All language subtitles for V.is.for.Vino.S03E01.Walla.Walla.1080p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DD+2.0.H.264-playWEB

Welcome to Walla Walla Washington.

It's a wine region whose soil is 17 million years

in the making.

Take a closer look and you'll find camaraderie

and a wine culture that
rivals any other long standing

wine community in the world.

More importantly, outside of California,

Washington produces more
wine than any other state

in the US.

And did I mention the quality?

Yeah, it's fantastic.

Welcome to Walla Walla Washington,

and welcome to V is for Vino.

Alright, so I have a lot to tell
you about Washington wines.

First off, welcome to Washington.

The state, not the city,

the only lobbying you're gonna see here

is for red or white wine. - Rose!

Grapes were planted in Washington as early 1825,

but the bulk of the Washington
wine story is a recent one,

from 2000 until today,
Washington went from 100 wineries

to over 1000 wineries.

And you're not gonna
believe this, besides California,

Washington makes the more
wine than any other state.

More importantly, Washington
makes more really good wine,

and they do it at scale.

This is because they have an absurd amount of land

that can grow high quality grapes.

The Napa Valley AVA has
about half a million acres of land.

Sonoma County is about a million acres.

The Columbia Valley, where
the bulk of Washington wine

is made, has 11 million acres of land.

♪ When you come you raise the tide, on me ♪

But how can that much land all be suitable

for grape growing?

6 reasons, you ready? - Ready.

Number one. Dry Climate.

Wines like dry climates to
prevent against rot and mold.

And the entire east side of the state is dry,

shielded from the rain from not one,

but two mountain ranges,
the Cascades and the Olympics.

Number two, lots of sunlight.

Because of how far north we are,

Washington wineries get 17 hours of sunlight a day

during growing season,

an hour more than Northern California.

Number three, diurnal shifts.

They're the swings between daytime and night time

temperatures that help grapes ripen in the day,

and retain acidity at night.

Number four, lean soils that are well draining,

which forces vines to stress
and dig deep for nutrients.

Number five, the availability of water from

the Columbia River and it's tributaries.

And number six, low diseases and pests

due to the cold winters that
kill those types of problems.

♪ I don't know what's wrong, let me be ♪

All of this is a formula for great grape growing.

But just because the conditions
for good grapes are met,

doesn't mean great wine's gonna magically appear.

For that you need a supportive, collaborative,

helpful community of
winemakers, enter Walla Walla.

This is downtown Walla Walla,

the city and region at the heart of

Washington's wine country.

There is a higher concentration of wineries here

than anywhere else in the state.

It's also the hospitality
center for the wine tourism,

many of the hotels, restaurants, tasting rooms,

and shops are right here.

Walla Walla is one of the 16 AVAs in Washington,

the bulk of which are located within the larger

Columbia Valley AVA.

Many winemakers use Walla
Walla not only for its grapes,

but also as a hub for their production facilities.

From here, they can source their grapes

from all over the Columbia Valley.

I happen to know a Washington native.

She's an icon in the wine industry,

and a James Beard award
winner for her book "Wine Folly",

which I can say with confidence
is the greatest wine book

I've ever purchased.

I was just happy I got to meet one of my heroes

in the industry, Madeline Puckette.

Wine Folly really got started,

I was working in a restaurant as a sommelier,

and there was kind of this difference between

my level of knowledge and the level of knowledge

of my customers.

So my goal was to be like, all right,

when I talk about wine with my customers,

they're very excited and they're enthusiastic

about wine and they love to learn about it,

but they never had the opportunity to do so.

There was nothing that was
really communicated to them.

It was always an educational program.

It was really deep and hard to understand,

wine is delicious and fun.

It should be fun to learn about wine.

I always say, you don't

have to wear a suit to drink wine.

And I just want people to be able to talk about wine

the way they talk about their favorite burger.

And in America, we put it a bit on a pedestal.

In Europe, it's just like part of the meal.

It's like part of the meal.

Like let's throw some wine down.

We're gonna have a fun time.

The more I started teaching people about wine,

actually answering their questions,

I realized that wine drinkers
have very different questions

than wine makers wanna tell them about wine.

Like what are the calories
of this glass of Chardonnay?

Like they have different questions.

They have different needs associated with wine.

And then sure enough, a bunch of those people

will suddenly get to the
point where they actually care

about where that plot of wine came from.

That's, exactly.

And that's the cool moment is when you get someone

who was like, didn't care about anything,

about wine at all, and is all of a sudden like

licking the dirt 'cause they
get something out of that.

