New Railex Wine Services Center is a giant addition to Port’s Dodd Rd complex

  Imagine an warehousing facility that’s big enough to house 11 football fields. Think about a building designed to store five million cases of wine...in a controlled environment that’s kept at 55-degrees ...always! Create a technology that lets you know at a glance the label in every case,...where it came from, when it was stored and where it’s going to be shipped by truck or train.
  These are the features of the 500,000 square foot Railex wine storage and distribution center finished in February, 2013 at the Port of Walla Walla’s Dodd Road Industrial Park.
  A working relationship between St. Michelle Wine Estates and Railex, whose innovative direct shipments of product from Walla Walla County to the East Coast began in 2006, led to the completion of the wine services center.
  “Railex has been a major handler of St. Michelle wines for some time,” explains Ken Aker, GM of the Wallula wine operation. “Our successful experience led to the creation of this state-of-the-art system.” The operation of wine services has added as many as 40 employees to the Railex operation. According to Akers, that number will increase another 25 percent during the 4th quarter holiday season.
  Aker has more than a little optimism about the future. “Our ongoing success with St. Michelle is attracting the interest of other wineries in the Northwest and elsewhere,” he said. “We’re looking forward to expanding to meet the unique needs of a growing customer base.”