PHOENIX-Boise Revealed

Idaho’s capital has a lot more going for it than potatoes. (Don’t skip the potatoes, though.) 
My Uber driver doesn’t want you to come to Boise. “I really wish you wouldn’t,” the previously cheery dad says when our small talk reveals I’m in town to write a travel piece. “Then people will visit, then they’ll want to move here, and it will get out of control. We’ll lose what makes this place special, and everything will be crowded and expensive. I don’t want this to become Denver – or Phoenix, look how big you guys are!”

I stroll to Telaya Wine Co. (240 E. 32nd St., Garden City, 208-557-9463, telayawine.com), a woodsy tasting room on the banks of the Boise River. Before embarking on their wine journey, owners and winemakers Earl and Carrie Sullivan had intense careers – he was COO of a pharmaceutical company, she was a veterinarian for exotic animals – and wanted to spend more time with their two sons. Now the whole family works at the winery, which specializes in single varietals and less common grapes, like Counoise and Grenache Blanc (I buy both).

“We get to expose people to different wines on a regular basis and show them that it isn’t just Cabernet and Chardonnay,” Earl Sullivan says. “[We] take that mystery out of it and make it much more approachable.” It’s working: Telaya’s 2016 Turas, a Syrah-based blend, won Best Red in the 2018 Idaho Wine Competition.

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