Official visitor information

Wine in the Yakima Valley Winery
Rattlesnake Hills AVA wine Yakima valley Washington wine visit Washington state wine tour Walla Walla wine tour red mountain wine
Bonair Winery and Vineyards
500 South Bonair Road
Zillah, Washington 98953
Yakima Valley, Washington
Hours: 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM Daily
Quietly producing fine wines since 1985
Free wine tasting (Choose any 4 from 7 wines)
Taste our barrel-select wines. $5.00 reserve wine tasting (refunded with purchase of a reserve wine.)

A short video tour of Bonair Winery

Spring is a good time to visit real wine country.  While it is still raining in Seattle, the sun is out over here. the trees will soon be in bloom.  Check out the new Tote and Taste program from Alaska Airlines. (Yes, Yakima does have an airport!) If you check your wine in Yakima (YKM, not SEA), it flies for free on any airline. We have some great case specials. Sign up for our newsletter to get unadvertised specials. Come visit us. Real wine country is just 2 1/2 hours east of Issaquah via freeway or 25 minutes from SeaTac on Alaska Air.

If you are planning a trip to visit Washington wine country, you will find it very different from California wine country. Most of the Washington wineries are located in industrial parks, strip malls, downtown store fronts, and old airports. Even if a winery is an estate winery, the tasting room may be located miles from the vineyards. If you are planning a trip from Seattle to visit Red Mountain, Tri-Cities, or Walla Walla wineries, you drive right past our winery on I-82, only 2 1/2 hours out of Seattle. Stop in and see us. You walk through our vineyards to get to our tasting room. The grapes you see make the wines you drink.

Bonair Winery is situated in the Rattlesnake Hills of the Yakima Valley, Washington State's foremost wine growing region region. No, we don't have rattlesnakes in our vineyards.  Every March 17, St. Patrick's Day, we drive the snakes out of the vineyards. This is Washington States most scenic wine country.  In the Rattlesnake hills you drive through orchards and vineyards, just like wine country is supposed to be. Like Bonair, our neighbors are Estate Wineries, also. We have a close connection to the soil.

In the desert, there is a great differential between daytime and nighttime temperatures, sometimes over 40^o.  These cool evenings preserve the natural acid in the grapes while daytime temperatures develop sugars. This results in a perfect sugar/acid balance.

Without untimely and damaging natural rainfall in the Yakima Valley, we can precisely regulate the amount of water the plants receive to ripen grapes to perfection with the use of drip irrigation.  Drip irrigation preserves water, a precious commodity in the desert West.

Does it bother you that your wine had a better vacation than you? Did you get to Summer in Australia? Live in a bodega in Chile? or spend time in Bordeaux? We support the locavore movement. Your food shouldn't travel any more than you. Travel globally, but eat locally. Did you know that only one bottle in four consumed in Washington was produced here. Save the planet. Drink Washington wine.

Most people think Seattle is Washington.  Well, politically speaking, it is, but east of the Cascade Range is a vast desert that receives as little as 5 inches annual rainfall.  That's less than Phoenix, Arizona.  It is a perfect climate for Vitis Vinifera, the European Wine Grape.  We get 17.4 hours of sunshine in the summer, 2 hours more than the fellows down in California. Washington is on the same latitude as the famous wine regions of France.  As you can see by the map, California is on a different latitude.

Making fine wine since 1985

509.829.6027
fax 509.829.6215
 

Click on the picture to see an enlarged view of the vineyard today.  The picture is updated from sunrise to sunset daily.

For up-to-date pass conditions, check the Washington State Pass Report.

We'll see you later this morning! We are only two hours and fifteen minutes via Interstate from Bellevue. We are only 172 miles from Portland Oregon. Have a safe trip.

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