The Walla Walla Valley: Exploring Terroir In A Young Appellation

By Jonathan Swinchatt
June 29, 2006

Driving into the Walla Walla Valley, the road rolls through hillsides covered with the tan stubble of cropped wheat. In early February, a few fields reveal the new green that will color the hills in the spring. Ranks of giant windmills line the southern ridges, sentinels of the twenty-first century. The eye searches for vineyards, apparently in vain until the car tops a hill and a large, rustic, wood board proclaims Ash Hollow Vineyard, at this time of year bare vines gracing a series of south facing slopes. Several miles farther on, a self-effacing sign announces Woodward Canyon Winery, a complex of industrial buildings beside a small farmhouse tasting room. Next door, set back from the road, lies L'Ecole No. 41, a winery headquartered in a refurbished 1915 schoolhouse, with another complex of industrial buildings providing winemaking facilities. In the several miles from here to Walla Walla, the road passes two more wineries, one with vineyards. Approaching the town, small ranches and houses, most with a working corral, horses, and horse trailers, line the road ever more densely. It is distinctly American farm country where people live close to the land. Nothing reveals that Walla Walla is also the fastest growing wine region in the United States.

Walla Walla is indeed no Napa Valley- there is not a hint of the weekend limo culture, no evidence of saturated tourism, no lineup of wineries and tasting rooms along the highway. Many of its 90 some-odd wineries are closed to the public except for two weekends a year. With a population of 30,000, Walla Walla has a single main street, three colleges and a couple of high-end restaurants. The local ambiance is plain, straight, western-America farmer-no hype, no spin, no fancy public relations-and the winemakers, at least those who have been around the longest-appear to fit the mold.

Modern winemaking in Walla Walla began in 1974 when Gary Figgins, a local machinist with an Italian immigrant winemaking heritage, planted the first vineyard for what would become Leonetti Cellars, opened in 1977. Figgins hit the big time in 1981 with his first commercial  wine, a Cabernet Sauvignon from the 1978 vintage judged by Wine and Spirits as the Best in America. Emboldened perhaps beyond the bounds of rationality by Figgins' success, his friend and fellow home winemaker Rick Small opened Woodward Canyon Winery in 1981, its base a small vineyard planted on his family's wheat farm in 1976. The brave example of these two wine entrepreneurs did nothing to establish a trend; in 1990 there were just 6 wineries in the valley and a meager 100 acres of vines. The tenth winery opened in 1997. By then, Seven Hills Vineyard, planted originally with 10 acres in 1981, and Pepper Bridge Vineyard, founded in 1991 by Norm McKibben, had each grown to near its present 200 acres. Over the past 10 years, the number of wineries has exploded, from 10 in 1997, to 22 in 2000, to 90 plus today. In 2006, a single vineyard, to be developed over several years, doubled the planted or planned land from 1200 to 2200 acres. Even then, plantings in the Walla Walla AVA (American Viticultural Area) will be small. Grape acreage is lagging behind winery growth, part of the Walla Walla story.

The Walla Walla Valley AVA lies in southeastern Washington State, spilling over into northeastern Oregon. Washington presently supports some 350 wineries in 8 AVAs of which Walla Walla is one of the smallest. It is a sub-appellation of the much larger Columbia Valley AVA that also includes the Yakima Valley, Red Mountain, Wahluke Slope, and Horse Heaven Hills AVAs. Walla Walla encompasses some 320,000 acres-500 square miles, a misleading figure given the limitations on grape planting and production. The total potential acreage is uncertain, perhaps 3,000, perhaps 30,000 acres, both recent off-the-cuff estimates reflecting different takes on a complex interplay of geology, climate, water rights, and land ownership. What follows is a story of the birth and development of a new wine region, the effects of place and culture on establishing and defining terroir, and the issues that are likely to arise as the growing reputation of Walla Walla wine expands outward from the boundaries of the Pacific Northwest.

The Land

The city of Walla Walla seems to reflect the surrounding landscape-both have a gentle look with little of the visual drama that comes with craggy mountains, deep canyons, or an ocean horizon. Yet beneath the surface of the land there lies a turbulent history that includes two world scale outbursts that, if they happened today, would cause global news media to scrap their headlines for days, months, or even-without exaggeration- years to come.  

