Waving Tree Winery

If you are looking for a different wine tasting experience, check out the Waving Tree Winery tasting room. The room is in a log cabin located across from Maryhill State Park. From the outside, it looks like a visitor information center and, indeed, once inside you’ll find rows of colorful tourist brochures touting Columbia River Gorge attractions, of which there are many. But your mission is not to get directions to Stonehedge Memorial. Rather, you’re here to sample Terrance Atkins’ estate wines.

For Waving Tree wines, Terrance chose a unique blue-and-green label with the phrase “The wind was once created by the trees waving back and forth to one another” printed in big block letters on the bottle. There’s plenty of wind in the Gorge, after all, and someone had to explain it.

Terrance is usually at the tasting room pouring mainly reds, which are made from the grapes in his 60-acre vineyard. Because Waving Tree produces only about 1,000 cases of wine per year, there’s a good chance that one of his vintages will be sold out. However, with a little luck, WineTrail trekkers can sample cabernet sauvignon, cabernet franc, sangiovese, barbera, grenache, syrah, and viognier. As Terrance puts it, “Ninety percent of good wine is due to the vineyard.” Terrance is a veteran viticulturist and winemaker in the Columbia River Gorge appellation. As you swirl and sip, don’t pass up the opportunity to learn about the region’s wine history and many of the characters who shaped this appellation.

Armed with this information and perhaps a bottle or two of Waving Tree wines, you can now take on the Stonehedge Memorial. It’s just 4 miles east of the Maryhill Art Museum, as the brochure states.

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  Waving Tree Winery was featured in WineTrails of Washington as part of the Columbia River Gorge WineTrail on page 188!