Today’s Gem-State Gems: All Sorts of Wines

 

We’ve been down this road before, the road about vineyards and wineries of Idaho. We didn’t find any potato wine then and we didn’t find any potato wine now. Potato vodka, sure, but no potato wine. Other novelties, yes, but no potato wine. Sorry.

By and large, grape growers and winemakers of Idaho follow a traditional path as they seek to establish their place in the wine world. For inspiration and guidance, they look to Europe, as American vintners have done for generations. That pretty much rules out potato wine. What would you serve with it, anyway? Gravy? Ketchup?

At any rate, while wine grapes have been cultivated in Idaho since 1864 – barring Prohibition – the trade has developed slowly. Its second post-Prohibition winery only opened in 1972, nearly four decades after the first.

Today, Idaho is home to around 70 wineries and about 1300 acres in vineyards, but that acreage has remained static over the past 15 years.

A couple of factors help explain the sluggish growth of vineyard development in Idaho. For one, planting of grapes is being tripped up by more lucrative demand for land from one of the state’s other principal crops – immigrants drawn to Idaho for its accommodating climate, recreational riches, dynamic cultures, scenic beauty and affordability.

Land in the state’s most aggressively farmed and most highly regarded American Viticultural Area – the Snake River Valley just west of Boise – is also the land being exploited industriously to accommodate the state’s booming population. Take a drive out along the Snake River just outside Boise and be prepared to see massive new estates directly across a country road from farmland being groomed for one of the state’s many non-human crops. (Outside of the Southern states South Carolina, North Carolina, Florida and Texas, Idaho proportionally is the fastest growing state in the country, its population jumping 1.3 percent between 2022 and 2023, reports the U.S. Census Bureau.)

Secondly, Idaho abuts Washington and Oregon, whose higher-profile vineyards aren’t so far removed that vintners in Snake River Valley can’t take advantage of them, though many Idaho winemakers chafe at importing grapes from their neighbors except in years when rough weather or wildfires adversely affects their grapes.

Nevertheless, despite its many challenges the modern Idaho wine scene is colorful, diverse and vibrant. Total vineyard acreage may be small, but it is planted to a wide range of grape varieties, from old standbys like Cabernet Sauvignon to new darlings like Gruner Veltliner.

What really distinguishes the Idaho wine scene, aside from the character, quality and value of its wines, is the passion and downright eccentricity of many of its grape growers and winemakers. They are risk-adverse people of vision, daring and flexibility, seeing in the state’s dramatic terrain and climate an opportunity to establish one more valuable and respected crop. (Idaho is home to around 150 crops, from alfalfa to apples, cattle to corn, milk to mint, so why not wine grapes?)

For the record, Idaho’s 10 most extensively cultivated wine-grape varieties, at least in 2020, the most recent year for which the Idaho Wine Commission solicited vineyard data, are, in descending order of acreage, Riesling, Merlot, Chardonnay, Syrah, Cabernet Sauvignon, Malbec, Cabernet Franc, Tempranillo, Pinot Noir, and Viognier. Riesling, at the top of the list with 114 acres, accounts for nearly a tenth of the state’s vineyards.

Aside from Riesling, which early on showed how fitting it is for Idaho’s topography and weather by yielding consistently fresh and focused wines, the popularity of other varieties on the top-10 list doesn’t necessarily represent the Idaho wine scene at its best. As stand-alone varietal wines, for example, Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot are generally adequate but unexciting, with few exceptions truly magnificent. When blended with other Bordeaux varieties, however, notably up-and-coming Petit Verdot, they can yield results enticing, and sometimes thrilling.

The prevailing perspective among Idaho’s winegrowers is that the state’s soils, elevations, exposures and the like are so varied that a wide spectrum of grape varieties and wine styles are perfectly at home in the Gem State, so they customarily shy from predicting which ultimately will emerge as Idaho’s signature wine.

That’s the stance of one of Idaho’s more seasoned and highly regarded vintners, Martin Fujishin, recently appointed director of enology and viticulture for Walla Walla College in neighboring Washington state. In addition to his new role, Fujishin, who has been involved in Idaho viticulture and enology for 21 years, will keep his hand in his family’s eponymous winery at Wilder, just northwest of Boise.

“We can grow pretty much everything here,” says Fujishin when asked to predict which grape and wine eventually will stand for Idaho, as the russet has come to dominate the state’s potato family. He dances around the question, speculating that it could be blends based on Cabernet Sauvignon, but when pressed on the matter he says that if he could grow just one grape and make one varietal wine in Idaho it would be Syrah, in part because he loves Rhone Valley wines, in part because so many Idaho winemakers are turning out varied and frequently dynamic interpretations of the grape.

Idaho is partitioned into six broad wine districts ranging from Sandpoint in the state’s far north to Pocatello at its southeast reaches. It has three formal American Viticultural Areas – Lewis-Clark Valley in the far northwest, Snake River Valley in the southwest corner, and Eagle Foothills, a sub-appellation of Snake River Valley.

