Washington state is notable not
only for the extraordinary and sustained growth in wineries over
the last twenty and more years, but also for having very many
small boutique wineries.
The boutique wineries are more
interesting to visit. You get closer to the wine makers
and the wine making process, and can get a better appreciation
of the skills of the craft, as compared to visits to mega
wineries that merely showcase the science of the process.
Washington - the Country's
Second Largest Producer of Wine
Thirty years ago, Washington had a mere 8 wineries and about
2,500 acres of wine grapes. In 2008, this had increased to
just over 600 wineries and 32,000 acres of wine grapes. In
the last five years (through 2008) there has been an average of
a new winery opening every week, and by any measure it is
accurate to claim that the wine industry is booming in
Washington state more than in any other part of the US.
Most of Washington's 600+ wineries are small rather than large.
The largest, producing over half of all wine in the state (about
60 million of the 102 million bottles in 2008), is Chateau Ste
Michelle, with a lovely winery and visitor center in
Woodinville, sprawling over 87 acres of grounds, where they host summer outdoor concerts. This is a good place to consider
visiting as part of a Woodinville area winery tour.
Chateau Ste Michelle have a second winery in Eastern Washington, too
at Canoe Ridge. The
Woodinville winery is for their white wine production, and the
Canoe Ridge winery is for their red wine production. The
company is best known for its Riesling wines, but has other
favorably received wines too.
They sell wines under ten different brands in
Washington, with additional brands in California and
elsewhere. The winemaker is in turn owned by Altria, the
group that also owns the Philip Morris tobacco company.
The balance of Washington's wine production comes from
successively much smaller wineries. Over half of all
wineries produce fewer than 5,000 bottles a year of wine.
Note
that most wine makers express their production either in cases
(a case holding 12 26oz bottles) or in gallons (there being five
bottles of wine per gallon), so 5,000 bottles translates
to 420 cases or 1000 gallons of wine.
Washington's Typical Small Wineries
56% of all Washington's wineries - about 335 in total - make
less than 1,000 gallons of wine a year.
This is a microscopic amount of wine for a winery, and wineries
of this size typically have only one employee - the
owner/winemaker, who will work either part-time or full-time,
perhaps assisted by a spouse or employee on occasion. These
are as much a 'hobbyist' type wineries as they are professional
wineries - although what a wonderful hobby to have! You get
to make wines as you wish, and you can potentially make a small profit
from your hobby. There are few other hobbies that are as
satisfying or potentially as commercially rewarding.
Wineries of this small size almost never grow their own grapes,
but buy grapes in on contract from grape growers, and may
cooperatively share equipment to process the grapes into raw
juice for fermenting and storage.
Almost none of these smaller wineries have their own dedicated
'winery' building or 'chateau' and grounds, but will instead be
found in business parks, with rented space in a plain generic
concrete building, with other light industrial and office type
tenants on either side. Typically, such a space will be
split into three main areas - a front office/tasting room for
the public, a middle area for wine storage, and a back area for
shipping and receiving. The grape processing, bottling,
etc, might be in the back or middle areas, or might even be done
off-site somewhere else.
This might not reflect the idealistic image you have of a
winery, completely with musty cellars, long lines of oak barrels
lining the walls five or ten high, and with grape vines growing
scenically outside the chateau, but in some ways, it promises a
better experience, because in these small micro-wineries, the
person you meet and talk to is probably the owner/winemaker
himself, and you'll get a much more interesting and direct
appreciation of the winery, what makes them distinctive and
different, the wines they make and why, and so on.
A large winery will staff its tasting room with employees, some
of whom may have never met any of the company's actual wine
makers, and who are completely uninvolved with any of the
'hands-on' aspects of winemaking, and only know what they have
read about, rather than what they've actually done themselves.
