Pacific Northwest

Washington is the country’s second-largest producer of vinifera wines. While still in California’s shadow, Washington State provides 5% of the total US domestic wine output, and production continues to grow in leaps and bounds. State wine grape acreage has more than doubled in this century, rising from 24,000 acres in 1999 to over 60,000 acres in 2019. In 1999, then-WA Wine Commission Director Steve Burns announced that a new winery was opening its doors every 13 days in the state, and the growth rate has sustained: by 2020 the number of state wineries had jumped from 160 to over 1,000. 2016 was a record harvest—272,000 tons of fruit—but with the state adding an average of 2,500 acres of vines each year over the past decade, the record likely won’t last long.

For perspective, compare the entire state of Washington to California’s Napa Valley AVA: Washington has approximately 14,000 more acres of vineyard land and in 2019 produced about 42,000 more tons of fruit. And Napa Valley produces only 4% of California’s wines! Not only is Washington is a much smaller producer than California overall, but it has a narrower focus: the state lacks the giant bulk wine industry that drives California, instead placing emphasis on premium to luxury production. Washington also has a younger, less developed industry. Vineyards often comprise only a portion of a working farm’s activities, and a small minority of wineries are estate projects. Vineyard Manager Kent Waliser of Columbia Valley’s Sagemoor Vineyards puts it succinctly: “Wineries are not connected to the vineyards.” Many are even located in or around Seattle, far from the fruit itself, and most are small or medium-sized in scale, releasing fewer than 12,000 cases a year.