Wine Situation Final Five (Now With Drunk Dialing!)

The Wine Situation hosts everyone from winemakers to writers to find out what a person’s situation is…with wine. It’s the solo season, as host Ellen Clifford is in quarantine, but listen in with a glass, and nobody is drinking alone! In lieu of guests, at the end of every action packed episode Ellen is phoning a friend with her Final Five questions. This week Ellen talks to Lisa Warr-King Packer, the winemaker at Warr-King Wines which can be found here and you can use the code thewinesituation to get 20% off at checkout—pour a glass and sip along! And listen to the full episode to learn about Lisa’s journey from the tech world to wine! Check out the full episode here THE FINAL FIVE (Ever so slightly edited for length!): QUESTION ONE Ellen: Do you have a favorite or unusual or surprising food/wine pairing? Or any kind of pairing, really… Lisa: Top Hot Doughnuts makes a really tasty salted caramel doughnut, and it actually pairs really nicely with our Roussanne . It’s delicious. QUESTION TWO Ellen: You are definitely the first person who has ever done a doughnut pairing! Next question is what do you like to drink, alcoholic or not, when not wine? Lisa: I’m an Old Fashioned gal. I like a rye whiskey and I have some cardamom bitters, it’s really delicious, and then—I can’t remember those cherries but it comes in that white and blue jar, and just a little bit of orange. I love it. QUESTION THREE Ellen: I’ve seen that before. You are reminding me I’m out of Luxardo cherries and I need to remedy that. Next question is, when the world opens up again, is there a place you’d like to visit? Lisa: I am going to go to northern Italy . We had a trip planned with our wine club members for last spring that was canceled, then we moved it to this fall and it was canceled, so hopefully in 2022 we’ll get up to northern Italy. And I went to Sonoma last spring and didn’t have enough time, so I do really like the wines out of there, Napa too. I’d like to get back and visit that. And Valle Guadalupe , I want to go there and try their wines. QUESTION FOUR Ellen: Well fly down to Los Angeles and let’s take a little road trip! Question number four is do you have other favorite Washington wineries? Lisa: Oh my gosh there’s so many good ones. Fidelitas is one of my favorites, Corliss — I just had a Corliss and it was lovely. You can’t really go wrong here. We grow so many varieties here and, you look at the Cabs, there are Cabs that stand up to Napa Cabs and they’re half the price. QUESTION FIVE Ellen: The last question for the final five is just what’s bringing you joy these days? Lisa: My crew, in 2020, we had everything and anything thrown at us and it was challenging as all hell being a winemaker and to be the owner of a business, but to have everybody be safe and healthy, and everybody come out the other side has been giving me a lot of joy. I’m glad to see how resilient people are. And I hope we are coming together finally. And I feel like there’s going to be brightness. It might not be until the fall, but I think 2022 is going to be like the roaring 20’s, we’ll unite, be happy, all come together…I’m hopeful. And I’m joyful to hope for that. Check out the previous Wine Situation podcast with Rebecca Rose Phillips here .