Like that's what's so amazing about wines is

when I get those flavors that
are completely unexpected.

And it gives you the opportunity to accept flavors

into your palette that you've
been taught are bad flavors.

Like bitterness in wine, for example it's a bad thing

like ooh, bitterness.

And we develop bitter to like taste poison, right?

So technically like in history,

you're not supposed to do that, but it's cool in wine.

We have 26 taste receptors for bitterness

and only one for sweetness.

And so we're kind of sweet stupid,

and we're very bitter smart.

The first book was such a reference for me

as I started my journey.

And then the second book you just went,

you went deeper, not only with more regions,

but there's other things in there too.

We built out more of the regional section because

even the same wine grown in a different place

is gonna taste totally differently.

I preach place over everything all the time.

And so how do you learn about

what is the place of a thing?

And so now I'm like doing
things like eating tomatoes

and being like, where's this tomato from, or like.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Cause it is true, it's not just grapes.

You have the tomato from...

There's places that are famous for their different

apple varieties is probably a
pretty easy one to compare.

Yeah, like Washington.

Yeah, like Washington, exactly.

So Walla Walla, east side of the state,

a lot dryer over here,

and here they pretty much make red grape.

This place kicks butt at making Syrah,

they can grow the crap out of Syrah.

They can grow the crap out of Cabernet Sauvignon.

They make serious wines in Walla Walla.

You can be here in Walla Walla.

And there's a lot of wineries that have

their home base here.

And maybe they're sourcing from other places,

but you can visit, there's I think over a hundred here.

And a community that can
actually support the hospitality,

like there's hotels, there's nice restaurants

and all of that kind of thing.

And it's like an old historic town.

It's really pretty.

Nice, well do you wanna go try some wines?

Yeah, of course.

Let's do it.

Before heading to taste some wines with Madeline,

let's get you up to speed on Washington soil.

Ah soil, just a fancy name for dirt, right?

Yeah. - Wrong.

Soil's a living thing.

It's the mixture of fallen leaves, dead plants, rocks,

minerals, water, animals,
layered on top of each other

for thousands of years.

It's so important that you
always have to know a region's

soil type, if you ever take a wine test.

And a lot of wine regions are famous for their soil.

But how did it form?

Especially soil that makes exceptional wine.

It's kind of different for every place,

but it's usually through some miracle of events

that happened long before
us humans were ever around.

Let's talk about soil in Washington state.

Five to 17 million years ago,

massive lava flows from volcanoes,

which now for mountain ranges,

made a base layer of volcanic rock called basalt.

Fast forward to around 15,000 years ago,

during the last Ice Age,

a 1200 foot ice dam,
something reminiscent of the wall

in "Game of Thrones" broke releasing 400 foot waves,

which are as tall as the Statue of Liberty rushing

at 60 miles an hour from the glacial Lake Missoula

into the Columbia River Valley.

This event was called the Missoula Floods

and were the largest floods on Earth

in the last 2 million years.

I'm standing here in front of the Wallula Gap.

This is where the floods
hit a wall and bottlenecked.

The result was large quantities of water forming

giant temporary lakes and eroding the surface.

When it was all said and
done and everything dried up,

you were left with layers
upon layers of flood deposits

on top of the basalt that was transported here

from the floods.

Gravel, sand, granite, and silt, all that.

So in 2020, you could have vines planted in a rich,

well draining complex soil.

Pretty impressive, huh? - Wow.

Some other wine soils with famous history?

How about the 150 million
year old Kimmeridgean soil.

From Chablis, in Burgundy, France.

This chalky marl soil is laced

with fossilized, seashells and oyster shells

from an ancient seabed.

And it gives the line of
beautiful saline minerality.

Or how about the volcanic rock soil in Sicily, Italy.

These are from recent
eruptions over the past 400 years

or so of Mount Etna and make
fresh yet concentrated wines.

Now you know the reason
winos geek out about soil and

geology, it's one of the elements

that makes wine history in a bottle.

This feels like kind of an intro to Walla Walla Wine.

So what do we have?

All right, so this first one is maybe one of the

lesser planted grapes in Washington state,

but it has proved to be pretty amazing

from the Walla Walla region and that Syrah.

The place in Walla Walla, where it grows,

it's a spot where a lot of stones have rolled through

the past few thousand years and they've turned to,

they're river stones but in some areas it's

over a hundred feet deep of just stones.

And the vines grow in that?

And the vines actually
survive in that crazy environment,

and it's all basalt.

So it makes actually a very
savory, almost like irony,

like meaty tasting Syrah wine.

