Six Best Wineries in WA State - AFAR

Long Shadows gathers some of the wine world’s biggest talents under the umbrella of a single label. In 2003, Allen Shoup began the Long Shadows project, in which iconic winemakers from around the globe focus on their signature grape varieties, as produced with Washington fruit. Accordingly, the Long Shadows portfolio offers seven wines, made by seven different winemakers hailing from the Napa Valley to Tuscany, Australia to Bordeaux. Winemaker and viticulturalist Gilles Nicault holds down the fort in Washington year round, to ensure the grapes are grown and the wines are vinified to meet each winemaker’s specifications. Long Shadows operates two tasting rooms (with vineyards in several parts of the Columbia Valley)—one conveniently close to Seattle in Woodinville, and the other in Walla Walla, which is decorated with glassworks by famed native Washington sculptor Dale Chihuly.

Washington’s history of grape growing dates back to 1825, when the Hudson’s Bay Company planted vines at Fort Vancouver (now a National Historic Site, set across the river from Portland in vineyard-heavy Oregon). By the time an early Prohibition struck the Evergreen State in 1916, Washington had already nursed a burgeoning wine industry, supported by its sizeable population of European immigrants, many from wine-loving countries like Italy, France, and Germany. The movement gradually rebounded post-Prohibition, starting in the mid-20th century, with pioneering and still-in-production labels, such as Quilceda Creek, Chateau Ste. Michelle, and Leonetti, which helped forge a path to Washington’s current status of harboring one of the country’s most dynamic fine wine industries.

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