03/30/06 Red Mountain

Small area&big taste. I'm Greg Martin with today's Fruit Grower Report. Red Mountain is Washington States newest and smallest appellation but it promises to be one small parcel of dynamic wine making. Andy Perdue is the editor of Wine Press Northwest magazine and he talks about this new appellation. PERDUE: It's an amazing little area. It was approved as an American viticulture area in 2001. It's by far the smallest appellation. It's actually within two other appellations in Washington. It's inside the Yakima Valley which is inside the Columbia Valley. There's only about 2500 acres of space if I recall in the entire appellation and only about 700 acres of grapes are being grown there. But the grapes that are grown there get more money per ton than any where else in Washington. Even though the area is small, business is booming. PERDUE: There are, let's say 10 working wineries up there right now but there's probably another 10 wineries in the works. So that essentially by Crush we may be close to doubling the wineries on Red Mountain. Perdue says even the local government recognizes the areas potential. PERDUE: One of the really cool things is Benton County has got a plan in place to showcase Red Mountain as one of the premiere destinations in the Columbia Valley. They've got a lot of plans for a new interchange so it's a little bit easier access to the wine country. That's today's Fruit Grower Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.