Discovering value in Red Mountain wine

Every year I try to travel to one or two wine regions I haven’t previously visited and this year I had the opportunity to go to wine country in Washington state to seek out some new wines. This brought me to the Red Mountain AVA, where the Red Mountain Alliance showed me and some fellow wine bloggers around.

Those not familiar with the wine-growing regions of Washington generally envision the lush, green forests of the Pacific northwest and imagine vineyards interspersed with timber-covered mountains. But that vision is incorrect. The Cascade Mountains create a rain shadow on the eastern part of Washington State, resulting in desert conditions with few trees and very little rain — only 5-6 inches of rain per year in the Red Mountain AVA.

And when I told people I was visiting a place called Red Mountain, that created even more misconceptions as I wouldn’t really call it a “mountain” as it’s more of a big hill. And it’s not all that red either, except in the springtime when cheatgrass gives the area a reddish hue.

So if it’s not red and it’s not a mountain, what is the Red Mountain AVA? A sweet spot for producing rich, concentrated red wines.

The Red Mountain AVA is a sub-appellation within the Yakima Valley AVA. It’s a small region too, covering 4,040 acres, and feels like it’s all one neighborhood when you’re there. And with 54 vineyards crammed into that space it’s one of Washington state’s most densely-planted appellations.

As I mentioned, the climate in this region is a desert and this is one of the advantageous attributes of the region. The vines are watered by drip irrigation, which is precisely controlled by vineyard managers. This helps with canopy management, an important aspect for growers in any vineyard. The idea of canopy management is to create the proper balance between the canopy (i.e., vines and leaves) and the fruit on the vines. The more fertile the soil and the more water vines get, the more aggressively the canopy will grow, requiring manual pruning to manage. By providing vines with just the right amount of water, growers can control the growth of the canopy thereby reducing the physical labor needed to manage it.

That’s not to say no pruning is needed, water control is just one factor of canopy management. The canopy also needs to be shaped to allow the proper amount of sunlight to ripen the grapes while also shading them from getting scorched when the sun is at its peak heat. It’s really quite an art form. As I toured the vineyards of Red Mountain, evidence of canopy management was apparent, with many different techniques applied to different blocks. Some groomed to a pristinely-manicured state, some pruned to one side in order to allow sunlight in the morning but shade in the hot afternoon sun and some pruned using a fan training technique.

Canopy management isn’t the only advantage gained from carefully controlled watering. When vines get too much water it actually waters down the grapes and with less water the flavors are more concentrated. I’ve often heard wine producers say that good wine is produced from vines that struggle. I actually disagree with that slightly in that I think “struggle” is an exaggeration. The analogy I prefer is that of an athlete on a calorie-restricted diet. You want to be sure to get the right nutrients and enough nutrients, but don’t want to over-consume. Good grapes are not gluttonous grapes but they also aren’t starving. They are healthy.

And healthy was a theme I heard frequently when talking with producers on Red Mountain. Due to the arid climate, there’s not a lot of pests or disease they need to deal with. This helps them produce healthy vines with little intervention. And while there are some growers using organic or biodynamic practices, not all producers in the region do so.

The soil is another aspect that makes Red Mountain unique. Most of the soil is made up of sandy loam and gravel, but there is quite a bit of variation in the soils throughout this small region. The unique soils here are credited to the Missoula Floods of the last ice age, which churned up different layers of soils and deposited a rich cornucopia of soils in this region. High levels of calcium carbonate in the soil is what is most prized for growing vines in this AVA.

On paper, it’s clear that this region has a lot going for it. And all those qualities come to life beautifully in the glass as well.

The region is best known for its red wines. When producers first started planting vineyards here in the 1970’s they tried to produce white wines, but quickly found that the region is better suited to red wines.

I’d say cabernet sauvignon is king here. Cabernet sauvignon from this appellation tends to be powerful and concentrated. Comparing cabernet from this region to those from Napa Valley, I’d say these are every bit as good as Napa Valley but at lower prices — although that’s still not necessarily cheap.

Of course as someone with “cheap” in the name of my website, I’m always looking at things from a value perspective. While you’re not likely to find much Red Mountain wine in the bargain bin at your local wine shop, there are some good values to be found here.

In addition to cabernet sauvignon, merlot, syrah, cabernet franc, petit verdot, malbec and several other varieties can be found here. I even saw plots of nebbiolo, sangiovese and touriga nacional growing here.

The best values from the Red Mountain tend to be the red blends, which like the cabernet sauvignon tend to be rich wines with big, concentrated flavors but often sell for prices in the 20’s.

If you’re interested in trying some Red Mountain wine without spending a fortune, look for wine by these producers:

• Hedges Family Estates
• Muret-Gaston
• Hamilton Cellars
• Hightower Cellars
• Kiona Vineyards
• Ambassador Wines

Disclosure: I visited the Red Mountain AVA on an excursion related to the 2018 Wine Bloggers Conference.