C4
EAT, DRINK & EXPLORE
East Oregonian
Saturday, September 7, 2019
Luxury and wine beckon in Walla Walla
By JOHN GOTTBERG
ANDERSON
For EO Media Group
WALLA
WALLA,
Wash. — Anand and Naina
Rao could have chosen to
live anywhere in the world.
They opted to settle in a
small prairie city at the foot
of the Blue Mountains.
Raised in Kenya by
Indian parents, educated in
England and Switzerland,
the gracious couple spent a
career in management and
design with luxury hotel
groups. They lived in Paris,
Kuwait, Bangkok, Atlanta
and Washington, D.C.,
among other cities. They
worked for companies like
Hilton International and
Ritz-Carlton.
In 2007, when their son
was in school in Seattle,
the Raos bought a piece
of farmland 7 miles west
of Walla Walla, not far
from the Marcus Whitman
National Historic Site. In
2015 they retired to their
would-be estate. Armed
with a creative vision and
modest savings, they built a
private retreat that blended
perfectly with the natural
environment. They called it
“The Barn.”
The Barn opened on
April 1 as a seven-room
bed-and-breakfast inn.
“We didn’t want it to be
big,” Anand said. “We knew
it would be purpose-built.
We could make every little
detail happen.”
The inn pairs the sim-
plicity of oasislike guest
houses, one of them in a gra-
nary, with special touches of
the Ritz. Guests feel it in the
mattresses, the pillows, the
bath amenities. An outdoor
shower occupies a corner of
a rocky courtyard that could
double as a meditation gar-
den. A wine cooler chills
the selections guests have
made at vineyards during
daytime excursions.
The “barn” itself is a
common area adorned not
with stable tack, but with a
lifetime of the hosts’ mem-
ories — paintings, carv-
ings, mirrors, door frames
and musical instruments
from
Kenya,
Tunisia,
Kuwait, France and Thai-
land. Breakfasts are served
here each morning, the joint
effort of Naina and young
chef Elizabeth Garza.
Always globally inspired,
they range from Moroccan
shakshuka to Mexican hua-
raches. Monday and Thurs-
day night dinners have a
similar international flair.
During my visit, I was
immediately made to feel
a part of the Rao family
with a heartfelt reception,
rare in the world of hospi-
tality. One might say the
couple are paying it for-
ward. “There’s a beauty, a
tranquility, in Walla Walla,
that blows us away,” Anand
said. “Our goal is to create
a special place, with its own
magic, to make people feel
special.”
Even Justin Wylie, a
rival hotel owner, recog-
nizes the Raos’ accom-
plishment. “They are help-
ing to change the dynamic
of hospitality here in Walla
Walla,” said the founder of
Va Piano Vineyards and the
new Eritage Resort.
The Eritage Resort
Eritage opened in mid-
2018 6 miles north of the
city, where the valley begins
to fold into the Palouse
Hills. Prior to its establish-
ment, Walla Walla had no
go-to luxury getaway. Only
the venerable 1927 Mar-
cus Whitman Hotel in the
heart of downtown rose
above a flurry of franchise
motels and ma-and-pa lodg-
ings, many of them serving
Whitman College visitors.
A visionary, Wylie had
purchased 300 acres for the
resort 10 years earlier. The
Walla Walla native earned
his degree from Gonzaga
University in Spokane,
Washington, and fled to the
vineyards of Italy’s Tuscany
region before returning to
his hometown as a wine-
maker. The first crush at Va
Piano Vineyards (the name
means “go slowly”) took
place in 2003. The winery
expanded to Bend in 2015
with a tasting room in the
Old Mill.
Wylie had seen the Walla
Walla wine industry grow
from its infancy in the late
1970s to become one of
the most highly regarded
in the nation: Today, its
If you go
(All addresses in Walla Walla)
INFORMATION
Visit Walla Walla. 26 E. Main St.; www.wallawalla.org. 509-
525-8799.
WHERE TO STAY
The Barn B&B. 1624 Stovall Road; bnbwallawalla, 509-795-
0250. Rates from $350.
Eritage Resort. 1319 Bergevin Springs Road; eritageresort.
com, 509-394-9200. Rates from $319.
The Marcus Whitman Hotel. 6 W. Rose St.; marcuswhitman-
hotel.com, 866-826-9422. Rates from $129.
WHERE TO DINE
Andrae’s Kitchen. 706 W. Rose St. www.andraeskitchen.
com, 509-572-0728. Breakfast and lunch every day, dinner
Monday to Saturday.
Brasserie Four. 4 E. Main St.; brasseriefour.com, 509-529-
2011. Dinner only Tuesday to Thursday, lunch and dinner
Friday and Saturday.
Hattaway’s on Alder. 125 W. Alder St.; hattawaysonalder.
com, 509-525-4433. Dinner every day, brunch Saturday and
Sunday.