And this region it's,

this is the sub region of Walla Walla, right?

It's a sub region of Walla Walla that now has been

designated only recently
called the rocks district of

Milton-Freewater.

You smell that?

What is that? It's not even fruit!

It's like kind of olives and meaty.

Exactly, like it's more savory on the nose

than fruity a hundred percent.

But then you get this
floral note almost like violets.

I almost wouldn't immediately
say it's a new world wine.

It has this great, like kind of, you said,

that rocky minerality, that
really, the fruit comes second,

which I love, I think that's really fun.

Well, like what would you pair with this?

You know, I was just thinking
that I kind of want pizza,

like quite honestly pizza with maybe some olives.

Yeah they put the olives on it.

Put the briney-ness on it.

So this next wine is really cool.

It comes from a producer, the Leonetti Cellars.

They're the first commercial winery

in the Walla Walla Valley.

And this is probably their flagship wine.

And most people won't pick Merlot as a flagship.

But I think this is an amazing
wine to try from Washington

because Merlot is exceptional here.

And the reason why, is the high latitude,

the position where we are, where we get these

really long days and cool nights produces Merlot

these aromatics in Merlot
that I don't get from a lot of

other regions when I'm
sniffing around for good quality.

So when I smell this wine,
I almost always get violets.

Oh, wow. I mean, you're right.

It's super poppy is the first thing I get, plummy.

Plums.

And Merlot has this weird reputation.

It's like the second cousin that nobody cares about

to something like Cabernet, but I love Merlot,

and it's such an approachable wine.

It's approachable, it's a
lot of times a little younger

and it's usually honestly a little cheaper

than it's Cabernet cousin.

When I'm looking for great value,

I love to look for Merlot.

Are you getting like bacon fat?

I actually do get a little
bit of meatiness in this wine,

even though I always think
of this wine as very fruity,

but I get a little mint.

Oh, you get that, you get some of the mint too.

Yeah, certainly some mint and black cherry.

Oh wow.

Black yeah. - Definitely black cherry.

Last one is definitely the
most important grape variety

planted in Washington state as a whole.

And that is Cabernet Sauvignon.

This one in particular comes to us

from Walla Walla Valley also.

And the producer actually used to be an

NFL football player, Drew Bledsoe.

Oh so this is also Drew Bledsoe's project?

So he actually grew up here.

He came back to start making wine.

So Cabernet in Washington
is a really fun thing to get into,

because again, you have this acidity that comes

through in the palette, which
makes these wines really,

they're big and they're super fruity,

but they have balance.

Value wise, if you compare
it to some places in California,

you're gonna get excellently
made, obsessively made wines

here for a lot less than you might pay.

People won't blink at
spending a pretty good amount of

money on something that has the name Napa on it.

But sometimes they're afraid
to do that in other regions

and they shouldn't be, you
don't get the cache of the name,

but you're getting such value from the product and

how much love they're putting into it.

This is everything I want from Cabernet.

It's big, it's rich, but it's still fresh.

Yeah, exactly, you got.

Well, I am absolutely honored that I got to hang out

with you for a little bit.

Yeah whatever Vince, you're awesome.

Thank you so much for taking some time.

And I can't wait to go try more of Walla Walla

and more Washington wines, this was awesome.

Salud. - Cheers.

Walla Walla. It's the second
oldest AVA in Washington,

established in 1984 and is home to some of the most

historic wineries in the state.

The region's actually 57% Washington,

43% Oregon because mother
nature doesn't really respect

state boundaries.

Walla Walla is diverse in terms of soil altitude

and has a little more rainfall
than other Washington AVAs

because of its proximity to the Blue Mountains.

There are 120 wineries here and growing,

and most of them are within a
10 minute drive of each other.

While many wineries in Walla Walla source grapes

from all over the state, the
grapes grown in Walla Walla

itself are 95% red.

And while Cabernet is
technically the most popular today,

I wanna talk a bit more about Merlot

because there is nowhere else in the new world,

making as much high quality dynamic Merlot

as here in Washington.

There are a whole lot of
misconceptions about Merlot,

most stemming from a famous
line in the movie "Sideways".

I am not drinking any Merlot,

which if you've seen the movie is ironic

because Miles' prized wine,
he drinks in the diner scene

is actually in Merlot. - Surprise!

Merlot's the backbone to some of the most famous

wines on the planet.

One of the most expensive
wines ever sold was Merlot based.

A 1947 Cheval Blanc from Bordeaux for $304,000.

And many times Merlot is a
better alternative to Cabernet.

