Growing Conditions
Les Collines Vineyard is one of Walla Walla Valley's premier vineyards for Syrah but for other grapes as well. As the name suggests, the hill offers a gentle slope from the foothills of the Blue Mountains down towards the town of Walla Walla, ranging from 1370 feet to 1140 feet. Along the foothills of the Blue Mountains and in the adjacent Walla Walla Valley, basalt bedrock is overlain by a thick layer of weakly cemented basalt cobblestone gravels, derived from the erosion of the Blue Mountains, as they were rapidly uplifting around 5 million years ago. These gravels are informally known as the “old gravels” to distinguish them from the gravels that comprise the alluvial fans of the modern-day streams. The old gravels are often capped by a 4-foot thick section of carbonate-cemented sediment (caliche), the remnant of an ancient soil formed under arid to semiarid conditions.
