(UB) - In 2007, Washington winemakers crushed 127,000 tons of grapes. When it’s all said and done, they will have crushed more than a quarter-million tons this fall.

In other words, the Washington wine industry has doubled in size in just a decade. Ste. Michelle CEO Ted Baseler predicts it will double again soon; if the 9 percent annual growth continues, that could happen in about eight years.

That is remarkable. And it’s all driven by Ste. Michelle Wine Estates, based in Woodinville, which is pushing the industry forward with new brands and new vineyard plantings throughout the arid Columbia Valley.

Most of Washington’s wine growth comes from Ste. Michelle. Of the state’s top 10 wineries (by case production), Baseler is in charge of eight — with the other two owned by Seattle-based Precept Wine.

As always, where Ste. Michelle goes, so goes the rest of the Washington wine industry. Ste. Michelle contracts growers to plant hundreds of new acres of grapes each year — mostly red varieties such as cabernet sauvignon — and it keeps building new brands. The most interesting has been 14 Hands, which began in 2005 as a restaurant-only label that today is one of the fastest-growing wineries in the United States.

Washington has nearly 60,000 acres of wine grapes. Baseler thinks that could become 200,000 without too much of a problem.