Wine Tasting & More in Walla Walla

View of the countryside from the Balcony of the Crow's Nest in Milton-Freewater, OR ; picture by Anieka Travels

There are six major wine hubs in the world - Italy, France, Spain, Germany, New Zealand, and the United States. In the United States, wine is most heavily produced in Walla Walla along the Columbia Valley in Washington State, being one of the most well-known regions to grow and sell grapes for wine production. I had the pleasure of visiting this region to hop around a few esteemed wineries, learn more about varieties of wine, plus delve into how they are made.

I've always been interested in wines but ever since I stayed in Tuscany last summer at my friend's villa and heard her talk about her grape harvests, I wanted so badly to learn more.

Keep reading to discover which wineries I visited, other activities my friend and I did for entertainment, how we got around, and much more.

Day 1

Kontos Cellars’ Tasting Room in Walla Walla, WA ; picture by Anieka Travels

The first day, we drove the five and a half hours from Seattle to Walla Walla through the cascades along I90 and then southeast along Highway 82. On this drive, we had the most beautiful views of the Cascades, of Mount Rainier, and of the Columbia Plateau. 

We had a bit of a car malfunction right when our roadtrip first started, so we had to make a pit stop in North Bend to have it looked at before we continued the journey. The one and only time we stopped for a rest was in Yakima for a quick bite to eat at E.Z. Tiger. If you're ever in Yakima, I would recommend stopping at this Asian Fusion restaurant for their own creative flare on Asian Cuisine and a floral bright ambiance. 

We made a small run into a Safeway in Richland to grab some snacks and breakfast items to store in our airbnb for the mornings and afternoons and then we arrived at our airbnb in Milton-Freewater, OR around 3 in the afternoon. Being only 20 minutes away from Walla Walla, we freshened up, relaxed for an hour, and then hopped in the car again to visit a few tasting rooms downtown before they closed for the evening. 

We visited our first two wineries of the trip that day - Kontos Wine Cellars and Henry Earl Estates. We loved the environment in Kontos and enjoyed chatting it up with the wine Sommelier. He gave us an interesting history about the creation of the winery name, the brothers who started it, and gave us a detailed narrative of each individual wine. Towards the end of our visit, he invited us to a live concert that was to be held there after closing the following day. Being intrigued as we were, we took him up on the offer. Their sparkling white wine, Fysalides, was actually our favorite wine we tasted on the trip, so if you're downtown definitely check this tasting room out and buy a glass or bottle of their Fysalides! 

Henry Earl's Estate wasn't as beautiful of an experience as that of Kontos. The ambiance was really wonderful, but the food we had was mediocre and the service was not good at all. Compared to the continuous service at Kontos and detailed descriptions of the wines, the Sommier at Henry Earl just plopped all three wines in front of us without saying much about them and then after dropping our food didn't come to check on us at all. If you do decide to visit this tasting room, don't expect service like that of other tasting rooms in the area. Just focus on the ambiance and you'll be set. 

Afterwards, we spent the rest of the evening at our airbnb winding down and planning out the following day. 

Day 2

L’Ecole No. 41 Tasting Room in Lowden, WA ; picture by Anieka Travels

Our second day was our only full day in Walla Walla and we definitely made the most of it! We both woke up bright and early to spend the morning enjoying the early sun and the views of the vineyard with a book and coffee in hand. After basking in the sun on the airbnb's rooftop, we ate breakfast from the groceries we bought in Richland before driving back across the border to a small town of Touchet. 

In the rolling hills outside of Touchet, is the Whitman Acres Blue Mountain Lavender - a family owned farm, where you can make your own bouquet from the lavenders in their fields and you can taste their homemade lavender lemonade!  After walking through their farm and taking pictures of the aesthetically pleasing acreage, we settled down with lemonades and admired the scenery. I would highly recommend checking this place out for your own Columbia Valley itinerary! 

