Washington – from your own correspondent

Elaine Chukan Brown and I recently packed our bags and headed north to Washington State for a week. It was a chance to acquaint myself with the geography of its (sometimes giant) AVAs, the soils, the producers, the wines and, more than I expected, the structure of the industry.

Much of the past and present of the Washington wine industry is Ste Michelle Wine Estates, headquartered west of the Cascade Mountains in the suburbs...