Nestled at the foot of the Olympic Mountains in Washington State is Port Angeles, a picturesque town known by many as the Gateway to Olympic National Park. Visitors and residents alike appreciate the natural, serene environment that combines the evergreen mountain air with fresh, salty seawater from the Strait of Juan de Fuca truly making this destination a breath of fresh air.

(Photo via Port Angeles Downtown)

What you may not know is the Olympic Peninsula is also home to at least 8 wineries open to the public. In other words, you can ski or hike Hurricane Ridge in the morning and enjoy a glass of wine at Camaraderie Cellars in the afternoon! Or, if you’re up for it, take a long weekend and visit all 8 wineries!

Port Angeles is home to Harbinger Winery, Camaraderie Cellars, Black Diamond Winery, and Olympic Cellars. Located an hour east is Port Townsend, known for its restored Victorian homes and beautiful downtown. There you’ll find Eaglemount Wine & Cider, Sorensen Cellars, FairWinds Winery, and Finnriver Farm & Cidery.

We personally recommend a visit to Camaraderie Cellars in Port Angeles and Sorenson Cellars in Port Townsend. And for fellow cider fans… a visit to Alpenfire Cider (formerly Wildfire Cider), also near Port Townsend, is a definitive MUST.

If you only have 3 days for your wine adventure on the Olympic Peninsula, we suggest spending 2 in Port Angeles and the last day in Port Townsend before heading back to Seattle or your next destination. This will give you an opportunity to do some sightseeing between wineries. Because these are small, family-run wineries, don’t forget to call the wineries ahead of time to be sure they’ll be open during your visit.

Other things to do/see in Port Angeles:

Our Winter Visit to Hurricane Ridge

Olympic National Park: Drive up to Hurricane Ridge for stunning views, skiing, or some of the best hiking in Washington State. Pack a picnic lunch, otherwise there’s an overpriced cafeteria that sells hamburgers, fries, and soup.

Lake Crescent: Also part of Olympic National Park, Lake Crescent lies about 18 miles west of Port Angeles. This lake is another great place for hiking or taking in the natural beauty of Washington State. Check out the Lake Crescent Lodge or The Log Cabin Resort if you’re interested in spending more time in the area. In the summertime, this is a popular swim spot for locals.

Salt Creek State Park: Whether you’re into camping or just want to explore the tide pools, this is a fun family-friendly spot where the kids can roam free.

Great eats in Port Angeles:

Michael’s Seafood & Steakhouse: One of the best restaurants in Port Angeles, Michael offers a gourmet selections and a great Happy Hour menu from 4-6pm daily. The Gnocchi and Baked Brie are personal favorites. As a bonus, there’s local wine on the list! This is always a great option if you can’t make it to a winery but really want to taste the fruits of their labor.

Toga’s Soup House: Once a fancy reservations-only restaurant perfect for an intimate dinner, Toga’s has reinvented itself as a popular lunch spot for soups, salads, and sandwiches. If you’re headed to Camaraderie Cellars, this is a great stopping point along the way.

Frugals: If you’re in the mood for a burger and fries to-go, Frugals is a small retro double drive-in fast food joint that has been an institution in Port Angeles since… well, forever. Their milkshakes are very popular, so check the flavor of the month!

Port Townsend recommendations:

(photo via Puget Sound Express)

The Rose Theater: This unique independent cinema is a must-see if you love beautiful theaters and foreign films. The popcorn is delicious and you can grab a glass of wine!

Fort Worden: A state park and conference center perfect for walks along the two-mile shore line. A lot of weekend art workshops are hosted here, so check local listings for dates.

Great eats in Port Townsend:

The Pizza Factory: This is where you’ll find the best pizza on the Olympic Peninsula. Grab a slice and people watch from a bench on the street.

Alchemy Bistro & Wine Bar: Is a description really necessary? The menu is great (pasta, lamb, seafood), but just remember the wine bar doesn’t open until 4pm. It’s also a nice place to hit up for appetizers and a glass of vino before a movie.

Getting there:

Port Angeles is an easy 2.5 hour drive from Seattle. Or, get there in 20 minutes with a direct flight from Boeing Field with Kenmore Air.