Saffron Mediterranean Kitchen. 330 W. Main St.; saffron-
mediterraneankitchen.com, 509-525-2112. Late lunch and
dinner every day.
Walla Walla Steak Company. 416 N. Second Ave.; wwsteak-
co.com, 509-526-4100. Dinner every day.
Whitehouse-Crawford. 55 W. Cherry St.; whitehousecraw-
ford.com, 509-525-2222. Dinner Wednesday to Monday.
WINERIES
Bledsoe Family Winery. 229 E. Main St.; bledsoefamilywin-
ery.com, 509-525-3334.
Doubleback. 3853 Powerline Road; doubleback.com, 509-
525-3334.
TruthTeller Winery. 47 E. Main St.; truthtellerwinery.com,
425-985-3568.
Valdemar Family Estates. 3808 Rolling Hills Lane; valdemar-
estates.com. 509-876-6762.
Va Piano Vineyards. 1793 J.B. George Road; vapianovine-
yards.com, 509-529-0900.
140-odd wineries make it
a prime wine destination.
But it didn’t have the lodg-
ing-and-dining infrastruc-
ture of California’s Napa
and Sonoma valleys, or
even Oregon’s Willamette
Valley.
“We are an authentic
farming community that
grows seed grass, wheat
and grapes,” Wylie said.
“So our next step was to
really focus on executing
the hospitality.”
He teamed with Bend-
based developer Scott
Knox, who built an ele-
gant hotel with rooflines
that mimic the surround-
ing hills. Ten suites in the
main hotel, and 10 more
bungalows facing intimate
Lake Sienna, offer expan-
sive views among acres of
vineyards. There are lawn
games, water sports and
fine dining overseen by
executive chef Brian Price.
Dining out
Wylie met me for din-
ner at the Walla Walla Steak
Company, which opened
last year in the city’s 1914
Northern Pacific railway
depot. Built of red brick on
a sandstone foundation, the
station has retained its orig-
inal wood floors, respect-
fully restored and hand-
somely accented with rustic
fixtures and leather uphol-
stery. It shares a wall with
Crossbuck Brewing, a pop-
ular pub demonstrating
that the city has great beers
along with fine wines.
Jim Kiefer manages the
Steak Company. He assured
that our steaks were as deli-
cious as the vintage bot-
tle of Va Piano syrah that
Wylie shared.
I sampled more of Va Pia-
no’s goodness the following
day at his vineyards, located
less than a mile north of the
Oregon state line.
But my host understood
that one can’t live on steak
alone. He recommended
these other Walla Walla
restaurants:
• Whitehouse-Crawford,
chef-owner Jamie Guerin’s
long-popular restaurant in
a converted lumber-plan-
ing mill. The wine-country
menu is eclectic and hearty.
• Brasserie Four, a dis-
tinctly French restaurant
on Main Street in the heart
of the city. The menu is
Parisian, the wine and art
mostly local.
• Saffron, whose menu
hits all corners of the Med-
iterranean, from Spain and
Italy to the Middle East. A
new West Main Street loca-
tion makes it more spacious.
• Hattaway’s on Alder,
which opened a couple of
years ago in the former Saf-
fron digs. Its cuisine is decid-
edly Southern-influenced.
• A popular stop for a
casual lunch is Andrae’s
Kitchen, in a former Cenex
minimart on the west side
of town. New York chef
Andrae Bopp has per-
fected the concept of food
truck-moves-indoors.
Doubling back
Upon his retirement
from the NFL, Bend resi-
dent Drew Bledsoe “dou-
bled back” to his roots, to
the town where he once
was a high school star, and
began a new career in the
wine business. Today, Bled-
soe’s Doubleback wines are
among the most exclusive
in the valley, with cabernet
sauvignons fetching upward
of $100 a bottle.
Doubleback is open by
appointment only. Bled-
soe introduced me to Josh
McDaniels, the company’s
president and director of
winemaking, who greeted
me at the southeast Walla
Walla winery and gave me
a tour.
“When Drew came out
of the NFL and started a
winery, he wasn’t a big ego-
tistical athlete,” McDan-
iels recalled. “He wanted
to base the business on a
single quality wine. It was
really important for him to
get away from the celebrity
thing.”
The cabernet they have
perfected is a wine of
understated elegance, rich
and full-bodied, with flavor
and balance.
“We want a wine that is
approachable on opening,
but which peaks between
five and 20 years,” McDan-
iels said.
Grapes chosen for the
Doubleback label are “the
best of the best,” he said.
The second tier go into
Bledsoe Family Wines —
not just cabernets, but also
syrah, chardonnay, rosé and
a red blend. These are more
modestly priced; they come
from several vineyards in
different parts of the Walla
Walla valley.
The Bledsoe Family Win-
ery welcomes walk-ins from
Wednesday to Saturday.
One of about three dozen
tasting rooms in downtown
Walla Walla, it is a model for
a new Bledsoe Family Win-
ery tasting room scheduled
to open in Bend’s Box Fac-
tory in early August.