A glimpse of the valley reveals little of either of these ancient events.  It is a simple bowl bordered on the east and southeast by the Blue Mountains, a range that appears subdued despite its rising to almost 9,000 feet at its highest elevation; on the south by a low ridge known locally as the Oregon Hills formed by movements along the active Wallula fault zone; on the north by the Palouse-rolling hills blanketed by thick, windblown, glacial age sediments known as loess; and opening westward into the Columbia River Valley. Within these boundaries is a broad basin with low ridges rising from the flood plain of the Walla Walla River and its tributary streams.

Beneath the surface, however, the story is far less benign, revealed in part by the lava cliffs seen along steep stream slopes and in a few road cuts. About fifteen million years ago, immense volumes of lava poured from vents near the Washington-Idaho border and flowed in red-hot streams across the land. Hundreds of individual lava flows, some among the largest ever discovered, built up one atop the other to local thicknesses of 16,000 feet. The total package, known as the Columbia Plateau Basalts, is the third largest basaltic lava field in the world. Some of these flows are well exposed in the Columbia River Gorge, but in Walla Walla they are hidden beneath the debris of later cataclysmic events- the largest documented floods on Earth-,which sculpted the present topography and created the unusual range of environmental conditions that characterize the Walla Walla Valley.

Try to imagine a flood equal in volume to ten times the instantaneous flow of all the rivers presently on Earth moving across the land at some 60 miles per hour with a depth of several hundred feet. Such floods ravaged this land not once, but at least 40 times over, between 15,000 and 12,000 years ago. A lobe of the massive Cordilleran Ice Sheet dammed the Clark Fork River in western Montana backing up a lake some 500 miles long and 2,000 feet deep. And then the dam failed, unleashing a flood that swept across the Columbia Plateau, ripping off the topsoil, scouring deep channels in the basalt lava flows beneath, and destroying whatever human habitation existed at that time. The dam re-formed and failed again, repeating the cycle every 35 to 55 years, every time releasing another wall of water. As each flood surge passed, huge lakes-one filling the Walla Walla Valley-remained behind, backed up behind obstacles such as Wallula Gap, the narrow entrance to the deep gorge of the Columbia River downstream from Walla Walla. Time and time again, fine sediments held in suspension in the floodwaters slowly settled out forming distinctive layers, up to 3 or 4 feet thick, each of which begins at the bottom with gravel or sand and grades upward into silt and clay at the top, layers known as Touchet (too-shee) Beds or slackwater sediments, 40 or more in total.

After each flood phase, as the lakes dried up they left behind vast mud flats surfaced by loose silt and clay. The prevailing southwesterly winds whipped this material into clouds of dust similar to those that roared across Oklahoma and Kansas-the Dust Bowl-during the Great Depression. Traveling northeast, the winds dropped their load on the Columbia Plateau, largely between Walla Walla and Spokane to the north, covering the rough-hewn lava flows with a thick, soft, blanket of the fine-grained sediment known as loess. As wind power dropped, the coarsest material fell out first, the winds carrying the finer load farther. The percentage of clay in the Walla Walla loess deposits increases to the northeast, creating variation even in these superficially uniform sediments. Later floods stripped much of the early loess cover, but above the maximum flood line, an elevation of 1200 feet in Walla Walla, loess of varying thickness still remains.

Below that elevation, Walla Walla was inundated at least 40 times, every flood leaving behind a graded bed that covered the valley floor, forming a stack of layers as much as 120 feet thick. Since the final flood, the Walla Walla River and its tributaries have eroded and dissected this layer-cake of sediments, creating "islands" of slackwater sediments surrounded by river and stream-deposited debris. In the southeast corner of the AVA, a large, low relief alluvial fan spreads from the Walla Walla River where it exits the mountains. Rocky debris-layers of smooth, rounded boulders and cobbles-extends deep below the surface. For decades, these sediments had supported nothing but apple and pear orchards, but ten years ago, Christophe Baron, an enterprising young Frenchman, found in these cobbly deposits the soul of the wines of his beloved Rhone Valley. He now produces unique Syrah from five vineyards. Cobbly ground, once ignored by Walla Walla winemakers, is now the hottest vineyard real estate in the area.

