Tips on Washing Stemware

A few days ago, I got an email from a subscriber with whom I had been talking about washing glassware. He wrote that even in Seattle which has soft water, he has a hard time getting glasses clean. So he suggested I write about this in one of my blogs. I replied that I would do so.

In Walla Walla, we have hard water which makes glassware washing hard work. Washing with detergent either in a dishwasher or by hand leads to mineral and detergent build-up inside the glass which causes beading inside the bowl, an annoying situation.

One time, one of my Walla Walla winemaking friends told me how he cleans stemware. Dissolve two compounds (obtainable at wine making supply stores) in bowls or buckets. One of Sodium Percarbonate (trade name: Proxy Clean). In another container, Citric Acid. With a clean sponge, scrub the inside of the wineglass bowl with the Proxy Clean, then rinse in Citric Acid (which neutralizes alkali), then rinse in water and dry with a lint-free towel or chamois. On the East side, of the state, vigorous scrubbing is needed, on the West, much less so.

Wine and Food Pairings

In Walla Walla, I do a lot of grilling on the back deck. My all-purpose marinade is 1/4 cup of soy sauce, 2 tablespoons olive oil, 1 tsp. ground coriander and 1/2 tsp. cumin. Sometimes I add a bit of squeezed lime. I marinate about 20-30 minutes. Last week, we had guests at our house. One evening, we had marinated boneless skinned chicken breasts with Rotie Cellars Southern White and Flying Trout Sangiovese. The next night, we had marinade-brushed skewered scallops and shrimp with red pepper, zucchini and Walla Walla sweet onion, accompanied by Bergevin Lane Viognier and Forgeron Cellars Roussanne.

Free Shipping at Rotie Cellars and aMaurice

Two Walla Wineries whose wines I have recommended in previous issues are offering free ground shipping for a limited time. They are:

Rotie Cellars is shipping orders for three or more bottles for free. See my January issue for the review of the '07 Northern and Southern Red and the July issue for the '08 Southern White. www.rotiecellars.com

aMaurice Cellars is shipping orders for six or more bottles for free. See the June issue for the '06 "Tsutakawa" Red and the August issue for the '08 Viognier. The '06 Malbec and '06 Syrah and '06 Chardonnay are also recommended. www.amaurice.com

Harvest 2009 Begins: Merlot Mania

When we arrived in Walla Walla on September 13th, crush was already starting. On Monday, we visited Isenhower Cellars, and they had bins of Merlot fermenting. Other wineries had just crushed Merlot, were crushing Merlot or were about to crush Merlot. On Thursday, I got an email from Erica Blue at Adams Bench in Woodinville saying they were going to crush Merlot on Friday. "It's a great time of year," she wrote. More about the '09 harvest over the coming weeks.