Our longtime friend and colleague, Michael Teer, owner of Pike & Western Wine Shop in the Pike Place Market (where we buy lots of our vino thanks to its convenient location right near our condo and excellent selection of both Northwest and global wines), recently opened a second location in the hottest new neighborhood/work area in Seattle: South Lake Union.

A couple of Saturdays ago, braving frigid blasts although the skies were (blessedly) sunny, we hopped aboard the SLUT (South Lake Union Transit) and stopped off near SoulWine.

The gorgeous corner-location shop is in the same complex as Seattle celebrity chef Tom Douglas’s second location of Serious Pie and the Dahlia Workshop, a casual take-out biscuit and breakfast/lunch/brunch spot. Both venues were well populated for lunch the Saturday afternoon we visited.

Photo of SoulWine interior courtesy of Reiner Perry, KPIS

“Pike & Western is like a first born that I have grown and nurtured,” Michael told us. “It was one of the first wine shops in Seattle and has a long history of supporting Washington wines. It has afforded me long-lasting relationships with premium wineries domestically and internationally, many of which find their way to SoulWine.”

Here are some snippets from the press release that went out shortly after SoulWine’s soft opening in early January:

*SoulWine features retail wine sales, a tasting bar and a private event space.

*The name, SoulWine, is rooted in Michael’s lifelong appreciation of wines with soul – wines that reflect a sense of place and a sense of the people who made them – and his love for old-school soul music.

*The collection of wines reflects Michael’s passion for supporting the growers and small, handcrafted producers that put their “soul” into the dirt, the grapes, and the wine they produce, with an eye to unique quality and value across the price spectrum.

*Michael thoughtfully selects every bottle that is offered at SoulWine, many of which reflect his strong ties with Italy, France, Germany and Austria as well as wines from Washington and Oregon.

*The 1600-square-foot space houses a careful selection of both high-end and value wines, a tasting bar that seats six, a window counter for casual tastings that seats six and a private-event space that seats up to 20 and can be used for casual gatherings and educational wine events, complete with wine reference materials.

*SoulWine is open Mon. through Sat. 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Visit the website at www.SoulWineSeattle.com.

Taste Washington, the largest single-region wine and food event in the country, returns for its 14th year on Saturday, March 26, and Sunday, March 27, in Seattle.

The weekend kicks off on Saturday, March 26, with a series of seminars at Bell Harbor International Conference Center. These fun and educational panels feature renowned wine experts from across the country leading in-depth explorations of Washington State wines. This year’s panelists include Dave McIntyre, Wine Columnist for The Washington Post; Chef Michael Mina of Bourbon Steak and RN74; Leslie Sbrocco, contributor to NBC’s “Today”; Sara Schneider, Wine Editor for Sunset; Bruce Schoenfeld, Wine Editor for Travel + Leisure; and Jason Smith, Master Sommelier and Wine Director at Bellagio Las Vegas.

The highlight of the weekend is the Grand Tasting on Sunday, March 27, at Qwest Field Event Center, with more than 200 Washington State wineries and the region’s top restaurants sampling their latest releases and newest creations. The Grand Tasting also features celebrity chef demonstrations; dessert and coffee bars; and a vineyard tasting area, allowing guests to compare and contrast the wide variety of wines that are made from some of Washington State’s most sought-after vineyards.

“Featuring more than 200 Washington State wineries and the Northwest’s leading restaurants under one roof, the Grand Tasting makes Taste Washington the largest single-region wine and food event in the country,” according to Robin Pollard, executive director of the Washington Wine Commission.

Our friends at Woodinville-based winery DeLille Cellars got some welcome news back in December when WineMatch named its top U.S. wineries and wines of 2010.

And DeLille was named Top Winery of the Year!

According to an e-news release, here’s how the wineries and wines were judged:

“At WineMatch, there are only winners. We had a tough time putting together a list of some of the best the United States has to offer. I am proud of these wineries, the quality people behind them, and their contributions to both wine and core values, which all of these folks exhibited.

“We chose a format that we think makes sense as the wineries and the wines truly go hand in hand. So we present the wineries with their offerings that make them truly stand apart.

