What's up with Columbia?

Columbia Winery, a long-time Woodinville destination winery which is next to the Red Hook brewery and the under-construction Woodinville wine village, is moving its winemaking and bottling operations to the Yakima valley, in Eastern Washington.

But the Seattle Times reports that the winery is looking for local space to rent for its tasting and retail sales, so it should still be possible to taste their wines locally. Constellation Brands, a huge conglomerate that controls about 20% of the U.S. wine market, bought Columbia in 2001. The winery's big-name, highly-respected winemaker, David Lake, retired recently, so in a way, the winery has already changed fairly significantly from what it was in the many years when it and Chateau Ste Michelle were the only wineries people knew about in Woodinville.

Columbia's current winemaker is Kerry Norton, formerly of Covey Run, which was also purchased by Constellation.

So who is moving into Columbia's impressive building? Nothing has been announced, but the building is owned by the Baty family, who owns Corus Estates and Vineyards. When Corus sold Columbia and other assets in 2001, it kept one winerey, Idaho's Sawtooth Winery as well some vineyard sites, and now makes wine under some of its own labels, including Zefina and Alder Ridge (the grapes for both come from the same Corus vineyard) in Washington. Could one of those, or maybe both, set up shop in the building?

Who knows. But its proximity to the new Woodinville wine village should make it a very attractive property, and I'm hopeful some type of winemaking operation will move in there.

Columbia's lease is up in April. My guess is that it will close to visitors in the next couple of months as it gets ready to move. Columbia is currently open 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily. Tastings are $5.

Columbia Winery
14030 NE 145th Street
Woodinville, WA 98072
425-482-7490 Wine Shop
800-488-2347 Wine Shop