This is crazy. Anyone dumb enough to invest in this deserves
to lose their money. The tasting room boom is over. Get it, OVER. It was over in 2008. With over
800 tasting rooms in the state, the crowd has been diluted to a trickle. People
are burned out on high prices, tasting fees, and snobby tasting rooms. Wine is
cheaper at Total Wine and tasting is free.
First of all, to get to the raceway (from Seattle), you have
to pass the Rattlesnake Hills Wine
Trail. Prosser's Vintners Village, Prosser's strip-mall wineries, and Red
Mountain. If you get that far, you are within striking distance of Walla Walla
Walla. Just keep going going going.
Let's look at the Prosser's Vintners' Village, affectionately
known as the 'Park and Drink.' We know sadly that Olsen Estates is gone and the
building is available. Of the seven spots in the Wine Loft (a very cool idea),
at least two spots are available, maybe three, I haven't been there for a
while.
People, not in the industry, have the idea that this is the
goose that laid the golden egg -- and then keeps on laying. Obviously, these
people are not regular visitors to wine tasting rooms. Get over it. Woodinville
has a corner on strip-mall/warehouse tasting rooms. Throw in Ste. Mickey's and
Columbia and you can't compete.
Oh, and if that isn't enough, Plans
Moving Forward for Downtown Kennewick's Wine Village. Wow, a competing wine village in beautiful downtown
Kennewick (wherever that is). It just doesn't get any better. Their big concern
is 'a water treatment plant which is
necessary before any wineries would be able to move in.' Think about that.
The big concern is waste water treatment - not the lack of wineries dumb enough
to move in or the paucity of visitors to go there. Pardon me, but these people
have shit for brains.
One of these crazy plots was explored in Yakima many years
ago. Fortunately, it died without anyone turning a shovel of dirt. A promoter
in Zillah tried to build one. (He didn't taste or buy any wine at my winery, so
I knew he was full of shit.)
My idea for these folks? A pot village modeled after
Amsterdam where you can walk from shop to shop and sample weed. Now that's an
idea that will bring them in. It might even get a wine writer or two.
