Washington's Wine Suburb

Washington State is now the second-largest producer of wine in the United States, behind only California. And judging from the extensive sampling we did, most is of extremely high quality, even at the lower price points where California wine is sweet and jammy.

There are two drawbacks, if you can call them that, to Washington wines. First, the state is best at full-bodied reds like Syrah, Merlot and Cabernet, even though those don't go with the state's best-known foods like salmon. (You will often find Oregon pinot noir under the "local" section of Seattle wine lists, probably for that reason. British Columbia, meanwhile, makes a small amount of excellent white wine, which is widely available in Vancouver restaurants, though little if any is exported.)

Second, the wine is grown in the eastern part of the state, a high, dry area that gets very warm during the day and cools off significantly at night -- just what the doctor ordered for wine grapes.

Unfortunately, this wine country is three to four hours away from Seattle, across a high mountain pass and quite a bit of desert. Not ideal for tourism, in other words, even if you've always wanted to visit a place called Walla Walla.

So the ever-practical locals have created a wine trail in the Seattle suburb of Woodinville, about 30 minutes' drive from downtown.

The tasting rooms, in industrial parks and strip malls, are perhaps the least bucolic I've ever seen:






But it makes for a pleasant excursion from the city, at least if you're not the designated driver.

And to that point, there is a rusty train track running right down the middle of the valley where the tasting rooms are; someone really should turn it into a wine train ...