Walking down the hall at the Marcus Whitman Hotel & Conference Center in Walla Walla, Washington, I pass a vendor selling skull-shaped pendants and a tattoo artist inking a customer’s leg. I turn into the ballroom, where two burlesque dancers in black leather swing from an aerial cube, a stage crew sets up for the metal band Heiress . . . and winemakers pour viognier, syrah, and cabernet sauvignon at an array of tables.
This is the scene at Blood of Gods 2026 Annual Merrymaking, a wine and metal festival that has been held in this town of about 33,000 people in southeastern Washington every July for five years running. It’s the brainchild of Stacy Buchanan, a Walla Walla native who left the city after high school to work as a promoter on the Ozzfest tour and then spent the better part of a decade working in music. When Buchanan returned to eastern Washington, he discovered more than 100 wineries had opened while he was gone. As he got involved in that industry, he discovered similarities between his old world and his new one. He started producing a zine, Blood of Gods, that melded the two together, with band interviews, wine reviews, and metal-inspired art.
“There’s this underlying thread where fans of either camp are very passionate about it—they both have encyclopedic tendencies where they want to know more,” Buchanan explains. “For me, it was just saying, ‘Hey, if we strip away the artifice, not all wine drinkers are old, rich white dudes wearing a monocle, and not all people that listen to aggressive, heavy music are knuckle-dragging, bullet-belts-and-spikes maniacs.’ They look different, but guess what? They’re actually the same.”
The Merrymaking festival grew out of the zine, and while it’s small (the 2026 event drew about 650 attendees, in the process raising more than $20,000 for Planned Parenthood), it also typifies Walla Walla’s spirit: serious wines served in more casual and inclusive spaces than you might find in, say, Napa Valley.
Walla Walla’s quirky wine scene
A vineyard view that goes on and on from the Estate Tasting Room at Echolands Winery in Walla Walla.
Courtesy of Echolands Winery
Start your Walla Walla wine journey at the Airport District, a collection of five pastel buildings on a World War II airfield near the regional airport that serves as an incubator where up-and-coming winemakers can access production facilities and tasting spaces. The wineries here rotate, but a current standout is Itä, where Kelsey Albro Itämeri has earned fans for delicious, light, and approachable wines (think carbonic zinfandel).
“There’s something special about Walla Walla in that the barriers to entry are lower,” Itämeri says. “The fact that [the Airport District] even exists here is absolutely remarkable. I’ve heard people say, ‘The Walla Walla way is that you push the person in front of you and pull the person behind you,’ and I really do feel like that’s true.”
Fun tasting rooms and wineries exist in both the cute downtown and the hills and mountains around it. At Time & Direction downtown, winemaker Steve Wells will tell you about the Star Wars memorabilia on the walls and challenge you to a game of Contra while you sip one of his syrahs. Rock fans will dig Sleight of Hand Cellars, about a 10-minute drive away, where you can put a record on the turntable while sipping winemaker Trey Busch’s bottles—including a grenache from the legendary WeatherEye Vineyards—in a room lined with Pearl Jam concert posters. (Busch has seen the band 88 times.)
A tasting at The Walls, where even the wine labels—courtesy of New Yorker cartoonist Joe Dator—have a story to tell.
Courtesy of The Walls
Speaking of rock, at Saviah Cellars you can sample wines from estate vineyards in the Rocks District, a Walla Walla subregion just across the state line in Oregon that produces unmistakable wines thanks to a rocky soil reminiscent of France’s Châteauneuf-du-Pape. For more wines from the Rocks (and beyond), visit the Walls, which takes its brand name from an old nickname for the nearby state penitentiary and has its bottles sport quirky labels drawn by New Yorker cartoonist Joe Dator.
Even the traditional estate tastings in Walla Walla are less formal. On Tranche Estate’s ATV Vineyard Excursion, you’ll sip wines while your guide drives through a rolling landscape with waving wheat fields on one side and vine rows on the other. About 10 minutes away, Echolands Winery is housed in a spectacular, two-year-old, glass-walled building that looks across sustainably farmed vineyards toward the Blue Mountains. While that may sound like a classic high-end tasting room, the crowd leans young and hip. “I would never want this place to be stuffy and full of old white golfers,” says winemaker and general manager Brian Rudin. “Our greatest fear is to be sanctimonious.”
Related: 5 U.S. Wine Regions That Feel Like France
Where to eat
Handmade pasta and a golden-hour patio at Passatempo Taverna in Walla Walla.
Photo by Ben Lindbloom (L); courtesy of Passatempo (R)
Walla Walla may be small, but as befits any wine region, its restaurants are mighty. The founder of the Walls, Mike Martin, also owns Passatempo Taverna, an Italian place with excellent pastas, including a polenta-filled agnolotti that will knock your socks off. Saffron Mediterranean Kitchen dishes out killer patatas bravas and Turkish flatbreads in a chic space, while Brasserie Four offers perfectly executed French classics, with an impressive selection of old-world wines to match. For charcuterie and tinned fish in a wine bar, check out Tavern Ancestrale, which is owned by Hoquetus Wine Co. winemaker Robert Gomez and has a fun mix of cocktails, wine, vermouth, and amaro.
Where to stay
At the Marcus Whitman Hotel, the lobby doubles as a starting point for wine tasting.
Photo by Moris Moreno
In downtown Walla Walla, the place to stay is the Marcus Whitman, a 1928 hotel that’s listed on the National Register of Historic Places. A recent renovation brought the guest rooms and public spaces—in particular the on-site restaurant, the Marc, which uses locally sourced produce and meat and collaborates with area winemakers on featured pairings—up to contemporary standards. Four tasting rooms extend off the lobby, including Walla Walla OG L’Ecole No. 41. For a more classic wine-country experience, book at the Barn B&B Walla Walla, a seven-suite boutique hotel tucked amid the hills (about an 8-minute drive outside downtown). The service is high touch (the owners live on-site and enjoy having a glass of wine with their guests), but the ambience is casual, with a pool and a bocce court. The property also has partnerships with many local wineries and can arrange complimentary tastings for guests.
