Walla Walla was a town built by wheat farming. The farmers are still mostly conservative.
Then it was found that excellent wine grapes could be grown there.
Enter Seattle and California “sophisticates”.
It’s now Napa North.
Wheat acreage still dominates in Walla Walla and Whitman county by far. There are 2,800-3,000 acres of wine grapes versus 189,000 acres of wheat in Walla Walla County. Half of the wheat acres are fallow every year. Crop value is ~$50 million for wheat and ~$24 million for grapes. But wine production takes that up to $192 million!
You can see why there’s a shift from wheat to wine.