Great Northwest Wine Magazine Fall 2022

GREAT NORTHWEST WINE FALL

Remy Drabkin of Remy Wines A leader with layers blending community in Yamhill County

Since 1998, our team of journalists has set out to help identify award-winning wines from the Pacific Northwest and to share the stories of those behind them. We focus on those in the cellar and among the vines who work with fruit from Washington, Oregon, British Columbia, Idaho and Montana. Our coverage includes those restaurateurs, merchants and ambassadors working to promote the Northwest as one of the wine world’s leading destinations. Along the way, we continue to pay homage to the historic figures responsible for our industry’s delicious past, present and future.

CEO, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Eric Degerman & CO-FOUNDER eric@GreatNorthwestWine.com

PUBLISHER Jerry Hug jerry@GreatNorthwestWine.com

ASSOCIATE EDITOR Ken Robertson & COLUMNIST

COLUMNISTS Andy Perdue Ellen Landis April Reddout Liz Moss-Woerman

CONTRIBUTORS Dan Radil Allison M. Markin Jim Thomssen Sophia McDonald

CONTRIBUTING Richard Duval

PHOTOGRAPHERS Dan Radil Accelerate Okanagan Ben Lindbloom Sophia McDonald Cheryl Juetten

GRAPHIC DESIGN Lisa L. Vogt Lisasdesignworks@gmail.com

IN MEMORIAM Bob Woehler Gregg McConnell ADVERTISING SALES Jerry Hug Jerry@GreatNorthwestWine.com (509) 947-9422

COVER PHOTO

Remy Drabkin of Remy Wines in Dayton, Ore. (Richard Duval Images)

PHOTOS ON LEFT

L'Ecole No. 41 bottled the components for its 2018 Perigee Red Wine. (Page 10)

Erin Greene grows Biodynamic produces for King Estate Winery. (Page 51)

Remy Drabkin started her vineyard in Dundee Hills with 10 acres in 2006. (Page 34)

Mike Hands of Franchere was among the 35 vinters at the Alt Wine Fest. (Page 30)

Ste. Michelle’s new owners add

te. Michelle Wine Estates and its team have experienced turbulent times in recent years, but Sept. 7 sparked some celebrations when the largest wine company in Washing ton state announced its acquisition of two of Oregon’s largest brands — A to Z Wineworks and Rex Hill.

Sples, Lane Bryant and Ann Taylor — went big again in the Pacific Northwest wine industry.

Earlier this year, Wine Business Monthly magazine research ranked Ste. Michelle at No. 8 in the U.S. for wine production with 8.2 million cases. Château Ste. Michelle accounted for 3.1 million cases. Next was 14 Hands at 1.3 million cases.

global stage.”

ERIC DEGERMAN

The move makes Ste. Michelle Wine Estates the largest wine company in Oregon, and the shock and awe generated by the news will reverberate. It also means greater responsibility for Juan Muñoz-Oca, chief winemaker for Ste. Michelle Wine Estates, but he doesn’t seem to mind spending a bit more time on the southern side of the Columbia River.

“The reactions from colleagues in the in dustry have all been of great excitement, with international and U.S.-based colleagues alike being happy and excited for both A to Z and Ste. Michelle,” Muñoz-Oca said.

A year ago, private equity firm Sycamore Partners reportedly paid $1.2 billion to tobacco conglomerate Altria for Ste. Michelle Wine Estates. It was a deal orchestrated by Bank of the West.

It was no secret in the Oregon wine industry that A to Z Wineworks was on the market. Who provided financing for A to Z for the past 15 years? Bank of the West.

Considering that Adam Beak, managing director of the bank’s beverage division, knows the balance sheets and desires of both compa nies, the September sale was a natural match. Much of A to Z’s production is dedicated to approachable Pinot Noir in the $20-$25 range — an attractive tier for Ste. Michelle.

Beak also has a sense of the value of the Woodinville real estate Ste. Michelle placed on the market not long before the A to Z sale was announced. Wine is no longer produced on the Woodinville campus, and Ste. Michelle officials acknowledge the possibility that its tasting gallery connected to the iconic château could be leased back to Ste. Michelle as part of a deal.

So in less than a year of formal ownership, Sycamore — with holdings that include Sta

With the Oregon acquisitions — the two brands produce about 400,000 cases — SMWE moves closer to No. 7 Bronco Wine Co., which WBM estimated produces 9 million cases. (Bronco founder Fred Franzia died Sept. 13 at the age of 79.)

She, Francis and Tannahill become con sultants for Ste. Michelle. Bill Hatcher enters retirement. Amy Prosenjak, president and CEO of A to Z, joins SMWE as president of Oregon Brands. That includes Erath Winery, which Ste. Michelle purchased in 2006. When combined, it positions Ste. Michelle as the largest pro ducer of Oregon wine at about 800,000 cases. According to Wine Business Monthly report ing, the state’s largest single vintner is Union Wine Co., at 480,000 cases.

Ed King, CEO and co-founder of King Estate Winery with 300,000 cases to sell each year, shared with me that he doesn’t view the acquisition by Ste. Michelle as the move of a competitor.

“This further establishes the value the wine world places on Oregon wines and is a strong testament to the success of our longtime friends and colleagues, Deb Hatcher, Sam Tannahill, Bill Hatcher and Cheryl Francis,” King said. “They have labored long and hard to get to this point, and I personally doubt that these dyna mos will stay on the sidelines for long.

“In the long term, this can only bode well for the Oregon wine industry,” King added. “King Estate is honored to continue working alongside these and so many other outstanding vintners for years to come.”

E. & J. Gallo Winery, which owns Columbia Winery across the street from Château Ste. Michelle, dominates the U.S. industry with an estimated 100 million cases. The Wine Group is a distant second at 51 million.

Weighing in at No. 11 with 3.2 million cases is Seattle-based Precept, the privately owned company led by Andrew Browne, who grew up in Spokane. A substantial portion of its portfo lio is in Oregon and in Pinot Noir.

A to Z Wineworks was created in 2002 and owned by Bill and Deb Hatcher, Sam Tannahill and Cheryl Francis. Each came with a back ground of helping to lead some of Oregon’s most famous wineries. In 20 years, they grew A to Z Wineworks to 365,000 cases. Rex Hill, a respected winery they purchased in 2006, makes about 30,000 cases.

“We could not have found a better partner than Ste. Michelle to carry on the legacy of both A to Z and Rex Hill,” Deb Hatcher stated in a news release. “They understand the Pacific Northwest better than anyone, and they know what it takes to promote an entire region on the

For decades, critics of Ste. Michelle Wine Estates were quick to point out its links to the tobacco industry. It’s worth noting U.S. Tobac co of Connecticut, which bought Ste. Michelle in 1974, replanted Cold Creek Vineyard after the devastating winter of 1978. At the time, Cold Creek — a warm site west of the Wahluke Slope and recommended to Ste. Michelle by the late Walter Clore — was the state’s largest planting at 500 acres. It’s difficult to imagine anyone other than “Big Tobacco” being willing and able to invest twice in a vineyard that large.

We all know that anything is for sale — if the price is attractive enough. Right now, though, it would seem Ste. Michelle Wine Estates is charting a course as the largest wine company in the Pacific Northwest. And talented winemakers remain in place to do the work that matters most to consumers.

rather than subtract

“

The move makes Ste. Michelle Wine Estates the largest wine company in Oregon, and the shock and awe generated by the news will reverberate.”

Eric Degerman is the president, CEO and co-founder of Great Northwest Wine LLC. He can be reached at eric@GreatNorthwestWine.com.

L’Ecole N° 41 provides unique taste of its 2018 Perigee

Aglobal pandemic turned a top Walla Walla Val ley winery’s in-person outreach idea into an educational opportu nity for adventurous wine consumers.

acreage. Clubb’s 30 vintages reveal a deft touch with blends, earning high scores from the top international wine critics in addition to those sweepstakes victories in wine competitions.

Perigee is a Meritage-style blend of the five primary red grapes of the Bordeaux region: Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Malbec, Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot.

ANDY PERDUE

But first, the back story from the iconic schoolhouse in the tiny town of Lowden.

L’Ecole N° 41 can be viewed as a template for a Bordeaux-inspired house in Washington state with signature red blends crafted in an Old World style. In 2014 and in 2016, L’Ecole’s then-nascent Estate Ferguson program — a Bordeaux blend — earned impressive interna tional trophies almost immediately from the Decanter Global Wine Awards in London and the Six Nations Wine Challenge in Australia. Those grapes were pulled from the fascinating Ferguson Vineyard, a site named for winery founders Jean and Baker Ferguson.

Managing winemaker Marty Clubb, who married their daughter, Megan, also makes strategic use of grapes from Seven Hills Vineyard, another historic estate planting that’s south of Walla Walla, just over the border near Milton-Freewater, Ore., and just downhill from Ferguson.

Seven Hills Vineyard was established in 1997 by Clubb, Norm McKibben of Pepper Bridge Winery fame, and Gary Figgins, founder of Leonetti Cellar. Seven Hills is part of the SeVein Vineyards development, an 1,800-acre vineyard complex that could be worthy of its own American Viticultural Area status. Howev er, Clubb does not have plans to pursue a niche AVA, choosing instead to support the Walla Walla Valley’s regional reputation.

The following for Seven Hills fruit and the acclaim for Clubb’s wines set the stage for Perigee, a red blend made from historic vines that showcases the depth and complexity that the Walla Walla Valley is known for. It’s named for the point where the moon is closest to Earth each month.

In the past 15 years, proprietary red blends have become the largest category in Wash ington wine as varieties such as Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Syrah increased in

The final blend of the 2018 Perigee included 50 percent Cabernet Sauvignon, 16 percent Merlot, 19 percent of Petit Verdot, 16 percent Cabernet Franc and 9 percent Malbec — each playing their role in a wine that reveals strength and balance.

And this is where L’Ecole moved from class room instruction to remote learning.

To help distinguish Perigee in the market place, the L’Ecole team decided to bottle each of the five components of the 2018 Perigee into half-bottles for a national promotion. Such a component tasting is rarely available because the wines not involved in such a bottling ended up blended into other projects. And, frankly, it’s harder to work with the 375-milliliter bottles — half bottles called “splits.”

However, the COVID-19 pandemic put the brakes on the winery’s plans for a cross-country educational tour. So the L’Ecole team pivoted, shipping a bottle of the 2018 Perigee and its five components from the 2018 vintage to wine buyers and sommeliers across the country. They conducted the tasting virtually through video conferencing.

Fortunately, there is a unique opportunity for L’Ecole fans because some of the 2018 Perigee component sets are still available. The winery occasionally conducts component tastings with wine club members and other customers, and the sets are available for purchase to have your own tasting party at home.

This is a rare educational opportunity for consumers — kind of like peeking at the test answers — to experience the taste and terroir decisions that go into crafting a stellar red blend.

My own tasting through the Perigee and its components was a lot of fun.

I began with the finished wine, tasting it to get a sense for its balance and fruit compo nents. Then, I spent time with each separate varietal, contemplating what decisions were made during blending trials.

During my career, I’ve had the good fortune of sitting in on blending sessions and barrel tastings of other projects by other wineries. Here, as I tasted each wine, I pictured L’Ecole N° 41 winemaker Marcus Rafanelli as an orchestra conductor, with each separate wine an instrument playing a role in creating complex music. The Cabernet Sauvignon and Petit Ver dot were the foundation of the wine, providing the structure and the main fruit components. The Merlot filled in some of the mid-notes. The Malbec brought acidity and dark notes, while the Cabernet Franc filled the gaps with its fruity and herbal notes.

An important realization is that each component of this blend was good enough to stand alone, but the five together resulted in an amazing signature blend.

L’Ecole N° 41 club members and fans can learn more about the Perigee component tastings, an educational opportunity rarely made available to wine consumers. Contact the tasting room at 509-525-0940 or info@lecole. com to inquire about upcoming events and/or purchasing options.

