2013 was a year of firsts for the Washington state wine industry:
- It was the first year that wine-grape production from the state’s vineyards exceeded 200,000 tons. The total of 210,000 tons was up 12 percent from 2012.
- It was the first year that cabernet sauvignon emerged as the No. 1 grape variety in terms of tons harvested (or at least, the first in the last five years, and likely well before that). Cabernet sauvignon is a red-wine grape, historically the principal variety in the classic wines of Bordeaux in France. It displaced chardonnay, a white-wine grape, from the top spot in 2012. Chardonnay and riesling, another white-wine grape, had been swapping the top ranking in previous years.
All this and more is included in a March 3 report from the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture.
The total economic impact of the state’s wine industry in 2009 was pegged at $8.6 billion in a report prepared for the state Wine Commission in 2012. Since 2009, state wine production has jumped more than a third, and the value per ton also has increased.
Washington ranks second – albeit a distant second – to California in the production of premium wine grapes.