ELTOPIA — Beneath sunlit leaves on a late morning in early autumn, grapes – plump, deep blue, veiled in a feather-light layer of fine dust – hang heavy.

Harvest has already begun. But another week – even another day or two – on these 20-year-old vines could make all the difference.

“The trick is not to get too over-anxious,” said Greg Lipsker, standing between the rows of cabernet franc vines. The co-owner of Barrister Winery in Spokane has traveled to this vineyard growing atop a bluff overlooking the Columbia River northwest of Pasco, to help determine when to cut grapes from these gnarled vines.

Barrister is known for making consistently exceptional wines, particularly reds. And that’s the hallmark of Washington state’s wine industry: It’s heralded for habitually producing high-quality wines.

Wines from this state are not only consistently outstanding, they are also more affordable than comparable wines from other top wine regions, including California, Oregon, Italy and France. Data published by Wine Spectator over the last eight years – and analyzed by the Washington Wine Commission – shows Washington state has the highest average percentage of wines rated 90 points or above compared with those other four leading wine regions, and offers them at the lowest average cost per bottle.

That’s a statistic touted by Craig Leuthold, who owns Maryhill Winery with his wife, Vicki. “The best part of it is they’re less expensive,” he said. “Not only are they higher in quality but they’re affordable.”

The Washington State Wine Commission found 46 percent of Washington wines rated by Wine Spectator from 2009 to 2016 scored 90 points or higher, compared with 45 percent for Oregon, 42 percent for France, 34 percent for Italy and 32 percent for California.

For the same time frame, those highly rated wines cost an average of $96 per bottle from France, $74 per bottle from California, $69 per bottle from Italy and $50 per bottle from Oregon.

The average price per highly rated bottle in Washington: $44.

What makes Washington wines so superb?

“In a nutshell, it’s quality and diversity and value,” said Craig Leuthold, who – along with Lipsker – serves on the board of the Washington Wine Institute, which advocates for Washington wineries.

“You can make bad wine out of good grapes,” Leuthold said. “But there’s no way you’re going to make great wine out of a bad grape.”

Second in the country, and still growing

Washington ranks No. 2 in the country for wine production and number of wineries. Only California makes and has more. It’s home to more than 4,200 wineries, and it accounts for about 85 percent of all wine made in America.

Still, “I would argue we are competing with them,” said Steve Warner, president of the Washington State Wine Commission. “We are certainly out-growing them.”

The Washington wine industry is growing at a rate of about 8 percent per year, compared with 2 or 3 percent outside of this state, Warner said. “Over the last five years, we grew about 40 percent,” he said. “You see that across the numbers – in the number of wineries, in acreage, in tonnage.”

And much of its growth has occurred in the past 15 years, the past five in particular.

Last year’s harvest was a record haul, with 270,000 tons of wine grapes – up more than 80,000 tons from five years ago. Ten years before that, in 2002, harvest was 115,000 tons. In 1985, it was 17,000 tons. By comparison, California vineyards last year yielded 4 million tons.

Most of the wine grapes in this state – approximately two out of every three – are used by the powerhouse Ste. Michelle Wine Estates, which dominates Washington’s winescape, accounting – Warner said – for about 65 percent of the market.

In all, this state produces approximately 17.5 million cases at more than 900 wineries, up from 800 in 2013 and 700 in 2010. Most – some 87 percent – are like Barrister, producing fewer than 10,000 cases per year. But more than half – some 64 percent – are even smaller, making fewer than 1,000 cases.

In 2001, when Barrister started making wine, there were 170 wineries in Washington. Twenty years before that, in 1981, there were 19.

“We’re doing really darn good,” Warner said. “It’s really exciting because we’re a relatively youthful wine region.”

Tracing grapes back to their roots

Commercial-scale plantings didn’t begin until the 1960s. But Washington’s wine industry traces its roots to 1825, when members of the Hudson’s Bay Co. planted vines at Fort Vancouver. As immigrants from Italy, France and Germany settled the territory, they added their own plantings.

Wine grape acreage – as well as a few dozen wineries – expanded throughout the early and middle part of the 20th century. In 1937, Dr. Walter Clore, known as “the father of Washington wine,” was appointed assistant horticulturist at Washington State University’s Prosser extension, initiating enology and viticulture research and launching trials of hybrid grape varieties.

Commercial scale picked up in the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s – and has been skyrocketing since. About 40 percent of the state’s wine grapes have been planted in the last decade – from 31,000 acres in 2007 to about 50,000 acres today. In 1997, only some 17,000 acres were planted, up from 11,100 in 1993, or 10 years after the first American Viticultural Area, its officially designated appellation, was established.

“We saw what was happening, and we wanted to be part of it,” Craig Leuthold said.