I hope this L’Ecole N° 41 Perigee concept inspires more Pacific Northwest wineries to create similar educational opportunities — both for consumers and to help market our region’s wonderful wines to international wine buyers, restaurants and media.

• • •

Another silver lining of the pandemic is that the Wine & Spirit Education Trust’s much-tout ed wine education courses now are available online.

Previously, you often had to travel to a big city such as Seattle or Portland to take these classes — adding considerably to the cost. Now, you take the courses in the comfort of your own home and most comfortable chair.

These WSET sessions are ideal for those wanting to increase their wine knowledge or seek a job in the wine world. Go to WSETglobal.com and search “online learning” for details.

Andy Perdue has been writing about wine for nearly 25 years, although he has slowed down following a debilitating stroke in 2016. He lives in the heart of Washington wine country with his wife, teen daughter and myriad pets.

Winemakers blend to improve on nature's bounty

KEN ROBERTSON

When a wine is labeled a blend — no matter whether it’s red, white or rosé — the label offers a journey into a labyrinthine world of choices a wine maker makes to craft a wine that aims to be superior to the sum of its parts.

Washington state’s longest-tenured winemak er, Rob Griffin of Barnard Griffin in Richland, says he believes he “does more blending than most,” because he often makes his wines from multiple vineyard sources.

During his 45 vintages in the Columbia Valley, the graduate of famed University of California-Davis has developed a network of grape growers in Eastern Washington and northeast Oregon with a specific purpose of creating a palette of flavors for the cellar at his family-run operation.

That approach is a little different than wine makers who draw grapes from only or chiefly from estate vineyards. Reid Klei, winemaker at Alexandria Nicole Cellars in the Horse Heaven Hills, personifies that approach, producing a rather broad array of wines from grapes grown at the Boyle family’s Destiny Ridge Vineyard.

Griffin is convinced, largely through experi ence dating back to 1977, his approach yields wines that compare with the state’s best when he assembles his top-tier wines. The blending also helps him manage costs while still appeal ing to budget-minded consumers.

“It’s better to work with a variety of sourc es,” he said.

Klei spent 15 years with Ste. Michelle Wine Estates, working on a variety of projects for several of its labels using grapes from vine yards throughout the Columbia Valley. Now, he’s pleased to be working with Destiny Ridge grapes.

Though their approaches may differ, they firmly agree on one thing — blending can make better wines in ways often invisible to the consumer.

The addition of just 3% Petit Verdot “can really improve Cabernet Sauvignon,” Griffin says.

Such a small amount likely won’t be noted on the label for a single varietal, which by U.S. law is only required to be 75% of its labeled varietal.

“In this climate, we often soften Merlot with Cab and add backbone to Cab with Merlot,” Griffin added.

Klei also does that.

“Blending is super important for keeping your consistency (from vintage to vintage),” he noted, “and to get texture, color …. To soften mouth feel, add Cab to Merlot.”

For Rhône and Bordeaux red blends, wine makers are judicious with Syrah and Malbec, respectively, because even small amounts of either can make them the dominant voice.

A touch of Malbec added to Cab Franc, for example, will add color, Klei says. He also blends “to fill holes, to tone down “ ‘big’ ele ments in a wine.”

Blending, plus the 25% leeway the rules allow, and maybe even in rare instances using small amounts of a different vintage — up to 5% is allowed — can augment the final result.

Because the ultra-hot 2021 growing season was so “wildly different” from 2020, Klei says, thoughtful amounts of inter-vintage blending helped to maintain the wine profiles Alexandria Nicole’s longtime supporters have embraced.

A few other tricks also can augment a blend. Klei pointed out that many Rhône blends of Grenache, Syrah and Mourvèdre (GSMs) are co-fermented beginning on the crush pad and may include a bit of Viognier, a popular and versatile white Rhône grape.

When Klei worked at Columbia Crest in Paterson on its highly praised Walter Clore Reserve, a Bordeaux-style red blend, the wine making team “blended in the tank early on to let the components meld together.”

One Barnard Griffin blend — named “Mam moth” for its massive structure that’s prized by wine club members — was created by the “spaghetti on the wall” method, Griffin says. Simply put, they kept blending various wines with the sole goal of producing a tasty and hefty red wine for hearty foods.

For the Mammoth and all of their wines, Griffin, his winemaking daughter Megan Hughes and longtime assistant winemaker Mickey French blend and evaluate every one across three to four days to confirm their

decisions.

Occasionally, a blend is created out of neces sity when leftover amounts of good wines from single varietals need a home, Griffin said.

And once in a while because of a mistake, he noted wryly. At a California winery, a worker once dumped some red wine into a tank of pale white, producing an unexpected result. It unexpectedly became a popular new addition at the winery.

At times, Klei says blending decisions can be influenced by how much of a wine the winery team — led by founding winemaker/owner Jarrod Boyle — wants to produce so that all club members can receive an allocation, plus enough to allow them to buy more of a popular club-only wine.

For Klei, it’s best “to put your base (wine) together, then add other components to aug ment what it’s missing.”

“We taste through every lot about 20 times and consult tasting notes,” he said, sometimes adding various elements to address any issues. They blend small amounts in trials for a few weeks before big lots are assembled, then they see if their creation needs anything.

“With a Rhône or Bordeaux (blend), there are endless possibilities,” he added. “You need to think about the style of wine you want to produce.

“The hardest part about blending is knowing when you’re done. You could probably talk to 100 different winemakers and get 100 different blending philosophies.”

Wine words: Vin de goutte, vin de presse

You probably don’t need a degree in French to know vin means “wine.” The rest translates as “from the drop” and “from the press.”

The first phrase — pronounced von day GOO-tah — basically refers to the free-run juice that oozes out from grapes as they are dumped from bins prior to heading to the crusher. Winemakers often separate out that juice. They may later blend it into the “von day PRESS-uh” juice or set it aside for something else — perhaps a rosé.

Ken Robertson, associate editor and columnist for Great Northwest Wine magazine, has been sipping Northwest wines and writing about them since 1976.

ELLEN LANDIS

Northwest competitions, festivals rebound from pandemic pauses

Many of the wine and culinary cel ebrations traditionally staged in conjunction with major Northwest wine competitions returned this year, with more on the way in 2023.

While the pandemic has prompted the cancellation of Taste Washington the past three years — the Washington State Wine Commis sion plans to stage it in 2023 — it’s been fasci nating and heartwarming to see the adjustments made at several major celebrations.

Among the first was the McMinnville Food and Wine Classic in the heart of Oregon’s Willamette Valley. The wine competition tied to that public tasting kicks off the judging calendar each year in January — the 2020 competition was conducted prior to the shelter-in-place restrictions — and that early date has served organizers well.

In 2021, the competition was moved to the spacious and inviting Abbey Road Farm near Carlton. Not long after, typically the second weekend in March, wine lovers gather for the public tasting at the Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum in McMinnville. In 2020, the Mac Classic was canceled, which was unfortu nate news for St. James Catholic School.

The budget at the tiny elementary school in downtown McMinnville depends on the competition and the festival, according to wine competition manager Rolland Toevs. Generous ly, many ticket holders in 2020 agreed to hang on to their tickets, which would be valid when the event could safely be rescheduled.

Few would have predicted the Mac Classic public tasting would again be canceled for the same reason in 2021.

This year, the event returned. Attendance and vendor participation was down slightly from pre-pandemic levels, festival-goers were ecstatic to be back and enjoy food, wine and live music. Organizers still honored those tickets purchased in 2020, so revenue was significantly reduced, but the school benefited by online auctions and a wine pairing dinner at Abbey Road Farm.

In January 2023, the competition is set to re turn to Abbey Road Farm, and the McMinnville

Food and Wine Classic is scheduled for March 2023. Go to McMinnvilleWineAndFood.com.

Cannon Beach festival returns this fall

Each spring along Oregon’s Cannon Beach, the SavorNW Wine Awards gathers wines from throughout the Pacific Northwest.

Traditionally, the competition was followed by a remarkable wine and food walk-around event — the Savor Cannon Beach Wine and Cu linary Festival — that involved several venues and earned support and funding from sponsors and the City of Cannon Beach Tourism and Arts Fund, according to Gary Hayes, executive director of the SavorNW Wine Awards.

In 2020, there was no festival. Last year, however, the festival was scaled down, offering more intimate wine and culinary events during the month of October. As a result, revenues were off by 80% compared with pre-pandemic levels.

This October, the Savor Cannon Beach Wine and Culinary Festival is back with another series of intimate events. They include Premium Wine Program Thursdays, held at French-inspired Bistro Restaurant from 4-5 p.m. each Thursday in October. It will feature tastings called “The Northwest’s Best Red Blends for 2022” and “SavorNW Wines of the Year for 2022.”

Beginning Sept. 30, there also will be Wine and Art Festival Fridays in the Galleries. These are pre-dinner wine tastings of premium North west wines conducted at several Cannon Beach art galleries. Topics include “Lesser Know Va rietals Grown in the Northwest” and “SavorNW Best of Class Wines for 2022.”

On Oct. 1, Saturday Wine Experiences will be during the evening at the Wine Shack in Cannon Beach. Among the tastings are “The Pinot Noir Challenge” and “Old World Reds vs. Northwest Reds.” On Sunday, Oct. 23, Seasons Café part ners with famed Sokol Blosser Winery on the Seafood Wines and Seafood Pairing Menu.

For more details, go to SavorCannonBeach.com.

Idaho competition leads to Savor Idaho

Despite the pandemic, the collaboration among the Idaho Wine Commission, Great Northwest Wine and the Nederend family allowed for the staging each of the past three years of the Idaho Wine & Cider Competition at Koenig Vineyards.

However, the Idaho Wine Commission’s pop ular Savor Idaho public festival went on hiatus in 2020 and 2021.

Savor Idaho returned this June, which has been Idaho Wine Month ever since its declara tion by then-Gov. Butch Otter in 2009. That was the same year Moya Dolsby, executive director of the Idaho Wine Commission, launched Savor Idaho, and it has found a home across the pic turesque grounds of the Idaho Botanical Garden in Boise.

This year, the Idaho Wine and Cider Competi tion was conducted in late May for the first time. Organizers positioned the judging so that Idaho wineries could use the results from the competi tion in promotions surrounding Savor Idaho and Idaho Wine Month.

Consumers also stand to benefit from the results of the Idaho Wine and Cider Competi tion. During the month of June, the Idaho Wine Commission offered a “Taste Idaho Gold” spe cial, which featured full and half-case discounts on purchases of wines that earned a gold medal at the competition.

To learn more, go to SavorIdaho.com and IdahoWineCompetition.com.

Beyond the Northwest

It would seem that virtually every festival and wine competition around the world felt the impact of COVID-19, and the San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition — North Ameri ca’s largest judging of wine — is no exception.

The 2020 competition, much like the McMin nville Wine Classic, benefited from being held in January, and Northwest wines have excelled there ever since 2005 when the Chronicle judg ing began to allow entries outside of California.

Competition directors Bob and Scott Fraser, father and son, have continued to conduct the judging during the pandemic, but they’ve done so using social distancing, safety protocols and relying on judges living in California.

However, the massive public tasting of gold medal winners at Fort Mason in San Francisco has been canceled the past two years. The Fras ers expect the festival to return in 2023.

Ellen Landis is a certified sommelier, journalist and wine judge based in St. Petersburg, Fla.

of

world’s most

OCTOBER

2022

CANNON BEACH • OREGON

SAVOR CANNON BEACH

WINE & CULINARY FESTIVAL

Some of our premium small-group wine tastings include: a flight of 10-year-old Northwest reds; a sixyear vertical of Oregon Pinot Noir; and the top award winners from the 2022 Savor Northwest Wine Awards. Educational programs and experiences include a blind tasting of classic French wines

paired with their Northwest equivalents; a Pinot Noir Challenge where you will be tested to tell the difference between top quality Oregon Pinot Noirs, a French Premier Cru Burgundy and a $20 bottle of Oregon Pinot Noir; and programs to learn about the art and science of pairing wines with food.

