He's The Man!

I see that Seattle Magazine has finally discovered Olympic Cellars which I wrote about last summer. A tour of the North Puget Sound wineries, including Olympic Cellars, is a great weekend outing from Seattle. Christina Kelly slants her piece on Olympic Cellars toward "girl power." I am all in favor of "girl power", especially in the wine world, where it took a while for women to break in. Go Girl Red, Rose The Riveter, Working Girl White, and Handyman Red are all good wines that are easy to drink and a cut about two buck chuck in the sense that they are lighter and more elegant, but these are just names attached to what's in the bottle and the stuff in the bottle is made by the man! It used to be made by a woman, but Sarah Gagnon left Olympic Cellars to start her own winery, Harbinger.

The Man is Benoit Murat, a French winemaker, trained in France, who moved to Eastern Washington to make wine, but who prefer Western Washington for various reasons. He is quite proud of his wines, but seems to be overshadowed by the marketing of " girl power." Olympic Cellars doesn't grow any of it's own grapes and, in fact, I seem to remember that Benoit told me that the making Go Girl Red, etc., is outsourced to a winery in Eastern Washington. If you want to taste great wine made by real girl power, check out Bergevin winery in Walla Walla where the winemaker really is a girl who makes fabulous reds such as Calico Red