Month: November 2022

Temporary Covid allowances for wineries have expired

As Washington State’s pandemic order was lifted as of September 30, 2022, temporary allowances for wineries that were in place have now expired. One we know of significant importance to our members was:

  • The MAST 13 permit which allowed 18-20-year-olds to pre-pour samples, flights, and glasses of wine or beer for customers away from the customer’s table instead of having to pour wine or beer at the customer’s table. A person 21 years or older must be on duty supervising the sale. Washington Wine Institute is working with the LCB on rulemaking to make these changes permanent based on feedback from WWI members being favorable towards these allowances.

Curbside and home delivery is still allowed after the passage of HB 1480 in 2021 that created three-year temporary allowances for to-go sales from the tasting room, curbside service, and home delivery sales were allowed to continue.

Sleight of Hand Cellars

 

ABOUT SLEIGHT OF HAND CELLARS

Sleight of Hand Cellars was founded in 2007 by Trey Busch and Jerry and Sandy Solomon. Our only goal from the outset has been to make world class wines while having the most fun that is legally possible. Our love of great wines from around the world, and our love of music, have inspired our vision and growth and have helped us reach a customer base that has the same passions as we do.

The winery has been open for just a dozen years, but in that time Sleight of Hand Cellars has been named one of “The Next Generation” of up and coming wineries in Washington State, as well as one of “The Next Cult Wineries” by Seattle Magazine. In addition, we have been featured in Wine Spectator magazine and had numerous wines in various of the industry’s “Top 100” lists, including, most recently, being named to the 2018 Wine Spectator Top 100 for our Levitation Syrah.

The Wine Advocate had this to say about our wines: “While I’ve always loved the wines from these guys, they’ve hit a new level recently, and the wines are now up there with the crème’ de la crème’ of the state (and beyond).”

These and other accolades forced our hand, and in 2011 the winery moved from a storefront location to its current property in southern Walla Walla where we continue to focus on the goal of making wines that compete with the best in the world, from a combination of Estate vineyards and non-estate vineyards in some of the top vineyard sites in Washington State. Upon acquiring our current property, the winery built a tasting room and production facility, and in 2014 we broke ground on a second barrel room to handle not only our increasing production levels, but also to allow us more space for more “toys” in keeping with our philosophy that every year offers an opportunity to make even better wines. In 2018, we crushed 164 tons of fruit, and we expect to bottle close to 10,000 cases of wine—which more than maxes out our current facility. With the past years’ increases in production, and our love for sharing our wines, in mid-2016 we began work on a tasting room in the SODO area of Seattle, which opened in August 2016.

Our tasting rooms are something everyone who loves wine and music should experience at least once (and hopefully often). We have over 2,000 albums from a wide range of musical genre, with turntables spinning vinyl in both of our tasting rooms as well in our new Wine Club Lounge at our Walla Walla property. Our love of ALL music inspires the wines we make (the production facility always has music—usually Seattle’s KEXP radio station–playing) as well as our marketing approach to reach our customers (we have the best winery t-shirts in the business). And our wine club, The Wine Illusionist Society, gets to enjoy our collaboration with one of our favorite music labels, Sub Pop Records in Seattle, because with each shipment we send them the latest and greatest songs on Sub Pop via digital download! 

Great wine, great music, and lots of fun—that’s our recipe for the Sleight of Hand lifestyle.

Source: Sleight of Hand Cellars