Lake Chelan itself is reason enough to make the trip from where ever you are because the scenery is rich with as much awe inspiring beauty as you’ll find anywhere else on earth.
Now, however, there’s more than water sports and scenic beauty to hold your attention and please your palate: there are wineries, sixteen wineries if you want an exact count. And they all offer something unique not just in beverage choices and palate pleasing, award winning wines, but too in setting and scenery.
Chelan Ridge Winery is the newest member of the Lake Chelan AVA team; winemaker Lynn Munneke and her husband Henry are your hostess and host at their tasting room on a hillside in Manson.
Lynn was a chemist who returned to the classroom to undertake the Enology course at Washington State University to learn the science and somewhat the art of making wine. She finished that program and moved shortly afterwards into the viticulture program to learn the skills necessary to tend their estate vineyards.
The eleven acre field of grapes (which Henry explains might increase in the not too distant future) are used to create the wines under the Estate label of Chelan Ridge Winery. There is also a second label, High Hawk, that will be used to market the wines made at the facility from fruit purchased from other AVAs throughout the state.
Lynn is currently pouring tastes of her estate Syrah, an estate Riesling and a High Hawk Merlot.
All the wines show remarkably well for a first effort. The Syrah, my personal favorite of the trio is an excellent example of the kinds of quality one can expect from Lake Chelan AVA fruit. In addition to its bramble fruits and plum aromas, the wine shows a spicy character on the nose, a mixture of black pepper with hints of Cinnamon and Allspice. Flavors, delivered in an almost sinfully velvet liquid, are echoed on the palate. If there is a flaw in the beverage it is a very minor one in that the wine is gone too quickly. It finishes almost abruptly. But, again, the flaw is minor, for the wine pleases all the senses of sight, smell and taste and touch, for the tactile pleasure on the taste buds is memorable. One simply can’t ask for more.
Well done, Lynn.
But, dear readers, don’t take my word here; get Ye to the Winery! If you hurry, you can make your arrangements to visit the Lake this weekend, the second weekend of Crush.
There’s a lot going on in the Lake Chelan AVA this weekend. While you’re there, stop by and say hello to Lynn and Henry. You’ll be glad you did.
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