It tends to be cheaper than
the more in demand Cabernet

at the same quality level,
similar in style to Cabernet

and ready to drink sooner than Cabernet.

Merlot has a medium plus body, fairly high tannin

and medium acidity.

When I think of Merlot, I tend to think of plums,

dark cherries and raspberries, green herbs,

violet, blackberries, and coffee, cedar and vanilla

from oak aging, which it usually has.

A lot of this is similar to Cabernet.

But where Merlot is different is in the mouthfeel.

It's got slightly lower acid
and tannin than Cabernet,

which means a rich, plush, soft wine that's

ready to drink earlier, but don't be fooled.

Many Merlots are incredibly
age worthy with the grace

and elegance that even Miles would approve of.

In order to understand the
history of Washington wine

a bit more, I thought it would be good to head to

two wineries that helped pioneer the industry

here in Walla Walla.

The good news they're
literally right next to each other.

Welcome to historic Woodward
Canyon and L'Ecole No 41.

♪ Trying to break all the rules ♪

♪ We were given by the Lord ♪

Woodward Canyon &
L'ecole were part of the earliest

wineries here in the Valley.

My family go back to the very beginning of

Walla Walla in the 1860s.

You were some of the
founding with I think a few other

wineries who basically put Walla Walla on the map.

Yeah, I mean, we started back in 1981,

and L'Ecole whole came along a few years later

and it just kept gaining
more popularity and notoriety.

What was the perception of Washington wines

and Walla Walla wines when it was first started

with basically your parents' generation, right?

Basically we were completely unknown.

I think the quality of wines made by Leonetti

and Woodward Canyon and L'Ecole really put

Walla Walla on the map.

Jordan's father, Rick Small, was on the cover of

"Wine Spectator" I think, right, it was that 1990 era.

Yeah it was early nineties, yeah.

It happened quickly.

So in the wine world, there
was immediate recognition

of the quality of wines being made in Walla Walla.

Why do you think it happened so quick here?

I mean, we're really isolated here.

And so people had to work together,

and they shared information
and they shared equipment

and they tasted wines together

and it still is going on today.

I think every winery that's
come along since has really

gotten on board with the collaborative aspect

of Walla Walla.

I hear that a lot, when I talk to people here,

it's just kind of a really helpful community

and anybody can kind of break in and expect

that they'll be pulled along
and they'll be pushed along

by the people who came before and after them.

Totally. We're gonna start with a wine from here in

Walla Walla from one of our estate vineyards,

Seven Hills vineyard.

And it's a classic Bordeaux white blend.

This is 50% Sémillon, 50% Sauvignon Blanc.

And what I love too, oh it's delicious,

what I love about these
blends is the Sémillon kind of

rounds out the super high acid Sauvignon Blanc.

So you get this nice balanced wine.

Yeah, you get a lot more of that melon, pear, apricot,

fruitfulness from the Sémillon,

but the Sauvignon Blanc
gives you that flinty, crisp,

mineral finish.

And so the two grapes are
very different from one another,

but their marriage together in a bottle like this

is just unbelievable.

This is really gorgeous.

All right so this is the Chardonnay from Woodward.

This is our Washington state Chardonnay.

And we've been producing
Chardonnay since we started.

And if you were to compare, what would you say

the character is for Washington Chardonnays

compared to maybe what people would expect

from a Northern California
or something to that effect?

I think Washington Chardonnay
is gonna be really balanced

and that's what we go for with this.

So we want a little bit of softness,

a little bit of the oak integrated,

but we don't want it to be overly oaky, overly buttery.

And you're right, that is perfectly balanced

between all the things I want.

And I kind of get those apply characters.

I do taste the oak and I do taste some aloe,

but it's nothing's overwhelming.

I get some of that baking spice going on.

This is beautiful.

All right, well, the red we brought is from

Ferguson Vineyard, and
this is a high elevation site

planted in fractured basalt.

So it's in lava, it's planted in lava.

And so that really drives
the minerality in this wine.

It's 60% Cabernet, 28% Merlot, 7% Cabernet Franc

and 5% Malbec.

Wow, so the nose is like super flamboyant,

which is amazing.

Yeah, you just get a really kind of explosive

blueberry, blackberry kind
of wild herbs, rose petal.

Oh my gosh.

So this vineyard really put us on the map.

The first vintage from
Ferguson won the Decanter World

Wine Awards in London for
best Bordeaux blend in the world.

Ripeness with freshness, it's not super weighty,

I wouldn't have any problem
doing the whole bottle of this.

Sometimes I have those big wines

and I can have one glass and I'm done.

Bravo.

