Line up the bottles

We finally had our first meeting of the Puget Sound Wine Century club on May 7th, 2010. We had the meeting to coincide with the May 8th birthday celebration of the Wine Century Club back in New York.

We had a great turn out, about 25 people came to the Hollywood Hill Vineyards tasting room from 6-8pm bringing a total of 21 wines with something like 25 different grapes total. We had wines from Italy, Spain, France, Virginia and even one from Romania! I think everyone made significant progress on their 100 different grapes.

Great time was had by all and we are already planning the next meeting which will be bigger and better than the last. Thanks to Vivian and Shona for helping me organize this event!

Directions to the event are here

Whether you are new to the Wine Century club or going for your Doppel certificate, I think there will be plenty of interesting grape varieties for everyone to check off their list. Steve is sure to have a couple of wines that almost no one has tried before. Either way it should be a lot of fun.

We would request that you RSVP so we can have an idea of the amount of people coming. Please RSVP to steve@hollywoodhillvineyards.com.

If you are new to the Wine Century club, here is the application to start your collection of grapes http://www.winecentury.com/Application.pdf

There are litterally thousands of different wine grapes out there in the world. You could never taste them all in a lifetime!

A good book to get, although out of print, is Jancis Robinson’s Guide to Wine Grapes. It contains over 850 different grape descriptions with a general rating of each grape as to it’s wine potential. I have two copies of this book. My first one got chewed up by my dog! But it is still readable… I finally broke down and bought a new one from Alibris.com… I use it constantly to look up grapes.

If you are a glutton for punishment, try reading THE SUPER GIGANTIC Y2K WINEGRAPE GLOSSARY. It probably contains as many grapes as Jancis’ book, but more of a slant towards grapes that grow in the eastern half of the USA.

Also, don’t be limited by the sheet that the Wine Century club provides. I had to write in about 20 grape varieties not even listed on the form, many of which I grow at my vineyard!

Good Luck!

Steve Snyder
www.hollywoodhillvineyards.com

A little background about the Wine Century Club (WCC). It’s an organization that promotes awareness of uncommon grape varieties. You can get a certificate from them once you fill out the paperwork that you have tasted 100 different varieties of grapes. I got mine a couple of years ago and I’m shooting for a Doppel (200) certificate and Shona is going for her first 100.

Washington state is home to at least 50 different grape varieties and you should be able to get another 50 easily from local wine shops. I also grow about 20 different varieties of grapes here at my vineyard. Most of them are experiments and I don’t make wine out of them, but I might have a field trip next Fall when they are ripe!

We are planning to have a meet up where locals can bring in a bottle of  “exotic” grapes for all to try… check back soon for details!