The Wine Knows

It was 75 years ago Friday that the 21st Amendment to the Constitution was ratified by - of all states - Utah, effectively ending national Prohibition in the United States.

While that should be cause for celebration, it is tempered by the fact that Prohibition effectively continues to this day in many regions of the country. Fortunately, those of us on the West Coast live in mostly enlightened states (though why Costco cannot purchase wine directly from producers remains a great mystery of life).

Nearly a quarter-century ago, the Columbia Valley American Viticultural Area was approved by the federal government. But there's a little-known story that was recounted to me Sunday by one of the people primarily responsible for Washington's second appellation (after the Yakima Valley).

It is difficult to tell whether wine lovers will like Bottle Shock, the film released this summer loosely based on the 1976 "Judgment of Paris" tasting.

It's beautifully filmed and is loaded with big film stars. The soundtrack, a combination of jazz and the Doobie Brothers, is superb. The story flows with love, anger and the quest to succeed.

It appears I won't need to wait for Bottle Shock to come to the Columbia Valley (which could be awhile because we're far from being a primary market for film releases).

I just returned from a week of vacation (spent writing about wine) and found a review copy of the movie on my desk, thanks to the effort of Managing Editor Eric Degerman, who worked with the agency to receive the DVD.

I just found a couple of great reports on the National Agricultural Statistics Service Web site (does this make me a geek, a procrastinator - or both?). One of them looks at several statistics for Oregon vineyards and wineries for the past decade.

What we see is some startling growth for the United States' fourth-largest wine-producing state.

When Eugene Foote decided to start a winery in south Seattle in 1978, there were just a half-dozen in operation in Washington.

Foote ran his eponymous winery until selling it in 1991 to Sherrill Miller and Rich Higginbotham. By that time, the state had 35 wineries and few imagined Washington ever having more than 100. They moved the operation south to Burien in 1999.

If you lived in the Pacific Northwest in the '70s, then you might fondly recall the famous Rainier Beer commercials. They were sometimes poignant, often funny and generally captured the nature and humor of our region.

These are dangerous times for the Washington wine industry. The next couple of months are when grape growers and winemakers have the most fear of what are euphemistically known as "winter events."

Over the past 50 years, a "winter event" occurs every five to eight years. The last was four years ago, when a sudden freeze wiped out 90 percent of the crop in the Walla Walla Valley.

It's been a fascinating and news-filled year for the wine industries of the Pacific Northwest, with weather causing havoc during harvest, pioneers passing away, Ste. Michelle Wine Estates gaining as a major national player and an iconoclastic California winemaker setting up shop in Washington.

Today, we published our 100th episode of the Northwest Winecast, our weekly video show that features the people and places of Northwest wine country. To celebrate, we decided to open a bottle of bubbly. With a saber.