Winery hotels & vineyard stays in Columbia Valley

The Columbia Valley covers nearly a third of Washington State and produces most of its wine. East of the Cascades the rain stops — some sites get six inches a year — so everything is irrigated from the Columbia River, and the growing season runs on long, hot days and cold nights that hold acidity in the fruit. Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Syrah are the strengths.

The landscape here was carved by the Missoula Floods at the end of the last ice age, which stripped soil off the Columbia River basalt and dumped it downstream — the reason the valley's best sites sit on wind-blown loess over fractured rock. Its sub-AVAs do the real work of definition: Red Mountain for dense, tannic Cabernet; Walla Walla Valley, which straddles the Oregon line, for Syrah and Merlot and for the state's most developed wine-town scene; Yakima Valley, the oldest, for whites and for Rattlesnake Hills fruit; Horse Heaven Hills for wind-exposed sites above the river. Being at 46 degrees north, the valley gets around two more hours of summer daylight per day than Napa. Walla Walla is the base most visitors choose — a small city with a walkable downtown, over a hundred tasting rooms and a handful of estates that take overnight guests — while the Gorge and the Cave B escarpment above the river supply the dramatic settings. Harvest runs September through October.