You'll also find an amazing variety of personality types among
the wine makers. Some seem to have almost too much of an
appreciation for their product, while others seem to be
ridiculously genteel. Some are generous and warmly open,
often giving you way too many and way too generous pours of
wine, others carefully pour exactly measured samples of wine and
insist on payment before they pour the first drop. If you
visit enough wineries, you'll end up with some amusing
experiences of the people you've encountered that will be almost
as memorable and enjoyable as the wine you've sampled.
The changing nature of wines offered by these wineries
One thing we have noticed is that the newer wineries do not
offer as consistent a product from year to year as is the case
with longer established and larger wineries. There are two
explanations for this.
A new winery and winemaker are still becoming established, and
may not yet have locked in their grape sources and their
'style'. Likely, they will be adapting (and hopefully
improving) from each year to each new year, based on what they
are pleased with, and what sells well (and profitably) for them.
Smaller wineries have less bureaucracy to interfere with their
decisions to change their wine styles, particularly ones that
may be semi-generically labeled such as 'Red Wine' or 'Columbia
Red' or 'Claret'.
We make these points as a mild caution. If you sample one
year's wine, do not make the assumption that previous or
subsequent years of the ostensibly same wine will taste similar.
They may contain very different grapes. Even if the grapes
are the same, they may have been made in a very different style
(eg changes in the type and amount of oak they experience).
The vibrant and changing nature of some of these wineries is an
exciting and positive thing (and gives you a reason to revisit
them on a regular basis), but it can also be mildly frustrating
if you find a wine you absolutely love, only to have the winery
never duplicate it again in subsequent years.
Larger wineries too
Larger and more commercial wineries exist in Washington as well, of course.
About 30 wineries in total make more than 1 million gallons of
wine a year, another 65 make between 100,000 and 1 million
gallons a year, and there are 250 wineries making between 1,000
and 100,000 gallons of wine a year.
Grape Varieties in Washington State
Two thirds of all grapes grown in Washington are either Riesling
and Chardonnay (for the whites) or Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot
(for the reds). The other one third is spread over a wide
range of different grapes, mainly of the classical Vitis
vinifera varieties.
Here is a table showing annual production, in tons, for both
2004 and 2008. This helps get an understanding of
production trends.
Grape |
2004 |
2008 |
|
White
White Riesling |
16,500
|
28,500
|
|
Chardonnay |
28,400 |
28,000 |
|
Sauvignon Blanc |
2,800 |
5,100 |
|
Pinot Gris |
1,700 |
4,100 |
|
Gewurtztraminer |
3,000 |
4,000 |
|
Viognier |
1,200 |
1,300 |
|
Chenin Blanc |
700 |
1,200 |
|
Semillon |
1,100 |
1,200 |
|
Other |
600 |
1,400 |
|
Total White |
56,000 |
74,800 |
|
Red
Cabernet Sauvignon
|
18,900
|
26,100
|
|
Merlot |
20,400 |
25,400 |
|
Syrah |
5,900 |
10,700 |
|
Cabernet Franc |
2,800 |
2,500 |
|
Malbec |
- |
1,000 |
|
Pinot Noir |
1,200 |
800 |
|
Sangiovese |
500 |
800 |
|
Lemberger |
450 |
- |
|
Other |
850 |
2,900 |
|
Total Red |
51,000 |
70,200 |
|
Total All Grapes |
107,000 |
145,000
|
|
source - USDA, Jan 24 2009 |
|
Touring in
Washington's Main Winery Regions
Click on to part 3 and subsequent parts of this series for
specific information about touring around Washington's several
wine regions.
Part
two of a series on wine trail touring in WA, see
also
1.
About the US wine industry in general
2. Wine making in Washington state
3.
Wine touring in Washington state
4. Wine costs, pricing, and quality
5.
Wine trail
tours and tasting around Seattle - the large wineries
6.
Touring the
boutique wineries in the Woodinville area
near Seattle
7.
Wine trail tours
around Leavenworth
8.
Wine tasting in
downtown Leavenworth
Related Articles, etc
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Originally published
15 May 2009, last update
30 May 2021
You may freely reproduce or distribute this article for noncommercial purposes as long as you give credit to me as original writer.
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