Snipes Mountain: Birds or Gunmen?

Gretchen Neuman
VinoVerve Editor

The answer is neither. Snipes Mountain is named after an early pioneer to Yakima, Ben Snipes, who built a house at the base of the mountain and established a cattle ranch in the 1850s. The viticultural area is a subset of both the Columbia Valley and Yakima Valley AVAs and is unique due to the existence of rocky aridisols which contain gravel deposits that range in size from that of a fist to melons. The appellation is in the rain shadow of the Cascade Mountains which deprives the region of precipitation and yet lies in the ancient river bed of the Columbia River. The AVA includes Snipes Mountain as well as nearby Harrison Hill and can be located between the towns of Sunnyside and Granger, Washington.

Vineyards were initially planted on the mountain beginning in 1914. Only one winery is currently in operation in the AVA, but other vineyards exist supplies grapes to other wineries. The appellation is one of the smallest in the state with only 4,145 acres in total area of which only 535 are in production.

This entry was posted on February 10, 2010 at 8:37 am and is filed under American, Stephen T Colbert Memorial Better Know an AVA, wine. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.