“The ones with the numbers are our special selections, true standouts in their class and were all profiled this calendar year. The number in parentheses indicates how many of their wines shine, in our humble estimation!

“DeLille Cellars (6) of Woodinville, WA. Top Winery of the Year. A truly amazing winery, with a portfolio of Bordeaux blends we have found to be unequalled. A perfect storm of the people, the soil, the vineyards, with grower Jim Holmes of Red Mountain AVA. The winemaker, Chris Upchurch, is well-focused on the end product. Read the entire story here.

Varietal: Syrah

Serves 8

This warm and filling vegetarian soup comes from the award-winning Rogue Creamery in southern Oregon. It uses Oregonzola, a Gorgonzola-style cheese, to add a creamy texture (much like heavy cream or half-and-half in more traditional soup recipes) as well as a distinct salty/tart taste. Oregonzola is aged a minimum of 120 days in the creamery’s caves, which results in a sharp, Old World-Italian flavor and a velvet-like texture. When paired with a simple green salad, crusty bread, and a bottle of hearty Syrah, it’s the perfect wintertime–or any time–repast.

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

3/4 cup chopped white or yellow onion

1 cup peeled, chopped russet potato

1 1/2 pounds trimmed broccoli, coarsely chopped (about 7 1/2 cups)

2 cups vegetable stock plus 2 cups water, or 4 cups water

4 ounces Oregonzola blue cheese or other high-quality blue cheese, crumbled

Freshly grated nutmeg

Kosher salt

Freshly ground black pepper

Walnut oil, for drizzling

1. Heat the butter in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add the onion and potato, cover, and cook, stirring occasionally, until the onion is slightly softened but not browned, 5 minutes. Add the broccoli and cook, stirring occasionally, for 5 minutes. Add the 2 cups of stock and 2 cups of water and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat, cover, and simmer, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables are tender, 15 minutes.

2. Strain the vegetables, reserving the cooking liquid. Put the cooked vegetables in a food processor and moisten with a few tablespoons of the cooking liquid. Pulse until very smooth. With the motor running, gradually add the rest of the cooking liquid. Work in batches as needed.

3. Transfer the soup back to the saucepan. Reheat until almost boiling, then remove from the heat.

4. Stir in the blue cheese. Add nutmeg, salt, and pepper to taste.

5. Ladle the soup into 8 warm soup bowls and drizzle with the walnut oil.

Recipe reprinted from Pacific Northwest Wining & Dining: The People, Places, Food, and Drink of Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and British Columbia (Wiley, 2007, $34.95) by Braiden Rex-Johnson.

I loved this press release I received about a column written by Washington State University writer Richard Miller. They invited writers to republish it on their Web sites, so I share it with you below. Happy Holidays/daze!

<<Uncle Patrick gargles his wine. “I taste blackberries and cherry and oak,” he says, “and a lot of tannins.”

The only thing you know about wine is that it comes in different colors. But, with holiday meals approaching, here’s how to puncture wine windbags, thanks to Washington State University Professor Kathleen Williams:

*Precipitate saliva. When Patrick says he tastes tannins, you say: “Tannins don’t have a taste. They create a sensation as they precipitate the proteins out of your saliva.” Tip: Stroke your chin sagely as you pronounce “precipitate.”

*Throw in a German word. Patrick swirls the glass. “Good legs,” he observes. You say, “The French call them tears. The Germans call them Kirchenfenster or church windows, because they form an arch.” Want more? Try this: “Water has more surface tension than alcohol. The evaporating alcohol pulls the water up with it. When the alcohol breaks through, the water runs down.”

*Hit him with Brix. Patrick looks at the label. “Oh my,” he says, “14.9 percent alcohol.” You’re ready for him. “Did you know that wines from hot areas tend to have more alcohol? That’s because the grapes have more sugar. As a rule of thumb, every 2 percent of sugar will produce about 1 percent alcohol. So this wine was originally almost a third sugar. Of course, wine makers don’t call them sugars. They call them Brix.” Tip: Refill his glass. Keep refilling his glass. This becomes important later.

