Two winery restaurants in Woodinville stand out

WOODINVILLE — You wouldn’t expect to get world-class pizza at a winery, but the Margherita pizza at the Novelty Hill – Januik Winery in Woodinville is truly special.

The wood-fired pizza has a crunch to it that makes chewing a pleasure.

I enjoyed my meal surrounded by trees and native Northwestern plants in the winery’s two-level garden.

Wine tasting flights are available as well as other interesting dishes. It’s also fun to explore the working winery. Windows inside offer a glimpse into the wine-making process, such as the r0ws of barrels that age the wine.

The fact that there are wineries in Woodinville is an anomaly that exists because of a business decision made years ago.

There are no wine grapes in Woodinville. It’s too cold for the grapes to grow. The most celebrated wine regions in Washington are several hundred miles away from Woodinville.

So, what’s going on here in Woodinville, a town of 13,000 residents in King County, 19 miles from Seattle and near the Snohomish County border?

It started in 1976 when American Tobacco, the new owners of what was called Ste. Michelle Vintners, led by wine executive Wally Opdycke, acquired the run-down 1913 estate of lumber baron Frederick Simpson in Woodinville.

The idea was to continue to procure their grapes from rural Washington but for the winery to be near the populous Seattle metro area.

An elaborate French chateau was built on Simpson’s estate to produce wine and offer tour and tasting experiences.

The idea — which worked — was that this would draw attention to Ste. Michelle’s wines because it would be a novel experience for Seattle area residents to visit a winery in their backyard.

The Chateau Ste. Michelle winery and brand was born and other wineries followed in their footsteps, attracted to the formula of producing wines in Woodinville even though their grapes were several hundred miles away.

They were joined by tasting rooms in Woodinville after a Washington State law in 2000 allowed wineries to offer off-site consumption even if they had no production facilities at their tasting-room location.

Today, there are more than 130 wineries and tasting rooms in Woodinville.

But most don’t serve food, except for cheese and charcuterie boards.

And many of the tasting rooms unfortunately are located in bland small spaces cramped next to each other in industrial park-type settings. It’s like drinking wine in your garage — so much for the romance of wine.

But at Novelty Hill – Januik, I was in paradise as I munched my pizza at the wine complex’s modernist building. It’s one of two wineries in Woodinville with extensive food offerings.

The single-story building housing the winery with its gardens reminded me of the fancy wineries I would find in Napa Valley.

Chef Jason Northern explained to me that my pizza was a traditional Tuscan-style pizza.

“No machinery is involved in how the dough is stretched and formed. It’s all done by hand,” he said.

Northern said kitchen workers can’t even use a rolling pin.

He explained that the stretching of the dough improves the pizza by developing an airy and chewy crust. It also allows air bubbles to be preserved within the dough, leading to a lighter texture.

I didn’t feel the pizza had as soft a taste as you would find in the typical American pizza experience. Northern said that is intentional.

“I am aiming for a crackery bit of crunch to the undercarriage — the bottom half of the pizza,” he said.

In addition to the Margherita pizza, other pies offered are the Mediterranean Zucchini, Chicken, Asparagus & More, and Hot Honey & Pepperoni.

The pizza types can rotate, but the Margherita pizza is a standard part of the menu.

The winery restaurant, which is open Friday through Sunday, features a variety of other dishes. One popular item, Northern said, is the Parisian Gnocchi with porcini mushrooms, lardons, parmesan bordo and foam.

There are appetizers, like roasted garlic fries, and other entrees, like an octopus and mussels vadouvan featuring slow-cooked Spanish octopus, local mussels, sweet corn, vadouvan, spice curry, Calabrian pepper rouille and taro root haystack.

Donny Januik, the winery’s general manager, said the good food and garden setting is keeping with what wine is about — enhancing the experience of life.

“We are always a winery, first and foremost,” he said, noting that the “scenery and environment contribute to a greater goal of transcedance.”

Donny’s father, Mike, is a legend in the Washington wine world and serves as the winery’s owner and winemaker.

He was named one of the world’s 10 masters of Merlot by Wine Enthusiast Magazine and was the head winemaker at Chateau Ste. Michelle for 10 years before starting his own winery.

The Novelty Hill – Januik Winery produces three brands of wines. There is Novelty Hill, which is owned by a separate family, Januik and its families wine, and the wine line produced by Andrew Janiuk, another son of Mike.

