Multi-colored background with the words, Staff Member Spotlight

Saying Goodbye to Steve

Our wine club members and regulars might recognize this dapper fellow. Steve Steidel has been a fixture in our tasting room and the friendly face behind our local deliveries for 5 years.
February 23rd marked his last day with Williamson Orchards and Vineyards and we are all going to miss him. While no one will be able to tell “dad jokes” quite like Steve, we wish him all the best on this next chapter of life.
Steve has big plans to travel more and play a lot more golf in his retirement. One of his bucket list items was to work at a golf course in retirement. So if you see this funny fellow out on the greens be sure to give him a “cheers” from us.

Emerging American Wine Regions and climate challenges – VinePair

A freelance writer named Shana Clark spoke with Beverly, Patrick, and Mike about what grows well in the Snake River Valley AVA. She then wrote an article for VinePair, an online wine magazine. Her article touched on how terroir can affect the grapes grown in a particular region. She spoke with several wine makers in the Snake River Valley AVA and winemakers in Arizona about the challenges of climate and grape varieties.  You can read the full article here: For Emerging American Wine Regions, Can Trends Trump Terroir?

 

 

Mom’s Weekend at Williamson’s- Vendors Wanted

May 13 & 14
12 – 5pm

We are looking for local artists, makers, and crafters who would like to set up a booth during our Mom’s Weekend at Williamson’s event. Due to limited space and to ensure diversity in wares, this is a juried craft show. All arts and crafts sold at the Mom’s Weekend at Williamson’s must be an individual’s creative effort and sold by the artist or a representative thereof. Preference will be given to vendors who can attend both days.

More information can be found on our vendor application, which can be found here: Vendor Application 2023 – Mother’s Day online form   Please email us at wine@willorch.com if you want more information or have questions.

2023 Harvest Wrap up

grapes on grapevines with yellow leaves, backlight by sunlight

With roughly 310 tons of grapes, this was our largest grape harvest ever to date!! We experienced a compressed harvest, meaning that there was a lot of grapes to harvest and everything became ripe and ready to pick, basically at the same time. This compressed harvest was caused by a cool, wet spring that delayed bud break by 10 – 14 days. The vineyards were delayed again when we had 20 days of temperatures over 100°, causing the vines to go into “survival mode” versus expending energy to ripen.

This year also marks the latest start date to harvest on our records. Luckily, the weather held through the end of October. We didn’t feel a killing frost until end of October but this was late enough and it stayed cold enough that it helped to dehydrate the grapes and concentrate the sugars in the grape berries.

Since everything was ready to pick all at once, we ended up machine picking all our white grapes, something we have never done before. We are excited to see how this will translate into the glass. Especially the Grüner Veltliner, which will hopefully be ready to bottle by June or July of 2023. We will also be patiently waiting to see how a few red grapes will do. The 2022 vintage will be a first for our Petite Verdot and Tempranillo, but we will have to patiently wait until spring or summer of 2024 for these wines.

Cheers and Happy Sipping!

Women in Wine article with Beverly

Beverly had the opportunity to visit with Paige Comrie this summer. Paige is a wine lover with a passion to connect other wine lovers with great wines from across the world. She choses wines that range from delicious & affordable Tuesday night picks to high-end limited edition releases that are truly something to celebrate. She wants to share not just the wines with her followers but the stories of the folks that make those wines.

Find the entire article here: Women in Wine: Beverly Williamson

Wine Time Fridays Podcast

This northwest based podcast is hosted by Shelley Webb and Phil Anderson, who have been drinking wine together for over 15 years. They discuss their week over a glass of wine, giving their feedback, food pairing options and opinions.

These crazy kids magically found a bottle of wine that we have been sold out of for years! Their casual banter about our long lost rosé is light and fun. Tune in between minute 4:25 and 11:55 to get their take on a classic Williamson wine.

Wines tasted this episode:
2016 Williamson Vineyard Blossom Rosé of Sangiovese

Idaho Wine Month Episode #1 – Wine Time Fridays Podcast


one bottle red wine and one bottle white wine next to wine barrel

Idaho Wine Competition 2022

We are thrilled to have two of our favorite wines as gold medal winners at this year’s Idaho Wine Competition. If you haven’t had the opportunity to taste our Sangiovese and Albariño, what are you waiting for?

one bottle white wine and one bottle red wine against a tree backdrop

2021 Albariño won Double Gold and our 2019 Sangiovese won a Gold. Check out more detail at our webstore here: Williamson Vineyards wine shop

If you’re interested in more  information about this year’s Idaho Wine Competition, head over to their website here: Idaho Wine Competition

Available for purchase in our tasting room or via our webstore. Psst! Wine club members – remember to sign into your account to receive your special discount.

Alaska Airlines lets Idaho Wine Fly Free

Great deal for taking wine on Alaska Airlines


The Idaho Wine Commission has brokered a terrific partnership with Alaska Airlines. You may have heard that Alaska Airlines has agreed to allow their Mileage Plan™ members, to check a case of Idaho wines at no additional cost.

They have now added another bonus which Williamson Vineyards is participating in:

When consumers show their Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan membership and in-bound boarding pass (paper or digital) to winery tasting room staff, they receive one complimentary tasting at that location.
The Idaho Wine Commission has more details, click here.

Grapevines Sleeping Sweetly

Harvest is over and the weather has been cooperative so that our vines have safely gone to sleep, to rest and get ready for the next growing season. Our vineyard guys have been busy getting all the harvest paraphernalia put away for another year.

While the leaves where still green on our vines this fall, they where sending valuable carbohydrates into the woody trunk and roots as fuel to get the vines through the quiet winter months. This reserve is essential to keep the vines fed until they wake from their winter sleep and send leaves out to allow photosynthesis to generate the spring growth to begin another year.

Sleep well, little vines and we’ll see you mid-winter for a bit of trimming.

Vineyard Update – November 2021

Vineyard Update

In the vineyards, we have our crews working to prep the vineyards for winter. This means planting our cover crop, taking down any bird nets left from harvest, and checking (and if necessary) repairing the trellis wire to be ready for the pre-pruning machine in January. Plus any other last minute cleanup that we need to finish before the snow flies.

Our crews have worked hard this year, putting in long hours to get all the work done before the freezing temps move in to put the vines to sleep for another year.

Cheers!

Mike & Patrick Williamson
The Vineyard Guys