[6] In addition to grapes, the Yakima Valley is also home to several fruit orchards growing apples, cherries, nectarines, peaches, pears and plums.

[8] In the early 1900s, an attorney from Tacoma named William B. Bridgeman, a Sunnyside farmer and grapegrower, pioneered the modern wine industry in the Yakima Valley introducing "Island Belle" grapes.

In 1917, the Washington State Legislature passed an act setting aside 200 acres (81 ha) of sagebrush desert near Prosser to become an agriculture research center known as the Irrigation Branch Experiment Station (today known as the Irrigated Agriculture Research and Extension Center, and operated jointly by Washington State University and the USDA).

Research from the center would become vital to the growing Washington wine industry where the state counted 42 wineries, the largest of which was in the Yakima Valley.

Other members of the University faculty joined him and in 1961 they incorporated and planted five acres of Pinot Noir and other Vinifera at Sunnyside adjacent to Bridgman’s vineyard.

With demand for their Yakima Valley wines growing, they planted 20 more acres at Sunnyside, including Cabernet, Pinot Noir, Riesling, Gewurztraminer, Semilion, and Chardonnay.

To the west, the Cascade Range forms a natural border and creates a rain shadow over the area which requires the use of irrigation in viticulture.

In general, the mountains to the west experience significantly cooler temperatures while Yakima Valley is not as warm as areas to the north and east.

Within Yakima Valley, the climate averages Region II on the scale developed by Winkler and Amerine of the University of California, Davis to measure degree days.

[5][3] The Yakima Valley AVA is home to some of the state's oldest vineyards with nearly every major Washington wine maker securing at least some of their grapes from this appellation.

[11] Red Willow Vineyard near Wapato stands at the highest point in the Yakima Valley AVA at 1,300 feet (400 m) above sea level.

[3] Chardonnay is a popular planting in this cool climate appellation with most wine growers preferring a single clonal variety.