Washington wine
Washington wine is a wine produced from grape varieties grown in the U.S. state of Washington. Washington ranks third in the United States in the production of wine, behind California and New York. By 2017, the state had over of vineyards, a harvest of of grapes, and exports going to over 40 countries around the world from the 940+ wineries located in the state. While there are some viticultural activities in the cooler, wetter western half of the state, the majority of wine grape production takes place in the shrub-steppe eastern half. The rain shadow of the Cascade Range leaves the Columbia River Basin with around of annual rain fall, making irrigation and water rights of paramount interest to the Washington wine industry. Viticulture in the state is also influenced by long sunlight hours and consistent temperatures.
The early history of the Washington wine industry can be traced to the introduction of Cinsault grapes by Italian immigrants to the Walla Walla region. Grapes are not indigenous to the Columbia Valley viticultural area, but both Vinifera and Labruscavines are grown. The oldest planted Vinifera vines still in existence were planted by German immigrants in the Tampico vicinity, west of Union Gap, in 1871. Others were planted in the Kennewick area in 1895, and in the Walla Walla area by 1899. Planting of premium Vinifera grapes began in the Columbia Valley in the mid-1960s. By 1981 there were over of Vinifera grapes including of cultivated vineyards. In the 1950s and 1960s, the precursors of the state's biggest wineries were founded. Throughout the rest of the 20th century, the wine world discovered a new aspect of Washington wines with each passing decade – starting with Rieslings and Chardonnays in the 1970s, the Merlot craze of the 1980s and the emergence of Cabernet Sauvignon and Syrah in the 1990s. Washington has twenty federally defined American Viticultural Area s with all but one located in Eastern Washington. The largest is the Columbia Valley AVA, which extends into a small portion of northern Oregon and encompasses most of the states's AVAs. They are Lewis-Clark Valley AVA, the Ancient Lakes AVA, Walla Walla Valley AVA, which encompasses Oregon's The Rocks District of Milton-Freewater AVA, Horse Heaven Hills AVA, the Wahluke Slope AVA, Lake Chelan AVA, Naches Heights AVA, and the Yakima Valley AVA, which in turn also encompasses the Rattlesnake Hills AVA, Snipes Mountain AVA, the Red Mountain AVA, Goose Gap AVA and the Candy Mountain AVA. The Columbia Gorge AVA is west of the Columbia Valley AVA. As of 2023, Washington's only AVA located west of the Cascades is the Puget Sound AVA and a petition has been submitted to Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau proposing a new American Viticultural Area named "Mount St. Helens" covering parts of Clark County, Cowlitz County, Skamania County and Lewis County.
History
The earliest grape vines planted in Washington State were at Fort Vancouver in 1825 by traders working for the Hudson's Bay Company but it is not known for sure whether the wine was ever produced from these plantings. Currently, a number of wineries and vineyards operate in the region near Fort Vancouver in Clark County, Cowlitz County, and parts of Skamania County and Lewis County.The first people who were definitely known to produce wine were German and Italian immigrants who planted their wine grapes in Washington during the 1860s and 1870s. Washington was one of the first states to usher in the start of Prohibition, going dry in 1917 and shutting down most of the state's wine production. Some scattered grape growers stayed afloat during this period selling grapes to home winemakers but nearly all the state's commercial wines went out of business. Following the end of Prohibition, Washington's fledgling wine industry was based primarily on fortified sweet wine production made from the Vitis labrusca variety Concord. The Nawico and Pommerelle wineries were the most widely recognized producers, making millions of gallons each year of sweet jug wine made from Concord and other varieties. In the 1950s, the planting of Vitis vinifera saw an increase spearheaded, in part, by the work of Dr. Walter Clore and Washington State University which conducted a series of trials on which grape vines could produce the best wine in various soils and climates of Washington.
The roots of the modern Washington wine industry can be traced to the middle of the 20th century when a group of professors from the University of Washington turned their home winemaking operation into a commercial endeavor and founded Associated Vintners and focused on producing premium wines. The Nawico and Pommerelle wineries were merged into a new winery that would eventually become Chateau Ste Michelle. With the hiring of André Tchelistcheff as a consultant, Chateau Ste Michelle and Associated Vintners became the driving force in premium wine production for the early modern Washington wine industry. Grenache was one of the first Vitis vinifera grapes to be successfully vinified with a 1966 Yakima Valley rosé earning mention in wine historian Leon Adams's treatise The Wines of America. The 1970s ushered in a period of expansion, with early vineyards being planted in the Columbia Gorge, Walla Walla and Red Mountain areas. The 1978 Leonetti Cellars Cabernet Sauvignon was featured on the cover of a national wine publication and touted as the best Cabernet of vintage. The 1980s saw further expansion with the opening of large-scale family-owned wineries such as Woodward Canyon, L'Ecole N°41, Barnard Griffin and Hogue Cellars that soon won many awards from both national and international wine competitions. In 1988, Chateau Ste Michelle was named "Best American Winery" and in 1989 five Washington wines made Wine Spectators "Top 100 list" for the first time.