Information

COLUMN l Behind the Tasting Bar

Working, pouring in winery tasting room not for all

Those brilliant words were uttered between me and my neighbor back in 2008, after enjoying a few glasses of box wine — that’s an entirely different topic — on her patio.

Have you ever thought or said the same thing? If so, I can help you get started. First, let’s make sure you have the right idea:

Do you think people who work at wineries drink all day?

Do you think it’s glamorous 100% of the time?

If you answered “yes” to both of these questions, you will be very disappointed with a tasting room job. The reality of No. 1 is that it’s illegal for tasting room staff to imbibe on the job. Penalties are stiff, and there are fines if you are caught — depending on who catches you.

Second, working in a tasting room is hard work. You spent a lot of time washing/drying/ polishing glassware, doing dishes and lifting/ carrying cases of wine, which weigh about 35 pounds each and can be covered in dust.

If you are still interested, you’ve passed the first test. Read on!

A good first step toward working in a tasting room is getting some accredited wine educa tion. There are a few entities that offer creden tials, and I recommend the Wine and Spirits Education Trust (WSET), Certified Specialist of Wine (CSW) and the Washington State Uni versity Wine Tasting Room Certificate.

The WSET program offers four levels of certification and taking Level 1 will prepare you for work in a tasting room. Level 1 covers the basics of how wine is made, elements of the grape, different varietals and styles of wine, plus food pairing instructions. The time com mitment for Level 1 is about eight hours.

If you have already spent some time working in a tasting room, Level 2 might be the best starting point. Level 2 covers regions of the world where vinifera are grown, the condi

tions in which they thrive, and the influence of climate, soil, elevation and aspect. The classroom time commitment for Level 2 is 16 hours — after you have read the texts on your own. Levels 3 and 4 both require a serious time commitment, and the studies are detailed and rigorous. You can take WSET in person or on line, and I recommend WineAndSpiritArchive. com to explore your options.

Certified Specialist of Wine is a self-study program. After you register, you’ll receive textbooks and get a year to sit for the proctored exam. It also covers wines from around the world, information about vinifera, winemaking styles, farming techniques, etc. My absolutely unofficial and not-endorsed way to summarize CSW is it would be a blend of WSET Levels 1 and 2 with some Level 3 peppered in.

narrow the search to your local area, otherwise those Napa jobs make it seem really appealing to reboot your life in sunny California. You can also search Indeed.com and other sites, but the filters and content are most specific on WineJobs.com.

Another low-stakes route is offering to volunteer at one of your favorite tasting rooms. Wineries often need a few extra hands for a wine club release party or a big event, and volunteering is a great way to check out the culture, see how things operate and decide if they are the right fit for you. Another benefit of volunteering is that the folks in charge of hiring can see if you are a great fit for them. Some times, a job offer is made after a few stints as a volunteer.

Wine competitions also rely on a sizable team of volunteers. If you know someone who is affiliated with a judging, ask them if more volunteers are needed. It’s hard, physically demanding work — and your entire day might be spent washing glasses — but the payoff is to meet the people in your wine region who might help you find an ideal job.

Tasting room managers want to hire friendly people who are enthusiastic about wine, and flexible part-timers are the glue that holds a schedule together. If you can offer a few week end days a month, and/or a few evening events, that’s valuable to a hiring manager.

Washington State University recently launched its Tasting Room Certificate program. It provides the basics of serving wine within an eight-hour online class. The four modules cover some history of the Washington wine industry, including how the Missoula Floods and our geology contribute to our ability to produce premium wine, background on the federally es tablished American Viticultural Areas and share some of the skills required to sell wine. The goal of this course is to prepare workers with the knowledge specific to Washington state and wine in general, allowing the employer to teach the specifics about their brand. The cost for this course is $249. Begin your research at TriCities.wsu.edu.

If you’re ready to find a tasting room job, use WineJobs.com. I suggest using the filters to

Some people make the mistake of thinking, “Oh, it seems like fun, and I think I’d be good at it, but I don’t know enough about wine. They wouldn’t be interested in me.” If you are friendly, flexible, have any retail experience and can list wine credentials on your résumé, you’re a great candidate.

Go find that perfect wine job and learn as much as you can. You never know what new and exciting opportunities it could lead to, and I would love to hear your story as it develops.

“We should get jobs in tasting rooms!”

April Reddout is a professional wine judge and hospitality consultant who was the wine program director at the Walter Clore Wine & Culinary Center in Prosser, Wash., and then the guest services man ager for Col Solare on Red Mountain. She can be reached at ReddoutWine.com.

APRIL REDDOUT

“

A good first step toward working in a tasting room is getting some accredited wine education.”

Château Rayas for Todd Alexander

LIZ MOSS-WOERMAN

Todd Alexander, winemaker of Force Ma jeure, WeatherEye, The Walls, PÁŠXA and his own label from Oregon fruit, Holocene, grew up in a little bit of every where — a fate of many whose parents served in the military.

Born in Montgomery, Ala., he quickly bounced to Texas, Florida, Ohio and Arizona. He majored in history at the University of Ari zona, with a minor in art history and linguistics — and eventually found himself taking the Foreign Service Officers exam.

“I would have had a very different life,” he says. “Who knows where I’d be now? I’m glad it didn’t happen — but at the time it was what I thought I wanted to do. I was thinking about grad school, going into the Foreign Service … or, making wine. I was way into it, my nowwife, she lived in Napa, she was turning me onto all these cool wines.”

“I went to France, it wasn’t a wine trip, I just went to France. I was in the Loire Valley, then Bordeaux, and I was watching people in the vineyards, and I had this moment. This was a thing,” he says. “I always knew that, but seeing it made it real and less a concept — these wines don’t just appear, there are people making them.”

And with that, Todd Alexander knew he needed to be one of them. Without knowing anyone to help get his foot in the door, he returned to Texas, enrolled in a college program in winemaking and continued to play guitar.

“I’m a musician and a visual artist; the creative process is something familiar to me and comfortable,” he says. “This is a facet of that, and it’s tied into agriculture, which I really liked. My grandparents were farmers. I have that in my blood.”

For the next two years, he studied and worked in Texas viticulture, gaining practical experience to coincide with the more conceptu al elements.

“I was ready to challenge myself, to do something fulfilling,” he says. “I thought ‘If I’m really going to do this – I’m going to go to California.’ ”

He worked for PlumpJack and CADE prior to taking a job at Bryant Family Vineyard and ascending to head winemaker/general manager during the course of a few years.

If one subscribes to the idea of the multi verse, one must also allow that there’s likely another version of Todd Alexander who is still in California, sitting atop a cult Cabernet winery — where the view must be at least somewhat spectacular. Luckily, our timeline’s version of Todd got a little antsy at the top, and was also keen to look into, and believe, the advice of science.

“When I was down in Napa, I looked at NA SA’s climate prediction models, out to 2050, and Napa and Sonoma were … red.”

“I thought, ‘Okay, I’ve reached what many might think as the pinnacle of winemaking in Napa Valley. I was working at this prestigious property, and where do you go from there?’ ” he asked himself. “While that was an honor to do — you’re just steering the ship. There’s less room to be creative. It’s ‘This is what we do, this is how we do it. Don’t mess it up.’ ”

The year was 2014 and half of Force Ma jeure’s partnership had just taken a step back. It was time to leap, so he left California for the idea of a somewhat greener future in Wash ington, but he’s maintained relationships with some of the luminaries he’s worked alongside over the years, including David Abreu, Helen Keplinger and Michel Rolland.

“Force Majeure’s initial plan was to sell fruit, make a little wine. I wanted to create an estate program, stop selling fruit to anyone — just be vertically integrated, self-contained,” he says. “It was a hell of a lot of work — to get it reoriented, to pivot it and change it. Now it’s in a good place.”

Todd’s wines maintain a grip on that 95-98 point swing in every wine periodical, some times picking off a few 100-pointers as well. He has a keen way of leaning into the magic that can occur during any given harvest. Every step is tempered with the knowledge that a bot tle of his wine represents countless hours and people, all coalescing into this tangible finality, capped with a cork. He understands Cabernet Sauvignon, he loves Syrah, and of late he leans into Rhone whites. But Grenache ….

“Châteauneuf-du-Pape was one of the first places that inspired me,” he says. “I was fasci nated by the wine. I’ve always had an inclina tion toward Grenache.”

Without much experience with Grenache in California, the ability to work with it and allow it to express itself explicitly in the Columbia Valley was an exciting prospect, another boon to heading north. Our region is not Châteauneuf-du-Pape, but it doesn’t have to be. Great wine is a part of the place it’s from —

and as such, a place is also part of a great wine.

“Rayas stands alone. It’s a singular wine, it’s not like anything else in Châteauneuf-duPape,” he says.

Château Rayas is likely the highest-regarded Grenache in the world. Always 100% Gren ache, the sandy vineyards are surrounded by enormous pine trees that mitigate the notorious winds that whip through the Southern Rhône. While the wines aren’t the easiest to find, Rayas, to many in the business, is the kind of wine that could change the course of your life.

“I like the more elegant side of what Châ teauneuf can do, when you do it right they’re almost Burgundian. There’s a finesse, an energy about the wines,” he says. “For me, anytime having something, if it’s got that power, that richness and fullness, without being heavy — and it has good acid, freshness and energy, some tension …. Those are the wines that get me excited.”

She

PHOTO BY BEN LINDBLOOM / COURTESY OF PÁŠXA WINES

Todd Alexander is the winemaker behind several cult projects in the Pacific Northwest, a lineup that includes Force Majeure Vineyards, Holocene Wines, WeatherEye Vineyards, PÁŠXA Wines and The Walls Vineyards.

Liz Moss-Woerman is the director of hos pitality and direct-to-consumer manager at Barnard Griffin Winery in Richland, Wash.

represents the third generation of her family to be a part of the Washington state wine industry.

Northwest wineries slowly enter ‘techno’ territory

By Jim Thomssen

Crypto, blockchains, transaction foot prints and non-fungible tokens really don’t sound like words you expect to hear when you are talking about wine.

Typically, it’s terroir, varietals, pH, tannins and Brix. These phrases and more, however, could become part of the wine aficionado’s vocabulary sooner than you think. It’s a bit complicated, so we will need to define some terms as we decode the mystery and start to make sense of this new trend.

If something is fungible that means it’s a commodity that is essentially interchangeable with a like item. Think of two barrels of oil or bushels of wheat. If something is unique in a quantifiable and unique way, it is not and hence has unique values. (I never thought those old Econ 201 phrases would come back to me.)

Non-fungible tokens, NFTs, are unique items that can be physical items or music or art that can be identified and tracked digitally.

The digital blockchain is basically the home for the group of numbers and letters that identi fy each NFT through its “digital identifier.”

Being hosted on thousands of computers worldwide — the blockchain — and crosschecked continually make each item unalter able in its uniqueness on a completely decen tralized system.

Acclaimed author Mike Veseth is known internationally as “The Wine Economist,” however, I remember him as my economics professor at the University of Puget Sound. He’s just published his fifth book, Wine Wars II, so I asked him to define an NFT.

“An NFT or non-fungible token is a digital asset that is linked to a real object such as music, a work of art or even a bottle of wine, generally using blockchain digital technology to verify ownership and any transactions,” he wrote. “The tokens are ‘non-fungible’ in the sense that each is unique to the object it represents, unlike ‘fungible’ currencies which can be exchanged in markets for many different currencies or objects.”

Why should we care? Well, following the money is one good reason.

In 2021, it was estimated that there were NFT sales of more than $24.9 billion. The first Twitter tweet sold for $2.9 million dollars, and

the venerable auction house, Christies, auc tioned a digital piece of art by someone called Beeple for $69 million. This way of doing business is gaining traction.

