Turning Rocks into Wine

The following is an excerpt from an article in the March 2017 edition of Wine Enthusiast. 

A pioneering French winemaker's discovery of a cobblestone corner of the Walla Walla Valley has yielded wines unlike anywhere else in the world.

Rocks region pioneer Christophe Baron didn’t set out to discover a new wine-growing territory when he first moved to the Walla Walla Valley from his native France in 1993. In fact, he didn’t really look to live in the Walla Walla Valley, which straddles the Oregon-Washington border, at all.

“Being crazy about Chardonnay and Pinot Noir from Burgundy, my goal really was to work in the Willamette Valley,” he says. But the only job he could find there was working harvest.

When a friend told him about a longer-term position opening up in Walla Walla, he did what any person might do in those pre-internet days. He looked at an atlas.

“I looked at Walla Walla, and I looked at the Willamette Valley, and said, ‘Sure,’ ” he recalls. “I thought it was very close. I figured I’d be going to the Willamette Valley every weekend.”

Read the complete article here.