The Wine Knows

A friend was reading through a big national wine magazine yesterday and mentioned that Cayuse Vineyards had earned some of the top scores for Washington wines. Only problem is this: The wines are from Oregon.

Along the Washington-Oregon border, three American Viticultural Areas cross state lines: Columbia Valley, Walla Walla Valley and Columbia Gorge. Christophe Baron's vineyards are just south of Stateline Road between Walla Walla, Wash., and Milton-Freewater, Ore. So's his winemaking facility. However, his tasting room is on Main Street in downtown Walla Walla.

So, are his wines from Washington or Oregon? The logical answer would be the obvious one: Oregon.

Yet, you'll see the same thing happen with wines from L'Ecole No. 41 in Lowden, Wash. Owner/winemaker Marty Clubb is part owner of Seven Hills Vineyard, which would be one of the finest vineyards in Washington if it weren't actually three miles south of the border. For magazines that list wine reviews by state, they typically list L'Ecole's Seven Hills-designated wines as being from Washington.

I suppose this practice makes it simpler for fans to find the wines, but it is a big diss on Oregon.

Gary Figgins of Leonetti Cellar is another of the owners at Seven Hills Vineyard, and a good chunk of his 2004 Cabernet Sauvignon came from Seven Hills. It's properly listed as Walla Walla Valley on the label, but it's probably included as a Washington wine in magazines and on wine lists. The fact is, Seven Hills was one of the few vineyards that mostly escaped harm from the bad winter freeze in 2004, so I suspect the majority of this wine is from Oregon grapes.

This doesn't happen only in Walla Walla. Cuneo Cellars, which is in Carlton, Ore., purchases grapes from the Rogue Valley in southern Oregon and Red Mountain in Washington. Where are his Red Mountain wines listed? I'm not sure, as I haven't paid that much attention. But if it's listed as an Oregon wine, that could be pretty confusing to the consumer - especially since there is an appellation in Oregon with the name "red" in its name (Red Hill Douglas County).

In Wine Press Northwest, we bypass the entire controversy (if it really is one) because all the wines we review are from the Pacific Northwest, and we categorize them by grape variety or style.