Page 20 - washington state wine

in. (There’s nothing better than a great
hamburger on a road trip.) From there
on, you breeze through farm towns, high
desert and the Tri-Cities area into Walla
Walla.

A word to the wise – It’s easy to speed
down the wide-open ribbons of highway
in these parts. Keep in mind that state
and local police armed with radar guns
love to lurk in hard to spot places and
welcome you to Washington State with a
speeding ticket.
“Real People Making Great Wine” is the
slogan of the Walla Walla Wine Alli-
ance. And it’s true; we tasted some very
fine wine here, and most of the people
we met here were absolutely real, as far
as I could tell. This wine country really
feels like traditional farm country, think
Kansas with grapevines. The pace of life
is relaxed, even slow, and the locals are
friendly salt-of-the-earth types.
Walla Walla was first explored by Lewis
and Clark in 1806 and populated by fur
traders and then farmers who arrived in
wagon trains in 1840s. The downtown
core is edging toward wine-country gen-
trified with refurbished historic hotels,
trendy wine tasting rooms and surpris-
ingly good eateries. But it still feels like a
farm town - and that’s kind of refreshing.

Although wine was produced by Italian
immigrants from the early 1950s, the
area was mostly known for its rich farm
land producing wheat, asparagus, straw-
berries and especially Walla Walla Sweet
Onions. It wasn’t until the 1970s that
modern varietals were planted and by
1978 Leonetti’s Cabernet got national
recognition. Wine making really got seri-
ous here and by 2012 five of the top 100
wineries of the world were in Walla Walla
according to Wine & Spirits Magazine.

20 Wine Dine & Travel Summer/Fall 2015