The Washington wine industry begs examples that never quite healthy: “The little engine that could,” “little but mighty,” or “a sleeping giant.” None of these please. They are imperfect perhaps because Washington is none of these things. With a little over 60,000 acres of vineyards and more than 1,000 wine makers, Washington is the second-largest wine-producing state in the U.S. Washington red wines get a lot of regard, but the concern remains: “What is Washington understood for?”
In numerous methods, Washington is the wild frontier of New World white wine. However if California’s icon is Napa Cabernet and Oregon’s is Pinot Noir, what is Washington’s flag on which it can hang a marketing juggernaut? That response lies in the state’s extraordinary diversity of terroir, fruit, and wine makers who are setting out to show the quality of the Pacific Northwest’s abundant red wine customs– and it’s rather possible that the absolute best vineyards in Washington have actually not yet been discovered by winemakers.
“I would buy into that,” says Cock Boushey, owner of Boushey Vineyards in the Yakima Valley, about 3 hours east of Seattle over the Cascades. “But we’re checking out pretty quickly. It’s not so much new growth we’re seeing, however switching ranges of grapes and broadening north along the Columbia River Gorge,” he states. Boushey has farmed his own 300 acres of fruit trees and vineyards given that 1980 and also manages another 300 more on Red Mountain southeast of his farm.
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Some of the vineyards in Washington have actually been there for thirty years or more, and Boushey says a lot of them are hitting their prime. If they’re not, “then they go away,” he states.
David Rosenthal, head white winemaker at Chateau Ste. Michelle, agrees with Boushey. “I think it’s definitely true that our finest vineyards have yet to be found,” Rosenthal says. “So much is happening in places like Walla and Ancient Lakes and even Chelan, where we’re just getting our fingers on it.”
The King of Washington Wine
Both Boushey and Rosenthal concur that while Washington’s vineyards produce a number of terrific wines, the grape that maybe started it all was Riesling– the flexible, flexible white wine grape that was planted all over the state as early as 50 years ago. “Over the last twenty years a minimum of, we have actually found better locations to plant Riesling,” Rosenthal states.
As vintners plant new vines, Riesling has flourished in locations once believed too warm to grow the grape. “We discovered a lot by experimenting,” Rosenthal states. “And so as excellent as the Riesling was and as much as it put Chateau Ste. Michelle on the map, we have better Rieslings now than we’ve ever had actually, simply based on the development of growing areas.”
Boushey does some farming for Ste. Michelle among the vineyards he handles. “Riesling was the king initially, however it’s struck a plateau,” he states. “There is really a lack of it right now. It grows truly well here, and it’s a wonderful red wine that yields a lot of juice per heap, however there’s none being planted today.”
Riesling’s hold on the Washington wine market is still strong, and Chateau Ste. Michelle produces more of it and in more styles, from sweet to dry, than any other winery in the world. But while it continues to take in a considerable share of the marketplace, Riesling no longer represents all that Washington can do.
Terroirists Amongst Us
The dry environment in the eastern part of the state makes Washington ideal for red wine growing. With yearly rainfall of between 5 and 10 inches (instead of Seattle’s 39 inches), the grapes strive to develop themselves, aided by irrigation from the rivers that traverse the area. “We have really trusted heat in eastern Washington,” states Andrew Januik of Andrew Januik Wines and Novelty Hill Wines in Woodinville. “We do not need to stress over rain striking throughout the harvest season causing issues on the vine, however we still have adequate access to water through watering.”
Januik, who likewise produces wine in Chile and Argentina, states that many white wine regions have actually been handling fire and smoke as of late, which have actually proven troublesome. “But where our grapes are, there’s just not enough fuel to actually cause the very same problems you discover somewhere else,” he states.
Januik states the majority of people consider Seattle when they think of Washington, and the region’s notable rains is the legend everyone understands. “I do not think people get a complete grasp of genuinely how extreme eastern Washington weather is, where we have these really regularly severe heat days week after week during the summertime,” he states. “However on the other hand, we get to the winter and extreme cold. Our vines go dormant and are safeguarded from a lot of illness because of that. It makes a truly big difference.”
“We’re so good at a lot of things in this state,” states Jonathan Sauer, who in addition to his daddy Mike, owns and farms Red Willow Vineyard in the Yakima Valley. “The geology and topography are so diverse, and it makes numerous microclimates. Growing in these hills offers us great drain and great winter season security.” Unlike the Cascades, the hills in the Yakima Valley run east-west, getting southern exposure on a few of the vineyards, which are mainly at between 500 and 1,500 feet.
It was Jonathan’s father who planted the very first Syrah grapes in the state in 1986– ending up being a leader of Washington wine, working along with Dr. Walter Clore and David Lake researching the state’s wine-growing possibilities. “Father experimented with Sangiovese and Malbec, Viognier, Mourvèdre, Tempranillo, Syrah, and others. We can ripen it all,” Sauer says.
“I’m Not Consuming Any F * cking Merlot!”
A shop producer, Seattle’s 8 Bells Winery sources its white wines exclusively from Boushey and Red Willow Vineyards. “Washington’s 2 finest varietals to me are Syrah and Merlot. They’re world class here and can be as great as any in the world,” says Frank Michiels, partner at 8 Bells.
However Merlot as a varietal suffered at the hands of one film, “Sideways,” in which star Paul Giamatti’s character Miles famously shouts, “I am not consuming any f * cking Red wine!”
“It’s a shame,” states Michiels. “We get individuals coming in for tastings and they’ll state they do not want to try the Merlot. I inform them they need to a minimum of try it. It’s a free tasting!” However Michiels thinks this is owed mostly to customer experiences with California Merlot, which has actually largely been overproduced and not taken seriously in years past. “Washington Merlot is simply an excellent red wine,” he says.
He might be on to something. A number of vineyards across the state produce Merlot, and the wines are regularly compared to those from the Bordeaux area of France.
The World Is Washington
“Washington makes damn excellent Red wine,” says Emily Parsons, owner of Eagle Harbor Winery on Bainbridge Island. Sourcing her fruit from the eastern part of the state, she concurs with her colleagues that Washington produces world-class white wine. “I like to think that Washington resembles Napa was 40 or 50 years back,” she states. “It’s very collegial and collective, and we’re all assisting each other.” Parsons earned her level 3 WSET accreditation in August 2017 and has been promoting Washington’s wines given that she moved there. “I got exposed to increasingly more and thought, ‘These are world-class red wines,'” she states.
So if it’s a marketing project that Washington requires to gain larger market respect, the rule of focus on one subject might be harder to attain. Washington’s remarkable variety in environment, geology, vineyards, and fruit make it difficult to pin down. Perhaps that serves a bigger function for the growers and wine makers here, though. “It does present a marketing challenge,” says Rosenthal. “The typical customer does not have a ton of space in their brain for red wine. Napa Taxi narrates, and they get it,” Rosenthal states. “So does Oregon Pinot Noir. Washington red wine requires a discussion, though, and it’s really difficult to have a conversation with a customer when they walk up to a supermarket shelf for 20 seconds.”
While that may be an obstacle for the area’s winemakers, Rosenthal thinks those discussions will open up this wild frontier. “The more individuals try our wines,” he says, “the more they’re going to gravitate to them.”
Source: https://vinepair.com/articles/washington-wine-variety/