Missoula Floods Archives | Crushed Grape Chronicles

Exploring Wines of the Yakima Valley AVA with #WinePW

Mar 3, 2021

It’s been several years since my first trip to the Yakima Valley. I remember being so surprised at the landscape, it didn’t look so different from home, in the desert of Nevada. Of course in the Yakima Valley, there is a river, bringing water and with it, agriculture.

The State of Washington is agriculture forward. They lead the country in growing cherries, apples, pears, hops, potatoes, onions, and grapes.

There are plenty of grapes grown here for Welches grape juice and jelly. More than that, they grow the kind of grapes, that if you are reading this, you care about. Wine grapes.

#WinePW explores the Yakima Valley

This month the writers at #WinePW (Wine Pairing Weekend) are partnering with Wine Yakima Valley to dive into all those wine grapes. You might be surprised at the range of varieties that are grown in this Valley. We will add links to all the articles by this fine group of writers at the bottom of this piece.

You can join us on Saturday, March 13^th on Twitter to discuss the wines of this amazing region. You can join us, following and using the hashtag #WinePW at 8 am PST or 11 am EST.

The Yakima Valley AVA

The Yakima Valley AVA is a nested AVA inside theater Columbia Valley AVA in Washington State. Located in the Southern part of the state it spans over 70 miles from the city of Yakima in the west to the city of Richland to the east. At its widest point, you could fit the Napa Valley AVA from north to south.

Washington State Wine AVA Map Oct 2020 - courtesy Washington State Wine

Nested AVAs of the Yakima Valley

Within the Yakima Valley, you find 4 nested AVAs.

Rattlesnake Hills est. 2006
- In the Northwest part of the valley, this is the largest of the sub AVAs covering 74,380 acres with 1,832 under vine. Elevations here run 850 to over 3000 feet.
Snipes Mountain est. 2009
- Named for a rancher, Ben Snipes who live here in the 1850s, the AVA is 4,005 acres on both sides of the mountain. There are 859 acres under vine with more than 30 varieties.
Red Mountain est. 2001
- Nope, it’s not really a mountain. It is a steep southwest slope in the east end of the valley with elevations between 500 and 1500 feet. It gets its name from the cheatgrass that grows here that is deep red in the spring. It is home to some of the most well-thought-of Cabernets in the State.
Candy Mountain est. 2020
- Yep, this is the newbie! It’s just east of Red Mountain, covers only 815 acres, and has 110 acres under vine. (It’s so new that its not yet on the AVA map! But it would be just east of Red Mountain before you get to the Tri-Cities)

Map Yakima Valley 2019 courtesy of WineYakimaValley.org

Volcanos, Floods, and soils

This region was volcanic. Think about it, Mount Adams, Mount Ranier, Mount Hood…there are stunning peaks everywhere. More than mountains, these were volcanos active 15 million years ago. All that lava is the basalt that lies under the top soils here in the Yakima Valley. This soil includes a wide variety of minerals and it’s well-draining. This gives you small berries, high in acid and full of concentrated flavors and textures.

This is also the land of the Missoula Floods and many vineyards will tell you where they are in relationship to the flood levels. The floods came up to 1200 feet here, so it’s only the higher vineyards that sit in soils above the flood levels, they are happy to show you the difference in the soils. You find deep silt loam over gravel or basalt.

The Missoula floods rolled through this region 13,000-15,000 years ago at the end of the last ice age. An ice dam backed up the water in what is now Idaho. The water above it started to melt and the pressure built and the ice plug would get pushed up and release the water. The water would slow, the dam would reform….this happened over and over about 2000 years.

All those floods washed things downstream and you find boulders in vineyards on top of ridges and hills. Kitzke has one the size of a VW bus in their vineyard

The modern history of wine in the Yakima Valley

While the first grapes in the Yakima Valley were planted in 1869, it was the early 20^th century when things picked up. In 1917 an agricultural research site was started in Prosser in the middle of the Yakima Valley.

Today it is known as the Irrigated Agriculture Research and Extension Center. It was here that the wine grape growing in the state really kicked off, under the guidance of Dr. Walter Clore.