Among other new down-
town wineries is Truth-
Teller. Winemaker and
co-owner Chris Loeliger
left his job in aerospace
engineering when he got
hooked on winemaking as
a hobby. He first opened in
Woodinville, near Seattle,
in 2014, then in Walla Walla
a year ago.
“There are very few of us
who exist on both sides of
Washington state,” he said,
proudly.
The most impressive new
winery in the valley is Valde-
mar Family Estates, which
opened in April 2018. Situ-
ated immediately south of
Amavi Cellars, Valdemar
has a distinctly European fla-
vor. Owner Jésus Martínez
Bujanda,
fifth-generation
scion of a wine family in
Spain’s Rioja region, made
a $20 million investment in
Walla Walla. He retained
French winemaker Marie-
Eve Gilla, who spent the pre-
vious 17 years at Forgeron
Cellars, to produce the new
winery’s vintages. They may
be enjoyed with a menu of
tapas and other Iberian foods
imported directly from the
old country.
With a nudge from the young and sober, mocktails taking hold
By LEANNE ITALIE
Associated Press
NEW YORK — Five
years ago, for her 27th birth-
day, Lorelei Bandrovschi
gave up drinking for a month
on a dare. She was a casual
drinker and figured it would
be easy. It was, but she hadn’t
banked on learning so much
about herself in the process.
“I realized that going out
without drinking was some-
thing that I really enjoyed and
that I was very well suited
for,” she told The Associated
Press. “I realized I’m a pretty
extroverted, spontaneous,
uninhibited person.”
And that’s how Listen Bar
was born on Bleecker Street
downtown. At just under a
year old, the bar that Band-
rovschi opens only once a
month is alcohol-free, one of
a growing number of sober
bars popping up around the
country.
Booze-free bars serv-
ing elevated “mocktails” are
attracting more young peo-
ple than ever before, espe-
cially women. The uptick
comes as fewer people over-
all are drinking alcohol away
from home and the #MeToo
movement has women seek-
ing a more comfortable bar
environment, said Amanda
Topper, associate director of
food-service research for the
global market research firm
Mintel.
Mocktails aren’t just pro-
liferating at sober bars. Reg-
ular bars and restaurants
are cluing into the idea that
alcohol-free customers want
more than a Shirley Temple
or a splash of cranberry with
a spritz.
Alcohol-free
mixed
drinks grew 35% as a bev-
erage type on the menus of
bars and restaurants from
2016 to this year, according
to Mintel. Topper said 17%
Saleina Marie Photography via AP
A bartender serves patrons Rae of Sunshine mocktails at Sans Bar pop-up bar at The Factory Luxe in Seattle, a Marnie Rae
launch party for National Mocktail Week.
AP Photo/Leanne Italie
Cat Tjan, 27, of Jersey City, N.J., left, and Ammar Farooqi, 26,
from Williamstown, N.J., posing with their mocktail dubbed
Me, A Houseplant. The mocktail is a green concoction com-
prised of Seedlip’s Garden 108 variety (the one with the peas),
cucumber, lemon and elderflower at Listen Bar in New York.
AP Photo/Erin Minichiello
Lauren Minichiello, 11, holds a Rose Martini mocktail at a
restaurant at Wequassett Resort and Golf Club in Harwich,
Massachusetts.
of 1,288 people surveyed
between the ages of 22 to 24
who drink away from home
said they’re interested in
mocktails.
The interest, she said, is
also driven in part by the
health and wellness move-
ment, and the availability of
higher quality ingredients
as bartenders take mocktails
more seriously.
“It really started a few
years ago with the whole
idea of dry January, when
consumers cut out alco-
hol for that month,” Topper
said. “It’s shifted to a long-
term movement and lifestyle
choice.”
Listen Bar recently hosted
a mocktail competition for
mixologists, who whipped
up drinks that included The
Holy Would, comprised of
citrusy, distilled, non-al-
coholic Seedlip Grove 42,
palo santo syrup, low-acid
apple juice, lemon and lime
bitters produced with glyc-
erin, and verjus, the pressed
juice of unripened grapes.
The drink is the brainchild
of Fred Beebe, a bartender
at Sunday in Brooklyn. The
restaurant isn’t alcohol-free,
but Beebe helped create an
extensive mocktail menu that
goes well beyond the sugary
choices of yore, using unique
ingredients.
Palo santo, for instance, is
a tree native to Peru, Vene-
zuela and Mexico’s Yucatan
Peninsula that loosely trans-
lates to “holy wood” and is
widely used in folk remedies.
“Everybody should be
able to have a delicious drink
at a bar,” Beebe said. “Hospi-
tality is making sure every-
body has a good time. Alco-
hol, for me, is not the most
important part of a cocktail
anymore. The cool juices
and syrups and tinctures and
mixtures and all that stuff
makes a lot of the fun.”