Anyone who wants to become familiar with Idaho wine had best go there. Only two of its wineries distribute their wines nationally. The rest almost invariably are small and family-owned and -operated, their releases finding appreciative audiences close to home.

 

For wine enthusiasts, Snake River Valley is the most accommodating of Idaho’s appellations for its accessibility, concentration, and range of wineries and wines. Boise is the logical jumping-off point for touring Snake River Valley. For one, its airport is convenient and manageable. For another, a hotel boom is under way in downtown Boise, which also boasts lively pockets of restaurants, wine bars, brewpubs, cideries, recreational diversions and entertainment venues.

The Snake River Valley appellation forms one massive 8,263-square-mile crescent that curves northwest from just west of Twin Falls clear into eastern Oregon. Of Idaho’s 1300 acres of wine grapes, some 1100 are in Snake River Valley.

But despite the spread of the Snake River Valley, most of its vineyards and wineries are clustered in the Caldwell and Nampa area a half-hour drive west of Boise, and in Garden City, a Boise enclave that can be reached from downtown via a scenic 40-minute walk along the Boise River. (Longer if you pause at the inviting Green Acres Food Truck Park on the river’s east bank.)

The boundary of Snake River Valley coincides roughly with ancient Lake Idaho, which between two and nine  million years ago was more than 200 miles long and 35 miles wide. Then it disappeared. Geologists don’t know what happened, but speculate that melting glaciers caused the lake to overflow, its draining floodwaters gouging out Hell’s Canyon where western Idaho and northeastern Oregon meet.

Grape growers and vintners peg the Snake River Valley’s prospects as a fine-wine region to the lakebed’s easily drained sedimentary, alluvial and volcanic soils, the elevations in which vines are planted (6oo feet to 3,000 feet) and the area’s combination of hot days and cool nights during the summer. Winters, on the other hand, can be fierce and long, compacting the growing season and complicating the outlook for late-ripening grape varieties, which explains the struggles of Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot in Idaho.

The Caldwell/Nampa area is home to about two-dozen wineries, including several legacy brands responsible for establishing Idaho’s standing for fine wine, including Fujishin Estate Winery, Huston Vineyards, Koenig Vineyards, Ste. Chapelle Winery, Sawtooth Estate Winery, Hat Ranch Winery and Bitner Vineyards.

Similarly, more compact Garden City boasts the long-established and highly regarded Telaya Wine Co., Rolling Hills Vineyard, Coiled Wines and Cinder Wines.

For the first time in six years, I returned recently to Boise to join the panel of judges for the 2024 Idaho Wine & Cider Competition and to join a tour of wineries in the Caldwell/Nampa district, also known as Sunnyslope, poised to become its own American Viticultural Area within Snake River Valley.

The competition drew 199 wines and 11 ciders, providing a wide-angle snapshot of today’s Idaho wine and cider scene.

At past competitions, I was struck by the caliber of Idaho’s Tempranillos and Rieslings, and they remain authoritative forces, though this time around I found Malbecs, Syrahs and Grenaches to be equally reliable and captivating.

Grenache is a minor player in the Idaho wine lineup, with only around 15 acres planted to the variety in the entire state, and with just two varietal Grenaches in the competition. One, however, yielded the competition’s best-of-show wine, the Veer Wine Project 2022 Snake River Valley Garnacha ($36), one of the more compelling takes on the varietal I have tasted, remarkable for its rare balance of muscle and drive alongside layering and persistence. In a field of eight candidates for best red wine, it won handedly, gathering three times as many votes as its nearest competitors. Credit the wine’s sweet and juicy dark fruit, pungent yet inviting aroma, peppery spice and steely persistence. And then in the best-of-show runoff it nearly swept the field, with only one of the other five wines in contention getting even a single vote. (The 2021 vintage of Veer’s Snake River Valley Garnacha was chosen best wine of the 2023 Cascadia International Wine Competition in Washington state, which drew 732 entries and was judged by a panel made up mostly of winemakers. It was the third straight year that an Idaho wine won the competition’s highest honor.)

But Snake River Valley Grenache played pivotal roles in two other wines to win high honors in this year’s Idaho Wine & Cider Competition. One was the husky yet elegant Veer Wine Project 2022 Snake River Valley “Tressé” Red Blend ($36, but not to be released until this fall), a seamless and cantering mix of 40 percent Grenache, 36 percent Syrah, and 14 percent Mourvedre, chosen best blended red wine in a class with 15 other contenders.

The other was the competition’s best-of-show rosé wine, the fruity, refreshing, endearing and enduring Huston Vineyards 2023 Snake River Valley Rosé of Grenache ($24).

 

And speaking of Huston Vineyards, it also walked away from the competition with best-white-wine honors for its 2023 Snake River Valley Chicken Dinner White ($16), a blend based largely on Riesling (72 percent) but also including Muscat Blanc and Viognier. The result is one floral, sweet, sunny and swaggering addition to the table, with or without chicken.

