Europeans like to associate Washington State geographically with the US capital of the same name – a mistake that can be easily clarified with a glance at the map. The capital is in the eastern United States, while Washington State is in the far northwest on the border with Canada. As is so often the case, Americans are pragmatic and simply distinguish between the two, both named after first president George Washington, by referring to either Washington State or simply DC. DC, by the way, is short for "District of Columbia," not to be confused with the Columbia River of the same name in Washington State. One thing that clearly distinguishes the two, however, is the rich viticulture in Washington State which cannot be found directly in the District of Columbia.
In the rain shadow of the mountains
If you want to describe Washington and its viticulture, discussing climate and geology is crucial. This is not difficult because Washington is home to impressive landscapes, with mountains, rivers, deserts, and the ocean arranged as if by giants playing in a sandbox.
Washington's viticultural climate is usually misunderstood. It is often referred to as a "cool climate" since Washington is geographically located on the 46th parallel at the same level as Burgundy. However, most of the viticulture is found inland, some 200 kilometres from the Pacific coast, where a dry desert climate remains hot during the growing season. Three hundred days of sunshine, warm days and cool nights are the rule in the region where vines are grown. It is more like winegrowing in Chile or Argentina.
Most of Washington's 16 Sub-AVAs lie inland behind the Cascade Mountains
A metropolis worth seeing - Seattle
Washington, like its neighbours to the south Oregon and California, is one of the more liberal states of the US. Its capital is a city of four million inhabitants that captivates with its extraordinary location between the sea and the mountains. Seattle is a harbour city situated on Puget Sound, which cuts deep into the land and is dotted with islands. On the peninsula in front of it rise the Olympic Mountains, over 2,000 metres high, which shield the city from the rain on the coast. Directly on the Pacific coast, about 1,800 millimetres of precipitation fall each year. In the rain shadow of the mountains near Seattle it is still around 1,000 millimetres, but further inland behind the Cascade Mountains, which rise up to 4,400 metres, precipitation drops to just a few millimetres. Therefore, Seattle and the surrounding region is green, fertile and gives the impression of a cool wine region.
Cool climate on the coast
The Puget Sound American Viticultural Area (AVA) of the same name encompasses the entire coastal area with its fertile green landscapes east and north of Seattle all the way up to the Canadian border. However, this only accounts for a small part of the state's total vineyard area of around 25,000 hectares. The actual viticulture takes place to the southeast behind the Cascade Mountains around the meandering Columbia River and its tributaries such as the Snake or Yakima Rivers. The climate there is steppe and desert-like and, like everywhere in arid regions where there is sufficient water for irrigation, offers almost ideal growing conditions for viticulture. The Cascade Mountains, by the way, are impressive in every respect. The volcanoes, especially Mount Rainier and Mount St. Helens, look like golf balls with a snow-covered crests which every traveller can admire on the approach to Seattle in good weather.
Tidal waves as landscape designers
As if these mountains and the landscapes were not impressive enough, the landscapes situated between Canada, the neighbouring state of Idaho to the east, and Oregon to the south can also boast an exciting geological history of formation.
At the end of the last ice ages around 20,000 years ago, the landscape was glaciated as far north as Canada. This led to gigantic flood waves in the intermittent warm periods, when torrentially gigantic avalanches of water, debris and mud poured out of dammed glacial lakes, the largest of which was Lake Missoula, hundreds of kilometres away, and with wave crests of over 100 metres high as far as the Willamette Valley in Oregon. Every 50 years, more than 40 times over 2,000 years, these floods were repeated. What was left behind, after thousands of years, was a barren mountain landscape planed down to the basalt and, on the plain, a finely ground, fertile soil that is still the basis for extensive agricultural use today.
Horse Heaven Hills AVA in southeastern Washington is part of the larger Columbia Valley AVA
Fertile without end
Washington is famous for its fruit, vegetable and grain cultivation and now, of course, also for its wines. Due to its northern location, the sun shines longer than in more southern Oregon and California - a circumstance that helps the ripeness of the agricultural products.
It took a long time for Washington’s viticultural potential to be discovered, however. Before 1990, there were only a handful of wineries with a few hundred hectares of vineyards in the region. Pioneers like Bob Betz and others only began to cultivate vines in the 1960s and 1970s, although the foundations were already there at the beginning of the 20th century. The precursors of Chateau Ste. Michelle, still the largest wine producer in the state today, date back to 1912. Many other wineries, such as Columbia Crest Winery, which is also well-known in Germany, were not founded until the 1980s.