But what about wine? Wine is a consumable item. What happens if you drink your NFT on New Year’s Eve? That’s the concern a lot of the digital wine pioneers have, and they are looking at ways to work around the non-liquid aspect of the NFT world.

Robert Mondavi has jumped in with a lim ited edition series of wines sourced from their

The transaction must be done using Ethe reum digital currency. It also comes with a lengthy legal disclaimer that says, “You should not purchase our NFTs with a view to invest ment, retail or speculation.”

This combining of NFTs, digital art and wine has occurred in the Pacific Northwest. Andrew Januik is the second-generation winemaker at Januik Winery-Novelty Hill in Woodinville, Wash. His parents, Mike and Carolyn, started the winery in 1999 while consulting for the Alberg family and their Stillwater Creek Vine yard — a gem in what is now the Royal Slope American Viticultur al Area.

The late Tom Alberg was involved from Day 1 at Amazon, which helps explain the visionary approach to the wine industry and early adopters of technology. Along with his friend, cellar master Grady Kenealy, Andrew Januik first began to follow the rise of NFTs in the sports world. As they got ready to release Andrew’s limited 100-case run of his Baba Yaga wine — named for a witch that lives in a house held up on chicken legs — they thought it would be fun to issue an animated NFT of the label and include a bottle of wine and a special tasting, all for just .18 Ethereums. (That was equivalent to about $245 on Sept. 19).

According to Andrew, “This has brought eyes to the brand that never would have seen it.”

The hurdle was most of the people called up and wanted to buy the wine on their credit card. That’s not how NFTs are traded.

iconic To-Kalon Vineyard. Each one of the 1,966 stunning handcrafted Bernardaud por celain magnums will be included with the sale of a unique digital artwork by Clay Heston. In essence, the owner of the NFT will receive an exceptional wine, a one-of-a-kind bottle and a unique artwork made specifically for that wine. They will all be linked via the NFT and authen ticated with blockchain technology. The NFT is the artwork. The wine and a private To-Kalon Vineyard tasting are basically bonuses.

Sales of Baba Yaga wine have been brisk. Have they sold any NFT? No.

In the Horse Heaven Hills, where the Januik family sources grapes for some of its most prized wines, Mike Andrews and his son, Jeff, have been farming land that has been their family since the 1920s. As they transitioned the property to wine grapes starting in 1994, they concentrated on growing exceptional fruit that would factor into nine bottlings on Wine Spec tator’s Top 100, including the Columbia Crest

Jeff Andrews is the managing partner of Andrews Family Vineyards.

RICHARD DUVAL IMAGES

2005 Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon — Specta tor’s No. 1 wine in the world for 2009.

Last year, when Andrews Family Vineyards unveiled the Trothe project with its 2018 Cab ernet Sauvignon, it became the first winery in the Northwest to accept Bitcoin and Ethereum digital currencies for wine.

This summer, when I spoke with Jeff, he said the family remains in the exploratory phase of an NFT project.

“We need to add meaning to the wine beyond mere ownership to have this make sense,” Jeff says.

Whether that is an enhanced experience in the vineyard or something else, it does pique the Andrews family’s interest.

“We don’t want to create a 'techno barrier' for people who want to enjoy our wines either,” he said.

With at least seven crypto currency apps — each with proprietary and incompatible technology — Jeff is concerned about the lack of standardization and multiple opportunities to confuse his customers.

“With only 150 cases of wine to sell this year, sourced from the best vines in these vineyards, I don’t think we will have a problem moving all our inventory this year,” he added.

Both winemakers I spoke with were also concerned with the environmental costs of deal ing with blockchain and digital transactions.

Digiconomist tracks the energy consumption used by Ethereum. A single “ether” transaction requires the same amount of energy as the average U.S. household uses in 5.63 days and carries the carbon footprint of 205,987 Visa card transactions. That equates to the annual power consumption of the country of Colombia

ANALYSIS l Gem State Report

with the carbon footprint of Switzerland.

Considering the Pacific Northwest wine industry’s interest in sustainability, organic growing and responsible stewardship of the land — which mirror the concerns of many consumers — those factors weigh heavily on the future of blockchain and wine unless chang es to algorithms are made.

Does all this mean Brad Pitt will put a hold on his plans to mint an NFT with his Fleur de Miraval rosé Champagne? Don’t count on it. Right now, the NFT craze is an intriguing way to attract buyers into the wine world.

As this channel matures, it’s also possible that wineries could build in an ongoing “sales fee” every time one of their wine NFTs changes hands.

The wine and spirits world remains quite fragmented, just like the cryptocurrency/NFT world. Until there is a more standardized and regulated approach, it appears that NFT minting could be more of a marketing ploy than a new stream of revenue for wineries.

Add in the currently visible market volatility risks, and this all may fall into the category of “Just because you can do it, doesn’t mean you should!”

Retired banker Jim Thomssen now is known as The Idaho Wine Ambassador. The Minnesota native earned a business degree at the University of Puget Sound with the help of professor/wine economist Mike Veseth prior to moving to the Snake River Valley in 1994.

Sandra Oldfield remains a compelling figure in Canadian wine industry

By Allison M. Markin

PENTICTON, British Columbia — Before entering the business of wine, Sandra Oldfield was in the business of selling fashion. Dresses and ties, to be exact, at Macy’s.

She was so good at it that one year she was the top salesperson for the famed department store in all of California, her home state.

After growing up in Northern California and studying international business at California State University, Sacramento, she earned her business degree and “didn’t know what to do with it,” she says.

Thankfully for the wine world, she moved on from Macy’s to Rodney Strong Vineyards, working both on the sales side and in the lab at Healdsburg, getting four harvests under her belt before being accepted into the masters of enology program at the University of Califor nia, Davis.

“I had to upgrade all of the science ‘stuff’ and allow myself to be a science person,” she says, needing to ‘reframe’ her brain somewhat.

“I decided to run with it, but it kind of kicked me in the ass,” she adds.

But that was better than working in retail.

“I like having a basis for testing things out, testing hypotheses, and I can speak the science of wine when I need to.”

At UC Davis, she met Kenn Oldfield, who was there studying viticulture in preparation to launching Tinhorn Creek Vineyards near Oliver, British Columbia. In 1995, she loaded up her ‘66 Mustang and drove to Canada to become Tinhorn’s winemaker. Within a handful of weeks, she was in a new country, had a new job, married to Kenn and gained a new family.

As soon as Sandra landed north of the 49th parallel, she was keen to not only work in the B.C. wine industry, but also help shape it. She volunteered to serve on committees, participat ed in the establishment of the Vintners Quality Alliance program and made as many connec tions as she could.

At that time, there were just 28 wineries across the province. Sandra went on a tour of all of them, hitting the road on her own to meet the people behind each one.

“I wanted to get out there and get to know people,” she says. “Some were willing to share

| greatnorthwestwine.com

(information), and some were not, but you don’t need to have dozens of connections, just a few core ones.”

In her first vintage at Tinhorn, there was a misstep with Pinot Gris, but she also made a statement with Merlot. It featured new oak barrels — a “shock” to many in the province but an example of her education at the top winemaking school in the U.S.

During the next two decades, Sandra in creased Tinhorn Creek’s production and sales

two-year absence as a result of the pandemic.

Then in 2011, Sandra stepped into the CEO/ president role at the winery, taking on new tasks.

“The best part of running Tinhorn and changing roles was the constant learning, being able to empower and train employees, and — if you were engaged — you could help shape an industry,” she says. “I liked that I was able to work at bettering the industry and ‘bake the cake’ a little.”

As CEO, she led the drive for B.C.’s first sub-appellation — the Golden Mile Bench, which was established in 2015. She also estab lished Tinhorn Creek as Canada’s first carbon neutral winery, and in 2016 her winery was named Canada’s safest employer. That same year, she ranked among Hospitality Canada’s Top 100 Powerful Women list.

In 2017, after more than two decades of ef fort by Sandra, Kenn and their team, Canadian giant Andrew Peller Ltd. — a publicly traded company — purchased Tinhorn Creek Vine yards.

“We built a good brand, and Peller saw value in that and what we had done,” she says.

For Sandra, though, it wasn’t about the brand.

“It was about creating and building an experience in the South Okanagan, something memorable. And for Kenn and me it was about the community,” she explains, noting the role Tinhorn has played in the growth and develop ment of Oliver and the surrounding area.

As for the sale of Tinhorn, Sandra says it was an opportunity to reinvent herself.

from 1,000 cases to more than 40,000 cases, mostly from estate fruit. Under her leadership, Tinhorn became the first in Canada to use Stelvin screw top caps, and she championed Cabernet Franc. The winery also turned into a bespoke entertainment hub for the South Okanagan thanks to an incredibly popular concert series in the stunning outdoor amphi theatre.

A sense of community has always been im portant to both Sandra and Kenn, and in 1997, they founded the Oliver Festival of the Grape, a signature event that returns on Oct. 2 after a

She shifted more of her energy and hardearned knowledge toward her passion to help people in their jobs. It prompted her and Kenn to create a consulting firm, Elysian Projects.

“It’s been very fulfilling,” she says. “I could effect change in a good way and help business es create harmony in their employees’ lives.”

The Oldfields added to their family by adopting. Their now teenaged daughter has been around the hospitality industry almost her entire life, and now works in it.

“Intuitively, I think it has made me more empathetic,” Sandra says. “You start to see and recognize the pressure that everyone is under between your work and home life, and I certainly see it now with more women entering

California native Sandra Oldfield spent 22 years as a winemaker and winery executive at Tinhorn Creek Vineyards in Oliver, British Columbia, prior to its sale to industry giant Andrew Peller, Ltd. She’s retired from winemaking but continues to serve as an industry leader.

PHOTO BY ACCELERATE OKANAGAN / COURTESY OF ELYSIAN PROJECTS

the wine industry.”

A genuine force on Twitter with more than 16,000 followers of @sandraoldfield, she began a weekly — aside from a summer break — one-hour Twitter chat via #bcwinechat. Twitter ers from industry and/or fans of B.C. wine tune in at 8 p.m. Pacific on Wednesdays to follow a specific topic, or sometimes for a “free for all” discussion of what is in everyone’s glass.

She has yet to embrace newer platforms, pre ferring the “in the moment” aspect of Twitter.

“What I like about Twitter is that you tend to have a more authentic conversation,” Sandra says. “Even though (content) is archived, you don’t post something and then a week later someone comes back and ‘likes’ it. It is the right platform for #bcwinechat. You can talk to many people and engage for an hour.”

And anything by @sandraoldfield on Twitter is something she would post anywhere else online: “If it’s out there, then it’s appropriate to share elsewhere.”

If you’ve followed Sandra on Twitter, you may recall a conversation about firearms. To prove a point about the challenges of shipping wine interprovincially across Canada, she ordered a gun online and had it shipped.

While many wineries have found workarounds and the “Free My Grapes” movement

in Canada is somewhat quiet, the fact remains that depending on what province you’re or dering wine from and what province it’s going to, you may be breaking the law if your wine crosses provinces.

“It should be legal, no matter how you get around it,” Sandra says. “I still have the gun. When it is legal (to ship wine anywhere in Canada), I might auction it off with some fine wine.”

Sandra believes the wine industry — and almost any industry — must improve the man agement of its greatest resource. Not the land, not the grapes, not its production protocols, but its people. Once a business is healthy and prof itable, great things can happen, she maintains.

One of Elysian Projects’s early targets was the Fortify Conference, a symposium for arti san fermenters, brewers and distillers launched in 2018 and set to return to an in-person format Nov. 14-15 in Penticton.

The Fortify Conference centers on the business needs of the province’s craft beverage industry with seminars and presentations on finance, marketing and human resources.

