One of the things we miss most about Seattle is northwest wine. Washington and Oregon wines lined the shelves of even the tiniest grocery stores in the Seattle area (one benefit of Washington’s quirky liquor laws – wine in grocery stores, unlike here in benighted Colorado). Needless to say, a check of our cave’s inventory reveals that our cellar is just about 50% Washington and Oregon bottlings.
One of our go-to sources for information on Washington and Oregon wine was Paul Gregutt, the Seattle Times wine columnist. We even had the pleasure of meeting Paul once at McCarthy & Schiering, one of Seattle’s best wine shops, where he autographed our copy of Washington Wines and Wineries.
So I still follow Paul’s column via Twitter, and today he blogged an item about an interesting new Oregon winery. The winery is called VinMotion, and my heart sank when I read that name. I don’t like the “nm” consonant cluster – even if the name is meant to evoke “in motion,” which is confirmed by the VinMotion website and its slogan – “a different and dynamic kind of wine company” that’s accompanied by a logo showing … what is it showing? A bottle rocket? I don’t know, a flying bottle? It’s just too modern, techno-wannabe, and labored for me, and it really doesn’t say wine to me at all, regardless of the “vin-” prefix.
But I read on to the name of the actual wines reviewed, and my heart leapt – it’s “Rainstorm.” And the explanation for that name? I love it: “Rain influences almost every facet of our lives – how we dress, the foods we eat, the music we listen to, and, importantly, the wines we drink.” It’s almost four years since we left Seattle, but that statement takes me back, and certainly makes me want to taste these wines, especially based on Paul’s recommendation.
The Rainstorm website itself is just charming – it even offers weather forecasts for the Willamette and Umpqua valleys. And the label design is delightfully evocative of the region:
(image courtesy VinMotion)
So bravo to Rainstorm – may the April showers bring May flowers. And maybe, if we’re lucky, we’ll get to taste these wines in sunny Colorado.