08/24/07 Grape Tour

Grape Tour. I'm Greg Martin with today's Fruit Grower Report. Every year a group of wine grape growers, vintners and industry officials tour a wine region in the Northwest. Stacy Roeder, Program Manager with the Washington Association of Wine Grape Growers talks about this year's tour. ROEDER: This year we visited the Columbia Gorge AVA area which actually crosses the Washington/Oregon border and the main reason that we went to this particular area was  in a small space it has a large range of weather and climate conditions so it really gives people a sense of the effect of those things on what grapes can be grown and how they have to work with the soil and the terrior. The group had a chance to visit a number of difference wineries and areas during the tour. ROEDER: We stopped at Maryhill Winery; the Pines Vineyard which was in Oregon; the Erin Glenn Winery which is in the Dalles, Oregon; Celilo Vineyard and then at Huber Vineyard. The wine tours are for members only group and this years tour had about 50 attendees. ROEDER: We do these tours so our members see the broader picture of Washington. There are so many different areas and each area is so unique to itself in terms of its weather, its climate, its soil, what grows well, what doesn't, how they grow it and it's important to see all of those differences to truly understand how diverse our wine and grape industry is here in Washington. That's today's Fruit Grower Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.