
Wine tourism in
Washington state is a thriving business and it's set to get a lot bigger. The
Seattle Post-Intelligencer covered the
groundbreaking of the
Walter Clore Wine and Culinary
Center, a $9.2 million center which will be both a destination for tourist and a place for winemakers to gather.
The new center is located in Prosser in the fertile Yakima Valley wine region. The center will have a 17,500
square-foot building, vineyards, organic gardens and a public park. The main building will have a restaurant,
exhibition galleries, a theater, a demonstration kitchen, wine bar and a retail shop. The center is named for Walter
Clore, the father of Washington wine. Washington is the second largest producer of premium wine in the United States.
The center should open in May 2007 and is expected to draw more wine tourism to the region.