SEQUIM — You never know what these women will do when the winemaker’s away.
For Kathy Charlton and Molly Rivard, the natural thing to do was blend 100 gallons of wine from Dungeness-grown grapes with two handfuls of Sequim lavender.
Make that two cups, said Rivard, cook and co-owner of Olympic Cellars, home of the Working Girl line of wines.
The lavender is vintage 2007 from the Angel Farm, six miles northeast of Olympic Cellars’ renovated dairy barn on U.S. Highway 101.
“I gave Kathy a package of bud,” said Cathy Angel, co-owner of the farm. This was a blend of culinary lavenders: royal velvet, Folgate and dwarf blue.
Charlton and Rivard wrapped the herbs cheesecloth and submerged them in wine made from white Madeleine Angevine grapes from Tom Miller’s Dungeness Bay Vineyard.
Pre-lavender, the wine was bright, and “not particularly sugary,” Angel said, since it had been born of fruit harvested after 2007’s chilly spring and summer.
