The Marcus Whitman, tallest building in Walla Walla County, still looks the same as my wife and I complete the long, hot trek across the eastern Washington scablands. I’d made the journey from Seattle to Walla Walla, my home town, many times in the past 10 years, and each time the familiarity of Snoqualmie pass, Union Gap, and the confluence of the Columbia River filled me with a sense of nostalgia. However, as I pulled off the highway by Borleski Stadium it became clear that Walla Walla was not the town I had left at the end of the summer of 1990.
The change happened slowly, I guess, only ramping up in the previous seven years. You see, Walla Walla was a small town at odds with itself Рon one hand a sleepy agriculture town producing prodigious harvests of wheat, sweet onions, and peas, and on the other hand a college town. Even the colleges were at odds; the ever liberal Whitman (where I saw my very first recycling bin), Seventh Day Adventist Walla Walla University, and the townie training ground of Walla Walla Community College where my father got his start in CC administration. In many ways Walla Walla is a Republican clich̩: good, god fearing white folk who look forward to the SE Washington Fair or Friday night high school football. In other ways Walla Walla is a progressive town. While much of Walla Walla is the same, perhaps the greatest change has come to Main Street. Yes, the most dilapidated part of town in my childhood is now leading the transformation of Walla Walla. And the vehicle is wine.
I left for college at the end of August in 1990. I had just finished working nearly every single day of summer in one form of harvest or another. Peas in June, wheat in July and August. The thought of working in a vineyard never even occurred to me. I had few reasons to go downtown during high school – there just wasn’t much to do. Once or twice, during a Black Flag, New Order and P.I.L. phase I skulked around the Red Apple Diner drinking coffee, but it didn’t last. I wouldn’t have even paused if a tumble weed crossed my path at the corner of 2nd and Main, perhaps the busiest intersection of downtown.
As I said earlier, the vehicle of change is wine. Of course Walla Walla has been afflicted by the typical scourges of recent Americana like Target, Home Depot and the obligatory Starbucks, but I don’t believe any of it would be here without wine. Previously vacant buildings downtown now house cafes, chocolate confectionaries, cheese shops with walk in humidors, and restaurants. Oh my god, the restaurants. As a teenager, a night out of fine dining might well end up at the Prime Cut, a local version of Sizzler. Now the options for good food are plentiful: Twenty Six Brix and Sweet Basil Pizzeria to name only two.
When I left town in 1990 only six bonded wineries existed in the region, over ninety welcomed me back just seventeen years later. The stalwarts are still there: Seven Hills, L’Ecole 41, and Woodward Canyon. They preside over the valley like Nez Pierce elders did only a few generations ago. Interestingly, wine is not new to the Walla Walla Valley. Italian immigrants in the mid 1800’s brought vines from the old country and produced vintages for decades. Prohibition and economic turmoil put the industry into hibernation, and while Napa and other California regions spurred the growth of American wine, Walla Walla bided time.
Today, the city has awoken, and like a phoenix has risen from dusty outpost to a jewel of the Washington Wine industry. I wouldn’t say that annoying metrosexuals have taken over, sure you can get a ridiculously expensive espresso but you can still get a burger and shake at the Iceberg Drive-In (a must stop.) And I wouldn’t say that the town has only had a whitewash, there is real artisan substance to the valley. I choose to think of the Walla Walla valley as finally living up to its full potential.
I heard recently that Walla Walla is the “new Napa”, and that didn’t fit right with me. It’s not nearly that pretentious. A northerly cousin of Sonoma perhaps -great wine, affordable prices, bucolic charm, good food, nice people, and no bullshit– exactly what I like. I visited Sonoma this last summer and was surprised at how much it looked, felt, sounded, and even smelled like Walla Walla.
A few days later we left my birthplace, headed back to Seattle, ready to be back in our own home. Although the reason for our trip was a sad occasion, the funeral of my father, I couldn’t help but think that I had seen a rebirth as well, and that was comforting.
