The Wine Knows

Several great stories are making the rounds about law enforcement in Washington's Yakima Valley busting marijuana operations in vineyards.

I have yet to find out the name of a prominent vineyard being involved, so I suspect your favorite Yakima Valley Syrah won't take on any burnt rope notes this vintage.

And while wine grapes rank amid Washington's highest-profile agricultural crops, they don't even rank in the state's top 10 in value. Where would marijuana rank? Top five for certain, maybe even No. 1.

All of this reminds me of a story my good buddy Coke Roth told me about some innovative folks back in the '70s.

As the story goes, apparently marijuana and hops are from the same family. In fact, my understanding is that they are two of only three members of the Cannabaceae family. So someone got the bright idea of grafting marijuana onto hops with the hopes of avoiding detection.

The results were successful for a time, and the product was given the colorful name of "Granger Green" for the Yakima Valley town near the operation.