The Leutholds founded Maryhill in 1999, debuting their first vintage and opening their Goldendale tasting room in 2001. Since then, he said, the winery has seen nearly sixfold growth, “which is really incredible if you think about it.” The initial goal, he said, was to produce up to 20,000 cases. “We passed that in our fourth year.”

Today, Maryhill offers 60 varieties and produces some 80,000 cases annually. It also has two locations. Maryhill officially opened a second tasting room Nov. 18. Located in Kendall Yards, it stretches nearly 5,000 square feet and offers views of the Spokane River and downtown skyline.

Across the river, Barrister has enjoyed similar advances. “The growth has been phenomenal,” said Lipsker, who owns Barrister with business partners Michael White and Tyler Walters.

White and Lipsker started the winery in a 1,500-square-foot daylight basement and made just 134 cases of cabernet franc their first vintage, released in 2003, before moving the winery into a larger location. This year, Lipsker expects to produce 5,500 cases, or some 66,000 bottles, at Barrister’s 26,000-square-foot event center and winery, located in a former automotive warehouse on the west end of downtown Spokane.

“We still consider ourselves a newer winery,” he said. “But we’re older than 80 percent of the wineries in the state.”

Finding the balance

Lipsker has already brought in 110 tons of grapes this year.

It’s all been about timing.

“This is such a crucial decision,” said Lipsker, who contracts with 10 vineyards.

It’s so crucial, in fact, that he put 1,500 miles on his car in September and another 2,000 by the end of October, making twice- and thrice-weekly trips from Spokane to Walla Walla and the Tri-Cities and beyond to check on the progress of his grapes.

Wines produced from the grapes he harvests this year won’t be released for at least two years. “Could be up to four years,” he said.

Lipsker pulls a gadget from his jeans pocket and places a single grape on top of the prism, then closes the plate. The refractometer reads 23, which Lipsker said “is a little higher than last time” – but not quite high enough. Lipsker knows – to the tenth of a percent – just where he wants that number to be. It’s somewhere, he said, between 25 and 26 brix. The higher the brix, or sugar content, the higher the alcohol content in the wine.

“We’re trying for wine that’s fully developed and well-balanced and that doesn’t have too much alcohol,” Lipsker said, noting these grapes should be ready in another nine to 10 days. “The challenge now is to be patient.”

He has several blocks of wine grapes to check. As he ambles through Bacchus Vineyard to his next stop, a row of old-growth cabernet sauvignon, he pauses to point out a cluster of smooth granite rocks. He reckons they’re a result of the catastrophic floods that swept through this region at the end of the last ice age.

Ripe growth conditions

The Missoula Floods occurred repeatedly some 10,000 to 20,000 years ago, unleashing torrents of racing water that carved the scablands and many coulees of Eastern Washington. The floods left deep deposits of gravel, sand and silt throughout the Columbia Basin, creating rich agricultural land – and quite possibly the perfect terroir.

The French term refers to the set of environmental characteristics that affect a particular crop – from soil and sunlight to water, climate and farming practices. And when it comes to wines from Washington, Craig Leuthold said, “I think the quality is all about the climate. It’s the soil and the climate.”

The Columbia Basin is home to 99 percent of the state’s vinifera acreage. These vineyards are made of well-drained, relatively low-nutrient ice-age deposits. And this type of soil allows grape vines to struggle, spread out and grow deep roots. Those deep, ramified root structures – along with well-drained soil – help account for this state’s consistently good wine grapes.

Grape vines, Craig Leuthold said, “don’t like to get their feet wet.”

Most vineyards in the Columbia Basin lie below the high-water mark of those ancient floods and feature excellent drainage. Wind-blown sand and silt, or loess, covers layers of gravel and slack-water sediments as well as basalt bedrock. That basalt and those granite deposits lend a particular mix of minerals to the soil.

But, as Craig Leuthold noted, soil is only one factor in terroir. The Columbia Basin lies between the 46th and 47th parallels, or approximately the same latitude as the famed Old-World wine region of Burgundy. This northern location allows its vineyards up to 16 hours of daylight during growing season, or two more hours than wine grape growing regions receive in California.

The Columbia Basin also lies in the rain shadow of the Cascade Range and sees sun 300 days a year. The growing season is dry and warm, with an average daily temperature of 78 degrees. It receives little annual rainfall – about 8 inches – but experiences consistent freezing temperatures in winter, which helps combat fungus and pests.

“I can’t think of anywhere in the world that’s more perfect than here in Eastern Washington for growing grapes,” Vicki Leuthold said. “You can just about grow anything in the right place in Washington.”

Technology in the mix

Since the first Washington AVA was formed in 1983, technology has improved, and research has expanded. And growers continue to experiment with different varieties.

“When we first started growing grapes in Washington, farmers used the shotgun approach,” said Craig Leuthold, who contracts with more than 20 growers in eight of Washington’s 14 appellations, or growing regions. “Now, we’re using the scientific approach to grape growing. Farmers are more sophisticated in their growing methods.”