30 years of pioneering work
Today, after 30 years of pioneering and building work, the area with its 16 AVAs has over 1,000 wineries and around 25,000 hectares of vineyards. Four new wineries per month have been opened in recent years. This is not a bad pace and it shows that not only investors, but also many young risk-takers are turning to wine and that there is money to be made.
There are also immigrants from Germany there, such as Jürgen Grieb, a native of Trier, who completed his viticultural training on the Moselle at the Karthäuserhof winery with Christoph Tyrell and the Duhr sparkling wine producer in Trier. In 1982, he joined the Franz Langguth Winery, which was later taken over by Chateau Ste. Michelle. After almost 30 years in Washington's wine industry, Grieb opened his own sparkling wine cellar in 2010, which bears the name of his hometown "Treveri Cellars." His sparkling wines have made it all the way to the White House in Washington, DC. The winery and surrounding vineyards are in the Yakima Valley, halfway between Seattle and Walla Walla. One hundred percent sparkling wine and unusual varieties for the US, such as Riesling, Müller-Thurgau and Gewürztraminer, are its trademark.
Cultivation vs. winemaking
While it goes without saying that Griebs Treveri Kellerei cultivates its own vineyards, this is not the case for many other wineries. Only some of them cultivate their own vines. Many wineries and winemakers produce their wines from purchased grapes. Cultivation and winemaking do not necessarily have to be by the same hand, if the requirements for the grapes, quality control and wine ageing are subject to the free play of supply and demand: No one pays for bad grapes and, conversely, someone has to dig deeper into their pockets if they want to get high-quality grape material for their wines.
Thus, viticulture in Washington follows a completely different production model than many other wine regions in the world. Wineries and wine sales are close to the customer, while grape production is often hundreds of miles away.
The majority of grapes for most wineries in Washington come from around 350 farmers in the southeastern part of the state along the confusingly meandering Columbia River and its tributaries, where wineries and winemakers contract to secure quantities and usually the yields of specific blocks and parcels. Columbia Valley is also the name of the superior wine-growing zone under which every wine from Washington can be marketed as an indication of origin.
Columbia Winery in Woodinville was founded in 1962
Four new wineries every month
The upswing of the last few years has given rise to a multi-layered, interesting and innovative winegrowing scene. Typically, it is often young newcomers, both men and women, who at some point in their lives became enthusiastic about wine and then, after training in Europe, California or the country's own viticulture school in Walla Walla, and years of apprenticeship at one or another winery, started their own business.
For many, French viticulture, especially Bordeaux and the Rhône, is the model, which is why the range of grape varieties is mainly based on French varieties, starting with Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Syrah, Mourvèdre, Chardonnay, Cinsault, Chenin Blanc and Sauvignon Blanc.
In the semi-arid regions, the heat-loving varieties thrive magnificently. Riesling plays a role in the cooler regions in the Puget Sound AVA, and with about ten percent or 2,500 hectares of the vineyard area, it is not a small role. And even though viticulture in Washington is not actually cool-climate cultivation, which would be more suited to Riesling, Riesling, which has become internationally known primarily through Chateau Ste. Michelle and the cooperation with the Mosel winery Dr. Loosen, still plays an important role.
Despite this, the French imprint is stronger and remains the big influencer in terms of viticulture. This can be explained by the proximity to Canada and the francophone history that both Canada and Washington share.
Clubs, internet and storytelling
Most of the time, the story of the young wineries begins somewhere in an empty factory or warehouse with a few barrels of wine. If the experiment is successful, larger quantities and more bottles are sold the next autumn. The wine is marketed, in true American fashion, via club memberships, the internet and wine education seminars.
Near Seattle, the town of Woodinville has developed into a busy centre of the winery business. More than 150 wineries are represented there with cellars mostly in the form of warehouses and in any case a communicative tasting room. From the 1980s onwards, one winery after another settled there. There you can arrange to meet winemakers and oenologists for tastings, which usually take the form of events lasting several hours with accompanying food.
At weekends, wine tourists drop in to the wineries and tasting rooms by the swarm. The connection to the customer is then provided by internet portals with shops and home delivery services and lots of information about wines and producers. More than in many other wine regions, the customer is at the centre of all activities.
