I have to tell you about a recent trip that took us through Sea-Tac International Airport up in the breezy and beautiful Pacific Northwest.
We arrived at the airport in plenty of time to grab lunch (a decent lunch, we hoped) before we boarded our plane for home. I took a walk around the concourse area to check out the restaurant scene and left my significant other standing in line at Starbuck’s for a temporary fix.
Checking out restaurants is something I do well.
It was an eclectic array. From Burger King to Wolfgang Puck’s Express and Maki of Japan to Ivar’s Seafood Bar I wasn’t excited about any of them. But then I walked down the other side of the concourse and saw Vino Volo.
Vino Volo translates to Wine Flight. Sleek and hip, tan and black, table and bar seating, I slowed down, peered in and kept going. Good wine in an airport? Yeah, right. Even if the wine was good, it was probably an amateur, if not sincere, operation. No, I’m not a snob, and that’s the point. Wine is so often used as an affectation in business, to elevate the ambiance or create subtle intimidation; restaurants, retailers and even winery tasting rooms do it all the time, subtly and not so subtly.
But I was drawn to check out Vino Volo again. I picked up a menu perched on a café table near the entrance, and got a good feeling. Flights of wines (a flight is 3 two ounce tastes), some light, wine-friendly food, good prices. I looked in, easy to do, because it was open and airy. No one was in there at 11:30 on a Thursday. I retrieved Greg, who had consumed a Starbuck’s mocha by then but has an endless pit for a stomach, and we ventured in.
To make a long story short, it was one of the best wine encounters we’ve had in a long time. The two thirty-something gents working the room were gracious, friendly and just-the-right-kind-of “knowledgeable” about wine. We could order by the glass or by the flight. We shared two flights, one of Washington State syrahs and one of World Reds. The wines were attractively and neatly presented on raised platforms with succinct descriptions. For food (after all, we don’t usually drink our lunch) we chose from a selection of “small bites.” We split a cheese tray and a chicken rosemary sandwich on focaccia. It was darned good.
The prices were excellent; the flights began at $7 and the food offerings at about $5. We could also have chosen a glass of Caymus Napa Valley Reserve Cabernet for $43. Instead, we capped off our lunch with a good glass of viognier from a Washington state producer (shame on me for not remembering the name) for about $6. In fact, the Vino Volo staff gave us a taste of both the current and last year’s vintage of that viognier, a nice service touch. In total, we spent about $35, not bad for a great lunch - at an airport! We walked to our gate satiated, warm and toasty, passing all the “regular restaurants” we might have landed in had we not found Vino Volo. What a great discovery!
Vino Volo is located in Sea-Tac’s Central Terminal Marketplace next to Borders Books. They’re also at Dulles in Washington D.C. and Sacramento.
I’m going to give you a suggestion for a new wine to try each month. I will try to choose wines that are readily available across the country in supermarkets, since that’s where most of us buy wine regularly. My pick for February: 2004 The Stump Jump, a blend of Riesling, Sauvignon Blanc and Marsanne, from Australia. Sweetly dry. Very different. Try it.
