When asked who he sounded like, Elvis Presley once famously said “I don’t sound like nobody”

70+ wines reviewed below and in the database, including the latest from Boomtown by Dusted Valley, Hidden Horse, Itä, Kristof, Liberty Lake, Lightning Rock, Long Walk, Mercer, Orr, Pepper Bridge, Pursued by Bear, Quiddity, Solvero, Syncline, Telaya, Tsillan, and Two Mountain.

As producers face numerous challenges ranging from changing consumer demographics to escalating costs, it’s increasingly important for wineries to differentiate themselves in some way. One way to do this is with how their wines smell and taste.

To me, wine can often be at its most exciting when a winery has a distinct ‘house style.’ In the most extreme cases, the wine could only come from a single producer.

Too often, there can be what I refer to as a “pervasive sameness” in wine. The wines might be delicious, but they also could come from 30 or 40 different wineries whose offerings seems near identical.

In some cases, differences in ‘house style’ can be relatively minor. In others, they can be quite significant.

Three of the wineries with reviews below have a clear ‘house style.’ One of them is Syncline. (See previous articles about Syncline here and here.)

Syncline’s estate wines hail from the Columbia Gorge. They are fresh, transparent, nervy, and full of tension. See, for example, the winery’s outrageously delicious 2023 Gamay Noir reviewed below. (Sadly, due to the fire in Lyle this year, Syncline was not be able to produce estate wines in 2024.)

Syncline, which focuses largely on Rhône varieties, also sources grapes from other regions. These wines still very much show the Syncline style. The fruit is vivid, pure, and fresh. Two exquisite examples below are the Heart of the Hill Mourvèdre and Boushey Syrah. These wines could really only come from Syncline. No one else in Washington is making wines like them.

Moving across the state to Woodinville, Quiddity also focuses mostly on Rhône varieties. (Read a previous feature article on Quiddity.) However, Quiddity’s house style is completely different from Syncline’s.

The Quiddity red wines all have plump-feeling fruit that shows exceptional precision, purity, and clarity. The Quiddity wines also have a clear emphasis on feel. No other producer in Washington makes wines that smell and taste like Quiddity’s.

Heading over to Walla Walla Valley, Itä picks fruit early. The wines have notably lower alcohol, higher acidity, and no overt oak impact. (Read a feature article on Itä.) Itä largely sources fruit from sites in the foothills of the Blue Mountains. However, one of the most thrilling wines below is the 2024 Itä Cabernet Franc from Weinbau Vineyard on the Wahluke Slope.

Weinbau is well-known for vineyard-designated bottles of Franc, yet Itä’s wine is unlike anything I’ve had from the site. It very much speaks to the variety, vineyard, vintage, and Itä’s house style. In this way, the wine lends a completely different perspective to this well-established site.

Overall, it’s more important than ever that wineries differentiate themselves in some fashion. House style remains a clear and compelling way for wineries to separate themselves from their peers.

Of course, making distinctive wines that don’t smell or taste quite like anything else doesn’t guarantee success. There’s a lot more to it than that. However, it’s a good place to start.

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At Northwest Wine Report, all scores come from blind tastings in varietal/style sets. Read more about this site’s process for rating and reviewing wines. See the Northwest Wine Report rating system and special designations. Read about how to interpret scores. See a list of recently reviewed producers.

Note that access to reviews and ratings at Northwest Wine Report requires a subscription. Wineries submitting wines are under no obligation whatsoever to subscribe and can receive reviews freely after they have been published by contacting [email protected].