“It is an opportunity to get content to small businesses, give them some fundamental business basics and look at what you can do that makes life better for your employees,” she

FEATURE l Beyond the 49th Parallel

explains. “It took me a while to figure that out, but now Fortify is a way to help these indus tries up their game and get help in the areas most businesses struggle with.”

Fortify includes a robust trade show open to anyone on either side of the border, and speak ers from the U.S. have presenters in Penticton. Through Fortify, Sandra says she’s gained knowledge and forged connections across the entire British Columbia craft beverage network.

“There’s a lot more risk in the industry right now,” she says. “Changing consumer pat terns, online shopping, climate change, labour patterns … but there are super-smart people figuring it out without a lot of capital.”

Oldfield was recently named chair of the board for the B.C. Hospitality Foundation and continues to share her time and expertise with other associations.

Is there another chapter, or another story for Sandra?

Allison M. Markin, a columnist and wine writer for Castanet Media, also is the driving force behind @bcwinetourism on Twitter, the bread-inspired @theleftplate on Substack and principal of AllSheWrote.ca. She resides in Penticton, British Columbia.

Thoughtful winemaking, tarot card define Three of Cups

By Dan Radil

WOODINVILLE, Wash. — When Mike Metheny, Lisa Swei and a bottle of wine first crossed paths in 2005, the results might be described as perfect ly uneventful.

Both were working on Microsoft’s MSN product team in Redmond, Wash. Metheny had been dabbling in home winemaking for a few vintages and gave a bottle to Swei, who had considered getting in on the ground floor of a business outside of the tech industry.

“I really enjoyed the wine, so afterwards I went into Mike’s office, and said, ‘Would you ever want to open a winery one day? Do you want an investor?” Swei asked.

“And he said, ‘Oh no. My wife and I will do something someday, but not right now.”

Metheny now recalls with a grin, “It was a

horrible business plan. I tried to talk everyone out of it.”

Despite the rebuff, the pair stayed in touch as both work colleagues and friends, until about six years later, when a similar conversa tion over dinner led to a completely different response — resulting in Three of Cups Winery in Woodinville.

Business backgrounds connect

Originally from Seattle, Swei worked as a law firm librarian in New York City and Washington, D.C., in what she describes as her “first life,” prior to being hired in 1998 by Mi crosoft’s legal department. She was employed there for 20 years. She and her husband, Scott Lee, live in Lake Forest Park, a Seattle suburb, and she now works for Oracle Corp.

Metheny was born and raised in Grays Har bor County. He attended university in Califor nia, where he worked as a mechanical engineer

in the aerospace industry. Boeing hired him in 1990, which brought him and his wife, Debra, back to the Evergreen State. For the past 29 years they’ve lived in Woodinville.

After his time with Boeing and another soft ware company, Metheny was hired by Micro soft in 2001. He and Swei first met on the job in about 2004, and he continued to work there on a contract basis until his eventual departure from the company in 2009. That coincided with his shift from high tech to a career in the wine industry.

Fascination with fermentation leads to wine

In the 1990s, Metheny was “a beer brewer and beer snob,” he says. “I dragged my wife up and down the West Coast to beer festivals. But she always drank wine. So I decided I was also going to make wine in my garage so I could be a ‘good husband’ and she wouldn’t complain about the house always smell ing like fermenting beer,” he said with a smile.

caption

Debra took him to a wine festival in Carnation at the original Herbfarm, an expe rience that sparked his wine making career - thanks in part to a now-defunct Woodinville producer.

“She got me to try my first red blend from French Creek Winery,” he said. “That was kind of an eye-opener because I didn’t really like the taste of wines. But I got to talk to winemakers and found out that wine takes more than two weeks to make. I was absolutely fascinated by the whole process and came back to Woodinville and started volunteering at local winer ies.”

During the late 2000s, Metheny found himself ac cepting short-term consulting contracts in high tech, stints that would end in time for him to work crush at wineries, notably for Doug Peterson, then owner/winemaker at Edmonds Winery, and Chris Gorman at Gorman Winery.

PHOTO COURTESY OF, DAN RADIL.

Three of Cups, led by winemaker Mike Metheny and owner Lisa Swei, received three Platinum Awards in 2021 from Great Northwest Wine. This summer, the Woodinville producer took over the tasting room along Woodinville-Snohomish Road that housed now-defunct Tertulia Cellars.

PHOTO BY DAN RADIL

In 2009, Metheny attended the Northwest Wine Academy at South Seattle College then studied viticulture through Washington State University. During the program, Metheny was also hired full-time by Constellation Brands and lived out of his RV as a viticulturist for The Hogue Cellars in Prosser.

“I worked for Colin Morrell at Lonesome Spring Ranch Vineyard and Co Dinn, who at the time was the winemaker at Hogue. Then Chris Gorman hired me back as his assistant winemaker in September of 2011 before I fin ished my internship at Constellation.”

An ideal deck for Three of Cups

Throughout Metheny’s transition into winemaking, he and Swei stayed connected. A dinner in 2011 added a business partnership to their friendship.

“I had given up on owning a winery, but I figured, ‘I’ll take another shot,’ ” Swei said. “This time, he didn’t even hesitate. He said, ‘Yes!’ ”

Metheny points out, “The timing was right. We were more mature — and we had more money,” he added with a laugh.

So in June 2013, they established Three of Cups Winery and completed their first crush that fall with help from Darby English of Darby Wines. About four months later, they moved to their Woodinville warehouse facility and produced wines for two years prior to opening in January 2016.

The name, Three of Cups, comes from a tarot card, which despite its fortune-telling inference, “You take with a grain of salt,” Swei says. “It’s the wine drinking card — with three women holding wine goblets. We liked the message that the card conveyed. It means ‘friends com ing together to celebrate,’ which to us is what wine is.”

Stellar sourcing leaves little to chance

For Swei, owning and operating a winery came with more responsibilities than she imagined.

“I originally thought we were going to make a few hundred cases for our friends,” she said. “I had no idea what ‘small production’ meant, and if you look at our warehouse facility today – which produces 2,800 cases annually – it’s quite an operation.”

And even though there’s a sense of accom plishment that comes with the end of harvest, the list of responsibilities aren’t left behind when she returns to her regular job.

“We do everything,” she emphasizes. “There’s janitor work, marketing and sales.”

Metheny points out the wines don’t ‘sell themselves,’ but it doesn’t hurt that Three of

Cups buys grapes from some of the North west’s finest plantings, a list Metheny rattles off faster than an Internet Explorer search ever was.

His thoughtful array of sources runs 10-deep and pulls from a variety of American Viticultur al Areas — Lonesome Spring Ranch in the Ya kima Valley, Les Collines and Elevation in the Walla Walla Valley, Joseph Christy and Phinny Hill in Horse Heaven Hills, Dry Lake in Lake Chelan, Cameron Ridge north of the confluence of the Columbia and Okanogan rivers, Stillwa ter Creek on the Royal Slope, Red Mountain’s Heart of the Hill and Rivière Galets in The Rocks District of Milton-Freewater in Oregon. Metheny visits each regularly, logging about 15,000 miles last year.

“Mike has it mapped out — the areas, the soils, the flavor profiles,” Swei says. The winemaker adds, “Most importantly, I’m sourcing fruit from the places I think it grows the best.”

Metheny also prefers using “low-impact, tradi tional French winemaking methods with careful oxygen management. We’re also about high-acid wines; I want our wines to lay down for 10 years. And we always use our best barrels for single varietals.”

Those varieties are pri marily native to the Rhône Valley and Bordeaux — Syrah, Grenache, Cinsault, Mourvèdre alongside Mal bec, Cabernet Sauvignon, Sèmillon and Sauvignon Blanc to name a few.

Metheny is quick to note that the blending of single varietals from multiple vineyards primarily falls on the palates of Swei and his wife, Debra.

And while Debra has a hand in blending, Metheny points out that he and Swei often “see each other more than we see our spouses.”

He adds, “My wife un derstands my passion”

Swei agrees that after nine years, her husband, Scott, “knows that’s the way it is during harvest.”

The dedication and commitment of Metheny and Swei to growing

FEATURE l Three of Cups

a successful business, built on a foundation of friendship and collaboration, has allowed Three of Cups Winery to become just that: producers of exceptional wine, meant to be shared in the company of others.

Three of Cups Winery 18808 142nd Ave. NE, Suite 4A Woodinville, WA 98072

Open Saturdays noon – 5 p.m., Sundays 1-4 p.m. or by appointment (425) 286-6657

ThreeOfCups.com

Dan Radil is a freelance writer based in Bellingham. His site is DanTheWineGuy.com, and he is president of the Bellingham Northwest Wine Competition.

PHOTO BY DAN RADIL

Oregon Alt-ernatives earn spotlight at Alt Wine Fest

sense to bring them together under one roof to show off something other than Pinot Noir and Chardonnay.”

Trousseau emerges at Beckham Estate

Andrew Beckham with Beckham Estate Vineyard is one of the Oregon winegrowers who doesn’t limit himself to the Willamette Valley’s most common grape varieties.

While he grows Pinot Noir, he also has a section of the vineyard dedicated to Trous seau, one of the main red grapes of Jura in eastern France and known as Bastardo in Portugal.

Trousseau is known for making fresh, savory, structured wines. Offering something unusual for tasting room visitors helps the Chehalem Mountains producer stand out among Newberg-area wineries.

Oregon is famous for its Pinot Noir, but that’s far from the only grape grown within its borders. This sum mer, the Alt Wine Festival at Abbey Road Farm in Carlton made that abundantly clear.

During an afternoon gathering, 35 wineries from around the state poured samples and sold wines made with varieties such as Mencia, Tannat, Mondeuse and many other unusu al-for-Oregon grapes. This year’s event drew about 400 people eager to enjoy an afternoon of exploring, learning and spending time with friends.

Between sips and casual conversations with winemakers, attendees made delicious use of the popular event space created by Abbey Road Farm’s former owners John and Judi Stuart. In addition to sprawling across the lawn and enjoying the view, small groups ate tacos from a local food truck, checked out the farm animals and snapped photos in front of the selfie wall.

The Alt Wine Festival premiered in 2019 and is sponsored by Sunday School Wine, a (mostly) online educational platform and resource library. Co-founder Mallory Smith said the idea for the in-person Alt Wine Fes tival came to her while she was working her day job at a Portland bottle shop. She noticed most of the people buying Oregon Pinot Noir

were from out of town or expecting guests from out of town.

“People from in town were excited about other things,” Smith said. “That’s when I realized that if you’re not in the wine world, you don’t know there are all these other things planted in Oregon.”

Martin Skegg, the other Sunday School Wine founder, said, “We knew about all these great winemakers and all these other grapes. It made

As climate change continues to advance, many growers are looking to diversify their plantings and add varieties that ripen later or retain acidity in hotter temperatures. Trousseau fits that bill for Beckham.

“Trousseau is going to offer a lot of interpre tations and styles,” Beckham says. “We are har vesting our Trousseau with freshness in mind, meaning lower sugars and higher acidity.

“It only spends between 7 and 10 days on the skins before we press off,” he adds. “Generally

Leah Scafe with Cooper Mountain and Sam Parra with Parra Wine Company.

BY CHERYL JUETTEN PHOTOGRAPHY

PHOTO COURTESY OF SOPHIA MCDONALD

By Sophia McDonald

Martin Skegg and Mallory Smith of Sunday School Wine in Portland created the Alt Wine Festival in 2019 to promote lesser-known grape varieties and the talented winemakers behind them.

speaking, fermentation has barely begun. We finish fermentation in amphorae, then return it to clay for élevage.”

He’s also made a carbonic version in ampho rae, which produced a different expression.

Friulano ascends at Cooper Mountain

Alt Wine Festival attendees also had a chance to try Friulano. It is widely grown in Italy’s northeastern region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia, but it appears in only a few vineyards in Oregon. Among those is another Chehalem Mountains site —

Johnson School Vineyard, one of the seven Biodynamically farmed estate plantings for Cooper Mountain Vineyards.

