Yakima Valley Winery
Rattlesnake Hills AVA
Bonair Winery and Vineyards
Official Home Page
500 South Bonair Road
Zillah, Washington 98953
Yakima Valley, Washington
Hours: 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM Daily

Spring comes early in the Rattlesnake Hills, usually around March 1. It is my favorite time of the year, with big puffy clouds on a clear blue sky. The days are warm but the nights are still cool, usually in the upper 20's to lower 30's. Tourist season starts with Pre-barrel Tasting weekend, April 19 and 20. Being a locavore is in and nothing is more local that Bonair Wine. The vines you see are the wines you drink.

Bonair Winery is situated in the Rattlesnake Hills of the Yakima Valley, Washington State's foremost wine growing region region. No, we don't have rattlesnakes in our vineyards.  Every March 17, St. Patrick's Day we drive the snakes out of the vineyards. This is Washington States most scenic wine country.  There are no industrial park wineries.  (Unlike California, most wineries in Washington State are in cities and their grapes come from hundreds of miles away often blending vineyards that are 100 miles apart.) In the Rattlesnake hills you drive through orchards and vineyards, just like wine country is supposed to be. Like Bonair, our neighbors are Estate Wineries also. We have a close connection to the soil. The grapes you see are the wines you drink.

Most people think Seattle is Washington.  Well, politically speaking, it is, but east of the Cascade Range is a vast desert that receives as little as 5 inches annual rainfall.  Folks, that's less than Phoenix, Arizona.  It is a perfect climate for Vitis Vinifera, the European Wine Grape.  We get 17.4 hours of sunshine in the summer, 2 hours more than the fellows down in California. Washington is on the same latitude as the famous wine regions of France.  As you can see by the map, California is on a different latitude.

In the desert, there is a great differential between daytime and nighttime temperatures, sometimes over 40^o.  These cool evenings preserve the natural acid in the grapes while daytime temperatures develop sugars. This results in a perfect sugar/acid balance.

Without untimely and damaging natural rainfall in the Yakima Valley, we can precisely regulate the amount of water the plants receive to ripen grapes to perfection with the use of drip irrigation.  Drip irrigation preserves water, a precious commodity in the desert West.

Note to MSN and Hotmail users.
509.829.6027
800.882.8939
fax 509.829.6410

 

Click on the picture to see an enlarged view of the vineyard today.  The picture is updated from sunrise to sunset daily.

For up-to-date pass conditions, check the Washington State Pass Report.

We'll see you later this morning! We are only two hours and fifteen minutes via Interstate from Bellevue. Have a safe trip.

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