This history has left Walla Walla with four distinct types of vineyard substrate-deep loess, shallow loess over graded slackwater sediments, coarse alluvial sediments, and thin loess over basalt. All are said to be well drained, though alluvial cobbles will drain more readily than fine loess, and loess will drain differently than the graded Touchet beds. Drainage and water-holding characteristics are primary factors in determining grape quality and character, so these four sediment types are primary components of Walla Walla terroir. But climate is as well and in Walla Walla climate controls the bottom line.

Climate and Water    

Walla Walla is not like Napa, where desirable house lots and good grape land coincide. In Walla Walla, the land that's hot for grapes just now lies in and near the town of Milton Freewater, a gritty working class place far from the imagination of any winemaker wanna-be with Napa glamour on their mind. But other issues-climate and water-are far more pertinent.

Walla Walla is warmer than Bordeaux (on about the same latitude) and cooler than Napa, with clearer skies, no summer fog, and longer sun hours through much of the growing season. Rainfall and temperature vary considerably across the valley. The western end is drier and warmer, the eastern end, higher in elevation, wetter and cooler. Ripening a broad variety of grapes is not a difficult task.

Winter, however, can be bitterly cold, with regular spring frosts that can nip blossoms and make for a short crop. Sloped sites allow for cold air drainage, thus mitigating frost damage. South and southeast facing slopes are warmest, though some established vineyards, such as Seven Hills, face north and produce excellent grapes. But the most difficult issue, one with broader implications, lies in the periodic Arctic freeze.

Every few years-most recently '91, '96, and '04-a frightening chill sweeps down from the north and across the surrounding hills and drops the temperature to mind-numbing depths, -10, -20, -30 degrees Fahrenheit, freezing shoots and knocking the vines back to the ground, decimating the grape crop. This would be an industry-breaking event were it not that most vintners carry what you could call Columbia Valley Wine Insurance, relying on grapes from outside the Walla Walla AVA-from less risky climates-for at least part of their yearly production. If you want to drink Walla Walla wine, you do indeed need to pay careful attention to the label-not everything made in the AVA comes from Walla Walla grapes.

The increasingly vigorous search for good vineyard land-mainly outside the areas of coldest temperature-is complicated by a complex system of water rights that are allocated and strictly regulated. Unlike the rain-drenched western half of the state, eastern Washington is arid country lying in the rain shadow of the Cascade Mountains. Summers are dry, winters moist but not wet. Maximum annual rainfall in Walla Walla is about 22 inches in the eastern hills, 9 inches in the west. Water wells are metered and water use is monitored-you use your allocation or lose your rights, which can be sold on an open market. Some of the vineyard land is dry farmed but most is drip irrigated. Scott Hendricks, a bit of a maverick vineyard manager, still uses overhead watering, maintaining that it allows him to humidify the vineyard and keep the vines free of windborne pesticides and herbicides that drift in from the surrounding wheat fields.

The Phylloxera Paradox

What saves the industry even under Walla Walla's harsh and chancy winter conditions is a simple fact of biology: Most of the vines in Walla Walla grow on their own roots-they are not grafted onto phylloxera-resistant rootstocks. When the vines freeze back to the ground, the new canes that rise in the spring are true to type. If they were grafted onto phylloxera resistant rootstock, the new shoots would be those of the root stock, not the grafted clone, and the resulting grapes would be better used for animal feed than wine, even the most lowly kind.

There is, as always, a downside to own-rooted vines-the potential danger of phylloxera, which is known to exist at The Dalles, just 140 miles away down the Columbia River. Surely, over time, its winged stage will get blown on the prevailing westerlies farther up the Columbia, eventually to Walla Walla. Even sooner, perhaps, it will infest the vineyards along the Columbia River that supply fruit to Walla Walla and be transported on truck tires, field boots, or grape bins. When questioned about phylloxera, grape growers and winemakers in Walla Walla reply, with more than a hint of doubt, that the bug might be unable to adapt to the cold winter temperatures or the sandy, well-drained sediments. An understandable attitude, but its mostly hopeful conjecture covering the very human inclination to ignore an issue until it becomes critical. Phylloxera, however, once established, ignores little, spreading with wrathful abandon at an exponential rate, devastating vineyards in short order.