And now off to walk the plank to pop open a bottle of Pirate’s Plank Bone Dry from Alpenfire Cider! I challenge you to find a cider that we’d enjoy more…

Masút Vineyard & Winery owner Jacob Fetzer is a third generation winemaker who grew up on his family’s Fetzer Vineyards. No stranger to organic farming, Jake continues the practice today on his certified organic vineyard. Jake and his brother Ben take a very hands-on approach when it comes to winemaking, a skill demonstrated and modeled by their father, the late Bobby Fetzer.

This legacy of love and respect for the land coupled with healthy farming practices has paid off enormously because the Fetzer brothers have somehow managed to translate and infuse these values into each bottle of wine:

Relaxing with Masút Vineyard and Winery’s 2009 Estate Vineyard Pinot Noir brings us back to what we’d imagine drinking wine with our great-grandparents would be like. There’s something about their Pinot Noir that evokes the feelings of refined, classy elegance.

This ruby red, well-balanced Pinot Noir from Mendocino offers a full-palate experience that’s so smooth, you’ll barely notice the tannins. With flavors of blackberry and black cherry jam, this wine wouldn’t be a Pinot Noir without that hint of earthiness. This elegant wine has been aged in French oak barrels for 10 months to give it a kiss of cocoa on the finish. It’s a great wine for drinking now either alone or with food.

Although this wine comes with a $40 price tag, it’s one of the few times I’d say IT’S WORTH EVERY PENNY!

I’m in love…

Someone get me on a flight to Santorini!

The Greeks on Santorini have had almost 5000 years to perfect the art of winemaking, but it’s clear the folks at San..Torini Winery (by Artemis Karamolegos) have become masters of the art.

We taste lots of wines here at TravelPlusWine, but few evoke emotions as strong as their 2008 Assyrtiko that we tasted last night. It is often said you can taste the land in a bottle of wine and I have noted this to be mostly true… but every single element of Santorini comes to life in this particular bottle of dry white wine.

You can taste the gentle, salty breeze floating in from the ocean and the sweet kiss of the Greek sunshine giving life to grapes growing on the ancient volcanic island. The taste of olives is dominant in this wine, which is no surprise as these trees dot the island.

There’s no better food for this creamy, buttery Assyrtiko than a fresh Greek salad with sun-ripened tomatoes, mouth-watering local feta, and deliciously salty olives.

When you taste this wine, be prepared for a virtual tour of Santorini. So, sit back, relax, and imagine yourself sitting in a cliff-side café, wine glass in hand, overlooking the whitewashed town with views of the Mediterranean as far as the eye can see.

Who wouldn’t fall in love with a wine like this?

To learn more about Santorini wines, follow the Wines from Santorini blog.

Another Greek wine we love is the 2007 Robola of Cephalonia from Gentilini

Importer:
Nikolaos Mastorogiannakis
HEADQUARTERS:
147 Brook Street, Suite 4
Brookline, MA 02445
NEW YORK:
19-06 42nd Street
Long Island City, NY 1105
Tel: 617-926-9292

(Disclaimer: This is a sample wine)

This sounds like the ultimate TravelPlusWine adventure! Fortunately, for those of us who can’t be in wine country at the moment, there’s a way to live vicariously through others.

The Three Thieves is a new hour-long television show featuring three wine entrepreneurs on a quest to discover exciting new wines. It debuts tonight at 8pm on the Cooking Channel.

Winemaker and Three Thieves star Joel Gott ensures this isn’t your average sip-and-swirl television show. Joel and the other two thieves, Roger Scommenga and Charles Bieler, worked hard with the Food Network to create a show that mixes in what’s exciting like scenery, food, people, and wine.

The first episode of Three Thieves takes viewers to Chile. The idea, Gott explains, is to visit and explore, so people see and experience what’s out there in wine regions around the world.

Three Thieves sounds like a great show for travel and wine lovers, so check it out!

We wrote this 2011 Manifesto because we believe in the power of written word. The document will also act as a guide for a smooth sailing in 2011 as we chart through new TravelPlusWine territory. This post is also an act of transparency on our part. We appreciate your readership because without you, what we’ve accomplished in 2010 and where we are headed in 2011 wouldn’t be possible. Cheers to a first-class year!

Welcome to 2011! Like most people, I can’t believe last year went by so fast! Looking back over the wicked pace of 2010 leaves me breathless in awe and amazement. Without a doubt, it was one of the most rewarding years of my life.

