Kemah uncorked

Boardwalk celebrates first wine festival

 

Christine Crump

The Signal Staff

Live entertainment, food and wine, oh my! Sept. 19 was the first wine festival at the Kemah Boardwalk. Wine lovers were able to taste wines from 13 Pacific Northwest wineries.

“There’s such a great variety of vendors here,” said wine enthusiast Michele Jacobs.

One of the wineries that displayed their wines at the festival was Wente Vineyards. Wente Vineyards is America’s oldest family owned and operated winery. Started in 1883, they were the first winery in California to reopen right after the repeal of Prohibition in 1939.

“Being in the wine business for so many years, everything we produce comes from our own vineyards,” said Carolyn Wente of Wente Vineyards, “So 100 percent is estate grown and bottled and then everything we do is sustainably farmed.”

Fermentation is the process of turning the grape sugar into alcohol. For this process some wineries use oak barrels and some use stainless steel.

“Our white wines go through a fermentation process of stainless steel,” said Arnold Gilberg with Alexander Valley Vineyards. “Our red wines go through an oak barrel fermentation.”

Wente Vineyards has a different approach to the fermentation process.

“We use both and it depends on the style of wine you are making,” Wente said, “For instance, our chardonnay, we do about 80 percent of it as barrel fermentation, 20 percent is stainless steel and then we put the two lots together to further age in oak.”

Wente explained the difference between the oak and stainless steel barrels.

“What the stainless steel does is really retain all the fruitiness of the wine, and when you put a wine into oak for fermentation, it starts adding notes of toast and oak and wood and flavors vanilla that makes it really lush and more weight in your mouth,” Wente said.

Wines go through an aging process and depending on the wine, whether it is red or white, they can be aged from several months to years.

“A white wine will generally age if it’s in barrel for about six to eight or nine months,” Wente said, “For red wine, anywhere from a year to 18 months.”

Every winery has its own formula to age its wine.

“It depends on what we’re doing, whether it be cabernet, chardonnay or merlot,” said Gilberg, “Usually on an average, we age anywhere from three years to twelve months.”

The wine festival had a big turnout and many people were able to enjoy the variety of wines.

“I’m having a good time,” said wine enthusiast Candis Phillips, “It’s very nice.”

If Kemah Boardwalk has another wine festival next year, wine enthusiast Alan Jacobs said he would be attending.

“This is a hit,” Jacobs said.

The festival also included a live band playing music for everyone to enjoy as they walked around the winery booths. There was also food from the Kemah Boardwalk restaurants.

Participating wineries in this event included: Wente Vineyards, Chateau Ste. Michelle, Witness Tree Vineyard, Snoqualmie Vineyards, King Estates, Covey Run Winery, Columbia Winery, Sokol Blosser Winery, Dry Creek Vineyards, J. Lohr Vineyards & Wines, Alexander Valley Vineyards, Murphy Goode Winery and Rodney Strong Vineyards.

Kemah Boardwalk event planners consider its first wine festival a success; all the advance tickets were sold out days before the event. Advance tickets were $35 and tickets at the door were $45. Keep an eye out for next year’s festival by visiting www.kemah.com.

Click on the play button below to view a video taken at the wine festival by reporter Christine Crump and videographer Frank Lemus.