The solution-to replant over time with grafted phylloxera resistant rootstocks-provides an opportunity as well as an economic hit. The hit lies not only in the cost of replanting, but in a hidden twist: with grafted vines, to survive a quick freeze such as regularly descends on Walla Walla, you need to bury one or more canes from the previous year just beneath the ground surface. In the spring, these surviving canes are laid on the wire to provide grape-bearing shoots for the new season, shoots that will be true to type of the clone you grafted. The cost is about $1,000 per acre; the advantage seems worth the price. The most obvious gain lies in not losing a year of production; in 2004 (a modest deep freeze), Chistophe Baron-who buries canes each year-had a good crop even down on the cold valley floor when many others suffered and had to rely on their Columbia Valley contracts. A few vineyards at higher elevation-above the level of coldest air-had minimal damage, but remember that the 2004 freeze was relatively mild.
The hit is apparent, the opportunity less obvious but of significant impact-you get to replant with a variety of rootstocks and clones that would add a different type of complexity to Walla Walla wines. And this brings us to wine, winemakers, and how they relate to Walla Walla terroir.

Terroir in the Time of Youth

Those who come from lands graced with ancient vineyards might wonder what the point is of talking about terroir in a region that just 15 years ago had little more than 100 acres of grapes. Yet despite its youth, there exists in Walla Walla a deep sense of place, a confidence that they are indeed producing wines that are true to the unique character of the valley. The pioneer winemakers have chewed grapes and soaked up wine through thirty or more vintages and they've been listening all along to the vines, the grapes, the ground, and the wine. Rick Small set out to make the best Bordeaux blend he could, figuring that Cabernet Sauvignon would lead the way. When he was younger, he "forced the issue," striving to produce such a wine. Then Merlot from his Woodward Canyon Vineyard began to demand his attention-with consistently good fruit, firm structure, and great aging potential, perhaps it should play a more important role. Slowly, he realized the grapes were telling him that Merlot and Cabernet Franc were the lead actors on his ground and that Cabernet Sauvignon was a bit player. Finally he got the message-the 2002 Woodward Canyon Estate Red wine is 39 percent Cabernet Franc. 38 percent Merlot, and 23 percent Cabernet Sauvignon. It is a classy bottle of wine, with fine structure and distinctive fruit balancing slightly edgy tannins.    
Red wine is king in Walla Walla, though the AVA's diverse microclimates produce a broad range of white varieties as well, including Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Semillon, Viognier, Riesling, and even Gewirtztraminer. Reds include all the Bordeaux varieties along with Syrah, Sangiovese, Tempranillo, and even a bit of Pinot Noir. Historically, the focus has been on Bordeaux blends and Merlot, though Syrah seems now to be the grape of note, in part riding on the success of young winemakers such as Eric Dunham and Christophe Baron.

Those who have been around for a while, people like Gary and Chris Figgins (Leonetti Cellars), Rick Small (Woodward Canyon), Marty Clubb (L'Ecole No. 41), Norm McKibben (Pepperbridge Wines), and Myles Anderson (Walla Walla Vintners) express little doubt when asked about the expression of terroir in Walla Walla wines. Surprisingly, in a world focused on power, intensity, and concentration, they answer with two words that seldom pass the lips of American vintners-elegance and finesse-descriptors that are used today only by those with courage and confidence. In an era of big, blousy, gobs of fruit wine, elegance and finesse are too often interpreted as euphemisms for thin, wimpy, lean, acidic wines made from sub-ripe fruit, at best difficult to appreciate, at worst downright unpleasant.

These are not the wines of Walla Walla. Elegance and finesse do not preclude smooth mouth feel, pleasing weight, and overt, distinctive fruit balanced by fine-grained ("400 grit") tannins and firm structure, common characteristics in Walla Walla reds. With the exception, at least, of Cayuse (Baron's label) and Dunham, the Syrahs-newer to Walla Walla than the Bordeaux varietals-seem more unsure of their relationship to place. All are more robust than the Bordeaux blends, naturally and stylistically, and they seem to be made with the same concern for honoring the gift of terroir. Perhaps the tendency of winemakers to refer to Rhone and Australian examples takes some focus away from a clear expression of Walla Walla.

