen more and more superbly-high quality grapes grown by many wineries.

Note that Duckhorn (a Napa winery with overpriced, substandard wines in my view*) is one of the bidders; I sure hope they don't win the Red Mountain land, as I fear that would drag down the quality, and push up the wine prices, out there. Fingers crossed, everyone, for a quality purchaser!

*I may be the only person alive who dislikes Duckhorn wines. Spectator gives them (overall) a bunch of scores in the 90s, but also many scores in the low 80s, and in the 70s, and even one score of 68! 68! Would a respectable winery issue a wine like that? All I know is that when I went to a Duckhorn tasting at Zupans once, the wines were shut down and terrible. Maybe that only means they don't know how to train a sales rep to make sure the poured wines are good/ready, but even that is a sign of a substandard winery.

Pretty impressive wine haul

Every picture tells a story. This first pic says, "61 cases of wine purchased from the bankruptcy trustee's rep safely made it back to Portland from Seattle, and are eagerly awaiting enthusiastic drinkers."

The second pic is my home's foyer saying, "My joists are aching! I sure hope everybody gets their wine soon!"


Wow; what great prices! I am happy that we can enjoy some of that '06 Merlot; Walla Walla fruit, perfectly mature now, expertly made, and a super, super treat! And of course the '07 Narcissa is just wonderful in every way. What a find!

Considering both volume and vehicle weight ratings: 61 cases just barely fits into a Highlander and a Civic. In case you wanted to know. Also, an SUV's mpg (which, admittedly, is not so great to begin with) doesn't seriously suffer when it's loaded to max weight; who knew? And: would you be surprised to know that our '06 Civic can carry nearly the same weight as our Highlander? (of course, it doesn't have nearly as much room, but it could carry almost as much weight).

I learned more about the Whitman bankruptcy. There were several owners, and the majority owner really loved the Narcissa (who doesn't?) but he made too much of it--more than could be sold. That's about all it takes to get into trouble. So sorry it happened. But don't feel too bad when consuming this wine--at least we're all helping the unpaid creditors get some of the money owed to them, by buying the bankrupt estate's assets.