In 1962 Columbia Winery (at that time known as Associated Vintners) planted a 5.5 acres site in Sunnyside. In 1973 Mike Sauer planted his first Cabernet Sauvignon at Red Willow Vineyard, in 1975 Kiona on Red Mountain was planted. Now things were really rolling.

Associated Vineyards Winemaker David Lake, encouraged growers to plant Bordeaux varieties and in 1981 did the first vineyard-designate bottling from Red Willow Vineyard.

Yakima Valley’s Impact on Washington Wine

More than half of the grapes for Washington’s wines come from the Yakima Valley AVA. The region boasts 17,000 acres of vineyards, whose grapes go to both wineries within the region and further afield. Many of the tasting rooms in Seattle source fruit from the Yakima Valley.

This is a place where a vineyard name means something. 40 years ago David Lake did the first vineyard designate wine in the state. Red Willow, Klipsun, Boushey…these names are legendary here. The soils the weather, the people that grow the grapes…the more you know the more you want to know, and the learning is delicious.

On March 12^th and 13^th, the writers of the #WinePW Crew will post pieces on the wines and wineries of the Yakima Valley. When these posts go live I will include links here! In the meantime feel free to check out their sites, listed below.

Participating writers include:

Camilla of Culinary Adventures with Cam shares “Yakima Valley’s Sin Banderas Rhone Roses Compliment Dishes with Asian Flair” and “Mediterranean-Inspired Dishes Paired with Yakima Valley Wines from Dineen Vineyards”
Linda at My Full Wine Glass invites us to “Meet Kerry Shiels: A Yakima Valley winemaker with Vision”
Terri of Our Good Life shares 2 posts “Fortuity…Taking Advantage of Life’s Great Wines!”, and “Two Mountain Rose and Fennel Wild Mushroom Tarts”
Payal at Keep The Peas shares “Yakima Valley Wines FTW!”
Wendy of A Day in the Life on the Farm is cooking up “Smoked Beef Brisket with Canvasback Cabernet”
Rupal the Syrah Queen gives us “Yakima Valley – Red Willow Vineyards Producing Some of Washington’s Finest Syrahs”
Jane of Always Ravenous makes our mouths water with “Filet Mignon paired with Washington Yakima Valley Cabernet Sauvignon”
Martin with ENOFYLZ Wine Blog is giving us “a Taste of Washington State’s Yakima Valley”
David at Cooking Chat has 2 posts for us also “Lamb Ragu Pasta with Red Wine from Dineen Vineyards” and “Sin Banderas Rosé with Corned Beef & More Yakima Valley Wine Pairings”
Nicole of Somm’s Table shares “Big, Beautiful Reds from Yakima Valley and Tasty, Meaty Fare”
Jennifer at Vino Travels tells us about “Italian Grapes of the Yakima Valley with Sleeping Dog Wines”
Gwendolyn the Wine Predator explores “Washington Syrah: Hedges, L’Ecole, VanArnam with Lamb Stew”
Susannah at Avvinare gives us “Malbec from VanArnam Vineyard in Yakima Valley”
Lori at Exploring the Wine Glass shares “Tasting the Soul of Wine in the Heart of Yakima Valley”
I’ll be here at Crushed Grape Chronicles with “Yakima Valley AVA – Blends of Friendship and History with wines from Eight Bells and Pearl and Stone Co.

Don’t forget to join us on Saturday, March 13^th on Twitter at 8 am Pacific or 11 am Eastern time (17.00 European Central Time), to discuss wines of the Yakima Valley! Just follow and use the hashtag #WinePW to join the conversation.

If you would like to join us and write a piece, there is still time. Email me at [email protected]!

Sources and Resources

As always be sure to follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and sign up for our monthly newsletter to keep up to date on all of our posts.

Robin Bell Renken I have always loved people’s stories. I spent a career in Theatre helping to tell stories, as a Stage Manager. Daily enabling artists to freely and safely tell stories through their art. Then I fell in love with wine. There are so many details, so many nuances, not just in the glass, but in the vineyard, the region and the people. As I met winemakers and vineyard owners and even the people in the tasting room excited to pour me a glass and tell me the story of this wine, I knew these were stories I wanted to share. I completed my study and became a Certified Specialist of Wine and continue learning daily as I meet and interview people in this industry.

