Against All Odds: Washington State’s 2020s and 2019s

BY ERIC GUIDO | MARCH 02, 2023

Winemakers in Washington State are full of energy and enthusiasm. Very rarely do I witness so much positive attitude visit after visit, or a willingness to experiment tirelessly, to think outside the box, or reinvent the box altogether. In nearly all cases, winemakers here are humble yet proud, open to accepting criticisms and willing to admit mistakes. As for camaraderie, they have that in spades. I do not find the cynicism or willingness to undermine their neighboring winemakers I see elsewhere. It’s quite the opposite. Here ideas are shared freely; there’s a conscious belief that the success of one means the success of all. As a result, the entire region benefits, even through the significant challenges of recent years. 

The Sagebrush block in the WeatherEye vineyard.

Winemaking in the Extreme

Some of the most beautiful mountains imaginable lie east of Seattle. Barren stretches of land and highways emerge on the other side, instilling a sense of utter loneliness. This is not a place to run out of gas or blow a flat. The reality is that nearly all of Washington State’s vineyards exist in a climate most accurately described as a desert, a rain shadow created by the Olympic and Cascadian Mountains. With this comes extreme heat, vintage after vintage seeming warmer than the one before, as well as severely dry conditions from the lack of rain, only five to seven inches a year on average. Vineyards couldn’t exist here without irrigation, fed by one of the state's most precious natural resources, the Columbia river. Another challenge of Washington winemaking is the cold weather. The region's location and exposure to arctic air masses mean that vines can, and often will be, destroyed by severe frost, not just in the spring but also in the fall, dangerously close to harvest. Now add to the mix wildfires that blanket the vineyards in smoke, interrupt ripening and, in the worst-case scenario, possibly taint the wines. Phylloxera? Washington has that too, and it’s a serious issue. Just as California had to suffer through large replantings in the 1980s and 1990s, we see it here now in Washington State.

However, the region continues to grow, its terroir continues to impress, winemakers continue to push the envelope, and Washington State continues to prove that it can create world-class wines on a scale larger than ever. 

Of course, winemakers here also have several things going for them. Diurnal shifts ranging from 35 to 47 degrees on average help maintain balanced acidity within the grapes despite the heat. Eastern Washington’s extremely dry but windy conditions help ward off disease. Their free-draining loess soils are ideal for the use of well-timed irrigation. The amount of sun exposure means easier ripening in the right conditions. And of paramount importance is the lower cost of land versus, say, Napa or Sonoma. This offers the ability to expand within the existing AVAs allowing a winemaker to grow their portfolio and be creative with a mix of interesting varieties beyond the region's most popular, which includes Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Syrah. Ultimately, that same pricing also means wines from Washington State can be much more affordable to the end consumer without sacrificing quality. 

A Sense of Place

Going back to 2005, when I started getting acquainted with Washington State wines, this region was built on producer first and location second. The greater Columbia Valley AVA covers over 11 million acres. Columbia Valley, along with its nested Yakima AVA, a large and diverse growing location spanning 19,000 acres and Walla Walla Valley AVA at 319 thousand acres, were the three most referenced AVAs. At the time, Red Mountain had just started to gain momentum, and the Horse Heaven Hills had just been officially registered. Over time, these two locations would prove to be amongst Washington State’s most notable terroirs. The Horse Heaven Hills, a rather large AVA, remains the source of the state's benchmark Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot blends. The highly regarded Champoux Vineyard, made famous by producers such as Quilceda Creek, Andrew Will and Woodward Canyon, lies within it. Red Mountain, a much smaller AVA at just 4,500 total acres, has become one of Washington’s most notable terroirs, producing gutsy reds that push the ripeness envelope. It’s also the home of one of the state’s most exciting experimental vineyards, WeatherEye (more on that later). However, over the next 14 years, the region added only seven AVAs, which, while important on their own and clearly identifying individual terroir, went largely unnoticed by many consumers. The seven AVAs since 2005 in the order they were created are: Rattlesnake Hills, Wahluke Slope, Snipes Mountain, Lake Chelan, Naches Heights, Ancient Lakes and Lewis-Clark Valley.