The UnCorker

Washington State- In Search of Identity

April 15, 2010 | In DIRT, WINE REVIEWS | 1 Comment

Is it possible to love sculpture, but hate sculpture gardens?
Wandering around Seattle Art Museum’s new sculpture garden got The UnCorker musing about Washington State wine- maybe sculpture makes us thirsty, possibly the parallels were just to hard to ignore.

Richard Serra’s ‘Wake’ is an immersive experience- thoughtful and elegant- emerging from it, you spy Roy McMakin’s piece, ‘Love and Loss’- a piece of  lightweight pop-art with all the visual appeal of the golden arches on a stretch of interstate. Moving along, one bumps into Claes Oldenburg’s ‘Typewriter Eraser Scale X’ completely abstract to anyone under 30.

I was afraid that the juxtaposition of so many wildly divergent styles left me with more questions then answers-any one of these experienced on its own could in some way be definitive, together its a hot mess of conceptual misfires, the great diluted with the good and brought low by the very questionable. Moreover, its hard to figure out what, if any context the sculptures were made in, or to discern the artists intent.
This brings us to the grapes of Washington;
Chardonnay, Chenin Blanc, Riesling, Gewurztraminer, Sauvignon Blanc, Chenin Blanc, Pinot Gris, Rousanne, Muller Thurgau, Viognier, Muscat Ottonel, Orange Muscat, Aligote, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet franc, Merlot, Syrah, Petit Sirah, Petit Verdot, Malbec, Sangiovese, Touriga, Tempranillo, Pinot Noir, Grenache, Lemberger (Blue Franc), Barbera, Nebbiolo, Mouvedre, Zinfandel…….

In 1970, Washington State had only two wineries, both based on single, small vineyards producing white wines. Since then, Washington has become the second biggest wine producer in the states.

Driving from Seattle to Eastern Washington on 90, you go through the hi-tech hi-wealth belt created by Microsoft and the tech boom, into the Cascades. Its a journey that takes you into the hinterland quickly. Driving through the mountains, maybe you’ll stop in Roslyn for breakfast- its where Northern Exposure was filmed, and feels properly desolate. East of the mountains, you arrive at a landscape uninviting and bleak- the topography the only features; no trees or landmarks- featureless but for the scrub-covered rolling hills and moraine. As you go on, the feeling of desolation grows stronger, jarring coming from the Puget Sound to this in a mornings drive.

This feeling of separation from civilization is compounded at many of the wineries- in tasting room after tasting room, there is a detachment from the greater wine world, and it shows.

On a recent visit to Rattlesnake Hills, an AVA just southeast of Yakima, The UnCorker visited vineyards and tasting rooms on a stretch of Highway 82 between Yakima and Prosser, where   there are dozens of wineries-

In the scheme of things, wine in Washington State is as new as the internet, and like it, unpredictable. At times this is frustrating and disappointing. Like a sculpture garden, context was lacking- That goes a long way to explaining the surfeit of grapes; there are no natives, so what will work is a matter of trial and error. This experimentation hasn’t made Washington’s wines easy to understand-

Winemakers in Washington wonder why their wineries are unheard of outside of Washington while displaying their dozens of labels. They all make several cuvees, low end to high, often with no varietals listed, but often with names from the prosaic, i.e. “Bistro Red”, to the confusing, “Purple Haze” to the just plain out of touch bizarre “Bung Dog Red”. Bonnair, the producer of Bung Dog blends malbec, pinot noir, cabernet franc and petit verdot in this bottling- its light and appetizing, spicy and soft, and if you drive to the winery, it will set you back about 8 bucks a bottle-
Bonnair also grows Touriga, and Tinta Çao and Tinta Madera, to make a port. At Portteus, another Rattlesnake Hills winery, the tasting room guy was trying to play himself a solo game of ping pong when we arrived, the only visitors of the day.
A look at the vineyards showed blocks of malbec next to pinot noir next to sangiovese next to zinfandel. Portteus makes some solid wines- a beautiful cabernet sauvignon, more Bordelaise then Napa, as well as a seemingly endless offering of varietal bottlings and blends- an overblown, soggy chardonnay, a cloying orange muscat-within one winery and to the next, grapes and styles vary crazily. We wondered, is this a region in creative ferment? Are they blindly groping forward? Is it too soon to tell?

This got us thinking of all of the world’s emerging wine regions; if not tied to a tradition, indigenous cuisine or part of a diverse body of crops, what do these regions and their wines have to offer? The UnCorker doesn’t advocate for a narrow Old-World only approach to drinking, quite the contrary, but  the wine world is abuzz with natural, bio-dynamic, small-producer, slow food, organic, locavorism. Do these words have meaning for most wine drinkers? Are they significant as more then just advertising and marketing? Are they simply more walls put up between producer and consumer? Hip geeksterisms? Is wine an object invested with meaning and tradition, i.e. context, or something to be manipulated?  Would the French blend pinot noir with malbec? Quel Horror, no- would the Italians? Well, maybe- one of the oldest wine producing lands in the world is always mixing the old and new, experimenting and playing, breaking rules and bringing inspired new things into the world. Of course for the Italians its all tempered with the knowledge and experience of thousands of years. Forty years ago there were predictions of the death of Italian wine, based simply on the introduction of the barrique by Gaja-more or less universally accepted today. Now the Italians are growing tannat in Trentino and muller thurgau in Basilicata, and no one freaks out.

Eastern Washington is and always has been a land of mono-cropping; apples, pears, and hops- the lion’s share of the worlds hops are produced here- these are commodity crops into which grapes fit neatly. The winery most associated with Washington State is Columbia Crest, with a production of 1.7 million cases of wine a year, it could hardly be otherwise- yet this huge industrial producer also took Wine Spectators Wine of the Year Award with their 2005 Columbia Valley Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon. This is good and bad news for a wine region still trying to find itself. Will wineries try to emulate the success by making critic-pleasing muscular wines in an international style, or try to be different.

There seems to be a divide in wines and styles in Washington State, between those in Western Washington that buy their fruit from eastern growers and make their wine around Seattle and the town of Woodinville- many of these are the more well known wineries; Chaleur Estates, Owen Sullivan, and Andrew Will to name a few. These wines tend to be more in touch with the industry, making a handful of wines, mostly from Bordeaux grapes, and mostly red, these are big polished wines that get press and critical acclaim. The other side of this coin is wineries you’ve probably never heard of, scraping for the market and attention, but often seeming unawares of the greater wine world. Is that unawareness a bad thing though? Bonnair makes a lovely cabernet franc that is a dead-ringer for a perfect, modest Bourgeil or Chinon, all tomato leaf and tobacco, for 3 times the price, Owen Sullivan makes a Champoux Vineyard Cabernet Franc that is rich, muscular, and almost completely devoid of character, and is a lousy dinner companion besides.

Will they be defined by cabernet sauvignon, as the wine press seems to want them to be, or will it be a combination of things? Merlot and syrah are exceptional, semillion as well- So how to understand Washington State? Other regions are easy because we identify them with what they mostly do; when you think Argentina, malbec comes to mind, Oregon, easy,  pinots noir and gris, New Zealand is sauvignon blanc and pinot noir, Chile is the land of cheap cabernet sauvignon.

Washington State will, for sure, be a powerhouse in the wine world in the coming decades, what they produce, and how we think of them are yet to be determined.