In the Vineyards

The paths to these wines are varied, but they begin in the vineyards, some of which were once cropped with wheat or peas and subjected to a heavy regimen of herbicides and pesticides while others supported apples and pears. The soils, not rich to begin with, are now played out and biologically defeated. There's a choice-take the conventional path of increasingly more intense applications of fertilizer and soil amendments, or set about rebuilding a healthy substrate through sustainable approaches such as organic farming and biodynamics. Rebuilding seems to be the path for most Walla Walla grape growers-piles of earthy, sweet-smelling compost and vats of "Earth Tea" brewed from worm castings, both used to replenish soils and attract the microbiological elements that are essential to truly healthy vines, are common sights in Walla Walla. Some vintners are full-bore biodynamic. Others forego the "voodoo element," such as burying cows horns filled with manure, and depend mainly on good compost and rejuvenating Earth Tea.

Walla Walla growers know all the right stuff-the methods, for example, of world-renowned viticultural consultant Richard Smart and modern trellising and pruning techniques-but they are wary of new vineyard dogmas. They recognize the value of long hang time but choose to avoid ultra-ripe fruit, aiming toward balance rather than extremes. Yields are kept low, in part to assure ripening in the shorter growing season. Two to three tons per acre are common in Walla Walla, where such yields produce balance rather than muscle. Rick Small maintains that low yields are necessary if wines are to express terroir: "Four or five tons per acre makes nice wines but the location simply does not come through [as it does with lower yields]." This presents a paradox: In Napa, low yields tend toward wines of great concentration, power and intensity that some think overpower any expression of terroir. In Walla Walla, equivalent low yields produce quite different results-more elegant wines with greater subtlety and nuance. Climate in Walla Walla does provide some natural limits to the risk of ultra-ripeness-the lurking danger of Fall frost discourages the longer hang time needed for super ripe fruit and wines of extreme power and intensity. But the approach of many Walla Walla winemakers seems to be one of restraint in honor of character, an attribute they see as both important and easily overwhelmed by choices in vineyard or winery.

Most of the vineyards lie in the eastern third of the AVA, on the lower slopes of the bordering hills and on the "islands" of slackwater sediments that rise from the valley floor. Temperatures are cooler in the east than in the western reaches, and rainfall higher. The wines are said to be a bit richer than those that come from the western half, and the tannins, softer, more velvety in the mouth. Walla Walla reds also tend to have an herbal tinge, a hint of thyme or olive that adds complexity, particularly in wines from the eastern vineyards where the sediments are richer in clay and the climate is wetter.

Most Walla Walla wine is sourced from a few large vineyards, a potential limitation. Pepperbridge and Seven Hills Vineyards, some 400 acres managed by Norm McKibben, have 63 client wineries. McKibben is managing partner for the new vineyard Les Collines, on the western slopes of the Blue Mountains, and also for a 1700-acre project on the slopes above Seven Hills on the southern edge of the AVA. McKibben's clients wield significant control over decisions involving their fruit.

Nevertheless, some tasters note a repetition of wine character from one producer to another that, they speculate, is linked to the common source of grapes. Not that these large vineyards produce grapes of entirely like character: Wines from Seven Hills are said to be more delicate, more aromatic, floral, with silky or velvety tannins and red fruit. Some winemakers hark back to earlier descriptions, calling Seven Hills more feminine in contrast to a more masculine Pepperbridge, with darker fruit, spicy notes, and an herbal tone. Marty Clubb of L'Ecole No. 41 produces single vineyard wines from both Pepperbridge ("Apogee") and Seven Hills ("Perigee"). He finds Pepperbridge wines to be a bit bolder, more reminiscent of the Columbia Valley while those from Seven Hills are more typically Walla Walla. Variation within the vineyards occurs as well, though it is less well documented.

Gary Figgins and his son Chris produce at Leonetti Cellars some of the richest wines in Walla Walla, as close to "International Style" as perhaps you can get within the climatic limitations of this place. Figgins senior is a master of oak, using new wood from a wide variety of French and American sources to bring depth, richness, and more complexity to their wines. With own-rooted vines, vintners in Walla Walla cannot count on rootstocks and clones to provide the complex character that so distinguishes great wine. The paucity of single vineyard wines reflects this reality-most rely on grapes from several different sources to provide the diversity of character that comes elsewhere from rootstocks and clones.  

