Chateau Ste. Michelle

The Chateau Ste. Michelle is a winery in Woodinville, Washington. The winery is noted for its best-selling Riesling bottlings. Chateau Ste. Michelle is the largest single producer of Riesling wine in the world. The winery also produces wines of many classic varietals and some experimental wines on a per-year basis. Ste. Michelle has a number of joint ventures with noted winemakers from throughout the world. Among these is the Eroica Riesling with Dr. Ernst Loosen of Germany and the Col Solare Winery with the Antinori family of Italy. Chateau Ste. Michelle was selected as Wine Enthusiast magazine's 2004 American Winery of the Year.

History

Chateau Ste. Michelle is the oldest winery in Washington state. It was founded as the American Wine Company, a 1954 merger of the National Wine Company (NAWICO), founded in 1934, and the Pomerelle Wine Company. (For years, there was a large neon sign advertising NAWICO in Seattle's Wallingford neighborhood.) The French-style chateau is located on of land with mature trees that once belonged to lumber baron Frederick Stimson, who used it as a hunting retreat and rural working farm called the Hollywood Farm.

Wines

With annual productions of over 600,000 cases a year, Chateau Ste. Michelle is the world leading producer of Riesling wine. The winery owns several estate vineyards in Eastern Washington including the Canoe Ridge vineyard in the Horse Heaven Hills AVA, the Cold Creek vineyard and Indian Wells vineyards in the Columbia Valley AVA.

Activities

On the grounds of the winery is an amphitheater where outdoor concerts are performed in the summer. Among past entertainers have included Tori Amos, Counting Crows, Tony Bennett, Gypsy Kings, Crosby, Stills & Nash, the Dave Matthews Band, Styx, B.B. King, and Diana Krall. The winery was once the northern terminus of the Spirit of Washington Dinner Train.

References

See also

• Woodinville wine country

External links

• History and information at vintners.net