The Winery Cascade West of Willamette Valley of Oregon

The family-owned company made its first foray into Washington State last year when it began buying grapes from select vineyards throughout the Walla Walla Valley. The winemaking team was impressed by the quality coming out of the region, and it has now pounced on the opportunity to acquire land there. It snapped up 61 acres of an existing 117-acre property in Mill Creek. A local firm called Abeja, founded by Ken and Ginger Roberts, bought the land back in 2000 in a bid to grow world-class Cabern ...

In preparation for this column I tasted 46 reds in total, and – taking both quality and value into account – I can recommend 33 of them. Overall, the reds were less consistent than the whites, and although the lows were lower, the highs were higher. This tasting confirmed that it’s still possible to buy genuinely excellent northern Rhône reds for under £30 in the UK. That being said, it’s virtually impossible to find any Cornas, Côte-Rôtie or Hermitage for under £30 a bottle these days, but ther ...

On 11 April, 2022, cold temperatures, snow and frost arrived in the Willamette Valley. The pre-dawn hours of 15 April were particularly devastating, with numerous vineyards registering overnight lows of minus three to zero degrees Celsius. Gregory Jones, a research climatologist and CEO of Abacela Winery in Roseburg, Oregon, refers to the event as ‘February in April’ in his weather and climate newsletter. The frost’s timing was disastrous. Thanks to a warmer, drier Oregon winter, Chardonnay and ...