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4 CapitalPress.com September 11, 2015 Washington wine industry continues to grow By ERICK PETERSON For the Capital Press Gases used in the wine making process. Cooling the Grapes - in the vineyard during harvest.........................................................CO 2 Snow or & prior to crushing..........................................................................Dry Ice Pellets In the Horizontal Press Blanketing the Must..................................................................CO 2 , Gas or Snow Stabilizing the Must...........................................................................................SO 2 Temperature Control....................................................................CO 2 Snow or during fermentation in open top fermentors..................................Dry Ice Pellets Aging Wine Purge barrels..............................................................................Argon, CO 2 or N 2 Preserve barrels..................................................................................................SO 2 SO 2 adjustments.......................................................Sulfuric Acid (6% solution) Pressure Transfers.................................................................................................N 2 Blending Blanketing of storage tanks...................................................Argon, N 2 , Bev-Mix Sparge the wine to adjust CO 2 levels...................................O 2 , CO 2 , N 2 , Bev-Mix Stabilize Finished Wine...............................................................................SO 2 Blanket Bottling Tank........................................................Argon, N 2 , Bev-Mix Bottling – purge bottles to lower O 2 ..............................Argon, CO 2 , N 2 , Bev-Mix Winery Maintenance.................................Oxy/Acetylene, Argon & Mixtures Tasting Room - Blanketing open wine bottles to prevent oxydation.................................Bev-Mix or shop online: Moses Lake, WA Pasco, WA Sunnyside, WA 509-765-9247 509-547-2494 509-837-6212 Walla Walla, WA Wenatchee, WA Yakima, WA 509-529-3060 509-662-8417 509-248-0827 Willamette Valley Bonded Winery/Vineyard Scotts Mills, OR • Award Winning Wines • Turnkey Operation • 49.59 Acres $1,599,999 Donna Paradis, Broker V15-1/#14 Call your local OXARC sales representative today. sult in intense fruit flavors and variety that will ex- cite many consumers. This should add to customer de- mand, she said. Barbara Glover, execu- tive director of Wine Yaki- ma Valley, recognizes the state’s growth. She makes her way throughout Yaki- ma Valley meeting with her local producers, and she has seen businesses grow. “It’s a fun time to be in touch with producers,” she said. With producers gearing up for an early harvest, perhaps the earliest harvest Yakima Valley has ever experienced, these grow- ers said that their grapes looked “really good.” These growers, she said, are happy to com- plete harvest early, but they are also enWoying having more time for rip- ening and planning. As for the traffic in tasting rooms, she said it has also been outstanding. She has heard that most wineries are doing very well, with some doubling their sales from July to August. “There’s a lot of good time happening for folks,” Glover said. (503) 873-8600, ext. 532 Donna@NWOregonRealtyGroup.com www.DonnaParadisRealtor.com V15-2/#T4D Erik Peterson/For the Capital Press Maria Beltran and Spenser Stepniewski, wine stewards at Windy Point Vineyards in Wapato, Wash., greet customers. They say that their tasting room, long a popular destination, has grown even busier in the past year. WAPATO, Wash. — Belly up to the bar at one of the many wine tasting rooms around Washington state, and it might take a minute to be served. The people behind the counter say that business is good, and some are hard-pressed to attend to the many people coming through the door. The Windy Point Vine- yards Wapato, Wash., tast- ing room is Wust one popu- lar location reporting high visitation rates, according to stewards Maria Beltran and Spenser Stepniewski. “Oh, we’re busy all right,” said Beltran, who was rushing around re- cently refilling glasses and chatting with visitors. “Things are really going good.” Michaela Baltasar, di- rector of communications for the Washington Wine Commission, said that she feels positive about the state’s wine industry, as reflected by both customer and producer enthusiasm. “We’re in a period of strong growth right now,” she said. She adds that many new wineries are applying for licenses. The number of Washington wineries has Wumped from 800 in 2014 to 880 this year. Also, ac- cording to Baltasar, yields are increasing, as is de- mand. More and more in- vestors are coming into the state from other states and countries to plant vine- yards to take advantage of a booming industry, she said. She calls this growth “very exciting,” as 2014 was the state’s biggest harvest, with 227,000 tons of grapes. Coming years are likely to continue this growth, she said. She esti- mates a 5 to 9 percent an- nual growth rate between 2015 and 2019, with a lot of the new plantings com- ing on line. It has been a warm year, she said, which should re-