Oftentimes, pairings that sound curiously strange are actually quite phenomenal if you give them a chance.  Case in point: chocolate and peanut butter, bananas and (you guessed it!) peanut butter, or my personal favorite (trust me on this one)peanut butter on a burger-mmmmm.  There are not many things I like as much as I like peanut butter enough to try them with just about anything else, but luckily for me there is one—wine.  I’ve tried wine in movie theaters with great success, wine whilst sailing also works as long as its your own boat and you own a pressure washer, and dare I say I’ve also ventured a glass in planes, trains and automobiles (the last only as a passenger and under the sneaky handle “road soda”).  Given my penchant for wine during transport, it’s a wonder I hadn’t stumbled upon wine-drinking while horseback riding before, but you can bet I signed up the second I made the discovery.

Pepper and Terry Fewel know a bit about marriage from personal experience, so when they decided to marry horses and wine, they must have had intuition that it would work well.  They operate a working farm as a Bed and Breakfast called Cherry Wood complete with luxury teepees and decked out retro trailers as lodging options, so it’s no wonder they thought up as unconventional a concept as wine riding to add to the mix.   For the more delicate among us, they can arrange for a horse-drawn carriage, but we were feeling feisty and so opted for the true cowboys and wine approach.  The ride itself winds through vineyards and orchards, comes complete with lunch, and of course makes a point to hit up tasting rooms along the way. 

The main difference between drinking wine and riding a horse and drinking wine while flying, say, is that horses are extremely animate creatures. It’s a lot like riding on the back of another human, albeit one with a thousand pounds of muscle and a penchant for grass (not that kind, silly!).  Because the horses can be as fickle as you or me in their mannerisms, actually drinking while on the horse is not permitted, which is a good thing since you have plenty of opportunity when you dismount at each of the several wineries to quench your thirst.  There were four of us riders total on the day we chose, so it wasn’t too difficult for our guide to match us with compatible horses.  I should have known what king of ride I’d be in for when I discovered that my horse shared a name with my husband’s last girlfriend before we were married, but I gave Missy the benefit of the doubt and hoped she would be a trusty steed. 

It was obvious from the start that Missy preferred a canter to a trot and a gallop to a canter at that, which would have been a lot of fun under normal circumstances, but when your reflexes are dulled by libations under the hot sun, a gentle pace is probably best.  Despite her wild ways, she only really got out of hand once when a couple of dogs came out of nowhere and startled her with their barking.  We happened to be adjacent to a very unforgiving apple tree, and when Missy saw the dogs she careened right into it. I think I took out 20 apples with my head alone, but I actually came out rather unscathed and with a big smile on my face.  I guess it added to the ambience of wine tasting western-style! 

The ride itself was replete with scenery practically out of Under the Tuscan Sun. The rolling hills of the Yakima Valley are on the verge of discovery by the global wine community- I would urge you to get out and see this country before it turns into the wine-centric amusement park that’s become Napa.  We had the opportunity to trot through many vineyards just before harvest, and let me tell you it was not easy following the one rule of the ride which was not to pick the fruit.  Luckily we were able to sample the finished product often enough at the tasting rooms along the way to make it all worthwhile.

With Cherry Wood being less than three hours from the madness and clouds that is Seattle, it gets my vote for being one of the best quick escapes around.  How can you not feel transported to a calmer reality when all you have to worry about is the distance as the horse trots to the nearest winery and whether to order a glass or a bottle to go along with lunch?