Walter J. Clore, 91; Helped Washington’s Wine Industry Grow

Walter J. Clore, 91, a viticulturist whose grape-growing research earned him the title “Father of Washington’s Wine Industry,” died Jan. 28 of cancer in Yakima, Wash.

Clore’s decades-long work helped make Washington the nation’s largest producer of premium wines behind California.

Born in Oklahoma, Clore earned a horticulture degree at Oklahoma A&M; College but left the state for more fertile growing regions of the Pacific Northwest.

In 1936, he was appointed assistant horticulturist at what is now Washington State University’s Irrigated Agriculture Research and Extension Center in Prosser, where he began trial plantings of tree fruits, berries and grapes.

Convinced that Washington could produce world-class wines, Clore conducted experiments to learn the best places and irrigation techniques for growing vinifera east of the Cascades without losing vines in the freezes that occur roughly every six years.

Today, Washington has more than 330 grape growers with 28,000 acres and 200 wineries that produce 11 million gallons of premium wine a year, an industry with a $2.4-billion impact on the state.