One of my favorite activities is traveling. I love not only knowing new places, but also being able to talk with the people who live in them because that enriches my life and also always gives me the opportunity to learn something new. The pandemic, as we already know, greatly reduced the ability to move freely, however with Barnaby we were taking advantage of everything we could by taking short trips and by car. The destination we chose for this opportunity was a place that has long been on the travel list: Walla Walla, in the state of Washington, a region known for its wines but that has, like every place, an unknown history.

It’s a four-hour drive from where we live, so halfway, in Goldendale, we made a technical stop at one of my favorite wineries: Mary Hill, I’ll show you some photos since unfortunately I can’t buy you a glass of wine;)

To tell you more about Walla Walla I need to give you some historical data and I hope you do not want to yawn … History was one of the subjects that were not among my favorites, but as the years go by it seems more and more interesting … maybe because I also started to be part of it … that’s a very good theory;)

During the expedition that Lewis and Clark made on the Columbia River, they passed through the region of the Wallah Wallah River, which in the Native American language means Many waters and they left that name for the place. For some time the city changed the name to a man who does not remember him with much affection and after that he returned almost to the original, but this time without the final h 🙂 WALLA WALLA.

In 1878 fifteen delegates met to write the constitution to make Washington one of the states of the United States, however they had to wait until November 11, 1889 for this to happen. Could we say that Walla Walla pioneered the planting of seeds of independence and these days of grapes :)?

Now it is a smaller and very touristy town with the highest concentration of wineries within the state of Washington. It has the advantage that everything is very close, so you can visit several wineries if you organize yourself well. It is no longer like in the old days, you spontaneously stopped for tastings. Now everything is with prior reservation for protocol reasons and seeing the positive side of the matter, that allows the hosts to dedicate more time to you: )

In three days we visited: L`Ecole, Pepper Bridge, Caprio, North Star, Abeja, The Walls, Three Rivers and Reininger. Not bad, right? They all feature excellent wines and knowledgeable, friendly people with a passion for what they do.

It is always nice to take a walk through the vineyards and to be told how they make their wines. And many times it happens that when they discover that I am Argentinian or because they have Malbecs among their strains, they mention Mendoza as a reference. It makes me proud that Mendoza wines are so well regarded … the reality is that they are excellent. When these conversations take place, I always take the opportunity to also name the wines of Salta and that wonderful place that is Cafayate 🙂

One of the wineries that most caught my attention was the one that many people called the anti winery: EL CORAZON in the center of the city. Probably due to the simplicity of its building and decoration and the strange labels on its bottles. We arrived at the place because people from other wineries said we must visit it and they were right: the wines are delicious and Kathy our host made us feel very comfortable. With this place we closed our visit to wineries and we promised to return to see the ones that were pending 😉

Thanks very much for joining me on this mini trip of total pleasure with wineries and good restaurants 🙂