…who wished the well wishes on my recent birthday. It was indeed pleasurable and memorable.

One of the things I did that day was to visit Chateau Ste. Michelle, the modern factory (hidden behind a pseudo-French facade on an old dairy farm) that, as much as any other outfit, spurred the Washington wine biz to its current lofty heights.

The winery tour was brief and efficiently laid-out. The guide told a little bit about the many different wines made here and at a satellite facility in Eastern Washington, and about some of the awards the company’s received over the years.

He didn’t mention Ste. Michelle’s origin as Pomerelle, a little plant on the Sea-Tac strip that had made cheap screw-top wines since the end of Prohibition. In the late ’60s, it started making “real” wines under the Ste. Michelle name. Under master marketer Charles Finkel (who went on to start the beer importer/distributor Merchant du Vin and the Pike Pub and Brewery), Ste. Michelle became prominent enough to get bought out by U.S. Tobacco, the “smokeless tobacco” guys. With this corporate backing, the company built the “Chateau,” added subsidiary brands and branch plants, and became the grape-crushin’ colossus we know n’ love today.

Back in Bothell, one drive-up espresso stand embraces an epithet that’s apparently become beyond-passe in the big city.

LAST FRIDAY, the mercilessly-hyped new arena rock band Velvet Revolver came to the Moore. The group, and its audience, were welcomed by no fewer than three radio-station promo tents.

All three tents boasted mega sound systems, each blasting a different yet identical mix of generic dirtboy metal. Two of the tents proclaimed the word “alternative” as part of their respective stations’ slogans.

Once upon a time, generic dirtboy metal was the definition of what “alternative” music was an alternative to.