by Sucharita Ray

Created on: August 18, 2009

We had been to the Yakima Valley in central Washington couple of years back, primarily for spring barrel tasting. However, since, both of us are no wine experts or hard-core, passionate wine enthusiasts, we knew we would do much more than get sloshed. The trip had been planned weeks back, as part of my husband's urgent discover Washington series, though of course there was nothing much to plan except coincide the dates with the Spring Barrel Tasting Festival, book a hotel for a night and of course find where to get the best discounts on the tasting passport.

We did something the night before that I can't quite recollect - friends came over or we went out for a movie. All I remember is that we slept late and I had set the alarm for an unrealistic hour, though of course we finally started our journey closer to noon, some four hours later than our planned start time. Gradually, the evergreen hilly terrain of western Washington winded into the flat lush fields of the central basin after looping around the mighty Cascades, reminding us again of the unfathomable natural beauty of the Pacific Northwest. It must have been around three, when we drove into the downtown Yakima visitor's center and the store clerk flooded us with pamphlets of all sorts but not wine glasses, which we had gone for since they were already exhausted!

After leafing through all of it and toying with the idea of having lunch or visiting the Centennial fair of adjacent Toppenish, we finally settled on sticking to the original plan and headed south down the Rattle Hill Snake Trail. The first stop was at Sagelands winery - a quaint shingled roof wood cottage amidst purple vines and vast expanse of vineyards divided into well proportionate rectangles, with Mount Adams looking down upon them. We finally collected wine glasses and officially started our tasting trip!

I have always been a white wine drinker - particularly sweet whites. I swear by Rieslings and they had a dry Riesling, which was not too brilliant but good enough for its price, though their Pinot Gris was quite delightful, not too tart, exactly the way I like my wine after a long day. Though I am not a regular wine drinker but I drink more wine than hard alcohol or beer. Moving on, the fresh strawberry and blueberry dips they provided with the crackers were delicious. I am sure my husband ate more than he drank. The barrel was a 2006 merlot nothing extraordinary except for the woody taste that comes with all barrels. However, I have

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