Chasing Rain Wines

When people think of Washington State, they think of Seattle; of coffee and hipsters…and rain. Lots and lots of rain. Steady drizzle, cats and dogs, moss-is-our-state-flower kind of rain.

A surprise to many, it’s a different story as you make your way through the Columbia River gorge, east of the Cascades — the volcanic mountain range that divides the state in two. The landscape turns cowboy movie dry and dusty pretty quickly. Here, about 140 miles and a totally different climate away from Seattle, lies Red Mountain, rising gently from the desert floor, where a scant 5 inches of rain falls annually.