What next for Washington State's wines?

Washington wine came of age with Chateau Ste Michelle, a winery founded in the 1930s.

Between the 1980s and 2021, it built enduring relationships with Washington grape growers and renowned wine producers like Ernst Loosen and the Antinori family, cultivating vineyards throughout the state and becoming Washington wine’s ambassador throughout the world.

A quality wine industry grew alongside it, with lodestars like Leonetti, Cayuse and Quilceda Creek setting a high bar for wines from Bordeaux and Rhône varieties.

And times were good.

‘Easy growth meant there was an incredible opportunity for almost anyone interested in wine to get into the wine business,’ says Jeff Andrews owner of Trothe.

Recent years, however, have seen uncertainty and industry contraction.

Today, Washington wine is facing the same challenges as the wider wine industry – declining alcohol consumption, competition from other beverage categories, and the economic fallout from tariffs.

In 2023, having changed hands from corporate ownership to private equity, and contending with the same contraction as the rest of the wine industry, Chateau Ste Michelle reset its grape supply by ending grape growing contracts with more than 40% of its farming partners.

‘That’s 65,000 people whose livelihoods and families depend on the Washington wine industry. We're now in balance, but obviously it wasn’t easy to do,’ says former-CEO David Bowman [Bowman was interviewed for this article just before it was announced he was being replaced as CEO by David Richardson].

Chateau Ste Michelle returned to local ownership in 2025, acquired by the Wyckoff family, a Washington agribusiness and winemaking company, spurring optimism and 'an expectation we're going to sell better wines at higher prices – wines that speak more to place,' says Bowman.

Bringing back balance

Washington’s historic association with value, specifically, as a value alternative to comparable wines from California or Oregon, has been risky.

The key is to find the intersection between sustaining consumer appreciation for good value while cultivating equal appreciation for the expressive, high-quality wines the state’s terroirs can produce.

How then can Washington bring true ‘value’ through commercial sustainability to its winemakers and industry while continuing to deliver something better every year for customers?

Fresh styles, expression and lonely wineries

Kelly Austin, co-owner of Grosgrain in the Walla Walla Valley AVA, describes this as a moment, 'for estate wineries to shape the story'.

The Cascade Mountains bisect Washington, running north-south from British Columbia to California.

Of the state’s 21 American Viticultural Areas (AVAs), 20 are east of the Cascades, and some see less than 250mm of rain a year.

It’s a hard landscape to grow grapes. But there’s fantastic variety there too in which adventurous winemakers can express all manner of varieties in unique – occasionally lonely – settings.

Vintners are ‘willing to take a real risk to build unique estate programmes’, says Elizabeth Keyser-Hadley, winemaker at Rocky Pond Winery, which is the only winery in the tiny Rocky Reach AVA.

Wind gusts through this northern section of the Columbia River canyon during spring, and grapes are small and thick-skinned, with rich tannin profiles.

This is evident in wines like Rocky Pond’s Tumbled Granite series; the 2024 white a blend of Sauvignon Blanc, Roussanne and Muscat Cannelli expressing lively acidity and minerality.

So too Grosgrain’s velvet-textured skin-contact Semillon from Evergreen Vineyard in the Ancient Lakes AVA, or Syncline Winery’s vibrant expressions of Picpoul Blanc, Furmint, and traditional-method sparkling in the Columbia Gorge AVA, among many others.

And, stylistically, there’s been a change in direction too, particularly with lighter, refreshing wine styles that unify ‘tension and place', says Mark McNeilly, founder and winemaker of Mark Ryan Winery.

Lighter styles, like Kiona’s Chenin Blanc and Lemburger (Blaufränkisch), and Chateau Ste Michelle’s Estival, a Horse Heaven Hills Sauvignon Blanc are on trend, ambassadors for a next generation of wine drinkers.

‘Wineries are focusing on the varieties and styles they are truly passionate about, and that resonates deeply, create a specific statement of site and intent,’ says Jeff Andrews, owner of Trothe in the Horse Heaven Hills AVA.

More than just wine

In step with the rest of the wine industry, aligning Washington wine with lifestyle – nature, friends, family, food, experiences – further emphasises quality over value.

This lifestyle focus has added cachet in a region with dramatic lakes, waterfalls and mountains, ‘all of the things people love about the Pacific Northwest,' says Co Dinn, of Co Dinn Cellars in Yakima Valley.

Washington’s storybook landscapes – snow-capped mountains, evergreen forests, the chiselled, 80-mile long Columbia River Gorge, the vast, arid Horse Heaven Hills and Walla Walla Valley AVAs, and the coastal Puget Sound – expand ‘sense of place’ beyond AVA borders and state lines.

The Yakima Valley offers river rafting, hiking, and cycling which integrate seamlessly with wine tasting at close to 100 venues in the town of Prosser’s Vintners Village.

At some venues, such as the Two Vintners Winery in Woodinville, a play area and foosball table set a dynamic, family-friendly, and welcoming mood.

Other arrangements are much more extensive. In the 1980s, Vince and Carol Bryan established both their own winery and what is now a world class concert venue, the Gorge Amphitheatre in Columbia Valley AVA.

With its sweeping views of basalt cliffs, tufted hillsides dotted with sage grass, the contour of the Columbia River below, and shifting light at sunset, it’s an ethereal backdrop for live music

Everyday connections

‘We think about reaching a new generation of wine lovers every single day,’ says Kimberly Harris, co-owner of Bayernmoor Cellars in the Puget Sound AVA.

‘Food is the perfect gateway for guests who are newer to wine,’ says Harris.

Chef Tori Barr’s food and wine programme for Bayernmoor emphasises discovery, pairing the same wine with three different ‘bites’ and an ice cream social as playful entry points.

Washington state’s 2024 Tourism Economic Impact Report notes that tourists in Washington spent the largest part of their travel budgets on food and drink, with a total spend of $6.1 billion in 2024.

Unsurprisingly, therefore, other wineries like Analemma Wines in the Columbia Gorge AVA, Wapato Point Cellars in Lake Chelan, Echolands in Walla Walla, and Freehand Cellars in the Yakima Valley, are among the many adding dining options to their offerings.

If you build it they will come but there’s more to it than that.

‘We are figuring out how to connect with a new generation, and we can’t just wait for people to find us,’ says Kelsey Itameri, owner and winemaker of ïta wines, specialising in minimal intervention and carbonic wines, in Walla Walla.

‘We need to reach out to them – and we will.’

Trothe’s Jeff Andrews says: ‘We still offer incredible quality-to-price ratios. However, our real opportunity today is positioning ourselves as the premier discovery choice.

‘Washington isn't just the budget pick anymore. Some of the most exciting wines in the world are being made here.’

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