Arriving to Chateau Ste. Michelle Winery located in Woodinville Washington (approx. 30-45 minutes outside of Seattle) for our Winemaker for a Day Blending Experience. I’m so excited…. I visited Chateau Ste. Michelle Winery a few years ago but it was before the blog so I have never written about it or visited and experienced any of their amazing experiences offered to guests. See more about the Winemaker for a Day Blending class below.

Arriving to the stunning Chateau Ste. Michelle Winery. Their retail shop is absolutely beyond incredible I wanted to buy everything.

Arriving to the Chateau Ste. Michelle Winery Blend for a day Winemaking Experience. It’s so professional, I really feel as if I’m in a lab ready to make wine.

Cheers, let’s see how my wine blending skills are!

I love the line up of Chateau Ste. Michelle Winery Wines. So many options to choose from for my blend.

As the class commenced we were welcomed by winemaker Bob Bertheau who welcomed us and explained the blending experience we were about to begin.

This is the line up of wines we would taste to determine the best blend for our wine. This was not only a fun but also delicious experience.  Each of these wines was quite lovely and fabulous it it’s own way. Blending is hard, you have to pick favorites and see (test for that matter) what wines work well together producing a flavorful and commercial (meaning a wine not just I like but that could sell to the masses) wine.

Check out the barrels in the back of the view. That’s where we will select the wines to make in our blend. This class was so cool and so hands on. I highly recommend it for any wine lovers wanting to get a better understanding of how wine is really made and make their own wine.

Starting to blend. First we tasted each wine on it’s own and took notes of the flavors. That is how we then determined what % of each wine we wanted in our blend.

Let the blending begin! First you use the percentages I noted on the card to make a mini taste (in the small bleaker). Then once you know if you like that you use the larger beaker to make the final blend which you get to take home in a wine bottle.

My sister Lise joined me for the afternoon and also had a blast. This was her first blending class and I think she’s considering a career in wine after how much fun she had!

You get to make two blends which is great so you can adjust your second blend based on what you liked in the first. It’s quite technical. Each of the blends must add up to 100% so you could do something with 70% Cabernet, 30% Cab Franc. I did a more complex blend with 4-5 wines in each. 

The bottling and corking line.

This is where my blend gets bottled and then corked.

Voila my blend is done! And the best part is if I lose my notes they keep a record of the blend so I can order more in the future and have the exact blend in their records. Brilliant! The team at Chateau Ste. Michelle really is brilliant. This class was so much fun, educational and a great way to really get involved in the winemaking process and understand how the various varietals (Cabernet Sauvignon, Cab Franc, Merlot and Malbec) plus the vineyard profiles impact the wine flavors and results. Book your blending class online here which is $125 per person $95 for members) and so worth it.  Classes are offered 10:30am & 2:30pm and last approximately 90 minutes.

All smiles after doing some shopping in the store and heading home with my fabulous Chateau Ste. Michelle blend.

Cheers to a lovely afternoon getting to do what I love most, experiencing a new winery and sharing that plus a super fun experience with my sister Lise. Thanks to Chateau Ste. Michelle for sponsoring this blog post and hosting us for the afternoon!