So the red we have for you guys today

is our artist series Cabernet.

We're on blending side over here,

and we're on single variety side over here.

Unlike the Ferguson, this is actually from

multiple vineyards, vine age for that Cabernet is

gonna be over 25 years.

You get the really nice
complexity from those older vines,

and you're gonna get really nice red fruits

on this baking spice.

It's a great representation
of Washington Cabernet.

They're different, like
this is more in red fruit land,

whereas this is kind of more in dark fruit land.

But I can still tell that
they're both from Washington.

Well, thank you guys so much
for letting me into your homes

and showing me your family's history,

that really, really means a lot.

And these wines are absolutely incredible.

So thank you so much!

Thank you Vince. - Thank you.

Welcome to the V is for Vino Nerd Lab.

We take complicated wine
topics and make them simple.

Today we're talking about bottle shapes.

Bottle shapes.

As an astute wine drinker
yourself I'm sure you've noticed

that wine comes served in an array of vessels.

From bags to cans, jugs, but by far the most common

transport for wine is the bottle.

But is there any primary reason to the different

bottle shapes that you find on the shelves?

There actually is, while
there are no written rules in

regards to bottles, you'll
find trends as to what type of

wine is in what type of bottle.

And while you can find
exceptions, like whatever this is,

for the most part, we can break down bottle shapes

into six categories.

Number one, the Bordeaux bottle.

This is the most popular bottle in the world

and holds the two most popular grapes in the world,

Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot, which no surprise

are the grapes produced in Bordeaux, France.

It's cheap and easy for machines to produce.

It's sturdy, durable yet compact which makes it good

for shipping and exporting and it's got

high sloped shoulders, which
rumor has it was developed

for catching sediment.

You see the red wines stored in this bottle usually

are age worthy and age leads to sediment

at the bottom of the bottle.

If you pour from a Bordeaux bottle, just right,

you can see here, the wine comes out,

but the sediment gets caught
at the top in the shoulder.

And while Cabernet Sauvignon, and Merlot

are always in this bottle, many other varietals

are often found in here too, like Sauvignon Blanc,

Pinot Grigio, Rosé, basically
any wine that doesn't fall

into one of the next five categories,

which leads us to number two, the Burgundy bottle.

Made for wines, you guessed it, that come from the

grapes of Burgundy, France;
Pinot Noir, and Chardonnay.

In simpler terms most full-bodied whites

and light bodied reds find
their home in this bottle.

Some grapes even bounce
around styles based on their bottle.

Light Syrahs from Northern Rhone live here,

while big Syrahs from Australia,

tend to live in Bordeaux bottles.

This is also rumored to be one of the first bottles

ever made, since its smooth sides were easy to make

without machines.

Number three, the Alsatian bottle, the Hock bottle.

Continuing our trend,
these typically house grapes

from Alsace, France.

Riesling, Muscat, Gewürztraminer and Pinot Blanc,

basically cold climate whites.

Its said that these bottles
were made tall and slender

so that more can fit inside the skinny boats

that transported them along the Rhine River.

Innovation I can get behind.

Number four, the sparkling bottle.

These are your superheroes
of the wine bottle world.

They're built for strength.

They have thicker walls and
a deeper divot on the bottom

called a punt that is meant
to hold the added pressure

that comes from the bubbles that are in the wine.

It's a good thing too.

The average champagne
bottle has more pressure in it

than the average car tire.

Number five, the port bottle.

Port is meant to age even longer than the wines

that go into the Bordeaux bottles.

And so they gave this bottle
a little ball right at the top

to catch all the extra sediment that may appear

after decades of aging, yeah decades.

Some vintage ports can age over 50, even 100 years

if stored properly.

And that leads us to number six, the dessert bottle.

These are half bottles, sometimes short,

sometimes tall and skinny.

They're used because one,
desserts are consumed in smaller

quantities due to their intense sweetness.

And two, they tend to be more expensive to produce.

And there you have it, at the end of the day.

I don't really care if your wine
comes in a Bordeaux bottle,

Bocksbeutel, what size, shape, or color your bottle

happens to be, all that matters is what's inside.

I hope you enjoyed this Nerd Lab on bottle shapes,

and as always keep geeking out.

♪ Life is like a day at the ocean ♪

I couldn't leave Washington without

drinking a bit more Merlot.

So I had to meet the husband and wife team

who run a winery that's also an inn.

Welcome to a Abeja.

♪ I'm in danger ♪

Every building that
you see on property right now

with the exception of our new winery

was built between 1902 and 1906.

And it's this perfect blend to me of new and old.