And consumers, he said, are becoming more adventurous. “It’s very exciting. People are no longer afraid to try different varietals.”

Grenache, Craig Leuthold said, is up and coming. So are Spanish and Italian varietals, such as albarino, tempranillo, sangiovese, dolcetta and barbera.

“We’ve gone from predominantly growing Riesling and chardonnay and sauvignon blanc to predominantly growing reds,” Warner said. “We’ve seen a dramatic shift.”

Bordeaux-style red blends have become more popular. “We have also seen a lot of interest in our syrah. Cabernet sauvignon, merlot and syrah, those three are growing the most year to year,” Warner said.

Nearly 70 varietals are produced in Washington today. Most – some 58 percent – are reds. One of them is Barrister’s petit verdot, the 2017 Red Wine of the Year, named at the nation’s largest independent and scientifically organized wine competition, the Indy International. The grapes came from the sister vineyard to Bacchus, or Dionysus, first planted in 1973.

In Wine Spectator’s recently released Top 100 list, a syrah from Walla Walla was named the No. 2 wine in the world for 2017. Syrah Walla Walla Valley Powerline Estate 2014 comes from winemaker Charles Smith and retails for $45. It’s one of four Washington wines to make the list, along with Smith’s Sixto Chardonnay 2014 at No. 13, the Frederick Walla Walla Valley 2014 red blend at No. 39, and Gorman Zachary’s Ladder Red Mountain 2014 at No. 68.

“We produce premium wine,” Warner said. “We don’t produce subpremium wine.”

Despite its accolades, repeatedly high ratings and growth, Washington’s wine industry – worth $2.067 billion to the state’s economy, according to the Washington State Wine Commission – still only accounts for about 1 percent of the worldwide wine industry. Warner expects that to change shortly. “Absolutely it will,” he said.

Outside the United States, Warner said, wines from Washington are seeing success in the Canadian market as well as in South Korea, China, Japan, the United Kingdom and Scandinavia. But there’s still plenty of room for growth for Washington in the world of wine – globally, nationally, regionally and locally, he said

In fact, in this state, Washington wines make up only about half of the market share, a fact Warner finds particularly “annoying.”

He encourages Washington wine enthusiasts to support local wineries.

“There’s no reason not to,” Warner said. “We’re making world-class wine at a fraction of the cost. I don’t see any reason why we shouldn’t have 90 to 95 percent of the market.

“You should be buying Washington wine,” he said. “And you should be proud of it.”

Oregon has pinot noir.

Sure, it grows some 80 other varietals. But there’s that one for which it is most known.

Washington grows about the same number of different kinds of wine grapes. But, said Craig Leuthold, who owns Maryhill Winery with his wife, Vicki, and serves on the board of the Washington Wine Institute, which advocates for Washington wineries, “its strength is its weakness.”

“We can grow so many varietals well that we haven’t been able to hang our hat on one like Oregon has done with pinot,” he said, noting, also, “That diversity will help us in the long run.”

Meantime, “We have a long way to go in terms of raising awareness of Washington wine.”

Wine is produced in all 50 states, and the U.S. is the fourth-largest wine-producing country in the world, behind France, Italy and Spain. California dominates domestic wine production. But Washington’s wine industry is growing faster. Still, getting the word out about its high quality and comparatively low cost is one of its biggest challenges, according to industry experts.

“The challenge is educating consumers outside of the state of Washington as to the quality of grapes in this state,” said Greg Lipsker, co-owner of Barrister Winery in Spokane and another board member of the Washington Wine Institute.

Lipsker, Leuthold and Steve Warner, president of the Washington State Wine Commission, all point to the industry’s relative newness as an underlying factor for marketing – as well as other – challenges.

“We’re still learning,” Warner said. “There’s a lot that can be tweaked and dialed in.”

Marketing to consumers outside this area is just one of the industry’s concerns. “We’re investing in viticulture and enological research to take us to the next level,” Warner said.

Old World grape-growing and wine-producing regions such as France, Spain and Italy have had hundreds, even thousands, of years of experience. “They’ve had hundreds of thousands of tries,” Warner said.

Here in Washington state, most growers and winemakers have anywhere from a few decades to as few as five or 10 years. They’re still fine-tuning practices and discovering what grapes grow best in particular microclimates.

“We knew we could grow wine grapes, but we didn’t know which grapes were right for the different regions, latitude and slope,” Warner said. “Now, we’re about to zero in. Our learning has been and will continue to be more accelerated than what other regions had to go through for years and years and decades and centuries.”

One of the areas of study is the effect of smoke from wildfires on wine grapes. With warm temperatures and dry conditions, Warner said, “we just think there’s always going to be a concern in the future. This isn’t going to go away,” he said. “We need to have a plan.”

