Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/118688
PACIFIC NORTHWEST America on the map, Canoe Ridge faced many bumps in the road before Precept Wine purchased the winery from Diageo in February of 2011. Now, led by talented winemaker Bill Murray, Canoe Ridge is an American wine brand on the rise, helping cement the reputation of Washington State wine and its growing value category. "This value category is extremely important to Washington wine," says Paul Gregutt, author of Washington Wines & Wineries: The Essential Guide. You can't just have premium-level wines and ignore high-quality juice for $15, Gregutt says. "Precept makes the best and most $6 to $16 wines in Washington." The Winemaker Who Can't Stop They don't make winemakers like Bill Murray anymore. Humble, he bashfully dismisses his wines' high scores, saying, "Well, it's really the fruit." Sure, Murray pulls 24-year-old fruit from the estate Canoe Ridge Vineyard, which he calls "the most elite vineyard in Washington." But the fruit is only part of the equation. Murray, who's also the winemaker at Precept Wine's Sawtooth Estate Winery in Idaho, is maximizing every grape's potential. Canoe Ridge's new line, called The Expedition, is a celebration of the Lewis and Clark adventure, but really it showcases Murray's ability to make affordable wine Winemaker Bill Murray in the cellar. A s the clouds shine off the Columbia River, a light wind whistles through the vines. No leaves flutter, and the songbirds pretend not to even notice. The wind comes and goes, tunneling through each Washington row of Canoe Ridge Vineyard's Bordeaux and Rhône vines without disrupting even a slight particle of sandy loam soil. Thousands of years ago, the cataclysmic Missoula Floods drenched this land, carrying massive stones carving out ridges, canyons and hillsides—and forging the beginnings of microclimates for what would become Washington State vineyards some 15,000 years later. In the case of Canoe 82 / the tasting panel / april 2013 Ridge Vineyard in the Horse Heaven Hills AVA, these glacial floods gave the site exceptional airflow for drainage, along with river winds that help toughen grape skins for wines with nice tannic structure, great color and flavor. The Columbia River below also regulates Canoe Ridge Vineyard, reflecting the sun into the vines in a region that already enjoys as much as 16 hours of sun exposure a day. But the great river's greatest claim to fame is as a passageway for early 19th-century explorers Lewis and Clark, who named Canoe Ridge because of its resemblance to an upside-down canoe. Much like the Lewis and Clark Expedition that literally put much of The Expedition tier of value-priced wines is a celebration of the Lewis and Clark adventure.