Small Town News

Expanded tour sessions inform, delight FCAD visitors

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A green city tour bus pulled into the Jones of Washington tasting room parking lot off Highway 28 in west Quincy on a fairly hot late summer morning last Saturday. About 25 people eagerly shuffled off the vehicle and were warmly greeted at the door by Jones employee Mara Jacobs, who greeted the visitors alternately with a smile and a glass of viognier, a white vintage.

"This has been sitting in oak for three months," Jacobs said as the tour group entered the small, but intimate tasting room, carved out of aback corner of a controlled atmosphere storage building. "As a result, it's really light."

Jacobs knew the Farmer-Consumer Awareness Days tour would Only last 45 minutes, so she wanted to make sure her visitors didn't waste a second. She went on to serve eight more of Jones' varieties, including one of their best, an award-winning 2005 Cabernet Sauvignon;one of their newest, a rose made of Syrah grapes; and one of their classics, a cab blend called Jack's Reserve, named for Jones of Washington owner Jack Jones.

With each round of drinks, Jacobs enthusiastically answered questions about the wines, the vineyard and her connection to the Jones fam-ily. "I'm a family friend," she said. "I'm passionate about wine, so this is a fun environment to work in."

Jack Jones started planting wine grapes on the Wahluke Slope in 1997. Jones Vineyards in the Quincy and Mattawa areas primarily contracts its wine grapes to other wineries throughout Washington and the United States, with only select grapes going into the Jones of Washington wines, with Greg Jones, Jack's son, overseeing operations.

Several members of the tour group evidently liked what they tasted, because they purchased a bottle -- or two -- of their favorite varieties after the tour was concluded. Superlatives such as "fun" and "entertaining" could be heard from tour members as they filed out of the tasting room and headed back on to the bus.

The Jones of Washington tour was one of several FC AD tours that filled up very quickly.Sonia Padron, the tours' coordinator, said having wineries such as Jones and Cave B Estates participate strengthens the schedule.

"It's great," Padron said. "Grapes are a big part of the community. With more and more wineries being established in the area, it's important to include them as one of our key crops, along with potatoes, carrots, apples and everything else that we have."

Besides the two wine tours, there were five others on this year's schedule -- Low Gap Produce hydroponic tomatoes (two separate tours); two geology sessions that took interested observers through the Columbia Basin; SunCrest Alpacas; Basin Crops; and Blakal Packing, Inc.

"The tours were one of the best tour sessions we've had," Padron said. "That's not to say that the tours haven't been good in the past, but overall they were very well attended, and we had a lot of good feedback about the variety we had to offer."



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© 2009 The Quincy Valley Post-Register Quincy, California. All Rights Reserved. This content, including derivations, may not be stored or distributed in any manner, disseminated, published, broadcast, rewritten or reproduced without express, written consent from DAS.

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