A Guide to Idaho’s Surprisingly Good Wine Region

Wine is a hot commodity in tourism these days.

Oenophiles (wine enthusiasts, that is) trek the globe seeking new tastes, from wine hot spots in France, Italy, and California, to those further afield, like Croatia (Queen Elizabeth II served Croatian wine at her coronation), and even a coral atoll in the South Pacific.

But why? Aren’t there only so many ways you can make fancy grape juice? Does everywhere in the world need to be a tourist-visited wine region? 

Perhaps not. But here’s the thing about wine: grapes are fussy crops. There are a ton of different varietals, suited for tons of different climates, so if you’re a fan of wine and a fan of trying different wines, it makes sense to explore new regions. Even the slightest differences in the terroir (that is, where the grapes are grown), can have significant impacts on the taste of the finished wine. Minute changes in the quality of the soil, the amount of sunshine, the chemical makeup of the air, the temperature—all these things can affect the final product.

Because of terroir, trying local wine can be one of the most authentic experiences travelers can have. You’re literally drinking the fruits of the environment. I get it though, that’s a little woo-woo for some travelers. Or is it? We choose destinations based on their attributes—nice views, pleasant weather, interesting history—why not also for interesting wine?

Perhaps because wine promotion can be exhausting. Wine is made in a lot of places. And there are plenty of places trying to capitalize on wine tourism that are quite frankly making—I won’t say “bad wine” but rather—“wine I wouldn’t personally drink.”

I recently set out on a journey to a region not particularly well known for wine hoping to answer the questions, “Should visitors come to a destination not known for wine explicitly to try the wine, and, most importantly, will they enjoy it?”

Drumroll, please: the wine region I went to check out is near: Boise, Idaho!

Yes, Boise. I have more than a few friends who use Boise as a sort of shorthand for “boring and provincial,” but I’ve always rather liked it, having been a few times myself and thought it pretty, uncrowded, and unfussy. Idaho’s wine regions also have many of the same attributes as their better-known cousins in Oregon and Washington, but they’re not getting as much airtime, so I was curious to find out more.

That unfussiness, it turns out, is what makes it a fun place to try wine—especially for someone like me. I like wine, and I know wine, but I can take it or leave it, and I’m not sold on all the mythology around wine tasting. I don’t subscribe to the mechanics of wine pairing, either—I myself tend to like my wine with Cheez-Its (seriously, try them with a dry, smokey red).

What’s Wine Tasting Like in Idaho?

I spent one of the days in the Snake River Valley just west of Boise with Snake River Wine Tours. They’ll pick you up in Boise in a comfortable Sprinter van loaded with bottled water and snacks (yes, Cheez-Its), and drive you to the wineries so you needn’t worry about driving and wine-ing.

The Snake River Valley is a designated American Viticultural Area (AVA—a fancy term for wine region). The area is dotted with vineyards and tasting rooms, but it’s no Napa Valley. You won’t find sprawling, fancy wine estates here. Many of the tasting rooms are farm-type buildings, often with poured concrete floors and corrugated iron sidings. They’re really more fancied-up warehouses with a bit of an industrial chic ethos.

This is especially true at the Scoria Vineyards tasting room, which pours the wines on a bar made from volcanic rocks found in the crater that sits in the middle of the vineyard. It’s that volcanic soil that gives the grapes in this region their character (the volcano is long since extinct, so there will be no Mount St. Helens-style blowups). There are plenty of tasty reds and whites, but my favorite here was a dry Riesling. Riesling grapes do well throughout the Northwest, but I much prefer a drier wine, and this one was delicious—giving off the layered flavors that Rieslings are known for, but without that sweetness.

After Scoria, it’s on to Hat Ranch Winery, where you can sit out on the terrace with the vineyard sloping down to the Snake River in full view (and the hats that decorate the end of each row of vines). I was particularly taken with the unoaked Chardonnay here (Chardonnay is typically aged in oak barrels, which gives it that distinctive buttery richness—aging in non-oak barrels like steel gives it a cleaner, fruitier flavor).

