Whether the blends are Bordeaux, Rhône-style, or something completely unique, Washington is serving notice that its red wines made from a mix of grapes are world-class. This week we talk to Wine Enthusiast Contributing Editor Sean Sullivan and get to know bottles from three unique regions, Red Mountain, Horse Heaven Hills, and Walla Walla Valley, and how vineyard site impacts what ends up in your glass.  Wines Discussed: @5:25 Underground Wine Project 2015 Idle Hands Red (Red Mountain) @12:11 Buty 2014 Columbia Rediviva Phinny Hill Vineyard Red (Horse Heaven Hills) @16:37 La Rata 2014 Red (Walla Walla Valley (WA)) Transcript: Jameson Fink: Welcome to Wine Enthusiast's "What We're Tasting" podcast. I'm your host, Jameson Fink. Join me as we discuss three fantastic wines and why each one belongs in your glass. This episode, we're looking at red blends from Washington state with Sean Sullivan, Wine Enthusiast contributing editor who covers and reviews wines from the region. "What We're Tasting" is sponsored by Vivino. With the largest online inventory, Vivino finds the right wine every time, including wines from my dear home state for a decade of Washington. Download Vivino to discover and buy your favorites. Stock up at vivino.com/wineenthusiast. One of the conversations we always have about a wine region or a state is having a signature grape, does it have to have a signature grape. Definitely with Washington, what's really interesting about that is you could probably say Merlot, you could say Cabernet, perhaps even Syrah. I think what's interesting about Washington, besides its diversity in grapes, is its red blends. For me, that's where a lot of excitement is so I'm excited to speak with you about this, Sean. Welcome to the show. Sean Sullivan: Thank you very much for having me. Jameson Fink: With red blends, I think ... Also, I should mention that you wrote a really interesting article for winemag.com about wine blending and red grapes. If you go to winemag.com and search for wine blending, it will come up. I was thinking about Bordeaux-style blends, your Cabernet-Merlot, Cabernet-Franc, et cetera, based blends. Rhone blends, which are your Grenache, Syrah, Mourvedre, and a few other suspects might be involved in that, too. Sean, is Rhone ... Are the Rhone blends, the red blends, is that really where a lot of kind of the excitement and really interesting things are being done in Washington? Sean Sullivan: Yeah. I think that in terms of ... Bordeaux-style blends have really been done for quite some time in Washington now. It's really only more recently ... If you look at it, Syrah has really only been in the state ... It was first planted in 1986 and the plantings have been growing ever since, so it's a reasonably short history. It's really only much more recent that we've started to see an increasing number of wines using Grenache and using Mourvedre and some of the other varieties, as well, in Rhone blends. Definitely, we see a lot of those, as well some very exciting wines being made in that category, but we see people blending with pretty much everything under the sun in the state. We have over 70 different grape varieties planted here and people are experimenting with a lot of different things and they're trying to blend with a lot of different things and seeing what they find. Jameson Fink: Do you think, just because I think Syrah has been such a rising star, that that's kind of ... Obviously, some of these blends are Grenache-heavy or possibly Syrah-heavy or another grape, but it seems like, with sort of the ascending stardom of Syrah, where it has that kind of savory Old World notes and some good acid and some of that kind of New World lift and power, is that kind of playing a part in the popularity of Rhone-style blends? Sean Sullivan: Not just in Rhone-style blends. Even in Bordeaux-style blends, we see some wineries blending in sometimes a little bit of Syrah, sometimes a lot of Syrah, which you could say is that s