The Washington State Wine Commission has released an economic impact study of Washington’s wine industry. In 2013, the industry’s total economic impact was $4.8 billion in business revenues and it paid $61.9 million in state taxes.

(To put that in perspective, according to a study of the apple industry, its economic impact was $7.5 billion in 2013.)

The report also looks at the wine industry’s impacts on four counties:

• In Benton County, which produces the most cases of wine, wine production and related activities generated 3,170 jobs and $885.7 million in revenues (including direct, indirect and induced effects).
• In King County, the industry supported 3,740 jobs and $672.5 million in revenues.
• In Walla Walla County, 1,920 jobs and $447.7 million in revenues were tied to the wine industry.
• In Yakima County, the industry generated 490 jobs and $126.7 million in revenues. (The study notes that this “understates the county’s importance to the state wine ecosystem; Yakima grapes are essential to the activities of counties with concentrations of wineries.”)

Washington is the nation’s second largest producer of wine grapes, with 4 percent of the national total. (California produces 85 percent.) In 2013, 64.4 percent of Washington’s wineries sold fewer than 1,000 cases. One winery sold over one million cases.

Washington has many advantages as a place to produce wine. As the study notes,

. . . the wines produced in Washington have a high quality-to-price-ratio, according to interviewees. Largely thanks to relatively low land prices, vineyard owners are able to produce quality grapes at a lower price point than the state’s chief competitors.

Despite that, of wine sales in Washington in 2014, only 23.6 percent were Washington wines (76.4 percent were imported from out of state). This really surprises me. The number represents sales to distributors and excludes direct-to-consumer sales, sales directly to restaurants, and tasting rooms. But even accounting for all that, there would seem to be room for growth.