Every state in America now lays claim to indigenous winemaking attempts -- from Alaskans experimenting with Salmonberry wine to alcoholic beverage conglomerates setting their sights on fallow potato patches in Idaho in a quest for inexpensive, "undiscovered" potential vineyards. The results of these efforts, however, often bring to mind our reply upon receiving yet another toaster oven from Aunt Mildred, "Oh, you shouldn't have; no really, you shouldn't have."

Fortunately, there are some exceptions, the most notable of which is the wine from Washington State. So how could a state that is as well known for its bug-infested software as its drenching rains suddenly become a rising star in the wine world?

The answer lies in Washington's unique, almost bipolar climate. The west coast of Washington is indeed constantly soaked, with Seattle receiving an average of 120 cm of rain per year. The nearby Olympic Peninsula gets even more, qualifying it as the wettest spot in the continental U.S. But just a few kilometers inland lies The Cascades, a range of enormous mountains that effectively stops all the Pacific storms in their tracks. In what is always a shock to first-time visitors from Seattle, the back, eastern side of the mountains is effectively an arid desert, where just 20 cm of rain would qualify as a "very wet" year.