Ste. Michelle Wine Estates’ operating profit rose 30 percent to $14.8 million in the second quarter, according to a securities filing by its Connecticut-based parent company, UST.

PROSSER - For nearly a decade, the slim, dark wine bottles that hold Kestrel Vintners' signature wines have been etched with a falcon in flight.

A Connecticut-based company is arriving in Kennewick, Wash., with a message for local wineries: "Put a cork in it!"

A Connecticut-based company is arriving in Kennewick, Wash., with a message for local wineries: "Put a cork in it!"

A new wine village is under development off Keene Road in West Richland's Belmont Center.

SALEM -- Willamette Valley Vineyards posted record profits last year, up 31 percent to nearly $1.7 million on $16.7 million in sales.

WALLA WALLA -- Immerse yourself in the Walla Walla wine scene during Vintage Walla Walla, two days of wine tasting, seminars, cooking demonstrations and vineyard tours.

WALLA WALLA — Immerse yourself in the Walla Walla wine scene during Vintage Walla Walla, two days of wine tasting, seminars, cooking demonstrations and vineyard tours.

SALEM -- Willamette Valley Vineyards posted record profits last year, up 31 percent to nearly $1.7 million on $16.7 million in sales.

Yakima Valley wineries roll out the barrels this month for one of the busiest tasting weekends of the year.

Foley Wine Group, a California-based wine company started by the former head of Fidelity National Financial Inc., has purchased 60 percent of Walla Walla's stately Three Rivers Winery.

BENTON CITY, Wash. - Three west-side businessmen were the top bidders to lease 404 acres on Red Mountain, where they plan to grow grapes and build a Tuscan-style complex with 12 wineries and two dozen guest rooms.

Washington's wine and grape industry contributes $3 billion to the state's economy and $4.7 billion to the national economy each year.

Washington wine grape production was up 6 percent in 2007, continuing the steady growth of the vine industry since 2005.

When Rob Griffin started playing around with making a dry rosé about seven years ago, he had little inkling what it might turn into.

PROSSER -- When Casey McClellan suggested that wineries start adding "fat free" to their wine bottle labels, he was only half joking.

WAITSBURG, Wash. - A well-respected viticulturist and teacher died Thursday at his home in Waitsburg.

Marty Clubb has been making the wines at L'Ecole No. 41 in Washington's Walla Walla Valley for 18 years, and he's never had a customer ask him how many calories were in a glass of his Merlot.

GRANDVIEW -- Yakima Valley Community College is helping people learn which wine to bring to their holiday table this season.

PROSSER, Wash. - Trockenbeerenauslese. It's among the most difficult wines to pronounce or spell.

HERMISTON -- Enjoy a five-course dinner and fine wines one evening and a cheese-wine festival and dance the next during Hermiston's Northwest Wine, Cuisine and Cheese event Nov. 9-10.

ELLENSBURG -- Want to improve your wine tasting skills, increase your knowledge of vintages and have some fun too? Sign up for one of the consumer wine-tasting classes offered by Central Washington University.

Meet internationally acclaimed wine judges, learn how geology affects the fruit of the vine and sample some of the premier wines of the Pacific Northwest at the Tri-Cities Wine Festival on Nov. 16-17.

A group of Red Mountain winery owners and residents is hoping a new plan will help attract wine enthusiasts from around the world to its elite grape-growing area in Eastern Washington.

Look closely at the soil in the gardens outside Woodward Canyon Winery's tasting room and you'll see leftovers from the most recent crush.