Friulano is a relative of Sauvignon Blanc, which explains why second-generation owner Barbara Gross describes it as similar to Sauvi gnon Blanc: clean, light, fruity and eminently drinkable. It’s also ideal for today’s more adventurous wine lovers.

“Consumers are wanting to explore these days,” she says. “This is why we made it.”

Gross says working with a variety that consumers don’t expect to see ties nicely into the Oregon wine industry’s pioneering spirit. Echoing Beckham, she plans to keep producing

Friulano because she believes it will do well as the Willamette Valley’s climate becomes warmer.

David Hill showcases Chasselas

David Hill Vineyard & Winery in Forest Grove was planted in the 1960s by Charles Coury, who championed Oregon as an ideal location for high-elevation varieties. While the vineyard has a number of whites not widely grown in Oregon — including Pearl of Csaba (Hungary), Silvaner (Alsace) and Müller-Thur gau (Switzerland) — winemaker Chad Stock decided to showcase his Chasselas at the Alt Wine Festival.

Chasselas is the most widely grown grape in Switzerland and produced with acclaim in Brit ish Columbia, but it’s unusual to find it growing in the U.S. Stock, a small-batch winemaker for much of his career, says, “It’s hard to get people to be aware of these wines because the quantity is so small.”

There’s a single row of Chasselas planted at David Hill, from which Stock produces about a barrel and a half of wine each vintage.

“Promoting the Chasselas at an event with 400 people was a way to turn the volume up on the microphone,” Stock says.

The grape can transform into anything from a low-alcohol aperitif to an intense wine packed with texture and flavor. David Hill is in a relatively cool area, so Stock can hang the fruit for a long time and create a wine on the medium-plus end of the spectrum.

Years ago, Mike Hinds with Franchère Wine Co., near Silverton, was looking for Blaufränk isch (also known as Lemberger) and Zweigelt — two cool climate red wine grapes popular in Austria — when he discovered small plantings of Ehrenfelser and Kerner at Satori Springs Vineyard, the estate planting by Chris Carlsberg and Christopher Bridge Cellars near Oregon City. The two whites both thrive in cooler climates.

“I knew about Kerner because of the varietal bottling of it for northern Italy, especially Alto Adige, but I’d never heard of Ehrenfelser,” Hinds said.

The two grapes make ideal blending partners, he’s discovered.

“Kerner is very aromatic, and Ehrenfelser has a more restrained nose,” Hinds says. “It has a nice shape to it in the mouth that is both lin ear and voluptuous. In some years, it can take on the character of ripe peaches. In other years, especially the way I ferment it, it has a lemon

Mike Hands of Franchere Wine Co., showcases a portion of his portfolio, which includes Blaufränkisch, Grüner Veltliner, Ehrenfelser, Kerner and Zweigelt, during the Alt Wine Festival.

BY CHERYL JUETTEN PHOTOGRAPHY

curd aspect to it.”

Hinds said it’s fun and educational to work with a wide variety of grapes.

“Viewing the terroir of Oregon through the lens of different grape varieties is interesting,” Hinds says. “It helps us learn more about this state we’re living in.”

• Smith, Skegg and the Alt Wine Festival are scheduled to return to Abbey Road Farm on Saturday, July 16, 2023. Go to AltWineFest. com for details.

Abbey Road Farm in Carlton, Ore., provided a bucol ic setting for second edition of the Alt Wine Festival and its 35 participating wineries.

Photo Right: Wynne Peterson-Nedry of RR Wines pours for fellow winemaker Brianne Day of Day Wines

FEATURE

Oregon Wine Tales

Sophia McDonald, based in Eugene, Ore., has provided coverage of the Pacific Northwest wine industry for more than three dozen newspapers, magazines and trade publications, including TheAtlantic.com, Wine Enthusiast, Eating Well and Cheese Connoisseur.

BY CHERYL JUETTEN PHOTOGRAPHY

BY CHERYL JUETTEN PHOTOGRAPHY

COVER STORY l Remy Wines

A force for good: Dundee Hills dynamo Remy Drabkin won’t be denied

By Person Name

Eric Degerman

DAYTON, Ore. — Accomplished winemaker; dedicated public servant; advocate for acceptance; environ mental educator — in the Pacific Northwest wine industry, Remy Drabkin commands unicorn status.

The interim mayor of McMinnville, Ore. — who is up for election in November — pulls it all off with aplomb while proudly flying a rainbow flag and another for Black Lives Mat ter from the century-old farmhouse that is the home of Remy Wines in the Dundee Hills.

“It doesn’t take a lot to make big changes,” she often says. “It just takes some intentional ity.”

She provided another poignant example this summer when she cut the ribbon inside the 5,000-square-foot production facility on her 27acre estate, signaling her winery’s move from McMinnville’s Granary District. It is seemingly beyond state of the art for its approach to one of the most sinister construction ingredients on the planet — concrete.

“It’s responsible for 7 to 9 percent of all of the world’s C02 emissions; enough concrete is poured every day in the world to cover the entire city of Portland,” Drabkin says. “With Remy Wines as the pilot program, our concrete costs were only about 10 percent higher than conventional concrete. Yet we sequestered 10,232 pounds of carbon out of the atmo sphere.”

The secret sauce mixed into the concrete is biogenic carbon from municipal waste generat ed in the Bay Area.

In Drabkin fashion, she reached out to a longtime friend, John Mead, owner of Vesuvian Forge Concrete Surfaces Co. in McMinn ville, to include nearby Wilsonville Concrete Products. LaFarge North America, one of the world’s largest building material suppliers, helped with the dozens of tests. BioForceTech in San Francisco used pyrolysis to turn the waste into biochar. The Bay Area company believes enough in Drabkin’s project that it sent two scientists to attend her ribbon cutting. (Yes, municipal waste includes what you think it might.)

“Wilsonville used iron slag to replace half of the mix in the concrete and used limestone cement from LaFarge that replaces unbaked

limestone in place of some of the cement by 15 to 20 percent,” Mead said. “And then by adding the biochar, it completely offset and brought this slab’s carbon footprint to negative levels. We’re super excited about that.”

As a result of the project, the Drabkin-Mead Formulation led to the creation of Solid Carbon, a company in McMinnville ready to implement the new structural concrete for commercial and home construction. And Mead relishes the opportunity to share the story about a Christmas gift he received years ago from his sister soon after he dedicated his career to efforts such as the one at Remy Wines.

“It was a T-shirt that read, ‘Green is the New Black,’ ” he chuckled. “By putting biochar into this concrete, we would love for people to say, ‘Black is the New Green.’ ”

Drabkin’s dream is that the interest and demand will prompt two or more businesses in each state to enter the biogenic char arena and turn local waste into biogenic carbon for local concrete companies. The timing seems ideal with the federal government’s Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.

“The great thing about our process and our product here is that it can be replicated anywhere,” Drabkin says. “Anyone in the wine industry around the world can do this.”

Among those supporting her mission by attending the ceremony surrounding her latest groundbreaking project were Dick and Nancy Ponzi of Ponzi Vineyards and Rob Stuart of R. Stuart & Co. Winery. Those famous figures in the Oregon wine industry have been in her corner and part of her life since she was a child.

Trailblazing, advocacy worth the risk

Drabkin is a woman, she’s queer and she’s Jewish. Any one of those might make her stand out in any industry. While she’s seen as a light ning rod for her many causes, she’s content to embrace the current.

The buzz around her continues to grow. This year, Wine Enthusiast magazine selected her for its Future 40 Tastemakers and Innovators series. Her supporters, however, undoubtedly scratched their heads when that same publica tion did not list her among the nominees for Social Visionary of the Year for its Wine Star Awards next year.

“I know that we have peoples’ attention at different times, whether it’s because people send notes of gratitude or because they let me know they will no longer be buying my wines,” she says. “That’s a regular happening.”

Earlier this year, Remy Wines played host to the inaugural Queer Wine Fest, an event to showcase work by vintners, winemakers or vineyard managers who are queer. In 2020, Drabkin helped launch Wine Country Pride as a celebratory and community-building event for her region. Queer Wine Fest naturally folded into that.

“We’re creating safe spaces and also we’re educating people that we as queer people, as historically disadvantaged people — we live in this community. This isn’t somewhere else. These aren’t other-place problems,” Drabkin says. “We are every people, every race, reli gion, age, ability, political party and socio-eco nomic standing and we are out here running businesses, lives, dealing with the pandemic, having relationships and friendships and simply living our lives while ‘out’ in the world. There’s a lot of backlash for it. It makes the work as a collective even more important.”

In the past three years, she has become a vocal champion for the concept of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. Last year, she delivered a DEI training presentation for the Washington State Wine Commission.

As a result of her advocacy, her time in po litical office and her charisma, few winemakers in the Pacific Northwest have received as many headlines and attention in the past few years. She’s in the enviable position of making styles of wines she wants. She doesn’t chase points, enter judgings or deal with a middle man.

“My goal is to make about 3,500 to 4,000 cases between all of my brands,” she says. “It’s a good amount; it keeps our team busy, and it is all sold direct to the consumer.

“Everything is done in-house. That means we carry a larger team, which is great and gives me opportunities that smaller wineries my size might not otherwise have.”

Those include health insurance, a savings plan and DEI training. In the spirit of a socially good company, Remy Wines produces a blend called Pride Red that raises funds for Wine Country Pride. The 2019 vintage ($35) was

RICHARD DUVAL IMAGES

A century-old farmhouse complete with front and side porches is the home of Remy Wines in the Dundee Hills.

COVER STORY l Remy Wines

made with two Italian grapes close to her heart — Lagrein grown on her estate and Dolcetto from Jubilee Vineyard.

and syrah and I think it shows that — fairly del icate with this incredible backbone,” she says.

Board.

Travel has long been a passion of hers, and she uses trips to California, Massachusetts and New York to grow her wine club — “spread the gospel of Remy Wines,” as she puts it.

By Person Name

“I’m certainly a lot further along in educat ing myself than I was two years ago with how I understand systemic racism,” Drabkin admit ted. “This property is a blessing to me in many ways, including creating visibility, but we’ve also been vandalized at both of our locations.”

An affinity for Italy

Drabkin produces wines under three labels, and her portfolio represents Pinot Noir, Pinot Gris and Chardonnay. There’s the entry-level Three Wives blends and her young Black Heart Series, which includes methode Champenoise from estate Pinot Noir, work with Malbec and tributes to Super Tuscan styles. Her eponymous brand focuses on varieties native to North ern Italy — Dolcetto, Lagrein, Nebbiolo and Sangiovese — and they rarely exceed 200-case lots. Most of the time, the alcohol levels of her bottlings are below 14%, ideal for the dining table and the cellar.

Arneis, a white variety not often grown outside of Italy, is from Aurora Vineyard — a Ponzi planting. For the Sangiovese, she’s found a sweet spot on Washington’s Red Mountain amid the plantings for Kiona Vineyards and Winery.

“Remy has purchased our Sangiovese for a long time,” JJ Williams, general manager for the three-generation Kiona program. “We have also been very impressed with her stuff, especially as it ages.

“There are a lot of domestic Sangioveses where they’re ripening so far and so late that the wine comes off as an alternate-universe Cabernet, which is not what we need/want here on our hill,” Williams continued. “In our own program, we view Sangiovese as one of the earlier wines we’d pour in a lineup; the rare Red Mountain red wine you can see through, so to speak. Remy seems to prioritize low alcohol, moderate ripeness and minimalist ferments, so it all aligns pretty well.”

Drabkin wouldn’t think of second-guessing the Williams family either.

“They’ve been farming it for so long, and I like the way they farm,” she says. “I go up and visit once during harvest to evaluate ripeness because I often pick earlier than others.”

In her early days as a winemaker, she came across Lagrein, a variety rarely seen outside of Italy yet a pet project of the late Bryce Bagnall at Witness Tree. During the years, Drabkin forged a kinship with famed Alto Adige produc er Martin Foradori Hofstätter. She’s benefited from the research they’ve shared, which led to plantings of Lagrein at her estate.

