The Best Wine in Washington Is Hiding in Plain Sight
The Best Wine in Washington Is Hiding in Plain Sight
Story and photos courtesy of Maryhill Winery
You’ve heard about Napa. You’ve heard about Oregon. Now let us tell you about the wine the world is just catching up to.
While the other regions were busy being famous, something quieter was happening east of the Cascades. Volcanic soil, dumped here by Ice Age floods that scoured the land and left it perfect. High desert sun that runs the summer days long and bright. Cold nights that drop fast and lock the acid into the fruit, the backbone you cannot fake and cannot buy. The land was doing the work. Nobody outside the state was paying much attention. Good. That left more for the ones who were.
Over 5,000 awards. More than any other winery in Washington. We are not a hidden gem. We are the state’s best-kept secret.”
Here’s the part that surprises people. To drink Maryhill, you do not pick one corner of Washington and settle for it. You follow the water. Four tasting rooms, each planted on a river or a valley, each a different way into the same stubborn, beautiful state.
Start at the source. The flagship sits on a bluff at the edge of the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area, vines running to the rim, Mount Hood hung in the western windows, the river working its way to the sea a thousand feet below. Carry a glass of estate red out to the terrace, let the live music run from Labor Day into October, and stop talking. The Gorge makes the argument better than any of us could. This is where it begins, and it is one of the great views in American wine.
If you want to understand Washington wine, start at the source. Plan the drive. Take the bridge. Head east.”
Follow the Columbia downriver to where it widens at the Oregon line and you hit Vancouver, on The Waterfront, a few steps from Grant Street Pier. The patio sits over the river. Stay till evening, when the water goes copper.
Swing east to Spokane, where the Kendall Yards room hangs right over the river, a five-minute walk down the Centennial Trail from downtown. It is the rare city tasting room where the view fights the pour to a draw. Order the second glass. The river is not going anywhere
Woodinville's premier tasting room, located in the historic Hollywood Schoolhouse.
Riverfront views in Spokane's Kendall Yards neighborhood.
And then there is Woodinville. The grapes grow east, but the wineries gather here. More than 130 of them packed into the Sammamish River Valley thirty minutes from Seattle, the biggest table in Washington wine, with more 90-point bottles than any wine region on earth. Maryhill holds court inside the Hollywood Schoolhouse, brick and built in 1912, a former dance hall and roller rink, now all worn hardwood, good light, and an antique bar that has heard a century of stories. In a valley with a hundred ways to spend an afternoon, this is the room that makes you stay.
Plenty of places pour Washington wine. Maryhill builds the whole experience around it. The same welcome in every room, live music, a full menu plated to pair with the pour, and a table waiting, doors open for the things worth gathering for.
Raise a glass on the Goldendale terrace as the Gorge goes gold. Mark an anniversary under the old ballroom in Woodinville. Settle in above the Spokane River, or bring the whole loud, happy crowd down to the Vancouver waterfront. The wine is the reason you come. Everything else is the reason you stay.
Because where it’s made, matters.”
What holds four rooms together across a few hundred miles is the wine itself. More than 35 grape varieties of the best vineyards in the state, from the Columbia Valley to Walla Walla to Yakima to the Gorge, built into a portfolio of more than 65 bottles. Different dirt, different elevations, one unmistakable place. Crisp whites with the sun still in them. Reds with the spine to wait for you. Drink it, and you are tasting a point of view.
The wind. The desert sun. The river light. The cold nights that give the wine its nerve. We bottle it. You reap its rewards.
Washington has been quietly growing some of the best wine in the world for more than half a century, and Maryhill has spent the last twenty-five of those years proving it, one award at a time.
So, make a day of it. Take the bridge east toward the Gorge, wander the rooms of Woodinville, follow a river into Spokane or Vancouver. Find the seat where the light goes long across the vines, and taste what the rest of the world is only beginning to.
About Maryhill Winery
Maryhill Winery is one of Washington’s most celebrated wine destinations, known for crafting award-winning, approachable wines that showcase the diversity of the Columbia Valley. Family-owned since 1999, Maryhill crafts one of the region’s most diverse portfolios, sourcing from premier vineyards across eight AVAs. Maryhill invites guests to experience the spirit of Washington wine through unforgettable moments at one of their four tasting rooms, as well as through their popular wine club memberships.
Learn more at maryhillwinery.com