12 CapitalPress.com
September 8, 2017
Puget Sound’s wine region
Established in 1995, the Puget Sound American Viticulture Area
(AVA) is unique in that it has a temperate maritime climate. More
than 60 percent of the wine produced is red with Pinot noir being
the most planted variety.
British Columbia
Puget Sound AVA comes of age
By SHERYL HARRIS
For the Capital Press
Wash.
Bellingham
Vancouver
Island
Puget
Sound
AVA
5
a
Canad
U.S.
101
Port
Angeles
Everett
405
Seattle
Area in
detail
Redmond
101
2
90
Tacoma
Olympia
101
Centralia
Chehalis
12
N
5
30 miles
Source: www.washingtonwine.org
Wash.
Ore.
Longview
Alan Kenaga/Capital Press
Washington State has
14 federally recognized
American Viticulture Ar-
eas, but only the Puget
Sound AVA is on the west-
ern side of the Cascade
Range.
Established in 1995, the
Puget Sound AVA reaches
from the Canadian border on
the north to just below Olym-
pia on the south, and east into
the foothills of the Cascades
and to the west including the
islands and mainland adja-
cent to Puget Sound.
The region’s 92 vine-
yard acres produce only
about 1 percent of the state’s
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“It is often
necessary to log
a property fi rst,
and that takes
a lot of money,
especially for a
sole proprietor.”
Mike Lempriere, Perennial
Vintners owner
wine grapes.
Puget Sound AVA’s 45 or
so wineries are a small por-
tion of the state’s more than
900 wineries. Most, such as
Perennial Vintners, and many
other wineries on Bainbridge
Island and throughout the
Puget Sound AVA, use local-
ly grown grapes for at least
a few estate-grown wines,
although they may purchase
grapes from Eastern Wash-
ington or elsewhere to pro-
duce other wines.
AVAs are wine grape
growing regions defi ned
by the Alcohol and Tobac-
co Tax and Trade Bureau
and established at the re-
quest of wineries or other
petitioners, according to
the Washington State Wine
Commission.
It takes in-depth research
to defi ne soil types, climate,
and whatever it is that makes
a proposed AVA unique.
Some soil types produce dif-
Sheryl Harris/For the Capital Press
ferent types of wine. Others
are affected by the number Mike Lempriere talks about his wines as he pours for visitors at the
of hot days and the amount Perennial Vintners tasting room on Bainbridge Island.
of rain.
Within the Puget Sound endanger the plants. The cli- especially for a sole pro-
AVA, the climate has “long, mate and the long daylight prietor,” Perennial Vint-
mild and dry summers.” With hours of this latitude — 46 ners owner Mike Lempriere
an average of 15 to 30 inch- degrees North, the same as said, pointing to a dense-
es of precipitation per year, France’s Loire Valley — also ly forested portion of his
property.
however, there is suffi cient help the vineyards thrive.
The predominant vari-
In this area, you can’t al-
rainfall that, unlike vineyards
of the state’s arid to semi-arid ways just run out and plant etals planted in the Puget
eastern areas, growers don’t a vineyard, no matter how Sound AVA are Madeleine
Angevine, Siegerebbe and
many acres you have.
need to irrigate.
“It is often necessary Muller-Thurgau.
While it does freeze in
Lempriere has all three,
winter, it is seldom cold to log a property fi rst, and
enough for long enough to that takes a lot of money, plus Zwiegelt.