This week I had the opportunity to participate in Ray’s annual retrospective of Northwest wines. For two days, the boathouse is full of sommeliers, wine shop owners, and writers all tasting through hundreds of Northwest wines and evaluating them based on nose, palate, and finish. (Once the winners are announced I’ll write about my findings—we tasted the wines blind, but at the end the staff gave us a key and a copy of our notes.)

Anyway on Friday, January 28 at 6:30pm, Ray’s is holding a dinner featuring the top-scoring wines, and the winning winemakers will be there. It’s a multi-course meal created by executive chef Peter Birk to pair with the wines, and it costs $75. Seems like a good opportunity to taste wines that are pouring really well right now, and meet the people who make them. You know, if you’re into that sort of thing.