You have the beautiful facilities that have been

renovated for their purpose now,

but they all, every single building has history.

And even the pieces in here, the tables, they're all,

a lot of them are antiques.

Vince - We love coming to work every day.

We call it church, but our church key

has a corkscrew on it.

Tell me about yourselves.

Tell me how you got in the wine, give me the story.

I'm from Michigan and moved out West

to join the Washington wine industry

because it's the most thriving,

still with room for evolution.

I met Amy and we fell in love
with each other at the same

time falling in love deeper with wine production

and wine making.

Why here, as opposed to California or Oregon.

Washington state has, first of all, the best people

that I found throughout my travel in wine.

They have the best vineyards throughout

an enormous series of valleys,

and there was critical mass,
but there was still a large

expansive area to go from different varietals,

different wine styles.

But mostly I think the community.

One of the things I love too about Walla Walla is

you're still very close to the winemakers.

There's very few where you go to a tasting room

and you're not talking with somebody

who has a direct hand in the wine.

I know one of our winemakers
really well, I married her.

It's a collaborative effort for the wine making.

Amy does all the hard work and I ride coattails.

We make all wine making decisions together.

And then the rest of the business aspects we divide

and Amy conquers.

Beautiful.

So this first wine that we're gonna

taste is our Washington state Chardonnay.

Wow, beautiful, first thing I get is almost like a,

kinda like a white flower, like really, really fresh.

So this is 100% barrel fermented,

100% French oak, it's about 30% new.

We like to refer to this as our Washingtonian style,

as well as our Washington state Chardonnay.

It's got that beautiful acidity,
great length, mouthfeel.

For Chardonnay, the grape is so magical

that I want that complexity.

And I want, like every time I go in,

I want to get something new
and that's what I get with this.

Yeah, absolutely, and the Oak that we choose is

all about lifting the fruit and framing it

as opposed to being the focus Chateau 2 by 4.

Yeah.

You get those spices you want,

you get some tropical notes going on.

I don't know if it's 'cause we were talking about bees,

but I almost feel like I get
a little bit of like honey or

like some sort of honey flower of some sort.

I love it.

All right so this is the Merlot,

which is sourced kind of all over right,

all over Columbia Valley.

Oh yes, primarily from the Columbia Valley,

but we also have some estate fruit in here as well.

It is a hundred percent Merlot.

It's just very lively and fresh.

I get a lot of cherry.

Yeah there's this black cherry core

that runs throughout the entire length of the wine.

Sure, yeah you almost get a little bit of

that cherry pie thing going
on, beautiful dark cherries.

And I think you mentioned
the freshness which I keep

seeing in Washington Merlot specifically.

Yeah, absolutely, Merlot is so intrinsically pure

in Washington state, partially because of

that diurnal shift.

But there's something
special in which it's a big wine

that's still light on its feet,
dancing across the pallet.

Well, thank you guys so much.

This property is amazing.

The wines are amazing.

This was such a great tasting.

I really appreciate you guys showing me around.

We loved having you. - Our pleasure.

Salud. - Cheers.

So I was born and raised on a cattle ranch,

just two hours east of here.

My dad, when he was alive, he would joke

that I grew up feeding it,
now I feed it to other people.

Started working in a restaurant
when I was 15 years old

and fell in love with the industry.

And then this town, I felt like it was ready

for a steakhouse.

It blew me away that here
we are in agricultural central

and in Eastern Washington,

there was no great steakhouse
in town so I brought it.

That is mind blowing,
especially because when you think

about the wines that are made here,

they're steak wines. - No, exactly.

And tell me more about this
building you just mentioned.

So you've got the rail car out front,

you've got this cool exposed brick,

the kind of brownish colors,

which I love all scream steakhouse to me.

Tell me about the space. Like what was it before?

So 1914, the space was constructed.

It was the train station for Walla Walla.

And so this was kind of the hub of town for many years.

The historic rail car that's outside is a

1950s Pullman dining car,
on the concrete pad over here,

that's where the freight scale was.

And tell me a little bit about the cuisine,

obviously it's steakhouse,
but what's the philosophy,

what's kind of your motto behind the food.

It starts first for us with our steak program.

And so we source all of our beef through

Cattle Company Beef, which is a co-op of 62, roughly,

maybe 61 family owned ranches,
predominantly Angus genetics,

everything's corn finished.

That's where we start is with quality beef.

And then we look at, we keep it simple.

We've got a charcoal grill in in the kitchen there.

So live fuel, natural charcoal,
the grill all of steaks on.