*Diamonds are your best friend. He holds the glass up to the light. Tiny crystals stick to the sides. “It’s going bad,” he says. “Not really,” you say. “Those are potassium tartrate crystals, same thing as cream of tartar. They’re a naturally occurring acid in grapes.” Smile tolerantly, and add, “In Canada, they call them wine diamonds.”

*Herbal harmony. Patrick says, “A red wine would overwhelm the turkey.” You say, “It’s not really about the turkey. It’s about the herbs with the turkey, such as onion, celery, and sage. What works well is to contrast the herbs with a fruity wine, such as a Beaujolais Nouveau or a Gewürztraminer.”

*Make something up. By now, Uncle Patrick should be a bit toasted, so hit him with something ludicrous, but difficult to disprove: “Gewürztraminer has an umlaut,” you say. “The word umlaut is derived from the word omelet and Gewürztraminer pairs well with omelets. As a matter of fact, most umlaut wines go well with egg-based dishes, such as quiche. It’s called a bio-linguistic reaction.”

*Fancy footwork. As he sputters to object, quickly change the subject: “Do you know what the best pairing is? Scientists in England proved that it is milk and chocolate chip cookies. Speaking of dessert, how about some pie?”

WSU’s viticulture and enology program offers both undergraduate and graduate degrees, and certificates. For more information go to http://wine.wsu.edu/education.

With the holiday season firmly upon us, many of us are turning our thoughts to what to cook for holiday dinner. Equally important is what to drink, so I’d like to offer up some of my recent favorite wines–wines that are drinking exceptionally well right now (and also are great for holiday gift-giving).

Two wines from Walla Walla-based Cadaretta are high up on my list. The winery’s 2009 SBS (a Sauvignon Blanc/Semillon blend) has bright fruitiness and just enough herbaceousness to make it interesting without veering into cat-pee territory. A great wine for many types of food (even the sous-vide cucumber salad I sipped it with!).

Cadaretta’s 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon is also an extremely well-crafted wine, with dark fruit flavors and restrained use of oak. A wonderful wine with Cheddar- or Gruyère-style cheeses, or with Beecher’s Flagship, which is kind of a Cheddar/Parmesan hybrid.

Radicchio, Cuttlefish, and Spring Onion Salad with a grand schmear of Kalamata Caramel at Quinn’s gastropub on Capitol Hill

Last month, just before we headed to a movie at the venerable Egyptian Theater on Capitol Hill, we stopped in for dinner at Quinn’s gastropub. It was still (relatively) sun-shine-y then, so we scored a window seat beside the busy bar and settled in.

We enjoyed lots of good dishes that evening–Baby Greens and Roasted Beet salads; Roasted Idaho Trout with Radish, Mizuna, and Romesco Sauce; and Mussels with Saffron, Grain Mustard, and White Wine–but perhaps the most memorable dish was the Radicchio, Cuttlefish, and Spring Onion Salad with a grand schmear of Kalamata Caramel.

The Rosé flight at Quinn’s

A Rosé wine flight called, “Everything’s Coming up Roses: Select 2009 Rosés by the Glass,” featured French and Portguese offerings along with Gilbert Cellars 2009 Rosé from Washington’s Wahluke Slope. All three paired well with everything we ordered.

We found a little bit of home at Restaurant Koefoed–a top restaurant in Copenhagen recommended by the concierge at our hotel–when we looked at the wine list and discovered Snoqualmie 2008 Chardonnay offered as one of the by-the-glass pours!

The restaurant specializes in contemporary Danish cuisine, with particular focus on seasonal ingredients sourced from the island Bornholm. The restaurant’s Web site says, “Bornholm is an island with a unique richness of nature. Its salty soil and sunny fields give a special foundation for growing corn and vegetables that actually taste of something! Both the spelt, figs, and mulberries grow and ripen under excellent terms on the island.

The Web site goes on to say, “We prefer simplicity over clutter and clarity over confusion. That is why our menu is simple and with few dishes, which are prepared thoroughly down to the last flavor.”

Maybe so, but we found the portions to be small while the price per person was extremely high. Nevertheless, Scandinavian cuisine is hot, touted as “Europe’s next big cuisine” in a recent article in Nation’s Restaurant News.

