Category Archives: Heard Through the Grapevine
Washington’s 2011 Wine Grape Harvest Challenging…to Say the Least
Last year at this time, I referred to the 2010 Washington wine grape harvest as “one of the wildest, wackiest, and yet most promising years in the state’s history.” Believe it or not, in terms of both craziness and quality, the 2011 harvest may have even topped that. The story behind 2011 actually starts in […]
2008 Washington Wine Year in Review: More Blends, Varietals, and Another Promising Vintage
As we wind down on 2008, this seems as good a time as any to do an assessment of the past year for Washington wineries and take a look at what lies ahead. While I was sampling wines and schmoozing with winemakers during the Tri-Cities wine festival in Pasco last month, several things came to […]
2008 Harvest for Washington Winemakers Looking Good So Far
2008 may very well go down as one of the most unpredictable growing seasons for Washington winemakers. Things got off to an incredibly slow start with a cooler than normal spring and the summer months were generally spotty, with on again/off again streaks of good weather. Then things turned downright ugly in Western Washington during […]
Chuckanut Ridge Wine Co. Pulls Out a Few Wines From the Vault
I recently got word from John Powers of Chuckanut Ridge Wine Company that he stumbled upon a few of his earlier releases and was featuring them at his Bellingham tasting room. Visions of Geraldo Rivera opening Al Capone’s vault and finding nothing initially flashed through my head, but this is clearly not the case. Power’s […]
2007 Appears to Be Another Banner Year for Washington Wines
The future looks brighter than ever for the Washington wine industry. According to the Washington Wine Commission, 2007 was a record year for grape growers, with an estimated harvest of about 127,150 tons. This was an increase of six percent over the 2006 harvested tonnage. Of course, quantity doesn’t always assure quality, but every winemaker […]