The name “English Estate Winery” doesn’t come from any reference to jolly old England, but rather reflects the actual surname of its family owners. This is truly the “English Estate”. It just happens to be a winery, and it happens to be in Vancouver. No, not near Vancouver; not out in the country sporting a local ‘Couv’ zip code; no, it’s IN Vancouver.
T
his ‘farm’ has a long history in Clark County dating back to the turn of the century, wait, the turn of the 20th century that is 😉 It was the Clark County home of a Michigan family that moved here over 100 years ago. It was a farm, later a dairy, and finally its current use as an estate winery.
Visit the English Estate website and read the history it is quite interesting. Mr. Carl S. English was quite the guy.
The wine grapes were first planted in 1980. The whole property is composed of roughly 12 acres and includes a variety of 100-year-old buildings and more than 7 acres of grapes. We are told that all of the wines produced here are “estate grown”, meaning they are produced with the very grapes from the grounds. It is a small winery and thus the volume is pretty small but the wines are well made and tasty if not just a tad on the spendy side.
Clark County doesn’t offer the climate range to support many varieties. Pinot Noir is the table wine that does quite well round these parts. In fact the State of Oregon’s Willamette Valley produces some of the world’s best Pinots and that region is nearby and has a similar climate. English Estate also has a nice selection of sweet dessert wines which are well served by our sun starved cool climate. The winery produces some hard cider products made with locally grown fruit. They offer some wine/brandy blends that are interesting and tasty too.
Don’t expect any hardy Cabernet or Merlots here my friends, for those grapes need to come from the east side of the Cascades. There are local wineries that use grapes from Eastern Washington to produce those big bold reds locally, but English is all about the ‘estate grown’ fruit. I wrote about local wineries here last year.
My wife had been itching to check the place out and we did just that on Saturday afternoon. We were greeted by a nice young man who as it turns out just graduated from CWU with a degree in international wine studies. My son is a senior this year at CWU.
What is interesting is that this place is a perfect example of past meets present and urban sprawl changing the landscape. In 1915 this was by all measures, way out in the country. Today it is surrounded by housing subdivisions, the vast Tech Center development, the 
remaining east-side gravel mine operations, and the 192nd Avenue retail corridor. it’s hardly a place you’d expect to find an estate winery, yet there it is, right on SE 1st Street between the urban 164th and suburban 192nd Avenue business corridors.
The place has a very country farm style of atmosphere and the tasting room is a casual affair. This is a great little spot right here in America’s Vancouver that one can enjoy a little country winery experience without driving out to the “country”. It really feels like it is in the country as the property is well shielded from the bustle of SE 1st street by mature trees and looks out over the gravel mines that are sunk down below grade so as to show off the Cascade foothills rather than all the industrial machinery located in the nearby mining facilities. With the sole exception of the ‘city noise level’ this places feels pretty darn country.
Ah the ‘Couv’ life; it is good.
The 'Couv' Life 