PORT ANGELES – We’re young, warm and willing to sweat.
And that makes the North Olympic Peninsula a viable place for vineyards, according to Greg Jones, a Southern Oregon University climatologist who specializes in identifying good grape-growing land.
“There’s a lot of potential here,” Jones said Friday at the Port Angeles City Council Chambers.
Calling the Peninsula a “young grape-growing region,” he presented results of a study conducted at the request of 52 local business people and organizations interested in this place as a viticultural frontier.
The driving force behind the study was Kathy Charlton, owner of Olympic Cellars just east of Port Angeles.
She and Port Angeles Mayor Karen Rogers, City Councilwoman Edna Petersen and several Peninsula wineries cooperatively funded the $15,000 cost of Jones’ research.
“This is like having a baby,” Charlton said of the nine-month study.
She usually has her grapes shipped from eastern Washington.
But earlier this year, Charlton and Olympic Cellars winemaker Benoit Murat bottled 35 cases of wine with fruit from the Dungeness Bay Vineyard near Sequim.
They named the grapefruity white blend Vin Nouveau – and watched it sell out fast.
That Nouveau could be the harbinger of our next agriventure, Jones said.