“It has genetic relationships to Pinot Noir,

| greatnorthwestwine.com

Organized pop-ups in legal settings don’t allow her to sell bottles, but she can pour samples. For those who admire her bright and age-worthy wines, she simply adds their names to her mailing list.

“I am selling the brand, then I come back to those contacts to pursue relationships,” she says.

The (interim) Mayor of McMinnville

Even though Drabkin no longer produces wine in McMinnville, she remains committed to the city that helped make the Oregon wine industry famous by attracting the late David Lett and Ken Wright.

Remarkably, she’s been a part of the Oregon wine industry before she was a teen. Class of ’98 at Mac High — of course she graduated a year early — Drabkin then matriculated at Linfield College.

“My mom was the original culinary director of the International Pinot Noir Celebration, and I was volun-told — that’s when you tell your kids they are going to volunteer — from the time I was 9 years old,” Remy said. “I was helping to stuff envelopes at the IPNC office.”

She worked both the front of the house and in the kitchen at the renowned Nick’s Italian Café. There was vineyard work for the Ponzi family, and she helped run the bottling line as a high school student at Erath Winery when Rob Stuart was the winemaker.

“The Stuarts and the Ponzis really folded me into their families early on. That continues to influence me,” she says.

Formal training in winemaking led her to France and the Domaine du Lycée Viticole de Beaune. On her path back home, she managed an Italian restaurant in Pittsburgh, Pa., before launching Remy Wines in 2006 in McMinn ville.

“It’s important to me that downtown McMinnville continues to be a place with a diversity of businesses that both support and benefit from the wine industry — providing value for the local community and tourists alike,” Drabkin says.

She’s been active in city government for more than a decade, starting with consecutive appointments to the planning commission. Drabkin then won two terms on the McMinn ville City Council, which twice has voted her as its council president. She received a governor’s appointment to serve on the Oregon Wine

This spring, Drabkin was unanimously appointed as interim mayor. The promotion meant that, under city bylaws, she had to resign from the Visit McMinnville board. Among her key issues are affordable housing for the workforce, houselessness, increased utilization of the McMinnville airport, conservation and DEI awareness.

“I’m developing a lot of projects from my past two terms, and I have more work to do,” she says. “I’m not looking to leave the city of McMinnville anytime soon, but as long as the electorate will have me, I’m probably a lifetime or majority-of-my-lifetime politician. I enjoy the work, and I’m good at the work. I find it rewarding, and it’s good for my community.”

Her years of being re-elected to represent her precinct on the city council indicates that Drab kin has a decent shot at getting the “interim” tag removed and continuing to use the Insta gram handle of @MayorRemyDrabkin.

Meanwhile, she’s looking to the next generation to help her effort by tasking Opal Primozich, a senior at McMinnville High, to be her campaign manager. Last year, Primozich won her own election to serve as state president of the Oregon Association of Student Councils.

Rather than micromanage, Drabkin refers questions about her campaign to Primozich or playfully points at her rescue dog — Judah Drabkin.

“He has a QR code on his back,” Drabkin quipped. “That was Opal’s idea!”

McMinnville to Dayton where flags fly

With the 2022 vintage, the new facility in many ways caters to her team more than her many customers.

“I love to talk about my bathroom,” she deadpans.

Among the many subtle changes on the es tate that folks may notice is the removal of the portable bathroom near the gravel driveway.

“We want our vineyard stewards to have an easily accessible and hygienic restroom avail able at all times, which may sound obvious, but it actually isn’t in the wine industry,” Drabkin says. “Many vineyard stewards are asked to use portable facilities that are not protected from harsh sun or heat and can run the gamut of cleanliness. Our new bathroom prioritizes the needs of our employees first, and there is just one of them — for everybody.”

The carbon-negative sinks and carbon-neu tral floor are courtesy of Mead’s business. The tile came from a rejected order that Drabkin learned about via a friend.

“It’s one bathroom for everyone — wherever they are on the gender spectrum,” she says.

“There are four stalls that are ADA accessible and a floor drain so this entire thing can get hit with a pressure washer.”

Other touches in the former pole barn include using discarded pallets for the hand railing for her new winery’s second-floor offices. Welding students at nearby Dayton High School helped transform scrap metal on the property into other features in the new facility.

But the day before demolition/construction

began, Drabkin took a few minutes to sit on her front porch, bask in the afternoon sun and taste through some of the Sangiovese from her library. She sported a pair of reddish-brown Doc Martens. The British steel-toed footware made famous by London bobbies and punk rockers has protected Drabkin’s well-traveled feet for more than a few vintages. Those with a pair know them to be comfortable and practical, fashion able in their own way and able to withstand

almost anything life can throw at them. Perfect for this never-stand-in-place winemaker.

“They are my favorite shoes,” she said with a smile. “Doc Martens are my shoe of choice since the mid-90s. I’ve had a lot of pairs.”

Remy Wines, 17495 NE McDougall Road, Dayton, OR 97114, RemyWines.com, (503) 864-8777.

John

COVER STORY l Remy Wines

Mead of Vesuvian Forge Concrete Surfaces in McMinnville collaborated with longtime friend Remy Drabkin to help create the Drabkin-Mead Formulation, a carbon-negative concrete for the flooring of the new winery at Remy Wines in Dayton, Ore. Drabkin's rescue dog, Judah, sports a QR code to promote Drabkin's campaign for the mayor of McMinnville.

PHOTO BY ERIC DEGERMAN / GREAT NORTHWEST WINE

Top vineyards, leading winemakers help Albariño grow in Northwest

By Eric Degerman

Some of the Pacific Northwest’s most dec orated and highly educated winemakers knew Albariño would thrive in our region.

That makes it a bit curious as to why more haven’t followed the lead of brands such as Abacela, Barnard Griffin, Clearwater Canyon Cellars, Coyote Canyon Winery, Maryhill Win ery, Palencia Wine Co. and Thurston Wolfe.

Of course, the story starts in the vineyard, and during this comparative tasting one site produced four of the top examples of Albariño — Crawford Vineyard in Washington’s Yakima Valley.

Wade Wolfe, who has been making wine in Washington since 1978, has won three Platinum Awards for his Albariño — each grown for him by Charlie Crawford in the Yakima Valley not far from Prosser. Wolfe earned a Ph.D in plant genetics from University of California, Davis.

“Of the Iberian white varieties I was familiar with,

Headline

I thought it had the best potential for us here in Washington, so about 12 years ago I recom mended to the Crawfords that they ought to try it,” Wolfe said. “They like to experiment and work with smaller wineries like ours.”

In Southern Oregon, Abacela founder Earl Jones took a measured yet pioneering approach to Albariño at his Fault Line Vineyards near Roseburg. The dermatologist and immunology researcher responsible for blazing the trail in the United States for the Spanish red grape Tempranillo also is viewed as the Northwest’s leading ambassador for Albariño. In 2000, he first planted Albariño — five years after he began sinking sticks of Tempranillo and several other varieties at Abacela. There are now 12 acres devoted to Albariño, and the Jones family’s longtime winemaker, Andrew Wenzl, produces nearly 2,000 cases of Albariño each vintage.

It’s believed that in 2006, Mike Andrews became the first in the Washington state wine industry to grow Albariño, starting with 1 acre. Since 2008, his vines in the Horse Heaven Hills have yielded five Platinum Awards for his Coyote Canyon Winery, and he’s got another qualifier via our comparative tasting. Next year, Andrews Family Vineyard plans to grow its

acreage of Albariño from 2.3 to 12.3.

The top-scoring wine in this summer’s tasting came from Michael Florentino Cellars in Woodinville, Wash. Winemaker/owner Brad Sherman is among the 13 winemakers in three states to buy Albariño grapes from the Craw fords.

“We make Spanish wines, and Albariño is one of my favorites, so it was a no-brainer when I found some after years of searching,” Sherman said. “Our first was in 2015, and Crawford is the only vineyard we have worked with for Albariño. It is a little cooler and is a perfect site for Albariño. They do a great job, and we love supporting smaller vineyards.”

In a tasting dominated by wines made from grapes grown last year, it was somewhat remarkable that a bottling of the 2020 vintage emerged as the top-scoring submission. Jerod Whelchel, who shares the winemaking with Sherman, said the fruit from Crawford lends itself to aging.

“We have found that a partial malolactic fer mentation — about 25% — tames this acidity just enough while keeping it bright and adds body/complexity that further adds to longevi ty,” Whelchel says. “Our use of acacia barrels also contributes a sort of fresh brightness that seems last.”

Evergreen Vineyard in the Ancient Lakes region factored into two of the top Albariños from the 2021 vintage — those by Crayelle Cellars by Craig Mitrakul in Wenatchee and Victor Palencia in Kennewick. Until 2012, the only white wine Mitrakul and his wife made for their Crayelle brand was a dry Riesling.

“Although Danielle and I both loved Al bariño, we were worried customers might not appreciate it since it was a bit obscure,” Craig says. “Luckily, customer response was great from the beginning. I think since customers had no preconceived ideas about the varietal, they tasted it with an open mind. Albariño is our most popular wine. We do sell out pretty quickly every year.”

In 2016, Palencia won best of show at the Cascadia International Wine Competition with a 2015 Albariño and has since grown its production to 1,000 cases. This summer, the Palencia Wine Co. 2021 Albariño made its way into a Puget Sound Business Journal feature that asked some experts in the Washington wine industry what they are drinking.

Those success stories helped inspire Ryan

Flanagan, director of vineyard operations for Wahluke Wine Co., to expand the represen tation of Albariño at Evergreen, a historic contributor to Ste. Michelle’s famed Eroica Riesling project.

Evergreen now ranks as one of the North west’s largest plantings of Albariño.

“Our first planting was made in 2009 — a 1.2-acre plot that Craig and Victor have been sourcing from,” Flanagan noted. “We planted an additional 20 acres in 2020.”

That one site would excel with both Riesling and Albariño doesn’t surprise Wolfe, who relies on Crawford Vineyard for his popular PGV — a blend of Pinot Gris and Viognier.

“On the aroma, it is close to Viognier in terms of fruit characteristics, but it is different from Viognier because of the acid, so I guess I’d compare Albariño to a combination of Riesling and Viognier,” Wolfe says. “It’s got the acidity of a Riesling, but it ends up more full-bodied like Viognier.”

Coco Umiker at Clearwater Canyon Canyon in Lewiston, Idaho, quickly made Albariño a part of her white program when she moved into her new estate winemaking facility. Soon after, an Albariño from Crawford Vineyard earned her a Double Platinum — the 2020 Pacific Northwest Winery of the Year’s first Platinum for a white wine.

“It is no surprise that so many of the top Al bariño entries are sourced from Crawford Vine yard,” Umiker said. “The Crawfords utilize a derivation of the Geneva Double Curtain, a rare trellis system, to provide the ideal conditions for growing exceptional Albariño. I’m happy people are discovering how delicious Crawford Vineyard fruit is — but I’m now worried about the high demand for their grapes!”

Indeed, Wolfe upped his Albariño contract with the Crawfords for the 2022 vintage.

“We started out producing 130 cases, and this year we released 205 cases,” Wolfe said. “Our plan is to get up to 350 cases from this year’s harvest. We contemplated going up to 600, but I was a bit concerned that we would be doing too much.”

In 1979, the Crawfords entered the industry as growers for Ste. Michelle, which Wolfe was working for at the time. Of their 80 acres of wine grapes, the Crawfords now have 8 acres devoted to Albariño.

“We do have a 43-year-old block of Char donnay that I would like to pull out,” Charlie Crawford noted. “If so, we would probably plant Albariño since it is adjacent to existing Albariño.”

The versatility of Albariño at the dining table — thanks its brightness and lower alcohol — has helped boost its popularity in the fish-lov ing Northwest.