Next on our schedule, we stopped at L'Ecole Wine Cellars - the oldest cellar in the region, founded out of a 1915 Frenchtown Schoolhouse. The service was mid and the wine wasn't the greatest in my opinion but I thought the vintage schoolhouse looked so cool and the wines were quite unique, even though i wasn't a fan. One of them had accents of lychee, which gave the wine an extremely syrupy aftertaste. 

We then took a break at our airbnb to freshen up and re-energize before stepping back out on the town for another tasting session. In the hills near Milton-Freewater, we had a reservation at Caprio Cellars where they pair their samples of wine with food plates!  The cellars are located on a private drive in a neighborhood of other high-class wineries. You do need to schedule a reservation in order to be invited into this esteemed winery, so if you're planning to visit this winery in particular, make sure to go to their website and book a time slot. What we didn't realize until the very end of our visit was that the entire wine tasting and the food it came with was completely free. You don't have to pay for the experience at all, unless you want to buy anything else besides the complimentary tasting. We were so shocked by this and felt uncomfy walking out of there without spending a dime that we bought a bottle of rosé on a whim. The scenery from the estate is absolutely stunning, the service was professional and informative, and I loved their take on pairing food to heighten the flavors of their wines. It was a beautiful experience and I may find myself back there for a second time. 

Flash forward to a few hours later, and we were sitting in a surprisingly upscale Italian restaurant called Passatempo Taverna in downtown Walla Walla for dinner. It was definitely some of the best Italian food I'd had in the United States, the restaurant falling into a close second to a restaurant I've been to in Bellingham. I would definitely recommend this place for anyone who loves Italian, especially if you haven't had enough of drinking wine already during your stay. I had the Hand Rolled Potato Gnocchi and my friend had their Carbonara. We both loved our dishes and paired it with their delicious oven-baked Focaccia bread. We unfortunately did not drink wine with our food, but this was because we had more wine drinking plans for after dinner. 

After the meal, we stopped very quickly into Kontos Wine Cellar to buy the Fysalides sparkling white that even after tasting all those other wines, was still the best we had. We also wanted to stop in to check out the live music that the Sommelier invited us to. When we arrived, the tasting room was flooded with people listening to the band performing in front of the bay window. Every seat was taken and we had had the intention of drinking our bottle of Fysalides there while listening to the band. Because this was not possible, we were also very content with drinking it at our airbnb on the rooftop. So after bidding the Sommelier goodnight, we stepped back out into the street and made our way back across the border into Oregon. 

The rest of the night was spent drinking the bottle, snacking on the food we had bought and couldn't take back home with us, and watching the movie Challengers - which was quite disappointing if I might add. The panoramic views of the sun setting over the hills from the rooftop were breathtaking and were worth missing out on the live music. Keep reading to learn more about our airbnb and what it all provided!

Day 3

Portrait walking through the Crow's Nest Vineyard in Milton-Freewater, OR ; picture by Anieka Travels

Day three was our last day in Walla Walla and was the day we had to drive back to Seattle. After a leisurely stroll through the vineyard of our airbnb with our host's guard dog, Mila, herding us through the rows of grapevines, we checked out of the airbnb. Before hitting the road, we stopped in Milton-Freewater to buy a cooler and ice from Safeway so we could keep our bottle of rosé and other collections of precious alcoholic beverages safe from the intense heat.

We then went cheese tasting at the Walla Walla Cheese Company. The company had rotating cheese platters where we got to taste two different Goudas, an aged mustard seed Cheddar, and Dill Weed Havarti. They also had ice cream there, so we ordered an ice cream flight of four different ice creams (reese's, mint, lemon ricotta, and blackberry cheesecake)! After filling our stomachs with more dairy than we probably should have, we made the begrudging journey back to the Pacific Northwest.

We decided to take a different route than on the way going so that we wouldn't have to pass through Yakima. Instead, we drove through Othello and crossed over the Columbia River into Vantage where we took a break for a few hours swimming and hydrating in the river. Six hours of being on the road later and our very short vacation had come to an end and reality set in. 