We run seasonally through all of our vegetables,

but at its core it's a steak house.

For us, the work behind the
steak happens nine months ago,

as we're sourcing and as we're looking at the steers

coming into finishing, that's
where a lot of our work is.

After that it's simple, just cook it right,

season it correctly and put
it on a plate and you're done.

The wine program, a lot of local wines, right?

Absolutely, so we were very fortunate,

the very first year we were open,

we got Wine Enthusiast top 100 wine restaurants

in the country.

We have a huge selection from Walla Walla,

but a lot of our Walla Walla wine makers

wanna see wines from around the world.

And so we do have a pretty good selection of

international wines as well.

And then we've got our wine locker program

at the front door too.

So we have 24 wine lockers that guests can buy

for the year and they can store their wine.

They can buy one off on our list and store it there.

They can call ahead and say,

hey, could you have this bottle ready?

I am so excited to try this, steakhouses are just,

top of the top for me.

So I think your chefs waiting

and I'm gonna go eat if that's cool with you.

Yeah, don't be late.

All right, let's do it.

All right, thanks.

Stephen-We're gonna go
ahead and cook a hatchet steak

on our wood-fire grill.

And we're gonna do some crab cakes for you.

I'm gonna start with the crab cakes.

Vince - All right, beautiful. I love it.

So I'm gonna add uh, first
we've got some Dungeness crab,

then we've got some red crab They're both a sweet crab.

I'm gonna go ahead and combine those.

Now why are you doing the combo?

The texture of the red
crab meat is a little bit firmer.

The Dungeness is a little bit sweeter and softer.

So I'm gonna go ahead and add some mayonnaise.

Okay and then I'm gonna add the panko.

Okay, breadcrumb basically.

Yeah, it's a Japanese breadcrumb,

some sauteed vegetables,
it's the trinity in Creole food.

So it's a combination of peppers, celery onions,

And you sauteed them up.

And then there's a little garlic

added in there as well.

And then I also added some old bay seasoning.

Cause who doesn't like old
bay seasoning in crab right?

And then I'm gonna get my hands dirty.

Even if you get crab meat that says it's been picked,

make sure you pick through it again.

You need to make sure that you get all the shells

and the cartilage out of there.

Sometimes there'll be some shells that are missed.

And you want something done right,

you've got to do it yourself.

Yeah, that's correct.

I like the sign on the ring mold.

Put me away, do not lose me basically.

I'll tell you, it's been many times on a Saturday night,

it's like, okay, where's the ring mold.

Search, the search party begins for the ring mold.

In the middle of dinner rush.

My sous chef Mikey Pleio who

slaps a lot of crab cakes, I think he says he

slapped a million cakes.

The panko to help bind it together on the outside

and also helps to brown it, panko with a little bit of

clarified butter because everybody loves butter.

All right, so our crab cakes
look nice and kind of golden.

A Curry Aioli on the plate.

Curry Aioli.

Curry Aioli is
made by mixing a little bit of a

Tandoori curry with water, egg yolk, garlic,

and acid, we use, lemon juice.

And so then at the restaurant
we use a compressed apple.

It's a Granny Smith apple, that's grown here

locally in Washington.

It's mixed with olive oil and a little bit of chives

and some lemon juice for acidity.

And we make a little slaw.

Oh, look at that, all right,

well, can I try this out?

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, I would love, all right.

So let's see how this came out here

and I gotta make sure I get a bit of the slaw.

Oh, that is so good, the curry.

That X factor of the Curry is phenomenal.

Oh my gosh, those are perfect, I love it.

While our Chardonnays
and White Bordeaux blend are

different, they have a few things in common.

They're both fairly high in acid

and are both medium bodied wine.

Acidity in the wine means that they can pair

with the acid from the apple slaw,

the fat from the mayo and butter

and the salty fried character of the crab cake.

And the medium bodied wines match the weight well

of the medium body dish.

You know what I mean when I talk about the weight

in the dish, right?

Here's an example, chilled crab legs, light dish.

Our crab cakes, medium dish.

Crab pasta, that's a heavy dish.

And you usually wanna match the weight of your dish

with the weight of the wine.

First of all, look at this cut.

This is absurd.

This is actually a hatchet.

Hatchet.

And there's many names.

You could call it a tomahawk,

you could call it a cote de boeuf, its a really large

Frenched rib eye.

Very good, and you get all that beautiful

marbling you can see.

So I'm going to go ahead and take

that rice bran oil, give it a rub.

Little steak massage.

Yeah.

And then what are you putting on now?

This is actually our seasoning.

So it's kind of a secret.

