Woodinville continues to be an accessible and comprehensive destination for Washington wine, complete with activities and attractions for all lifestyles. Although wine is definitely a luxury product, its tasting, purchase, and consumption do not necessarily require a luxury-level budget. Meant to be enjoyed with food, friends, and family either indoors or out, wines can easily be both approachable and affordable.

For, although the experiences that wine provides may be rich, the wines themselves do not have to be.

For starters, tasting room fees, if charged by a winery, are typically applied to the cost of a bottle of wine that is purchased on-site at the end of a tasting, acting as a deposit of sorts. In addition, many wines in Woodinville – be they white, rosé, or red – are available for $25 or less. White wines and rosé wines typically fall in this price range, for the turnaround time between harvest and bottling is minimal for these wines. Red wines typically age in barrels for a (at least somewhat) lengthy period of time, and thus typically cost more the more labor- and time-intensive they are. Even then, however, there is typically wine left in the barrels after, say, a blended or even a single-varietal red wine is made and bottled. Often these lovely “leftover” reds are then blended together, stand extremely well on their own, and sell for $25 a bottle or even less. For example, JM Cellars is currently offering a $25 2014 Bramble Bump Red, Patterson Cellars has its $20 red blend bottle of DUE ANNI, and Pondera Winery has a $19 Cuvée red blend.

“Smaller places like us, we don’t really press the wine that hard, so all production is still of a great quality,” Shane Howard, Winemaker and President at Pondera Winery, recently said about red wine blends $25 and under, “and especially, the way that I do it, I don’t necessarily buy a specific fruit for blending, I choose high-quality fruit that has a distinctiveness to it, and worry about how it all comes out later. As a result, I focus on the artistic side of things. I create wines that I really love.”

If trying Woodinville wines costing $25 and under sounds enticing, on Thursday, February 16th, 2017 at 6:30 p.m., Woodinville Wine Country is hosting “Woodinville Wines Under $25” – an evening of food, red and white wines, and music at Woodinville’s own Willows Lodge. Tickets are $25 and are available online through Woodinville Wine Country. Taste wines from bottles costing $25 or less from some 25+ Woodinville wineries – wineries such as Chateau Ste. Michelle, JM Cellars, Lauren Ashton Cellars, J. Bookwalter Wines, Patterson Cellars, Pondera Winery, William Church Winery, and Woodhouse Wines.

*Photo by Duval Images