Fidelitas Winery Red Mountain Tasting Room

 Red Mountain AVA  1 Response »
Apr 282015
 
Fidelitas Tasting Room Entrance - Photo Credit: GaryPaulson.net

Fidelitas Tasting Room Entrance – Photo Credit: GaryPaulson.net

Just up the hill from Kiona Winery, you’ll find a simple structure that houses the Fidelitas tasting room on Red Mountain. The southwest side of the building opens completely to the patio and views of adjacent vineyards. On this lovely spring day, the expanse was open allowing the inside and outside to become one beautiful, big space. The room was empty for the moment, so we had the complete attention of the two servers for quite awhile.

Fidelitas Winery Tasting Room

Fidelitas Winery Tasting Room – Photo Credit: GaryPaulson.net

The tasting lineup for the day was limited to only four wines, all reds.

Fidelitas Winery Tasting Selection - Photo Credit: GaryPaulson.net

Fidelitas Winery Tasting Selection – Photo Credit: GaryPaulson.net

Four reds – a Cabernet Sauvignon, a Merlot, and two blends – each one was delicious. I would have liked to buy one of each, but the price point is a little bit high for our normal wine budget. However, if we were to want something really special for an occasion, I’d head straight to Fidelitas!

You can be sure we’ll visit the tasting room again because not only were the wines great, but the servers were friendly, chatty, informative and really fun. Our experience there was everything you want in a tasting.

Fidelitas Winery - Photo Credit: GaryPaulson.net

Fidelitas Winery – Photo Credit: GaryPaulson.net

Too bad we ran out of time or you can bet we would have bought a glass to enjoy on the patio!

Kiona Winery

 Benton City, Red Mountain AVA  No Responses »
Apr 222015
 

Sunday afternoon was one of those perfect spring days in the Tri-Cities – warm, sunny, and absolutely no wind – a great day to visit Red Mountain. Our destination: Kiona Winery.

The Winery

They have a superb deck on which you can enjoy a picnic lunch and a bottle of wine overlooking acres of grape vines.

Grape Vines

It is still early spring. The vines have just barely begun to leaf.

Mountain View

The tasting room in large and inviting featuring walls of windows taking in the views. In the ell of the building you can enjoy the photography of John Clement, a favorite of ours.

Tasting

Here was the lineup of wines available for tasting on April 19.

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We started with the Chenin Blanc, and after the first sip, we both looked at each other with surprise – we really liked it! It’s not sweet, it is crisp and light and would be delightful after gardening or mowing the lawn. Moving on to the reds, we didn’t find any of them remarkable. Now we wouldn’t say they were bad at all, just not to our taste. The last bottle was the Late Harvest Riesling which of course was quite sweet and nice, perfect for dessert.

The traffic of tasters to the tasting room was light, but steady, and we exchanged comments with some, but no real conversation with anyone. We might have spent a little time on the deck if Kiona had some cheese in the cooler, but there wasn’t, and we didn’t think ahead to pack anything. Lesson learned!