Robin Renken is a wine writer and Certified Specialist of Wine. She and her husband Michael travel to wine regions interviewing vineyard owners and winemakers and learning the stories behind the glass.

When not traveling they indulge in cooking and pairing wines with food at home in Las Vegas.

Montinore Estate – About the wines

Dec 13, 2018

Continuing our conversation with Rudy Marchesi at Montinore Estate

After looking over the Willamette Valley AVA map and having Rudy give us some background on the soils and the impact of the Missoula floods we sat with him to talk about how these soils influence the wines at Montinore Estate.

Pinot Noir

Pinot Noir is very expressive and Rudy told us that pinot grown in the windblown loess here tend to be brighter, with berry flavors rather than the cherry notes that are so often associated with pinot noir. The pinots here also are very spicy with baking spices.

They produce several different Pinot Noirs here. Here is a sampling. I can’t promise that I have not missed one.

“Red Cap” Pinot Noir: This is a blend from all the vineyards giving you multiple areas and soil types blended into one bottle.
Reserve Pinot Noir: Again from multiple sites but all within the estate. These are the best blocks and lots. They ferment and age separately and then blend the best.
Parsons’ Ridge Pinot Noir: This vineyard block sits on a part of the vineyard where the vines face two different directions. The lots, as they are different, are fermented separately and then blended.
Keeler Estate Pinot Noir: This is a 25 acres Biodynamic vineyard in Eola-Amity Hills that they source from. This gives you another opportunity to taste and compare the terroir.
Windy Hill Pinot Noir: This comes from the Southern part of the Valley and is influenced by the winds of the Van Duzer Corridor.
Cataclysm Pinot Noir: Comes from their Block 1 which has mineral rich soils. They pick the most expressive barrels from this block to make this wine.

Pinot Gris

He finds the white wines to actually be more distinctive. Pinot gris grown in the Missoula flood loess, is very complex. Rather than apple and pear, they get citrus and herbal notes. In warmer years there will be tropical notes. Always he finds pinot gris here to have lots of texture.

Riesling

The riesling he find distinctive, but without as much difference although he feels sure some might disagree.

Chardonnay

Chardonnay is new here. They had quite a bit planted early on, but it was the clone brought up from California. This clone was a late ripener and had tight clusters which were prone to rot. It was a great clone when there was good weather in a vintage, but that was about 1out of every 4 years.

They have now planted the new Dijon clone, which has looser clusters and is an earlier ripening clone. They are back in the Chardonnay business in a small way. He is encouraged by the quality, but it’s too soon to know what they will get stylistically from the vineyards with these clones. They will need a few more vintages to figuring this out.

Bubbles

They are currently producing a prosecco style bubbly, and have a Traditional Methode Champenoise Sparkling wine of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay which is yet to be released.

Other Varieties

In addition they are growing bits of Teroldego and Lagrein, Gerwürztraminer and Müller Thurgau.

Blends and specialty wines

You will find Rosé, Orange wine, fortified wine (Ruby), Ice wine (Frolic) and Verjus also on their wine line-up which is very diverse, having something for every palate.

Everything here is done on site, and they try to be as Estate as possible. The 2016 Pinot got away from 100% Estate because they had too much demand and had to contract a couple of other growers.

Speaking with Rudy and walking the winery, you can see the pride they take in making the best possible wines here.

You can learn a bit about the estate with our posts.

https://www.crushedgrapechronicles.com/montinore-estate-a-recent-history/

https://www.crushedgrapechronicles.com/montinore-the-deeper-history/

And check back here as we will next talk to Rudy about Biodynamics before heading with him to the cellar for a tour and barrel tasting.

If you are in the Willamette Valley stop by and give the wines a taste for yourself. You can find them a:

Montinore Estate
3663 SW Dilley Road
Forest Grove, Oregon 97116
503.359.5012

Montinore – the deeper history

Dec 9, 2018

Time to talk soils

The soil at Montinore Estate in the Northwest corner of the Willamette Valley, is loess from the Missoula Floods. The Missoula Floods… well that takes us back a bit further in history, like 13,000 to 15,000 years back. During our interview with Rudy Marchesi, Immediate Past President and Partner at the winery, he took us into the tasting room to show us the beautiful Willamette Valley map created by the Willamette Valley Wine Association. Here he took a minute to paint the picture for us of the floods and the soils that came from these floods

Willamette Valley Map courtesy of Willamette Valley Wine Association Map data by everyvine.com, design by John Fisher, geologic cross section by Timothy A. Cross, special thanks to Patrick Reuter.”