I do wish that I had spent one more full day there to go to some more wineries and relax more before hopping back in the car again. Maybe next time I visit Walla Walla I will stay longer and have the chance to explore the area more. Keep reading to learn about various activities you could do in the region that I didn't have the chance to do myself.

Activities I Want to do Next Time!

The Blue Mountain Lavender Farm in Touchet, WA ; picture by Anieka Travels

More Wine Tasting!!!

We barely scratched the surface of the wineries which populated the area - only visiting 4 wineries in the single full day we had to explore. Whenever I go back in the future I will be visiting an entirely new batch of cellars and tasting rooms, except for maybe Kontos Cellars because our experience there was phenomenal. When you visit the region you will never run out of wineries, which is part of the beauty and wonder of the Columbia Valley in Washington State! 

Hot Air Balloon Tours

The scenery was absolutely stunning from what I saw driving along the Washington/Oregon border, but I knew the views would have been even more spectacular from the sky. We attempted to book a hot air balloon tour last minute in order to have this experience, however the closest available date was for October. That being said, if you're wanting to book a tour I would suggest booking your date long in advance so you don't miss your chance. This is an experience I really wish I had gotten to have but I can always try again next time!

Hiking

We did not have the chance to do this activity because it was at least 100 degrees Fahrenheit every day we were there. There is a National Forest approximately 30 minutes away from Milton-Freewater, OR called the Umatilla National Forest. The Forest is part of the Blue Mountains in Oregon state and covers roughly 1.4 million acres. If the weather had permitted it, I would have been caught roaming around this forest.

Experience the ‘Behind the Scenes’ of Wine Making

The more I learn about wine, the more intrigued I become with learning how to make it. Curating wine is an art (a highly complicated art) that I would love to master one day on my very own vineyard. A girl can dream. I don't know if these kinds of tours are possible, but for my next trip I will be delving deeper into the complexities of wine growing, harvesting, and fermenting! For anyone who is just as intrigued by wine as I am, I would highly recommend this while also being extremely envious of you.

Walla Walla “Culture”

Landscape around Milton-Freewater, OR ; picture by Anieka Travels

The region is very centered around agriculture within the community, the workforce, and the infrastructure. If you're not a farmer, owning a vineyard, or in some kind of business/service related to either, I don't know what you would do for income. Everything one does to entertain themselves out here is also very centered around food, drink, and sports. While driving around, I saw plenty of baseball fields, a lot of horses, cows, sheep, and many many vineyards or fields with crops. I got the feeling that wine tastings are also a huge social scene for the people there. I noticed this while observing groups of people lounging at these wineries and conversing with the Sommeliers as if they saw them quite frequently. 

Just from being there only a few days, I was able to gather that wealth in this region is curated through wine production. This was obvious to me by observing the different kinds of grass and how they were maintained on different properties/estates. Most of the landscape around the Columbia valley is covered by a bright golden tall wheat that I noticed farmers would trim down in order to grow their crop. Occasionally there was vibrant green healthy grass, trimmed and manicured around someone's estate. These estates were most frequently vineyards, houses of wine grape growers, or wine tasting rooms. In regions where summers are extremely hot and plant life falters, water is a luxury that only the wealthy can spend to take care of something as unimportant as the grass around their house.  

That being said, there is definitely a huge class divide in the region which I thought was very obvious. You're either poor living in Walla Walla or you're rich in Walla Walla and this all centers around what product you produce, if any. Wine production lands at the very top of the hierarchy and is where the most money is made for the region. Next is anything else agriculture related with cheese being relatively important over other products. If you don't fall into either of these brackets then there's not really much for you. 

Walla Walla is beautiful and I loved exploring for a few days but I could not imagine myself occupying space there for very long, especially to make money. Unless it involved wine.