Chicken Dinner White is a somewhat storied wine in Idaho, largely for its consistent character and value, but also for its backstory. Huston Vineyards is along Chicken Dinner Road at Huston, just southwest of Caldwell. As the story goes, an unpaved and rutted road in the area needed some loving care, but no one in authority responded until one of the residents along the route invited the governor to a chicken dinner in hopes of persuading him to repair the lane. A sign simply saying “chicken dinner” was put up to direct him to the correct residence. He found it, enjoyed the hospitality, and in short order directed that the road be repaired. The sign remained up, and the name caught on.

The competition’s other principal winners were the fruity, yeasty and finely beaded 3100 Cellars 2019 Snake River Valley Whitewater Sparkling Wine ($38), best sparkling wine; the floral and honeyed Koenig Vineyards 2022 Snake River Valley Riesling Ice Wine ($30), best sweet wine; and the lean, spicy and semi-dry Highpoint Transplant New England Style Hard Cider ($16 per six pack), best cider.

Aside from wines to win high honors, I came away from the competition with several personal favorites, including the lemony, minerally, peppery and leanly yet solidly structured Hat Ranch Winery 2023 Snake River Valley Gruner Veltliner ($24); the leathery and long Sawtooth Winery 2021 Snake River Valley Classic Fly Series Malbec (around $40); the darky fruity, assertive and youthful Hat Ranch Winery 2021 Snake River Valley Malbec ($32); the muscular and minty Famici Wine Company 2021 Snake River Valley Malbec ($45), the formidable and built-to-last Hat Ranch Winery 2021 Snake River Valley Tempranillo ($33), the densely fruity, bacony, smoky and complex Huston Vineyards 2021 Snake River Valley Syrah ($38), the rich, assertive and lingering Koenig Vineyards Snake River Valley Three Vineyard Cuvée Syrah ($34), and the exceptionally complex and snappy Veer Wine Project 2023 Snake River Valley Rèverie Riesling ($24).

While vineyard development in Idaho may be plodding, the same can’t be said of the state’s allure to people newly attracted to the trade, with wineries, brands and styles continuing to expand. For one, in recent years the husband-and-wife team of James and Sydney Nederend, descendants of longtime Idaho farming families, established Scoria Vineyards and subsequently purchased Koenig Vineyards, both in Snake River Valley. They see the Koenig brand as continuing to represent more traditional, European-inspired wines while Scoria is tilting more toward unconventional releases, such as Gruner Veltliner and a fleecy pet-nat Riesling under the name Fiasco. Scoria has two tasting rooms, one in Caldwell, the other in downtown Boise.

That’s the pattern emulated by another brand on the rise in Idaho, Veer Wine Project, which also has a tasting room in Caldwell, as well as one at the former site of Split Rail Winery in Garden City. (Split Rail has relocated to larger quarters, also in Garden City.)

Veer Wine Project is the brand of one of the more electric and game personalities on today’s Idaho wine scene, Will Wetmore, a California native who traces his meandering plunge into the wine business to a distant relative, Charles Wetmore, an 1870s journalist who subsequently became chief executive officer of the influential and pivotal State Viticultural Commission before founding the Livermore Valley winery Cresta Blanca.

Will Wetmore earned a degree in biology at California’s University of Redlands before he and his wife, Dr. Jaclyn Cooperrider, settled in her native Boise to pursue their twin passions, sports medicine for her, fermentation for him.

In 2016, they founded Veer Wine Project, a name that points up his longing to swerve fearlessly from customary winemaking methods to his own highly idiosyncratic ways to make wine. Thus, why not ferment Malbec in open-air bins right in the middle of the vineyard where the grapes were grown, relying solely on ambient temperatures and native yeasts? Why not use carbonic maceration to convert usually dense and hefty Syrah into a frolicsome wine more akin to spunky and spicy Beaujolais Nouveau? Why not add dashes of Grenache and Mourvedre to Riesling?

Over the past eight years, his unorthodox approaches have led to numerous high honors on the wine-competition circuit and excited acclaim in the wine press. This spring, for one, Great Northwest Wine anointed Veer Wine Project its “Idaho Winery of the Year,” and this was well before the winery’s recent stunning performance at the 2024 Idaho Wine & Cider Competition, where its 2022 Snake River Garnacha was elected the competition’s best wine out of nearly 200 entries (see above).

In short, the Idaho wine trade, while easy to overlook because of the breadth and depth of the state’s other agricultural riches, and because of its proximity to larger wine trades of its neighboring states, is energetic, upbeat and worth exploring with the same open-minded adventurism that draws visitors to the state for whitewater rafting, fly fishing and skiing.

To help plan a visit to Idaho wine country, check out these websites:

Idaho Wines: https://idahowines.org/

Sunnyslope Wine Trail: https://sunnyslopewinetrail.com/

Lewis Clark Valley: https://visitlcvalley.com/

Garden City: https://visitgardencity.com/

Boise: https://visitboise.com/