A Wine Hearse, E-Bikes & Ween: My Summer (So Far) in 6 Degrees

[ >>>>> Featured image courtesy Stacie Pike. It’s of the Wine Hearse that visited the Blood of Gods Merrymaking. The Wine Hearse, according to its website, “serves natural wine from the back of a vintage hearse.” It’s owned and operated by Lauren Tuvell (pictured on left), a Las Vegas-based female Elvis impersonator and sommelier. <<<<< ]

As we quickly approach the season’s final dog days and remarkably, harvest, I feel the urgency to document my activities for the last few months. Here are some highlights, rendered as a quick 6 degrees recap:

A Thoughtful Wine List: I encountered a thoughtful Washington state-focused wine list over a recent meal at Wild Sage in Spokane. Selects included two of the state’s most famous Rieslings, Poet’s Leap (Long Shadows) and Eroica (CSM) as well the Shirley May Chardonnay from Dunham and a 2021 Chard from Abeja. All fairly well known names in Washington wine, but other names studded throughout, including L’Ecole 41, The Walls, Figgins, Corliss, Kontos, Cote Bonneville, Brian Carter, JB Neufeld, Doubleback—and more—were also squarely Washington-centric. It was nice to encounter such a regional focus that also featured a range of styles and varieties.

We were in Spokane to see stoner rock back Ween, and had been looking forward to it all summer. The band played a generous near 3-hour long set peppered with hits and cult faves, and immediately after the show cancelled the rest of their tour.

For our vegetarian meal (highlights: pistachio beet salad and the can’t-miss Palouse Hills green chickpea burger!), we ordered a bottle of the Isenhhower viognier. We tried to order the Jaine Sauvingnon Blanc but it was sold out…

We Like Ike (and E-bikes): The lovely wines of Isenhower, specifically its Rhone white varietals and blends, were on our radar as we had recently visited the tasting room on a fun e-bike tour of Walla Walla organized by Toby via Kickstand Tours as a team-building experience for his employees at Canvasback (thankfully I’m tolerated enough by his colleagues to be invited).

En route from Balboa through the vineyards of the southside back towards downtown Walla Walla. The wind created some audio feedback but you can still make out a robin’s cheerful chatter.

We enjoyed chatting with general manger Denise, who gave us a warm welcome and was generous with her time and expertise. I loved learning about the winery’s book club, “Well Red,” and hearing about its “minimalist winemaking” style and fruit sourcing from some impressive sites across the state (see link).

Denise and her winemaker husband, Brett, celebrate the 25th anniversary of Isenhower this year. The 25^th Anniversary 2021 Blanc de Noir Sparkling Wine was nearing release but not yet ready to taste. Just read it was released this week!

Tim Vanmouwerik of Canvasback and Toby at Balboa

From Isenhower, we moved on to Balboa, and ended the tour at Dossier (more about these great wineries another time!), where I received a call from my friend and neighbor Stacy Buchanan, who I first became acquainted with writing this profile for the Walla Walla Union-Bulletin…

A Party With the Gods: Pursued by Bear tasting room manager, Stacie Pike (known to me as she-Stacie) and I represented the brand at the tasting portion of the 3rd annual Blood of Gods Merrymaking, produced by Stacy (known to me as he-Stacy) who publishes the ‘zine of the same name and is the subject of the UB profile linked above.

The event, that Stacy says “brings the pages of the ‘zine to life,” combines art, wine tastings, live music, expert panel discussions, and more. It’s a refreshing boost to the local wine scene—I love its “wine is for everyone,” no BS vibe that offers a range of access points for people to discover wine—and attracts metal music fans, wine aficionados, sommeliers, book and ‘zine publishers, and winemakers from near and far. The next day at the tasting room, I hosted guests who had traveled from Japan just to attend…

Working It: A lot of my time this summer has been spent working at the Pursued by Bear tasting room and with Kyle and Stacie to scale the brand’s social media program. (*Shameless plug to read my attempts at Shakespearean-style social media captions and follow Pursued by Bear on Instagram and Facebook.*)

Working at the tasting room, interacting with guests, talking about wine, and amplifying Kyle’s wine story has been a wonderful new routine for me. I also get to walk to and from work (my best case scenario commute), and have a credible excuse to leave the house, my dark basement office, and our clowder of absolutely neurotic cats! It’s a great change of scenery, and an energizing lift to the daily grind.

As a writer, I love time to myself to dig deep into my thoughts, alone and without distraction. But as someone with a natural curiosity about life, and an irrepressible reporter’s urge to ask questions, I have really missed working with the public, from both a news gathering and hospitality standpoint. So, it has been great to be back “out there” being me, aka, “Gwenny,” as my friends and family call me when I can be really outgoing.

I’m still a little in awe of just how profoundly my work life has changed in 2024, but I’m deeply grateful for this new and enriching direction and eager to see where it goes. Part of this, I know, relies on a willingness to take on new challenges, invitations, and experiences in wine…

The comparative tasting portion of the course featured wine from Walla Walla, Napa, and Bordeaux.

Getting Certified: On Monday, May 13th, I joined a large group of wine industry folks for the Walla Walla Valley Wine Certification Course offered through the Walla Walla Valley Wine Alliance. Led by local sommelier Kaleigh Brook, the course involved an exploration of Walla Walla’s history as a wine producing region, a comparative tasting, and a quiz to become #wallawallawinecertified. It was well-organized and comprehensive—Brook has a matter-of-fact and direct way of putting things that I found easy to grasp and engaging at the same time—and also served as an opportunity to connect with other familiar faces in the business. And, I was pleasantly surprised to realize how much I already knew about wine, and Walla Walla….

Certificates were delivered a few months after the completion of the course.

Walla Walla, Visited: I’ve started freelancing for Visit Walla Walla on a range of topics, namely wine and lodging. Here’s a recent piece I wrote about wine country inn, The Barn B&B, and its lovely hosts, Naina and Anand Rao. I am currently working on a piece about this delightful new shop on Colville…

I’ll be moving on to suggested tasting itineraries and other pieces later this summer and into the fall. I’ve enjoyed getting to know Director of Marketing Cara Jacobson and the team at Visit Walla Walla, including Executive Director Guy Glaeser, who I know as “Milo’s Dad,” because he lives around the corner from me and his cat Milo is famous for his many adventures around town…

Milo is famous for making new friends and following them everywhere, sometimes for miles, hence his large tracking collar. Once, when I encountered a couple on the Whitman campus who couldn’t shake him, I offered to escort him back to our neighborhood (where I was headed anyway). Milo dutifully followed and I saw him safely to his house.

See You Out There: Looking ahead, Stacie and I will be representing Pursued by Bear on Friday, August 23 at the Grand Tasting of the 4th annual Shindig at Yellowhawk Resort. The following week, I’ll tag along with Toby and his Canvasback team for a visit to some Red Mountain vineyards (likely Longwinds, Klipsun, and Ciel du Cheval). (Earlier this month, I visited SeVein vineyards, which you can read about here.)

Then, in October, I’m excited to plant my Blundstones among the vine rows during visits to some of the Columbia Valley’s renowned vineyards, organized as part of the Fellowship through the Washington State Wine Commission.

I’ll be blogging about my adventures here, if not elsewhere. The journey continues…