But you know, it's a combination
of spices, salt and pepper.

Okay and I'm gonna go over here to our charcoal grill.

We started this grill, let's say two hours ago.

And we have actually fed more charcoal onto it

about five minutes ago.

But once it gets to temp, we can constantly be

putting charcoal onto it to keep and maintain that.

And you maintain it all night

and it's so worth it because the flavor you get

from that charcoal is just lights out.

Oh wow, but look at those marks already.

And any of you want the quarter turn?

Yeah, I do a 45 degree turn.

Some chefs say, if you see grill marks,

you're not doing a good job because

it should be evenly moved around.

But this is the traditional way to do it.

Yeah. I like the criss-cross.

We're a traditional steakhouse here.

Also at home, if you're gonna do it inside,

I recommend opening windows
and having your fan turned on.

Any chef that comes over to your house,

I guarantee he's gonna set off your smoke alarm.

My wife knows very well when we do steak,

we smoke out the whole place.

It's the only way to do it right.

All crisscross and nice.

Yeah so I'm going to put it into a 500 degree oven.

I'm gonna check it in about 12 minutes.

It looks amazing.

And we've rested it about seven minutes,

eight minutes.

Which is important.

So as you let it cool down and rest, the fibers

kind of pull themselves together
and the juices redistribute

themselves so that when we cut into the steak,

it shouldn't bleed out a tremendous amount.

Yeah, that was a sixties thing.

They wanted the juice all over plate,

but now we know better.

So the first thing I'm going to do is I'm

gonna take and lift it up and I'm gonna

take my knife and I'm going
to just follow it down the bone.

There is what's called a
lifter muscle or an abductor,

it's right here.

So you wanna cut against
the grain, just like with wood.

You don't wanna cut with the grain.

Why go against the grain? What does that do?

Well then you don't have long fibers

that you're trying to chew.

You've got shorter fibers that you're trying to chew.

Oh yeah and you see that beautiful crust

on the outside, beautiful pink on the inside.

All right, so we have this wonderful steak

and the big question is what wine, right?

And I think a lot of people don't actually think

about their sauce pairing, when they're thinking

about steak, they think oh steak and Cab.

But there's a lot of options with steak

and it really depends on how you cook it

and what you're gonna be serving with it.

Chef made us three sauces to go with our steak.

An herbal acidic chimichurri, a red wine Bearnaise,

which is an egg yolk based sauce,

and a green peppercorn demi-glace,

which is similar to a rich, dense gravy.

Honestly, none of our wines would be a bad pairing.

They all have comparable weight to the steak

and have a good tannin structure to match the fat

from the steak.

But as I mentioned, it's a good thing to take

into account your sauce, when pairing wine.

In a perfect world, let's
match the green chimichurri

with the green herbal character
of the Woodward Cabernet,

the softer plush Abeja Merlot
with the creamy Bearnaise

and the big rich tannic Bordeaux blend from L'ecole

with the rich meaty demi-glace.

One more tip, if you're ever
having an older vintage wine

let the wine be the star of the show

and don't use any sauce at all.

Oh my God, this steak, the cut of beef is incredible.

Yeah, that is unreal, cooked perfectly.

Well, thank you so much,

all of this has been absolutely incredible.

I am so honored to be here. Thank you chef.

Thank you, we appreciate you coming in.

Yeah, absolutely, cheers.

Cheers. - Cheers.

♪ In a saddle, nowhere to go ♪

On my way had a Washington, I hit one more stop,

as a reminder of the geological forces

that carved this great state.

This basalt wall was formed millions of years ago

during the same time period, that helped create

all the wonderful soil here.

Needless to say the time
capsule that is a bottle of wine,

never ceases to amaze.

Cheers to another million
years and cheers to Walla Walla.

We'll see you next time on V is Vino.

♪ Sorry for me ♪

♪ I'll be rolling, on the way ♪

♪ Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah ♪

♪ Best thing of my life ♪

♪ Best thing of my life ♪

♪ I'm going away ♪

♪ The best thing of my life ♪

♪ The best thing of my life ♪

♪ The best thing of my life ♪

♪ The best thing of my life ♪

♪ The best thing of my life ♪

♪ Ooh come on home ♪

♪ The best of my life ♪

♪ I'm going on away ♪

♪ But I'm still singing anyway ♪

♪ The best thing of my life ♪

♪ Ooh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah ♪

♪ The best thing of my life ♪

♪ It was the best thing of my life ♪

♪ The best thing of my life ♪

Hey, everyone, hope you enjoyed the episode

and just want to extend a huge thanks

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