Articles

Articles about Illahee and the Walla Walla Valley.

 

Wine Takes Over a Town, and Prosperity Follows
WALLA WALLA has always been best known for its sweet onions, wheat fields and a penitentiary. It was a punch line of a town with the funny name that wasn’t on the road to anywhere. Outsiders hardly ever came unless they were attending a college graduation or visiting relatives.

Not anymore. After its wines — cabernets, merlots and syrahs — started winning high scores from national critics, Walla Walla leapt onto the lips of wine drinkers, gourmets and second-home buyers. Chefs from Seattle started opening restaurants, longtime ranchers plowed under orchards to plant grapes, and visitors trickled in from out of state. Wine aficionados love to speculate about “the next Napa,” and Walla Walla became one of the contenders.
>> Read more (Originally appeared in The New York Times)

How a College's Budding Vintners Helped Walla Walla Create a Buzz
Most colleges try to discourage students' fondness for drink. Walla Walla Community College not only encourages students to enjoy alcohol, it also bottles and sells the stuff.

And for the city of Walla Walla, the school's courses on reds and whites have made for an unexpected infusion of green, helping turn the local wine industry into the city's main source of economic growth.
>> Read more (Originally appeared in The Wall Street Journal)

Tourist spending hits record
Visitor spending in Walla Walla continues to reach record proportions as the community's reputation for wine and tourism grows.

According to the latest figures, visitors to Walla Walla County spent $75.8 million here in 2006, besting the previous year's record amount by $4.2 million.

Walla Walla also welcomed its largest number of overnight visitors for the greatest number of room nights last year, according to a study released by the state Department of Community, Trade & Economic Development.
>> Read more (Originally appeared in The Walla Walla Union-Bulletin)

Where the Good Life Demands Grape Views
The novelty of the golf course community may have begun to fade in recent years, but now vineyard living is emerging as an alternative. The American fascination with wine has never been more intense — wine consumption increased by 25 percent or 142 million gallons between 2001 and 2006, according to the San Francisco-based Wine Institute — and new housing developments are appearing alongside or right in the middle of vineyards across the country, even in areas not well known for their wine production.
>> Read more (Originally appeared in The New York Times)

Is Walla Walla "the next Napa"?
[T]his Southeast Washington town not far from the Oregon border isn't like Napa. It's smaller. Its tourism industry comes to a halt during the winter. And unlike Napa, Walla Walla is at least a four-hour drive from major metropolitan areas such as Seattle and Portland. Even Spokane is almost three hours distant.

Still, many tourists have dubbed this the "next Napa," mostly because this town of 30,000 appears bigger and is more cosmopolitan than most farming towns in the middle of nowhere.
>> Read more (Originally appeared in the Seattle Times)

The Tastes of Walla Walla, Secret No More
THE landscape that unfolds beneath the little plane as it wends its way east from Seattle is not very welcoming. First come the daunting peaks of the Cascade Range, and then a sparsely populated near-desert. Eventually, it lets down over a series of vast sand dunes that are cloaked during spring and early summer in an emerald-green mantle of winter wheat. Soon the small, ordered city of Walla Walla (''many waters,'' in the language of the Cayuse Indians) comes into view.
>> Read more (Originally appeared in the New York Times)

Walla Walla: A little Napa in 'nowhere'
A Washington farm town with a funny name is becoming a destination spot, thanks to its bustling wine industry, upscale new restaurants and historic inns.
>> Read more (from the LA Times)

What's the latest haute spot for Seattle chefs? Walla Walla
This corner of the state is not the new Napa Valley, though it's easy to make the comparison.

Thanks to a growing number of Seattle transplants — chefs, budding winemakers, innkeepers with gourmet aspirations — the booming wine country here has become a delicious destination.
>> Read more (from Seattle PI)

Short Trips: So much wine, too little time in Walla Walla
Walla Walla is one of the world's hottest wine destinations. Frequently featured in national magazine spreads, the valley draws sophisticated visitors from around the world. Private jets often are parked at the teeny airport, and the burgeoning number of upscale restaurants and accommodations are booked solid through much of the summer.
>> Read more (from Seattle PI)

A Future of Growth
The above are famous quotes about growth. Local folks have some choice words about it, as well. The opinions are widely known and diverse. Some people say to opt out entirely and discourage newcomers at all costs. Others want us to plan more effectively. Still others recognize only benefits to more people moving to the Valley.

Most, however, see the pros and cons through a pragmatic lens.

As Walla Walla City Manager Duane Cole put it in a recent interview: "You can't put the wine back in the bottle. It's going to change the dynamics."
>> Read more

Tourism Spending climbs to record levels in Walla Walla County
According to a study released by the Washington State Office of Trade and Economic Development, visitors to Walla Walla County spent a record $71.6 million dollars in 2005. Visitor spending grew by $6.5 million from 2004.
>> Read more

Walla Walla named "Best Place to Retire" by Money Magazine
This southeastern Washington town has become a destination for wine connoisseurs, urban refugees and roving retirees, despite its out-of-the-way location. 19th century Italianate-style commercial buildings are being revamped to house art galleries, bookstores and restaurants. Three colleges are hubs of activity for retirees, who can enjoy classical music, lectures or lifelong learning classes. Walla Walla home prices, up more than 50% over the past five years, are still affordable by big-city standards.
>> See Money Magazine's stats, >> Watch video
>> Read more (from Money Magazine)

America's Latest Vintage
In the sleepy southeastern corner of Washington State, a quiet revolution is under way. Meet some of the passionate (even obsessed) vintners, chefs, and farmers who are making Walla Walla this country's next great wine destination.
>> Read more (from Travel + Leisure)

Geologic trail would trace the path of ice-age floods
Congress revived legislation Wednesday to create a geologic trail that would trace the route of a series of catastrophic ice-age floods that inundated much of the Pacific Northwest, leaving permanent scars across the region.
>> Read more (from The Seattle Times)

Walla Walla Valley: A 'paradise' for wine fans
Super-sweet onions afford this isolated farm region a measure of pride, and vast grain fields give it no-nonsense stability. But no one here has ever seen a crop alter the landscape quite like wine grapes have. Chardonnay, cabernet sauvignon, merlot and syrah of exquisite quality have turned an area 4 1/2 hours from a major city into the epicenter of the country's fastest-growing wine-producing region. "People didn't come here to watch the wheat grow," says Mike Dunham, co-owner of Dunham Cellars, one of 30 small-scale wineries to open in the southeast corner of the state in the past decade, bringing the total to 35.
>> Read more (from USA Today)