Researchers at Washington State University are working to identify those effects as well as examine how to minimize them. They’re experimenting with levels of intensity and different durations as well as some from native species of pine and other plants.

“You get one chance every year,” Warner said. “It’s not like beer or spirits.”

However, in the vineyards, Warner said, the effects of smoke from wildfires don’t pose the biggest challenge to Washington’s wine industry. “Labor,” he said, “is our biggest challenge.”

Specifically, Warner said, “It’s competing with other crops.” Warner cited competition from hops and tree fruit as factors in pulling workers away from working in wine grapes.

Nationally, he pointed toward debate on guest-worker programs and immigration. Based on a national study, Mike Gempler, executive director of the Washington Growers League, estimates about half of all Washington farmworkers are undocumented. Comprehensive immigration reform could help stabilize, maybe even widen, the workforce.

In addition to competition for – and a shortage of – labor, the cost is also going up. At the very least, farmworkers make minimum wage, which in Washington is $11, one of the highest in the country. Washington’s minimum wage is slated to increase annually during the next three years: $11.50 in 2018, $12 in 2019, and $13.50 in 2020.

And the market is getting more competitive.

“California wineries are coming up,” Leuthold said. “Canada is coming down.”

Acreage here is available at a fraction of the cost of land in California. And, in older wine grape growing regions – such as California’s Napa Valley – there isn’t much, if any, room to grow, Warner said. “There’s no new acreage in Napa. Napa’s planted out,” he said. “We have new acreage available. We have acreage that can be converted from other crops. We have room to grow.”

Despite all the recent growth in Washington wine, three major companies dominate the industry. Accounting for approximately 80 percent of the state’s wine landscape are: Constellation, whose brands include Hogue Cellars and Charles Smith, among others; Precept, whose brands include Canoe Ridge, Waterbrook and Sagelands, among others; and Ste. Michelle, which formed in 1967 and is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. Chateau Ste. Michelle, its flagship and the state’s largest winery, produces some 3.4 million cases annually.

The majority of Washington’s wineries – some 64 percent – sell fewer than 1,000 cases per year.

Warner predicts growth in Washington’s wine industry will continue.

“If you look at past data, we continued to grow through the recession. We saw no downturn in the number of tons harvested, the number of acres planted or the number of wineries coming on board,” he said. “People like to drink wine to celebrate and to mourn, if they’re happy or sad. Generally people tend to kind of like wine.”

And, despite some challenges in Washington’s up-and-coming wine industry, “There’s just so much opportunity out there,” Warner said. “All signs are pointed in the right direction. All signs are pointed up.”

Yakima Valley – Established in 1983, Washington’s first AVA is home to roughly one-third of the state’s vineyard acreage.

Walla Walla Valley – Established in 1984, this AVA straddles the Washington-Oregon border and traces wine grape-growing to Italian immigrants in the 1850s. Today, it’s known for its red varietals, such as cabernet sauvignon, merlot and syrah, as well as chardonnay.

Columbia Valley – Established in 1984, Washington’s largest AVA encompasses almost all of the state’s vinifera acreage. It includes more than 43,000 acres of wine grapes.

Puget Sound – Established in 1995 and located on the wetter West Side of the state, this AVA is known for its light, crisp wines.

Red Mountain –Established in 2001, this region, home to Klipsun and Ciel du Cheval, two of the state’s most well-known vineyards, produces robust red wines of exceptional quality.

Columbia Gorge – Established in 2004, this small but varied appellation includes both the arid climate of Eastern Washington and maritime climate of Western Washington.

Horse Heaven Hills – Roughly one-quarter of Washington’s wine-grape acreage is located in this appellation, established in 2005 along the Columbia River. It’s grown wine grapes since 1972 and features south-facing slopes with well-drained, loamy soils.

Wahluke Slope – Established in 2005, this appellation features one of the driest and hottest climates in the state and is known for merlot, syrah and cabernet sauvignon as well as Riesling, chardonnay and chenin blanc.

Snipes Mountain – Established in 2009 but home to vineyards since 1914, this AVA is named for early settler Ben Snipes and features rocky soil.

Lake Chelan – Established in 2009, this appellation features coarse, sandy soil and a milder climate than surrounding areas.

Naches Heights – Established in 2011, this small AVA features clay-heavy soil.

Ancient Lakes of Columbia Valley – Established in 2012, this appellation lends itself to white varietals such as Riesling and chardonnay.

Rattlesnake Hills – Established in 2008, this appellation’s first commercial vineyards date back to 1968. It features good air circulation, which helps growers avoid early and late frosts.

Lewis-Clark Valley – Established in 2016, this AVA straddles the Washington-Idaho border and features steep canyons and stony soils.

— Washington State Wine Commission