The secret is out. Eastern Washington has clearly earned a spot on the map of favorite wine destinations, according to an ongoing poll by Sunset magazine.

Sunset recently posted a Facebook poll of popular wine country destinations. The Sunset Wine Country Face-Off pitted four pairs of similar wine producing areas against each other in a popularity contest.

Northern California's Napa was paired with Sonoma County. Southern California's Paso Robles was matched up with Santa Barbara.

Washington, the nation's second leading wine producing state, was represented by the arid counties east of the Cascades that grow the grapes that make so many great wines.

Oregon's Willamette Valley — definitely a scenic area that produces some of the nation's best pinot noir and white wines — is giving Eastern Washington little competition in the poll.

Eastern Washington had 1,387 votes as of Wednesday, compared to 311 for the Willamette Valley.

Sonoma, not surprisingly, has gathered the most votes by far, 10,863.

Eastern Washington, however, had the second greatest number of votes as of Wednesday morning, eclipsing Paso Robles (904), Santa Barbara (607), Napa (446), Grand Valley, Colo. (215), Arizona (172) and Snake River, Idaho (136).

Now that's news worth celebrating — with a Washington wine, of course!

Check out the site, vote, and see the latest results: Sunset.com

Sunset had a story in May about Walla Walla. I'm hoping we'll see a Lake Chelan wine country story in the magazine in the near future.