The Missoula Floods

At the end of the last ice age, there was an ice dam in the Clark Fork River in what is now Idaho. This backed up the water from a finger of the Codilleran Ice Sheet that was melting and creating the Glacial Lake Missoula. As the water pressure built, the ice plug was forced upwards releasing cataclysmic flood waters, a wall of water 500 feet tall down the Columbia River to the ocean. After the surge of water, the plug would drop back into place and the lake would refill. Then periodically, the plug would get pushed up and more flood water would be released. This repeated dozens of times over about a 2000 year period. The area that was flooded covered almost half of what is now Washington on it’s eastern side side of the state and followed the Columbia River to the ocean. It also branched off at the mouth of the Willamette River creating a lake that covered much of the Willamette Valley as far south as Eugene. Mind you, Glacial Lake Missoula was in Montana…yet another Montana and Oregon link for Montinore.

I found this link to an article on Oregon Live that discusses the flood

https://www.oregonlive.com/environment/index.ssf/2012/06/lidar_map_shows_path_of_missou.html

Here you can also find beautiful lidar maps (as Oregon Live puts it “think radar, but with light”), some of which are truly artworks, including an interactive mapthat illustrates the floodwaters by the Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries

https://gis.dogami.oregon.gov/maps/lidarviewer/

Build up of soils

Every time that the floods happened they would take out forests, that had grown in the last 75 years and carry that sediment with them, as well as anything else in their way (ie rocks, mammoths). Then the plug would drop back into place and the soil over the flooded area would dry out. Some of this would be dusty and dry, so the wind would carry it (wind blown loess). You have layers and layers of these soils, forests that were buried or swept away downstream. One of the ways they were able to tell that there were multiple floods, was because they found separate layers of ash from Mt. Saint Helens eruptions.

The soils of Montinore and the proposed Tualatin AVA

General Area of the proposed Tualatin Hills AVA (Willamette Valley Map courtesy of Willamette Valley Wine Association)

We mentioned that when the Chehalem Mountain AVA formed that they offered to include Montinore. Rudy declined. He knows his soil and it is different from that of the Chehalem Mountain AVA. The soils here are considered Laurelwood and Cornelius (wind blown loess glacial lake sediment) and are similar to some of those found in the Northeast part of the Chehalem Mountains, the area that is looking to become a nested AVA inside Chehalem, the proposed Laurelwood AVA.

So what does Rudy believe sets this area apart to warrant it’s own AVA? Well the windblown loess for a start. The loess is the fine topsoil that formed as the flooded areas dried out. These fine particles which include clay (the finest and lightest of particles), were blown westward and got caught by the hills. This dust buried an ancient redwood forest 200 feet deep. Rudy told us that he has had neighbors drill wells and pull up chunks of redwood from deep underground.

While it shares the Laurelwood soil series with the Chehalem Mountains AVA, the proposed Tualatin Hills AVA is located within the rain shadow of the coastal range and the temperatures are a bit higher.

Tualatin Hills AVA borders

The proposed AVA is a horse-shoe shaped basin that opens to the east, bounded by the Tualatin River watershed. To the northwest the boundry is the peaks of the coastal range, where the prevailing winds come over and hit the Chehalem Mountains and Portland. Then Willamette Valley AVA provides another border and urban development the last. Elevation borders sit at 200 feet for the low end (anything below that has soils to fertile for growing wine grapes) and 1000 feet on the high end, which is the natural boundry for growing wine grapes in this climate.

The overall proposed Tualatin Hills AVA covers 144,000 acres.

Stick with us as we continue our discussion with Rudy as we dig deeper into the soils and how the Missoula Flood Loess affects the flavors in the wines.

You can also check out our previous post Montinore Estate – a Recent History which tells how the Estate came by it’s name and the history of the property and winery.

Missoula Floods

Exploring Wines of the Yakima Valley AVA with #WinePW

#WinePW explores the Yakima Valley