Washington’s first wine grapes were planted at Fort Vancouver by the Hudson’s Bay Company in 1825. Following the path by early Italian settlers, Walla Walla had wine grapes growing by 1860.  The arrival of prohibition in 1920 put a damper on wine grape production.  But home winemaking for family use was allowed as was the production of “missionary grapes” for the church.  In the early 1970’s commercial wine production began in the valley.  With the proximity to the 45 the parallel (Bordeaux France is also on this parallel) it seemed that reds would rule.  Appellations are formed to “trademark” distinctive growing areas.  The Walla Walla Appellation is in the red color

This Walla Walla Appellation map shows our growing region as the land inside the Blue Mountains.  You will note 2/3 of the way South, is the Oregon-Washington State line.  Nearly 1/3 of the Appellation is in Oregon. 

The arrow points to Spofford Station Foothills Vineyard, located on an historic railroad line.  Historically, this was an active route for transport of products to market.  Today, there is still one line (The Grain Train) that hauls soft white wheat to the Wallula Junction, where the cargo is put on barges.  These barges go through the system of dams to the Port of Portland and out to Asia.

During the last ice age, a finger of the Cordillearan ice sheet crept southward into the Idaho panhandle, blocking the Clark Fork River and creating Glacial Lake Missoula.  As the waters rose behind this 2,000 foot ice dam, floods would occur.  These floods often were catastrophic, resulting in a large flood of ice and dirt filled water that would rush down the Columbia River drainage.  These bursts exploded downstream at a rate 10 times the combined flow of all the rivers of the world,  stripping  away thick soils and cutting deep canyons.  Over thousands of years, this was repeated.  It greatly affected Spofford Station as it lies within the Blue Mountain Airshed, where these slack water deposits left over 30 feet of topsoil profile, leaving erratic boulders of granite and loess soils.  Thus Spofford Station wines have a distinctive and pronounced flavor profile the stands out among the field of wines in the Walla Walla.