The Culture Connection    

So far, Walla Walla seems to have benefited from a lack of recognition by Robert Parker. His associate, Pierre-Antoine Rovani, visits periodically, but few Walla Walla wines have been reviewed in the Wine Advocate. This apparent slight creates no angst-the winemakers have a loyal clientele, mostly in the Pacific Northwest, and have no trouble selling their wine. While Parker is not the only wine critic around, and others consistently grace Walla Walla wines with high ratings, he does have a reputation as being the driving force in evolution of wine style, domestically and internationally. Myles Anderson, co-owner of Walla Walla Vintners and director of the Institute for Enology and Viticulture at Walla Walla Community College, perhaps most vividly and directly expresses the attitude just now in Walla Walla: Anderson is not concerned about Parker because "We are better at what we do than he is at what he does" a comment not without an edge of challenge.

It might be wise for Walla Walla winemakers to tread a bit carefully and avoid attracting Parker's attention. To date, they have been enjoying a freedom and independence that comes from being small, doing what you do well, selling locally, and staying above the fray of the larger national and international market. If wineries continue to increase in number and the volume of Walla Walla grapes does not keep pace, increased competition for the best fruit will lead to steep price increases. Replanting to avoid the phylloxera problem would require burying canes and a further increase in production costs. Wine prices would have to rise, and with that they enter a different market place, one that is constrained by its reliance on Parker to attract attention and provide competitive credibility. If Parker enters the Walla Walla winemaking equation, it will be a reality experiment in determining the effect of his influence. Under those circumstances, will Walla Walla winemakers alter their style to something more in line with Parker's palate or will they maintain their independence and continue to produce the wines of elegance and finesse that quite obviously please their present customers?

One of the most engaging characteristics of Walla Walla and its winemakers is an inherent integrity that seems to be part of the local culture and history. The core group of 10 or 12 producers is largely indigenous to Walla Walla. Many are from families that have been in the area for several generations, growing up in an atmosphere in which the land and its character have been a primary influence on their personalities and outlooks. These are the men and women who seem to be most sure that they are producing wines that are true to this place, to this land and its climate, and to themselves. With recent trends in Walla Walla-the plethora of new wineries, the rapid increase of grape acreage, the pressure to find new land on which to grow and produce wines of the Walla Walla AVA, this all may change. Many of those who are now contemplating a move to Walla Walla appear to be seekers of the wine lifestyle who have made their money elsewhere and now want to cap their careers with the glamour of wine and all its trimmings. What changes will result from the influx of a new and quite different cultural outlook?

Fortunately or not, just now there are few trimmings in Walla Walla. It is an isolated place, a college town enhanced by enough high-end commerce to support some decent eating establishments. But it is not a place of great social sophistication, the hoopla of celebrities, or the hype of weekend winery events. Perhaps this will save it from the downside of American winemaking success-in its extreme, the crowds and tourist culture of Napa-perhaps not. This is part of the evolution of terroir in the widest sense and Walla Walla might provide an illuminating example of how the three broad elements of terroir-place, people, and culture-evolve together. We won't have long to wait to find out-change here is coming at a pace faster than a Parker 98 wine leaving the shelves. Are they ready for it? Stay tuned for an update in about five years.

Acknowledgments

I am indebted to the work of Larry Meinert and Alan Busacca on the geology of Walla Walla and the Columbia Plateau, and to geologist Kevin Pogue of Whitman College. The brief account of the geologic story is based on their work, inaccuracies are my own. John Caldwell of Caldwell Vineyards spent several days with me in Walla Walla. His insight into all facets of the wine business was of great help in synthesizing a broad range of information. Most of all I express my sincere gratitude to the winemakers of Walla Walla who spent valuable time sharing their views, experience, and insights with us. They are a unique bunch.

This article originally appeared in Issue 12 of The World of Fine Wine magazine. The article may not be sold, altered in any way, or circulated without this statement. Every issue of The World of Fine Wine features coverage of the world's finest wines in their historical and cultural context, along with news, reviews, interviews and comprehensive international auction results. For further information, and to subscribe to The World of Fine Wine, please visit www.finewinemag.com or call +44 (0)20 8950 9177. 

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