Following the broadcast in 1991 of the 60 Minutes episode on the so-called "French paradox", American consumption of red wine dramatically increased. The grape variety Merlot, in particular, proved to be very popular among consumers. The Washington Wine Commission made the marketing of the state's Merlot a focus, putting Washington in prime position to capitalize on the new "Merlot craze". Plantings of the varietal increased more than fivefold and Washington Merlots were featured prominently on restaurant wine lists across the country. From there producers went on to experiment with success on varieties and blends as the Washington Wine industry steadily grew. By the beginning of the 21st century, the wine industry was generating more than 2.4 billion dollars annually for the state with wine grape being the fourth most important fruit crop in the state—behind apples, pears and cherries. By 2007 the state had certified its 500th winery. In early 2009, the state's 600th winery opened.
Geography and climate
The Cascade Mountain range is a defining feature in both the geography and climate of Washington state. It serves as a dividing line between the wet, marine-influenced climate of the western part of the state from the drier, desert-like climate of the eastern half. The mountains themselves create a rain shadow over the eastern half by blocking weather fronts holding precipitation from carrying over the mountains and descending onto the Columbia River Basin. This creates the arid desert-like conditions with a more continental climate in Eastern Washington and heightens the roles of rivers—most notably the Walla Walla, Yakima, Snake and Columbia River—in the region's viticulture. In addition to providing vital irrigation sources, the rivers also help to moderate temperatures during the winter which is prone to severe frost and freeze coming from the Arctic. In winter, overnight temperatures in the wine growing regions of Eastern Washington can drop to as low as. The sudden drop to these sub-zero temperatures can make the water in a vine's wood canopy quickly freeze which can cause the vine to literally burst open. The severity of these conditions can wreak havoc on a year's harvest, as was the case in the Walla Walla AVA with the big winter freezes of 1996 and 2003.Today the topsoil found throughout the Columbia Valley is mostly sandy and stone-studded on top of a basalt-based soil foundation created by persistent lava. These sandy loam vineyard soils create a nearly inhospitable environment for the phylloxera louse, which may be one of the reasons why the phylloxera epidemic has not ravaged the Washington wine industry as it has the Californian and French wine industries in the past. The state's northerly location above the 46th parallel north allows Washington's major wine growing regions to experience 17 hours of sunlight in the summer—two more hours of sunlight during the peak of the growing season than what California sees further south. During the growing season Eastern Washington experiences a wide diurnal temperature variation which allows the fruit to fully ripen while the cool nights help the vines to shut down, allowing the grape to maintain natural levels of acidity.
Viticulture
Viticulture in Washington State is deeply influenced by the use of irrigation and the water rights associated with suitable vineyard land. Sourced from the major rivers that run through the area, most vineyards in Eastern Washington are irrigated though some vineyards, but some have begun experimenting with dry farming. The ever-present threat of severe winter frost has influenced viticultural practices including the adoption of wind turbines to churn and circulate air in the vineyard. In the late 20th century, many producers began adapting Russian vine-training techniques for fan-training which promotes better air circulation among the vine so cold air doesn't settle on the vine. Due to the minimal risk exposure to phylloxera, some producers have opted to leave their vines ungrafted on its original rootstock since an exposed graft union is more vulnerable to frost damage. One benefit of the traditionally cold winters is that the grapevines are allowed to go into full dormancy, which allows the vines to shut down and conserve energy that will be vital at the beginning of the new growth cycle for the vine. The threat of freezing condition is the main viticultural hazard that vine growers need to concern themselves with since the lack of rainfall during the summer and autumn contribute to the dry, arid conditions that allows most of Washington vineyards to be relatively disease free.Until recently, there has been very little clonal diversity among the grape varieties grown in Washington. This has led to some critics, such as Hugh Johnson, noting a monotone tendency in some Washington wines that limit their quality and subtlety. Along with many other New World wine regions, viticulture in Washington is highly mechanized with nearly 80% of each year's harvest being mechanically harvested. To accommodate the machine harvest, vineyard rows are widely spaced and usually trained in bilateral cordons. Harvest typically takes place from late September till the end of October.