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22 WINES&VINES January 2018 WINE INDUSTRY NEWS 707.963.9963 || BarrelBuilders.com || 990 Vintage Ave, St. Helena CA S eattle, Wash.—Cabernet Sauvignon has dethroned Riesling in Washington state, according to the latest vineyard census the USDA's National Agricultural Statistics Ser- vice conducted of vineyards of an acre or more. The census, the seventh of its kind, deter- mined that the area devoted to Cabernet Sau- vignon has more than tripled during the past decade to 18,608 acres, more than half the 35,852 acres planted to red varieties in the state, and closing in on the 19,593 acres de- voted to white grapes. The surge in new plantings saw Cabernet Sauvignon knock Riesling off the throne as the most-harvested grape variety in 2015, with a total take of 47,400 tons. Riesling, for its part, fell from a peak of 50,500 tons in 2014 to 44,100 tons in 2015 and 41,300 in 2016. Growers harvested 71,100 tons of Cabernet Sauvignon in 2016, putting the variety on track to bust through 75,000 tons this year as new plantings continue to come into production. —Peter Mitham Cabernet Sauvignon Overtakes Riesling in Washington State STUDENTS WIN BLIND WINE CHALLENGE Challenged to identify two wines by varietal, age, alcohol content, price and country of origin in a blind tasting, scholars from four different Northern California schools rose to the task. First place in the Best Wine Student of La Soiree 2017 was Mark Takita (right) of the Napa Valley Wine Academy, who won a $1,000 check by surviving two previous rounds of competition and winning the finals Nov. 17 at the big event, La Soiree, in San Francisco, where 1,000 Francophiles and epicureans gathered for the annual fundraiser. Other top tasters included Edward Kronfli III of the University of California, Davis (left) in second place; Sara Pile of Santa Rosa Junior College (second from right) in third place; and Karan Makhija from Culinary Institute of America (second from left). Event spon- sors were the French-American Chamber of Commerce–San Francisco, Tonnellerie Ra- doux, the French Association of Wine Executives and Wines & Vines. OCTAMEDIA