There’s not a particular varietal the region is super well known for, but Tempranillo was the one I kept seeing, and it produced some nice wines. It’s also a grape that grows well at higher elevations with hot days and cool nights, which is exactly what you find in this part of Idaho. The soil in this part of Idaho is also a good mix of volcanic, glacial silt, and river floodplain.

At Koenig Vineyards we really got the most “estate” feeling tasting room, reminiscent of what one might find in California’s banner wine regions, but it’s still affordable ($8 for a tasting?) and approachable. We grazed on a plate of charcuterie and cheese as we enjoyed our tasting in the barrel room.

After chatting with the winemakers, she thieved some red wine directly out of the bunghole of one of the barrels using a long glass wine thief (these are all legit wine terms, I promise—a bung is a barrel stopper) to give us a taste of some wine that’s been aging since 2022 and isn’t quite market-ready yet. And it’s delicious.

And we weren’t special. She called in some other visitors to the tasting room to offer them a taste of the wine, too. “In Napa, this would cost you $150,” she said. “Here, we just do it sometimes.”

Even if you don’t venture out to the Snake River Valley, there’s plenty of wine to be had in Boise, particularly in a strip of tasting rooms and wine bars in neighboring Garden City. I stopped at Split Rail Winery, where you can see the various wine fermenting vessels–oak, concrete, or clay, through a plate glass window while you sip your wine flight (I really liked the pét-nat here).

If you’re looking to hop on the orange wine trend, you can also do that here, at Veer Wine Project, just up the street in another iron-walled warehouse. For the less adventurous, they also have a selection of award-winning wines.

Boise itself is pretty, for when you need time in between those wine tastings. It’s right on a river greenbelt, and the downtown area is compact and walkable. I loved my comfy room accommodations at the Hotel Renegade, in particular their coffee shop, Blue Collar Coffee, which serves up a tasty breakfast burrito.

Is Idaho the Next Big Wine Region?

So, what does this mean for traveling wine lovers? Should they add Boise and its environs to their list of wine regions to visit?

Absolutely yes, and for a number of reasons.

First, the wine is good. If you’ve spent a lot of time drinking wine and know what you like, you’re going to make some pleasant discoveries here, from big-name grape varietals like Chardonnay to funkier, up-and-coming wine styles like “pét-nat” (short for pétillant naturel), a natural sparkling wine that some of the wineries are dabbling in. The bubbles are smaller and more subtle than a sparkling wine or Champagne—it’s best described as a wine with just a hint of sparkle.

Second, the wine is affordable. If you know wine, you’d probably be surprised at the price of a bottle once you’ve tasted it. Most of the bottles we tried were in the $20 to $30 range, but the wines didn’t taste like they came from $20 bottles.

Third, the wine is mostly undiscovered. Sure, you can order it from the online sellers once you’ve visited and tasted wines and decided what you’ve liked, but these wineries are small, and they’re not really producing enough wine to be able to price it wholesale, which means distribution to wine shops and restaurants—even in Idaho—is uncommon. Direct sales are their jam, and visiting a tasting room either in the Snake River Valley region, or in Boise (where many of the same wineries also operate tasting rooms) is the best way to discover these wines.

And, if you’ve flown Alaska Airlines on your trip, you can take advantage of their Wine Flies Free program, which allows you to check a case of wine at no charge on flights out of their airports in Idaho. You can also show your boarding pass for a free tasting at participating wineries (including several of the ones I visited).

Ultimately, American wine drinkers tend to be rather precious about it, prattling on about subtle tasting notes and food pairings. You’ll find some of that in Idaho to be sure—mostly from other wine tasters—but when you talk with the tasting room managers and wine makers about their wine, I noticed a lot of passion, and not a lot pretension. These winemakers are excited about their wines, and all of our conversations about wine were simple and straightforward—what we liked, what we didn’t like, and what makes the wine the way it is.

And they won’t mind if you have your wine with Cheez-Its.