Hard work, persistence, and passion has started paying off because…

2010 in review

What a year we had here at TravelPlusWine! From wine tasting in numerous regions around New Zealand to experiencing a wide variety of local wines in Budapest, Hungary and discovering the amazing Grüner Veltliner in Austria, we’ve developed our palate and furthered our passion for great wine as well as travel.

Wherever we are in the world, whether at home or on the road, the adventure never seems to end, so take a look back at a few of our articles in 2010:

• Sailing Norwegian Cruise Line’s Norwegian Spirit to the Caribbean
• Jazzing it up in New Orleans
  
• Luxury at the Napa Valley Marriott & great wineries
• New Zealand’s Nelson, Marlborough, and Otago wine regions
  
• Walla Walla Enchants Wine Lovers
  
• Wining, dining, and pure relaxation at LeBlanc Spa Resort in Cancun, Mexico
• Ancient Treasures in Greece
• Bogotá Up Close & Personal
• Features on Austrian tourism & wine
• Other great wines tasted…
  

Looking ahead at 2011

Writing about premier wine tourism destinations is our passion and essence here at TravelPlusWine. This is something we’ll continue to focus on throughout the year as we introduce new wines and discover fun tasting regions. In addition to wine tourism, we promise to also sprinkle in some luxury travel and tell you where you should grab a beer or cocktail and skip the wine!

This year, you also might find us tapping into controversy and being way more opinionated than we have in the past. Being middle-of-the-road is pleasant, but boring… we’re hoping to stir the pot on some issues to encourage thinking as well as to create dialog in the travel and wine circles.

Developing your wine palate

We’d also like to inspire you to take action and develop your own wine palate and tasting opinion. Don’t worry, we’ll help you through the process in 2011. In the meantime, if you have any questions about wine tasting or developing a palate… please, please, please shoot us an email or leave a comment. Your questions will help us help you and everyone else.

Trust me, if you would have asked me a few years back to pick out the tobacco notes in a red wine, I would have given you a blank stare…

Wine Ratings?

One thing people have asked us to implement here on TravelPlusWine is a tasting score system. Why don’t we currently have wine tasting scores?

When using the popular 100- point scale, you need to get to know the palate of the person scoring. A wine that I’d give 95 points could be only worth 81 to your taste buds. We feel the people who pay most attention to this point system are either too busy or lazy to read the reviews (which could be an argument if favor of implementing a TravelPlusWine rating system) or haven’t developed their own palate enough to make sense of tasting notes (which is why we want to help you develop yours).

It bothers us to meet so many winemakers whose value, self-worth, and wine sales depend on 90+ scores from… well, you know who I’m talking about. Again, it’s all opinion based on a single palate.

On the one hand, we want you to know which wines we really like and how it ranks amongst our finds. But on the other hand, we need you, the reader and winemakers, to understand how our rating system works… which will be based solely on opinion. So, no hard feelings, okay?

At this point it looks like we’ll implement some sort of a wine rating system, but we’re looking to do something a bit different… we’re thinking something cool, spiffy, and not at all stuffy.

Widgetizing & Badges

Yes, I think I just made up a word. Also launching, as soon as possible, will be our TravelPlusWine widgets and badges system. If we’ve featured your wine or travel destination on our blog, you’ll be able to post a “Featured on TravelPlusWine” widget on your website.  Or perhaps you are part of a great wine tourism destination? We’ll have “TravelPlusWine Destination” badges available for you to place on your site or marketing material!

When our rating system is up and running, we’ll also supply a few of our favorite wines with a TravelPlusWine seal of approval badge!

Our success

Clearly, 2010 was the year of social media in the wine and tourism industries. We watched more and more wineries, hotels, airlines, tour companies, etc. join the ranks of those who use social media to market to consumers. Whether jumping in or simply dipping their toes, some companies did really well reaching their audience while other companies remained a bit confused as to its usage and how social media can be effective.

TravelPlusWine clearly works. Our traffic continues to climb and the site has become a well-known blog within both the travel and wine industries. Readers buy the wines we recommend and check out the places we mention. We often get messages thanking us for the recommendations, but every once in a great while, we’ll get called out by someone who has other thoughts or tastes… a powerful reminder to stay authentic and be able to back up our opinions and experiences.

