City Cellars wine store

Last Friday I had some time to kill between dropping my mom off at the airport and meeting friends for dinner. I headed into Seattle, and had the fun experience of being passed on the I-5 by one of the Blue Angels taking off from Boeing Field, right next to the highway!

I headed up to Wallingford to explore Bottleworks (a great beer store specializing in Belgian beer), but realized that I'd never been to the wine shop next door. So, I popped in to City Cellars instead, and had a great time. They have regular wine-tastings on Friday (for a small fee), so I was able to try three wines and chat to the owners. They're really friendly and the place had a nice vibe... They also have a "sale" section with 100 wines $10 and under. This selection in general is amazing - they had some South African wines I've not seen elsewhere, and some interesting NZ and Ausie wines, as well as the expected selection of American, French and Italian wines. Defintely worth checking out!

Of course, I picked up some wine:

• 2004 Markowitsch Pinot Noir. This is the first Pinot Noir I've come across from Austria, and is supposedly more like cooler climate (NZ) Pinot Noir which I love.
• 2004 Fairvalley Pinotage, from South Africa. A really cheap ($9) Pinotage. I'm interested to see how this compares to the Stormhoek Pinotage I had recently.
• 2001 Vidal Estate Pinot Noir, from New Zealand's South Island. Another NZ Pinot Noir to try...

I'll let you know how these are after I've tried them :)