Donny Januik said his family loves the Seattle area and his father was set on Woodinville for his new winery when he opened it in 1999.

Novelty Hill – Januik gets its grapes from various wineries in the Columbia Valley, several hundred miles from Woodinville.

Before I left the winery, I tried a dessert wine, the Novelty Hill Stillwater Creek Vineyard Late Harvest Semillon.

The taste of fresh apricot mingling with wild honey was strong, sweet and an enjoyable treat.

Where Woodinville and wine got its start, The Chateau Ste. Michelle sits across the street from Novelty Hill – Januik. But, sadly for wine fans, it is not a real winery anymore. However, wine tastings with optional food bites and tours of the manicured grounds are still offered.

Its grounds are also used for a popular summer concert series.

In 2021, private equity company Sycamore Partners bought the winery for $1.2 billion. The following year, it shifted white wine production to Eastern Washington in what officials said was a move to reduce transportation costs and have a greater impact on the environment.

“Producing wine in Woodinville so far removed from our Eastern Washington vineyards have resulted in decades of shipping millions of gallons of white to our Woodinville facility and burning nearly 75,000 gallons of diesel through over 1,600 freight trips each year,” the winery said in a statement in June 2022.

The Chateau Ste. Michelle brand is not only Washington’s largest, it and other lines owned by Sycamore Partners make it one of the largest wine companies in the U.S.

Another working winery in Woodinville with food outside of Novelty Hill – Januik is DeLille Cellars.

Founded in 1992, DeLille still produces its wine brand at its Woodinville facility located in the old Redhook Brewery.

The winery offers tastings daily in several indoor and outdoor tasting rooms on three floors, but a 90-minute experience on weekends also includes an actual tour of the winery and food bits.

The Saturday and Sunday experiences run only from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. through the end of September and costs $90. Reservations are required.

The winery also operates a large restaurant on its grounds called The Restaurant at DeLille.

The menu is expensive and offers chicken, steak, fish and pasta dishes paired with, of course, DeLille wine.

I tried the signature mushroom toast appetizer, which my waiter said was the most popular item on the menu.

I understand why.

The blend of cremini, shiitake and brown beech mushrooms, mascarpone and arugula is served on a house-made whole grain bread.

I enjoyed the creamy richness of the mushrooms and the contrasting crunch of the bread and the arugula.

The restaurant offers food and wine pairings, wine flights, a cheese flight and a mini-dessert flight.

The mini-dessert flight featured olive oil cake with strawberries and candied pistachio, snickers coup with chocolate mousse, peanut butter fluff, chocolate ganache and salted caramel ice cream, a flourless chocolate torte with seasonal berries and coconut milk espresso ganache, and finally a vanilla cinnamon creme brulee.

The flight was decadent and rich, and I am ashamed to go to the next appointment with the nutritionist.

I was also impressed with the restaurant’s outdoor dining deck, which is surrounded by trees and wetlands, a tranquil setting to enjoy a meal.

Brittney Watson, the winery’s marketing manager, said the restaurant enables customers to have a full food and wine pairing experience.

She said the eatery is so popular that DeLille will be opening a second restaurant at the University Village shopping complex in Seattle later in the summer.

Not being a big wine drinker and with a drive home, I didn’t indulge in any of more than a dozen Bordeaux-and Rhoe-style blends that the winery sources from the Columbia Valley.

But I will be back for more food samplings at both Novelty Hill – Januik Winery and The Restaurant at DeLille Cellars. I do want to see the real Washington wine country on a road trip, but it is a long drive. The Chateau Ste. Michelle officials were right in their assessment 30 years ago: Woodinville is very convenient.

If you go

Novelty Hill – Januik Winery is located at 14710 Woodinville Richmond Road, 98072. Tastings are held daily but the restaurant is only open from 11 a.m to 4 p.m. Friday through Sunday.

DeLille Cellars is at 14300 NE 145 St, Woodinville, 98072. Daily Tastings are held but the food and wine experience featuring a winery tour is offered from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday.

The Restaurant at Delille Cellars is open from 11:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Monday and Tuesday and stays open an extra hour to 9 p.m. on other days. It also opens at 10 a.m. on Saturday and Sunday. DeLille can be reached at 425-489-0544.

Randy Diamond: 425-339-3097; randy.diamond@heraldnet.com.