The Spokane Winery Association is holding it's annual Mother's Day Spring Release Weekend, so tell mom you love and appreciate her with a bottle of wine or an afternoon of tasting.

Spring is when wineries release their selections for the season and local wineries are celebrating with tasting events and other festivities. There are 21 Washington wineries featured at 17 local tasting rooms throughout the area.

The Mother's Day Spring Release Weekend events run from 12pm-6pm through Sunday, May 12th, at area wineries and tasting rooms. Tasting fees vary depending on the location. You can download a map of local places at http://www.spokanewineries.net 

Few things are better than ending the day with a great glass of wine. Except maybe having that wine delivered right to your door. Nectar Tasting Room in Downtown Spokane is making that possible for the Washington wine makers that it features.

Owner Josh Wade started his adventures in wine in 2008 with his wine blog. That blog later grew into the Nectar Tasting Room and features five Washington wine makers. Wade says the purpose of opening the tasting room was to give wine makers outside of Spokane a presence in the area.

The direct buy will run through Nectar's already thriving blog and Wade is hoping to capitalize on the web traffic. He has redesigned the site to make it easier for uses to not only buy wine, but also to read the blog and rent event space.

Spokane city and business leaders have a plan to make parking your car downtown a real pleasure this holidays season.  Maybe not a pleasure, but at least something less than the headache it's been in years past.  They're even using terms like "customer-service approach," and "parking elves" in the official news release!

On Friday, the City of Spokane’s new customer-service approach to parking officially launches.  As part of the launch, City officials will be available at 10 a.m. on Friday, Nov. 23, at the Main Avenue entrance of River Park Square to display their newly branded “Parking Services” carts and uniforms.

During the day, the My Spokane Parking Services Team, along with Council Members Mike Fagan and Steve Salvatori and other City and Downtown Spokane Partnership (DSP) representatives, will be parking elves.  They’ll have maps, provide directions, welcome shoppers and diners, as well as distribute coupons provided by local merchants and Riverfront Park’s Ice Palace.