Savage Grace Wines

This is what a quest brings you! We decided we wanted to go to ‘the end of the road’ in the warehouse district, not knowing which winery we would find. The answer is Savage Grace Wines. What a great winery with the winemaker pouring and sharing the history of the winery as well as the details of production on each wine. The focus on great grapes and what nature literally brings to the table is refreshing and delicious. This place is the real deal… and I dare you to walk out without buying a bottle or more! «Salud» to Savage Grace for a top tier tasting experience and wines that you won’t find anywhere else!

Excellent wines and great little tasting space. The owner was incredibly friendly and this is definitely a tasting room that will be on our list to visit again.

If I hadn’t first heard about Savage Grace before I first visited it, I wonder if I would ever have stumbled across it on my own. It’s tucked at the very back of the main area of the Warehouse District in Woodinville, and apart from an unassuming sandwich board with their name on it sitting at the entrance to the warehouses with all the other boards, there’s not much else to point you there. Once you arrive, though, you’re in for a treat.
Wineries in the Warehouse District, off the beaten tourist path as they are, tend to set themselves apart from other Woodinville wineries, and Savage Grace distinguishes itself even further in that already crowded field of serious winemakers. The emphasis here is on elegance and thoughtfulness with a shot of Old World sensibility. You get a sense of both of these when you taste through the six or seven wines they usually have open. Each time I’ve tasted there I’ve been able to sample the Chardonnay, and it hasn’t disappointed yet. The fruit and oak are carefully balanced, and you taste lots of tart apple and citrus without sacrificing body. They make a solid Sauv Blanc and a really interesting Grunner Veltliner (which you’re not going to see every day in a Washington tasting room). On the red front, there’s a really nifty, light-​bodied but flavorful Pinot Noir that will educate anybody who thinks «Washington Pinot» is an oxymoron. The real star, in this humble writer’s humble opinion, though, is the Cab Franc. I’ll just come out and say it – every time I taste it, I taste France, and every time I taste it I buy at least another bottle.
They’re only open two days a week (Saturday and Sunday) and then only for a few hours. In practice this means that you’re likely to have your wine poured by the winemaker himself, and he’s a treasure trove of information about the journey his grapes make from vineyard to bottle. They have a wine club, but it’s unusual in that you have the option to decline to purchase your allotment while retaining the perks of membership; I find it to be a very congenial arrangement and hope other wineries adopt this model. Lastly, the folks there (essentially the winemaker et ux.) are just plain nice and incredibly humble and unassuming about the really impressive wines they make.
Bottom line: If you’re in the Warehouse District on a Saturday or Sunday, make your way all the way to the back for a taste of some of the most elegant and thoughtful wines in Washington.