Port Townsend Vineyards — Attraction in Port Townsend

My wife and I were visiting various ports of call today: Port Gamble, Port Ludlow, Port Hadlock, and decided to make a return visit to Port Townsend. Our intention was to do the touristy thing and visit the shops downtown again. Didn't make it. We just happened to see a sign directing us to Port Townsend Vineyards and decided to give it a taste. Wine tasting had been on our minds anyway and here was a convenient opportunity. Was it ever. We enjoyed our visit so much that we never made it to the shops downtown.

The tasting room's only been open for a year, which explains why we missed it on our last visit to P.T. But this was our lucky day because Cara was the tasting room host. She was friendly and engaging, and she knew the winery and the wines, which isn't always the case with tasting room hosts (I worked as one for five years a long while ago). I'm always interested in the details of how a wine is made, and about the winery itself. She answered every question I had.

For different fees, you could choose to taste 3 wines or 7 wines (1oz. pours) or a flight of wines (3 oz. pours). We choose to taste 3 wines, and really liked two of them, an oaky WA state chardonnay, and an Oregon Pinot Noir. We bought a bottle of the pinot, it was amazing.

We definitely plan to return, and we'd like to bring friends and family with us. And we sure hope we'd be lucky enough to pick a day when Cara's working the room. She helped make our visit fun, memorable, and educational which is the hallmark of a great tasting room host.

Oh, concluding our ports of call tour, we drove through Port Madison on...

For me, this is what a Washington winery is all about. They have made the most of an amazing space and will likely improve over time. The tasting room is gorgeous with plenty of indoor seating complimented by an amazing outdoor courtyard. The grounds are spacious and include a pair of double-long bocce ball courts for plenty of fun in the sun.

I found the wine and food menu to be on the pricey side, but this is to be expected in the Port Townsend area and generally in Washington State. They do have a unique and very cool picnic menu with paired wines which I'd like to try out sometime (see pics.) Pick up some stemless glasses for just $4.50, great deal! Everything here is truly top-notch and I can't wait to make another...

Not great. Tasting bar only had one other active couple doing a tasting, everybody else seemed to be invisible to the two gentlemen behind the bar. We qued up at the cash register, no attention was paid, 5 mins go by, we then went at sat down at the bar thinking we didn't understand the process for a tasting - they cleaned up the bar around us, one gent walked out of the place, the other never acknowledged us. Then, more people were at the register waiting - and they get a "be right with you." Still waiting, still waiting...nothing. Too bad, thought this was going to be a nice experience for Father's Day, if this is the norm, won't last long in this town, nice venue though, mature staff needs...