Just for fun, here’s Restaurant Koefoed’s summer menu:

STARTERS

‘Sol over Gudhjem’ – A la Koefoed | 95,-

Marinated veal, buckthorn, malt bread, & beetroot | 105,-

Lobster, cucumber, herbs & malt | 155,-

MAIN COURSES

Rooster from Bornholm, potato foam, chanterelles & herbs | 195,-

Baked Baltic Sea Cod with foie gras from Bornholm, pumpkin & spinach | 235,-

Beef tenderloin, baby greens, new potatoes, & sauce | 265,-

DESSERTS

Sorbet, buckthorn, blueberry, yoghurt, & raspberry | 85,-

Chocolate, fume, blackberry, & mousse | 95,-

Cheese with crispy & sweet | 115,-

As many of us are trying to eat more consciously, choosing local, seasonal, and sustainable foods to add to our healthy diets, wine drinkers are also beginning to ask where the grapes in the bottle are sourced and how they are grown.

Enter the long-running (28 years!) Pink Door restaurant in Seattle’s Pike Place Market, which is highlighting a whopping half of its 129-bottle wine list with a coded sun asterisk to denote sustainably farmed, organic, or biodynamic wine producers!

This collection has been developed over several years and is proving to be the central theme of The Pink Door’s wine program.

Here are just a few of the sustainably farmed or biodynamically grown wines to note:

· Semillon/Sauvignon/Muscadel 2008 Buty; Columbia Valley
· Grenache 2006 Quivira; Wine Creek Ranch; Sonoma
· Pinot Gris Reserve 2008 Cooper Mountain; Willamette Valley, Oregon
· La Segreta Bianco 2007 Grecanico/Chardonnay/Viognier; Planeta; Sicilia
· Barolo 2005 Vietti; Castiglione; Piemonte
· Teroldego Rotaliano 2007 Foradori; Trentino

Thanks to Pink Door founder/owner Jackie Roberts (a.k.a., “La Padrona”) for her forward-thinking commitment to sustainable wine drinking and making it easier for all of us to make sensible choices.

In a culinary sense, Portland has recently become known as one of the United States’ most cutting-edge cities. Of course, we Northwesterners have known that all along.

In late April, our neighbors to the south proved their expertise to the rest of the world when they pulled out all their food, wine, and hospitality stops as they welcomed the International Association of Culinary Professionals 32nd Annual Conference.

Among many memorable moments was a tour of biodynamic and sustainable vineyards in the Willamette Valley. The vines were just undergoing bud break (pictured above) and the air was full of fresh scent of the earth reawakening after a long winter.

The wines we sampled–Oregon’s famed Pinot Gris, Blanc, and Noir, as well as Dijon-clone Chardonnay–were all drinking exceptionally well even in spite of negative early-on reports by national wine writers about the 2007 vintage. The photo above shows the dried herbs (such as stinging nettle and valerian) as well as the cow’s horns filled with compost that biodynamic farmers plant in the fields during certain times of the year (depending on the moon’s cycles) to create healthy soil.

In addition to outstanding wines from Soter Vineyards, Montinore Estate, and Anne Amie Vineyards, we were treated to a “snout-to-tail lunch” offered up by Thistle restaurant located in nearby McMinnville. This über-local “Modern American resto” (which sources most everything it serves from within a 35-mile radius and changes its menu daily) was a delight for some, while somewhat of a nightmare for non-pork eaters in the crowd (including yours truly).

Here is the poor animal’s head just waiting to be devoured.

And here’s its heart, blithely draped over the most beautiful farm-fresh local eggs (I ate two of those sans the pork!).

Luckily, in addition to the carefully coddled eggs, there were slabs of a nummy triple-cream cheese on the table, as well as a perfectly dressed salad of baby greens and a platter of pickled veggies and cornichons, so the more faint of heart of us among didn’t go hungry.

Here’s a shot of the complete groaning board, which one of the hosts described as a spread “like something from King Henry the VIII’s table.” You can see all my fellow foodies scurrying around the table trying to find the best camera angles. No doubt some of them, like Spencer, had been in Delores Custer’s food-styling class earlier in the week.

Dessert was the coup de grace for all to enjoy. . .a dense almond polenta cake with a crown of unsweetened whipped cream. Wish I’d saved enough room for two slices of that.