Transportation

Blue Mountain Lavender Farm in Touchet, WA ; picture by Anieka Travels

We drove around to all the different wineries and activities we attended. We decided to do this because we were already driving the distance from Seattle, had access to a car already, and were staying at an airbnb over the border where getting drivers would be tricky. Not only that, but we knew we weren't going to excessively drink while we were attending these tastings and we wanted to have the freedom to go wherever we wanted whenever we wanted. 

We did consider shuttling but were immediately turned off by the idea when we saw how expensive it would be to rent a driver just for an hour. If you're touring 5 or more wineries in a day and heavily drinking, I would recommend taking this course of transport but it is insanely expensive. 

If you do want to visit a lot of wineries in one day but don't want to spend the big bucks for a shuttle, you could look into bus routes through Walla Walla and the surrounding area. We didn't think this method would be trustworthy considering how small the town was and the fact that public transport barely functions in Seattle. We highly doubted this would be a convenient way of getting around, but they do have buses there and they are cheap. 

I personally think the best mode of transportation for that area is by car, so if you don't already have one I would suggest renting one for the days that you'll be in the region.

The Crow's Nest Airbnb

View from the balcony of the Crow's Nest Airbnb ; picture by Anieka Travels

Deciding where to sleep on a trip is always one of the most heavily researched topics whenever I'm planning a trip. I always ask myself questions like: what's most convenient for me? What's the cheapest? What's the safest? What provides the most for me out of all my options? 

For this trip, I had looked into various hotels and motels that were in the town of Walla Walla. Although I was unimpressed, I was very close to booking one in order to be directly downtown where all the tasting rooms were. This would have been a decent option but with that came very minimalistic amenities, an average experience, and above average pricing for an environment that wasn't special. Knowing this, I decided to take a peak at Airbnb to try to find a house, preferably close to a vineyard or two, to stay in for a more natural local and unique experience. 

That's when I found the Crow's Nest. Just 20 minutes over the border in Oregon with Milton-Freewater nearby, this small up and coming vineyard has an old vintage cellar with a tower. The space is hosted by the young family who owns the winery and who lives directly on the property next to the cellar. When I saw the photos of the tower loft and the winery I was stunned, thinking that there must be a catch. However, the host seemed genuine and sweet and after discussing it with my friend we decided that this experience would elevate our trip. 

We were right and there was no catch. The Crow's Nest was simply stunning, with a balcony, panoramic views from the rooftop, the entire vineyard to roam, and a gorgeous vintage interior decor. The AC unit was spectacular, which in the humid heat we were fighting at all hours of the day and night was a heavenly gift. The kitchenette was small but provided all the necessities. There was pre ground coffee, a coffee machine, and packets of cream and sugar provided, an amenity which was needed to fuel our caffeine addictions. There was also a TV where we had access to Amazon prime, once we signed in to one of our accounts. The couple living there has an adorable guard dog named Mila who takes her job of supervising very seriously, and a few barn cats who are meant as a natural pest control but can be seen around the property acting like pests. 

This Airbnb was basically a dream come true, a beautiful getaway, and I will most definitely be back in the future to experience it all over again. If you're looking for a place to stay in the Walla Walla area and don't mind driving a little bit through scenic country roads to get places, I highly recommend booking The Crow's Nest!

Rooftop of the Crow's Nest airbnb ; picture by Anieka Travels

Wine tasting in Walla Walla was a perfect summer getaway. I wish I had made the trip a day or two longer but besides that and the heat, everything was perfect. I really enjoyed learning more about wines and figuring out which ones I prefer, as well as seeing a different side of my home state. Whenever people think of Washington, they always picture the rain, the clouds, and the deep dark mountainous forests, but they don't realize that the majority of the state is hilly agricultural valleys, perfect for farming and - yes - also winemaking. I would recommend avoiding going to this region during July and August, because these are the hottest months of the year. Although, visiting Walla Walla in May through June or September would be wonderful. 

If you've read this far, I greatly appreciate it. Hopefully the information I've given has been helpful for planning your own wine tasting trip to Walla Walla. 

Now go out and explore!

Love,

Anieka ♡