Walla Walla Valley will host the second annual Grenache Festival this fall. As in its first iteration, the event will feature a combination of educational seminars, walk around tastings, and live music.
“It ultimately came out of a love for Grenache and recognizing how many people in this area are making really special wines of all different styles,” says event founder Carrie Alexander. Alexander and her winemaker husband, Todd Alexander, conceived the event in collaboration with M.J. Towler from The Black Wine Guy Experience.
“For about 20 years, Todd and I have been really almost obsessed with Grenache,” Alexander says. “It’s something we’re really passionate about. It changed our lives.”
The goal of Grenache Fest is to gather like-minded people and create new converts. This year’s Grenache Festival will take place Friday November 8th and Saturday November 9th.
This year’s event has expanded to two days. Friday’s seminar focuses on domestic Grenache. The Saturday seminar examines Grenache from France and Spain. There will be a walk-around tasting both days. The tasting will feature 25 wineries each day and 50 wineries total.
M. Ward, who performed at last year’s event, curated the music for this year’s festival. Performers include M. Ward and Friends, Ben Gibbard (Death Cab for Cutie, The Postal Service), and Jordana. The event will take place at The Motor Co in downtown Walla Walla.
The inaugural Grenache Fest was a resounding success, with a series of sold out events. “I think people really came away from it with a new love for the varietal,” Alexander says.
Grenache remains a relative rarity in Washington. The 2017 Washington Vineyard Acreage Report, the most recent conducted, listed just over 200 acres of the variety planted. In contrast, there were 4,500+ acres of Syrah. Still, Grenache crafts some of the very best wines in the Columbia Valley. There are exceptional examples from Horsepower, Cayuse, Liminal, WeatherEye, No Girls, Force Majeure, Kevin White, Latta, Two Vintners, and others.
The Alexanders have been busy of late. In addition to Grenache Fest, Carrie is director of sales and marketing at Force Majeure and does design work, marketing, and sales management for Holocene, WeatherEye, Cimento, From the Sky Down, and the couple’s French wine projects. Todd, meanwhile, serves as winemaker at Force Majeure, WeatheEye, and Cimento, all of which feature Grenache. He also makes wine using Grenache in Châteauneuf-du-Pape and Roussillon, including Grenache Gris. The Alexanders have another label, Holocene, that focuses on Oregon-based wines.
The couple opened Atelier Freewater last year. Located in downtown Milton-Freewater in a former bank built in 1906, it serves as a tasting room for Todd Alexander’s wines as well as an event space.
Full details about Grenache Festival can be found here.
The original version of this article incorrectly stated that the event coincided with Fall Release weekend. It does not.
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Thank you for bringing this to our attention, Sean! Where do we find tickets for the Grenache Festival? Also…. 50 wineries in 1 weekend might be a bit of a strech. :-) Will you be posting reviews of these 50 so we can choose which 8 to visit? Or did you already post the reviews and I just missed it?
Hi Linda, you can find ticket information at grenachefest.com.
Reviews for many of the Northwest wineries can be found in my review database. Also take note of the wineries I mentioned in the article, some of whom will be pouring at the event.