Because of our success in just over a year, people in the wine, travel, and blogging industries ask us, quite often, exactly how we manage to do it all!

It’s important for people to know this isn’t my first blog or Ricardo’s. We’ve both learned from experience over the years and have applied what works to TravelPlusWine.

I started working in public relations in 2006 and got started in social media the following year. It’s something I live and breathe, both as a day job and as a hobby with this website. As a bonus, our combined web design experience is icing on the cake.

TravelPlusWine has been a labor of love as well as a way to subsidize our travels and drinking great wine… while connecting with like-minded souls. We hope the travel invitations, media tours, like-minded friends, and wine samples keep flowing and growing! Looking back at 2010, we feel so fortunate and marvel at how much this site has enriched every area of our lives.

Maintaining a dynamic site and keeping a steady stream of information flowing on a blog like TravelPlusWine could easily become a full-time job. As with anything, there’s always room for improvement and that is exactly what we’d like to do!

Monetizing

How do we plan to keep great content flowing in 2011?

Spend more time working on the website! We plan to take our content up another notch both in frequency and quality. In order to do so, we are going to work very hard at monetizing this website in 2011.

Over the upcoming weeks and months, we’ll begin selling ad space on the site. At the moment, we hope to sell the ads directly and some will be paired with the occasional (clearly marked) sponsored post.

But, rest assured, we will be very careful to not sacrifice the integrity of the blog we have so painstakingly built with our own hands brick-by-brick, word-by-word. We’re not selling-out; we’re simply following our passion while making a living doing what we love!

Because of my love for social media, hands-on experience, as well as close proximity to the wine and travel worlds, I’d also like to help businesses in these industries learn how to use these tools to grow. Because so many of these companies have casually asked me about the state of their industry in social media as well as how they can better market online… I’ve been thinking about ways I can help.

Over the past few months, I’ve quietly launched TravelPlusWine Social Media Marketing… but consider this an official announcement. I’m currently offering social media marketing and consulting services to those in the travel and wine industries.

Behind the scenes, I’m working on making social media knowledge and implementation more accessible and easier on everyone in the travel and wine industries, particularly the smaller guys and gals. Keep your eyes peeled for products!

Throughout the year, I’ll be posting free industry-specific social media and public relation tips on the blog.

For your own travel and wine enjoyment, we’ll be launching some fun, dynamic products for TravelPlusWine. We’d tell you, but then we’d have to poison your wine! Just kidding, of course…

Walk the walk, cork the cork

In social media and public relations, I work with deadlines and editorial calendars on a daily basis. Companies who are serious about social media rarely write and publish a post on the same day because it has all been carefully crafted and planned ahead.

When we plan ahead with TravelPlusWine, we feel organized and it enables us to concentrate on immediate, important tasks like syndicating the content. As the end of the year approached and other projects picked up, we started to see the editorial calendar slip away as we often posted without much time to spare. The last 2 weeks of December, we barely posted at all.

Blog fatigue happens when you don’t plan ahead and we won’t let this happen in 2011. We’re starting strong and are committed to staying on course throughout the year.

Conferences

2009 was the first full year we spent on TravelPlusWine and we were fortunate enough to meet, both online and in person, some amazing bloggers and industry professionals. Over the summer, we attended the Wine Bloggers Conference in Walla Walla, Washington where we not only discovered a whole new region of wines, but travel and wine-loving soul mates.

In October, we trekked to the European Wine Bloggers Conference where we rekindled friendships, met wine bloggers from around the world, and discovered wines we had never tasted. We also attended the LA Time Travel & Adventure Show, a great place to connect with those in the travel industry and find new blog content without leaving home!

In 2010, we plan to hit up the same conferences and travel shows, plus make our way into a few more.  We’d also like to let it be known that we’re available for speaking or panel discussions!

Conclusion

There’s no doubt we have a lot on our plate with the blog in 2011, which promises to be a big year. Writing this Manifesto has really helped us shape and put into words what we want and where we’re headed over the next 365 days.

I’m sure we’ll be adding and updating this as the year moves forward. We’ll be paying close attention to Analytics and what our readers like, so please, let us know what you’d like to see more of on TravelPlusWine.

Thanks again for being such loyal readers and we wish you all the best in 2011!

-Katie & Ricardo