I was up in Seattle recently speaking at the wonderful and annual event, Taste Washington, a two-day gathering celebrating the state’s cornucopia of wine and food. I missed last year and was amazed at how many more wines there were this time around. Some of which I had never heard of before prior to stepping up to a tasting table. The state’s now 540-plus wineries seem to be expanding virtually at a daily rate and many of the new wines are simply incredible. I was especially heartened to try a number of really superb Rieslings during a seminar I participated in called ‘Riesling Rocks the Rim’, a snapshot of the state’s offering and a demo on how they pair well with Asian dishes.

The wines in the seminar, six of them, represented an selection of dry and off dry styles and from wineries that ranged from larger producers to smaller ones. The food, an assortment of five offerings from the menu of the celebrated Wild Ginger restaurant, provided an apropos assortment of taste profiles (heat, salt, sweet etc.) from which to platform Riesling’s ability and proclivity to pair up nicely with these non-western offerings. While all the wines were quite tasty (no duds in the chosen six), I was especially enamored by a couple: Continue reading »