Discover Walla Walla

A few weeks ago, on a beautiful sunny afternoon, I took the opportunity for an afternoon drive in the sunshine. The early signs of spring were all around me, including my own garden pushing up leaves that would soon belong to buds of daffodils and tulips.

My car headed south to the Washington/Oregon border and I let my car take me to the vineyards. I finally stopped at one of the first commercial vineyards in the Walla Walla Valley AVA. This large vineyard is also known as being one of the ten great vineyards in the world - the Seven Hills Vineyard. It was there, looking over a hillside of over 200-acres of vineyards, that I was assured that spring was definitely on the way. The old skeleton-like vines from last year's harvest had now been pruned and many more vines were waiting their turn. These newly pruned vines, with help from more rain and sunshine, will soon start bearing new spurs of vines, leaves and eventually, clusters of grapes.

During my drive I was reminded of the old Bible verse: "To every thing there is a season, ... a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted ..." I was also reminded that the wheat farmers would be planting soon and thought about the several generations of family wheat ranchers in the Walla Walla area. When the vineyards "came to town", they weren't exactly greeted with enthusiasm by everyone. In many ways it was reminiscent of the American west cattle and sheep range wars. Most of the dust has settled by now between wheat farmer and vineyard owner.

Like wheat farmers before, family owned vineyards are raising their own generations of caretakers for their crops. Don and Nicole Redman of Mannina Cellars, along with their children and dog, Lucy make pruning of Cabernet Sauvignon vines a weekend family event. Just the photo alone of the Redman family shows that in spite of the differences between vineyard owners and wheat farmers, they are still very much the same, after all.