Puget Sound

This month’s focus region is home of America’s favorite rainy city, flying fish and Ichiro.

By Molly Pumper

Unlike the backdrop of your typical wine tour setting – a scenic drive through the open countryside, rolling green hills abundant with sun-ripened vineyards, charming wineries of modern rusticity, off the dirt road and every quarter mile, not a cloud in sight – the ferryboat ride from downtown Seattle to Bainbridge Island, home to a handful of the 100-some wineries in the Puget Sound, is both sodden and chilly, much like the region itself.

By any standards, Puget Sound is not conventional wine country. Yet, the misconception that it is too cold or too wet to grow premium grapes is simply untrue. While western Washington is famous (or perhaps infamous) for its incessant rainfall, the conditions are actually quite similar to that of the Loire Valley in France; heavy rains fall during the winters while summers tend to be mild, providing long bright days for vines to grow, cool nights for acidity preservation, and warmth for ripening. Temperature extremes are also rare as such conditions are moderated by the bordering Pacific.

To date, Puget Sound is Washington’s only recognized American Viticultural Area (AVA)/Appellation west of the Cascades, a designation authorized by the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB). To be defined as an AVA, an area must be recognized as a distinct wine grape-growing region, distinguishable by geographical features. For a bottle of wine to be considered produced from a specific AVA, at least eighty-five percent of the grapes used in its making must be from that particular region. The Puget Sound AVA, first certified in 1995, includes not only the Puget Sound, but the San Juan Islands, sections of the Olympic Peninsula, and a strip of the mainland; a span of over 7,600 square miles. While seemingly vast, only 80 acres of this region are actually used to grow wine grapes – one percent of the state’s total yield.

Gerard Bentryn, the catalyst behind the Puget Sound receiving AVA certification, is an advocate of the area’s cool climate growing conditions. After receiving a graduate degree in geography, studying winemaking and working in vineyards in Germany, England, Australia and South Africa (to name a few), he and his wife Jo Ann concluded that the region was ideal for viticulture and set to work. The result of their efforts—Bainbridge Island Vineyards and Winery, which, after thirty years in existence, remains today as the sole producer of one hundred percent estate-grown wines in Puget Sound, predominantly of vinifera varieties.

According to the Puget Sound Wine Growers Association, only ten other wineries produce commercial wines from Puget Sound AVA grapes, although many complete their productions using small quantities of grapes from other AVAs. The majority of wineries located in the Puget Sound area however, actually grow few, if any, grapes in the region. Instead, they generally plant vineyards in Eastern Washington AVAs, such as the Columbia Valley, or purchase grapes from another grower and then make and market the wine in Puget Sound. This is done for a number of reasons. First of all, land around the Puget Sound is expensive, as is labor; and, while the region has proven successful in terms of growing wine grapes, it does not have the same history or allow for the wide variety of grapes to be grown as eastern Washington. However, with its dense population and tourist draw, Puget Sound is the optimal choice for wine production and distribution.

Needless to say, there is often confusion as to what defines the Puget Sound wine region, or what is actually considered to be Puget Sound wine. According to Chris Stone, Marketing Director of the Washington Wine Commission – “In purely wine growing terms, the Puget Sound AVA is all about the wonderful and unique grapes grown within the AVA. From a tourism standpoint, the Puget Sound area and the AVA, offer fabulous opportunities for wine enthusiasts to experience the breadth and quality of what Washington has to offer.”

However, Gerard, a vintner from the old school—charmingly gruff, with calloused hands and a weather-red face, telltale signs of his passion and labor—believes that it is almost entirely the locally grown wines that define the region, meaning those of the Puget Sound AVA. Such wines include madeleine angevine, siegerrebe, and muller-thurgau, dry varietals that tend to be lower in alcohol, because the grapes have less sugar. Wines that grow in warmer regions have higher sugar levels, and consequently higher alcohol content. “We like civilized wines that don’t knock you out with alcohol,” says Jo Ann. “Wine’s not supposed to overpower you at the dinner table.”

Gerard adds that the flavors and characteristics of wine harvested in the unique terroir complement those of other foods indicative of the region, such as salmon and crab, fresh fruits and vegetables. The combination of fruit and fragrance however is arguably the stylistic imprint that defines wine grown in the Puget Sound AVA; a characteristic attributable to the land, not the winemaker. “We grow wines you can smell before you taste” explains Gerard, “not meat-on-yourbones, hair-on-your-chest wine.”

While the Bentryns have an undeniable history in Puget Sound viticulture, they are certainly not the first to have planted roots in the region. Back in1872, it is believed that Lambert B. Evans, a Confederate Army Civil War veteran from Florida, was the first to have grown wine grapes in the region, planting his harvest on his homestead of Stretch Island. Evans’ vineyard, which was planted along the shore on a bluff overlooking Puget Sound, was sold in 1918 after his death to Charles Somers, who, with his son C.W. “Bill” Somers, founded St. Charles Winery. Years later, after the winery closed, Howard E. Somers, Charles’ other son, a chemical engineer who did lab work for the winery, became a winemaker at American Vintners, the predecessor to Chateau Ste. Michelle, Washington State’s oldest existing winery.

In continuation of its abiding past, and in spite of its seemingly temperamental climate, the Puget Sound wine region, both the AVA and the area itself, continues to grow, steadfast, much like the vines themselves. Signs of promise for pinot noir, chardonnay, and pinot gris are even being shown in warmer areas such as the Puyallup Valley and Woodinville. And, with experimentation of new clones and hybrids in the works, and exploration of new, suitable growing sites, the Puget Sound AVA should have no problem living up to its potential.