Wines of Washington State
What’s on the farm stand when you think about the fruits of Washington State? Apples, of course, and berries—blackberries the color of night, and raspberries, blueberries and huckleberries, all chin-dripping juicy and with flavors as deep as a well.
Is it any surprise, then, that when Washington State turns out (especially) red wines such as Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon, the wines have an equal lushness of flavor and concentration of fruit?
No sun, son
Exactly how is that done in a place known best for its rain? (When the sun comes out in Seattle, people look up and ask “What is that round thing in the sky?”) The answer is that the spine-like range of the Cascade Mountains cleaves western and eastern Washington into two, retaining water on one side and letting through precious little onto the other.
Eastern Washington is indeed rain-clogged (average 48 inches of rain a year), but western Washington contains some of the driest farmland in the United States (average 8 inches of rain a year).
Eastern Washington is also one of the sunniest places in the country—an average of 300 days a year, 11% more than in the winemaking country of northern California. Combined with cool nighttime temperatures, the extra sunlight lengthens ripening times, preserves acidity levels and develops both color and mature tannins in the grapes.
Photo by Boudewijn Huysmans on unsplash.com
Where
Washington State has five regional vineyard appellations. Of them, Columbia Valley is the largest and is birthplace to two-thirds of the state’s wine production. Many of Washington’s top, prize-winning wineries are made in another appellation, the Yakima Valley.
Walla Walla is home to another group of fine wineries. Though small, the last two appellations, Red Mountain (for red wines) and Puget Sound (around Seattle), also produce excellent wines.
WASHINGTON SYRAH
The red grape syrah turns out wine that is a light shade of black and so exotically perfumed that it might well snap your head back.
In France, from where it has been best appreciated as a wine, and in much of the rest of the world, it goes by the name “syrah,” whereas it is called “shiraz” in Australia and by some winemakers in both South Africa and California. Same grape, different names.
But the two-fold name is a mystery. Is it after the city of Shiraz in Persia? The Sicilian city of Syracuse? Even more obscure are the grape’s origins: Via Egypt through Sicily? Planted in the Rhone Valley by a passing crusader or even, as some allege, St. Patrick himself? Or, simply, hundreds of years ago, a mutation of a vine already indigenous to the Rhone?
The latter, say scientists, and probably fathered by the ancient vine allobrogica, written about by both Pliny the Elder and Julius Caesar. Allobrogica was termed “serus” in Latin (“late ripening”); hence, “serine” in old French, then “syrah.” Maybe.
In any case, syrah’s present notoriety is based, by and large, on its wines made in two places on the globe: along the northern Rhone and throughout Australia. But in recent years, syrah fever has touched the Central Coast of California, Chile and Argentina, and of late and most notably for us American wine lovers, Washington.
While there are but 3,100 acres of syrah in Washington to California’s 19,000, Washington’s syrah acreage has quadrupled since 1993. Because syrah from Washington is proving to be so outstanding, it is a sure bet that even more plantings are to come.
Syrah, like the cabernet sauvignon and merlot for which Washington long has been famed, enjoys the state’s extended hours of sunlight as it develops flavor compounds and deep pigmentation that grapes at lower latitudes simply cannot imitate.
Furthermore, the significant day-to-night swings in temperature (up to 40 degrees) help Washington syrah grapes retain acidity, something devoutly to be wished for in a red wine, both for texture and refreshment, as well as for aging potential.
Finally, the very soil in which Washington syrah vines grow antes up the flavor in their grapes. “Where the best syrah is planted,” says Christophe Hedges of Hedges Family Estates, “like Red Mountain or Walla Walla, the soils pHs are super high, like 7 to 9.4, where the normal is 3 to 7. Acidic soils like these mean that nutrients are absorbed slowly so that there’s a real limit on (grape) yield. That means more concentrated flavors.”
What all this agriculture, viticulture and winemaking culture add up to in the glass is a terrifically interesting, delicious and multi-layered red wine, in my experience like no other.
The color on a Washington syrah is shockingly saturated; you can’t see through a pour of it. You’d think that means cheek-chewing tannins, but, no, the texture is sleek, as smooth as cat’s ears. The wine is chock full of tannin, alright, but it’s of the round-the-mouth sort, dusting and fine-grained, not astringent or grating.
The color is a harbinger of intensity of flavor, dark red fruit aromas and tastes such as blackberry and black raspberry, those accented with a panoply of grace notes of black olive, tobacco, black pepper and sometimes bacon fat or green, pine-y herb and, in the more interesting syrahs, bewitching scents of blueberry or pomegranate.
Then, there is the liveliness of all that deeply wrought color and fruit, a refreshing and buoyant personality tied together with snappy acidity and, of all things miraculous these days in a red wine, low alcohol (14-15 percent tops).
When used in a red blend – a particular strength of Washington red winemaking – syrah donates all those goodies, but then might be given more grip from cabernet sauvignon, even more depth of color from mourvedre or in-your-face fruit from grenache.