Washington wine may have begun farther west — the earliest wine grapes were planted at Fort Vancouver by the Hudson’s Bay Company, while the oldest vineyards still in production are located in the Yakima Valley and Snipes Mountain AVAs — but there’s no question that its modern-day nerve center is in Walla Walla.
Of the six Washington wineries named among the world’s top-100 by Wine and Spirits Magazine in 2016, three call Walla Walla home, while two of the three others source grapes from at least one Walla Walla vineyard. aMaurice Cellars, Gramercy Cellars, L’Ecole No. 41 (built in an old schoolhouse), Woodward Canyon, Doubleback Winery (owned by former Washington State and NFL quarterback Drew Bledsoe), Pepper Bridge Winery, Waterbrook Winery (a personal favorite in the under $15 range), Leonetti Cellar (and spinoff FIGGINS), Va Piano Vineyards … you could spend a week in Walla Walla tasting from sun-up to sun-down and never visit the same tasting room twice.
We don’t recommend that, of course — not only for your own physical health, but because you need to save time for savoring the golf course that has never finished lower than third in our rankings of Washington’s top public tracks — Wine Valley. Take the links golf style of Chambers Bay and the conditioning of Sahalee or Tumble Creek, and you’ll have a fair approximation of the Wine Valley experience. The turf is so smooth, so well manicured, that each divot you take feels like a splash of paint thrown onto the Mona Lisa. And “paint“ is the best way to describe the vision from each tee box — a green landscape rolling smoothly across low hills, bordered on the fringes by wavy, golden grasses. Hit it late in the afternoon, with a few white clouds passing across a clear blue sky, as the sun begins to slip behind those grape-covered hills to the west, and you’ll swear you’re in the painting, too.
It’s also, quite simply, a blast to play. Like Gamble Sands and Chambers Bay, its two closest kin in Washington state, Wine Valley presents multiple ways to attack each hole, allowing golfers to choose the path and style that best suits their game, and the conditions and pin placements of the day. Unlike those others, its greens are lightning quick — golfers who pay attention to the slope of the greens before hitting their approach shots can save themselves a half-dozen strokes with the flatstick.
In Walla Walla, we recommend playing Wine Valley every day — or, if you prefer more variety, play one of the Yakima Valley courses on your way in, hit Wine Valley on Saturday, then play another Yakima Valley course on your way out. It’s your choice.
That’s a thing you’ll learn quickly about a Washington wine-and-golf weekend — there are dozens of choices to make, and none of them are bad. Just slow down, soak it all in, and savor the various sensory inputs around you. Because like a fine wine, these are trips you won’t want to rush.