“Seafood!” exclaims Wolfe. “Lobster, scal lops, oysters. And I’m a big mussels fan, so I like Albariño with that, too.”

It also pairs crab cakes, pasta in a white sauce, casseroles and Asian, Latin and Indian cuisine found throughout the Pacific Northwest.

This judging was staged during August at the Clover Island Inn in historic downtown Kenne wick, Wash. The panel featured Gordy Venneri, co-winemaker for Neher Family Wines in Mil ton-Freewater, Ore.; April Reddout, Reddout Wine Consulting in Kennewick and a columnist for Great Northwest Wine; and Ken Robertson, associate editor/columnist, Great Northwest Wine, Kennewick.

Unanimously Outstanding!

Double gold medal — 98 points

Michael Florentino Cellars

2020 Albariño, Yakima Val ley • $20

Woodinville winemaker

Brad Sherman focuses his eponymous brand on Bor deaux varieties, but he and Jared Whelchel work with Italian and Spanish varieties under the Michael Florentino Cellars label. Albariño is an ideal fit and their flair with it is apparent. It all starts with Crawford Vineyards near Prosser, Wash. In the cellar, 75% of the lot is fermented in stainless steel tanks, while the rest spent five weeks in acacia barrels. Concentrated aromas feature Granny Smith apple, dusty Bosc pear and a sense of tropicality. On the palate, there’s some fleshiness of white peach — a sense of roundness that’s a sign of the partial (29%) malolactic fermentation — that’s pushed along by lime juice and more green apple flavors. Its long, mouth-watering finish easily overtakes the residual sugar, barely perceptible at 0.5%, and screams for shellfish or Sherman’s sugges tion of a cheese plate featuring camembert and brie. The total experience prompted one judge to exclaim, “This is a textbook example for the Northwest,” while another added, “It’s an Albariño with all of the trimmings.” (200 cases, 13.8% alc.)

Unanimously Outstanding!

Double gold medal — 97 points

Crayelle Cellars 2021 Albariño, Ancient Lakes of Columbia Valley • $25

For years, soft-spoken Ivy League graduate Craig Mitrakul has turned Albariño into gold and best-of-class awards at West Coast wine competitions. A key and constant ingredient has been pixie dust found in famed Evergreen Vineyard, the site managed by Ryan Flanagan and the source of some of the country’s top examples of Riesling. As usual, this example of Albariño brings thoughts of walking through a Wenatchee Valley orchard with peaches and green apples. Inside, it turns a bit tropical on the midpalate as notes of crushed Maui Gold

RICHARD DUVAL IMAGES

pineapple create a fascinating mouthfeel and give it a ripe and tart approach that address es the 0.7% residual sugar in an impeccable manner that’s not too racy. “It’s ultra-ripe in a balanced way that makes it magical,” one judge said. (140 cases, 13% alc.)

Unanimously Outstanding!

Double gold medal — 96 points

Coyote Canyon Winery 2021 Coyote Canyon Vineyard Albariño, Horse Heaven Hills • $24

Mike Andrews was a rancher in the Horse Heaven Hills when he graduated from Wash ington State University. His transition to the wine industry began in 1994 with 20 acres of Cab planted for Columbia Crest. In 2006, he established what are believed to be the first Al bariño vines in the state. Since then, he’s earned five Platinum Awards for the white Spanish grape, and he may have another this fall be cause his winemaker, Justin Michaud, qualified this bottling with a double gold in our tasting. The aromas draw you in with the tart/sweet blend of Granny Smith apple, Key Lime and cotton candy. Despite the slurp of fresh peach on the palate, there’s essentially no perceptible sweetness (0.4% residual sugar) because of the juiciness reminiscent of its green-skinned fruit. “It’s clean and balanced without really strong acidity,” remarked one judge. “There’s a magic factor here, and I’m a fan.” (146 cases, 13.6% alc.)

Unanimously Outstanding!

Double gold medal — 95 points

Barnard Griffin Winery 2021 Albariño, Columbia Valley • $25

Next-gen winemaker Megan Hughes spear heads the white wine program at her family’s Barnard Griffin Winery, and her work here with Albariño adds more acclaim for Crawford Vineyard, a relatively cool site along the Roza in the Yakima Valley near Prosser. There’s no oak involved in the winemaking, which keeps the spotlight on the blend of green apple, lime, peach and tropical notes that make this Spanish grape so popular. A sense of honeysuckle on the midpalate adds complexity, setting the table for the long, juicy and bone-dry finish. (250 cases, 12.9% alc.)

Outstanding! Gold medal — 93 points

Awen Winecraft 2020 Albariño, Applegate Valley • $35

Last year, Great Northwest Wine’s editorial team selected this Medford brand as the Oregon Winery to Watch, and co-owners/co-wine makers Tom Homewood and Sean Hopkins produced a pair of high-scoring Albariños in our comparative tasting. Here, they worked with the Moore family’s Crater View Vineyard, a site near Jacksonville that supplies fruit to a number of Oregon’s top vintners. This Albariño focuses on dusty apples and lime, yet its hall mark is the fascinating body that opens with some fleshiness and picks up some minerality on the way out with lovely acidity that’s akin to a bite of Centennial apple. Look for it in their new tasting room at what’s been known as Whites Country Farm mercantile. (100 cases, 13.7% alc.)

Outstanding! Gold medal — 92 points

Wautoma Springs Wines 2021 Albariño, Columbia Valley • $25

A year ago, Jessica Mun nell’s aromatic Sauvignon Blanc emerged as best of class at the Cascadia International. This summer, she turned young plantings of Albariño managed by business partner Tom Merkle into one of our judging’s most distinctive and delicious entries. The fruit source was JMST Vineyard, which is just west of Wautoma Spring’s namesake vines and near historic Cold Creek Vineyard. Merkle and his fellow investors in JMST opted to graft Chardonnay over

TASTING RESULTS

to Albariño, and 2021 was the first vintage of that project. Those who enjoy Sauvignon Blanc should enjoy this, which opens with fascinating aromas of gooseberry, lime and honeysuckle that make their way onto the citrusy palate. The succulent bone-dry close requires another sip. (137 cases, 12.5% alc.)

Outstanding! Gold medal — 92 points

Thurston Wolfe Winery 2021 Crawford Vineyard Albariño, Yakima Valley • $22

Wade Wolfe has earned three Platinum Awards in recent years for his Albariño pro gram, and he’s got another qualifier for this fall after the lofty showing for his latest effort from the Crawford family’s vineyard. Its bright and fruity structure includes aromas of sliced Key lime, lemon juice and some grassiness. Those notes are matched on a palate where there’s great mouthfeel, a sense of jasmine and sweet Meyer lemon. For those who enjoy Riesling and are new to Albariño, there’s plenty to enjoy here. And when Wolfe has a bowl of steamed mussels in front of him, this is his drink of choice. (205 cases, 13% alc.)

Outstanding! Gold medal — 92 points

Awen Winecraft 2018 Albariño, Applegate Valley • $35

Two years ago, the tandem of Tom Home wood and Sean Hopkins used a 2018 Grenache Blanc to win Best White Wine at the McMinn ville Wine Classic. Their expression of another Iberian Peninsula variety — Albariño — from the same vintage earned high praise in our summer tasting. They reached into Schmidt Family Vineyard near Grants Pass, Ore., for a brilliant example of how this Spanish grape can age gracefully with thoughtful winemaking. It’s still remarkably fresh and continues to exhibit charming characteristics of cotton candy and green apple with an underpinning of chalkiness and minerality. Its brisk, mouthwatering finish will encourage you to sit down with a plate of oysters on the half shell. (120 cases, 14% alc.)

Outstanding! Gold medal — 92 points

Clearwater Canyon Cellars 2021 Craw ford Vineyard Albariño, Washington • $22

The Umikers venture beyond the Lew is-Clark Valley and onto Washington’s side of the Columbia Valley for some of their most important wines. They have joined other wine makers in making Crawford Vineyard in the Yakima Valley their prized source for Albariño. Coco Umiker has earned a Double Platinum for her work with the Spanish white, and this bottling seems to mirror those qualities with its fruitiness of lime and Granny Smith apple. There’s complexity as its midpalate of honey comb readily gives way to the variety’s vibrant acidity and lingering hints of salinity and min

Charlie and Connie Crawford in the Yakima Valley near Prosser, Wash., grow Albariño for winemakers in three states.

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erality. “I was seduced by its freshness, and the sweet/sour Jolly Rancher green apple candy in the finish makes me want to come back for more,” remarked one judge. (227 cases, 14.6% alc.)

Outstanding! Gold medal — 91 points

Palencia Wine Co. 2021 Albariño, Columbia Valley • $22

It was no surprise that one of the top ex pressions of Northwest Albariño, and one of its largest productions, also ranked among the best in this tasting. A key component is the role that Evergreen Vineyard in the Ancient Lakes of Columbia Valley has his torically played in Victor Palencia’s work as an ambassador of this Spanish grape. (His smaller bottling of Albariño is under the El Viñador reserve tier, which pays tribute to his father.) Here’s a very fruit-forward example, leading with white peach and tree-ripened Red Delicious as the finish of Key lime soda arrives in a timely fashion to handle the residual sugar — which ticks just below 1%. This ranks among the most approachable for those new to Albariño and is likely the most available of this tasting. “It’s distinctive, and the hint of RS works pretty well,” one judge said. (1,000 cases, 12.6% alc.)

From farm and vineyard to table by the Kings of Pinot

King Estate rising stars combine for elevated restaurant experience

By Eric Degerman

EUGENE, Ore. — The King family continues to take a thoughtful approach to the gradual evolution of their restaurant that surrounds the tasting gallery at King Estate Winery.

With the spring arrival of exec utive chef Matt Hobbs, the Kings of Pinot seem poised to move a culinary program rooted in organic farming to an unprecedented level of prominence.

“We will put King Estate Restaurant at the forefront of the food scene in Oregon as well as on a national platform,” Hobbs says. “This is such a unique place.”

With Hobbs in place, the Kings are gearing up to add a bistro at the base of their 1,033-acre Biodynamic estate along the Territorial Highway. The cuisine is an extension and a presentation of the work by the aptly named Erin Greene — the culinary gardens manager — and the winemaking of Brent Stone.

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Executive Chef Matt Hobbs blends a green perspective with an endlessly creative food preparation.

Last year, the editorial team of Great Northwest Wine named King Estate as the 2021 Pacific Northwest Winery of the Year. And the recent recruitment of Hobbs and Greene seems to indicate wine lovers should expect an elevated dining experience for years to come.

“I grew up on a homestead on Vashon Island, entirely connected to my landscape and eating from my landscape,” Greene says. “I love the Northwest so much. The farm culture and the wine-and-food culture we have in the Northwest is really something special.”

Hobbs, raised in Arizona, moved from Washington, D.C., to learn about Portland’s culinary scene. His mentors include those who have earned acclaim from the James Beard Foundation, appeared on The Food Network’s Iron Chef America series or received a star in the Michelin Guide. Hobbs was working in the Rose City when Portland chef/restaurateur Vitaly Paley — a James Beard Award winner in 2005 — told him of the opening at King Estate.

“I was introduced to the Kings through Vitaly,” Hobbs says. “I had just opened up a restaurant in Portland and was about 30 days in when Vitaly reached out to me and said, ‘Hey, here’s an opportunity you would be in terested in, and I think you could pull it off.’

“When I first saw the photos of the property, I said, ‘Wow, I have to see what this is about!’ ” Hobbs adds. “There are the gorgeous views and a beautiful winery, but there’s more to it than that.”

Greene also was working in Portland when she saw a job posting in 2018.

“My husband and I were looking all over the country when this popped up,” Greene said. “ ‘I said, ‘This is incredible!’ It felt like the dream job that I imagined had suddenly appeared.”

King Estate is the shared vision of Ed King — who earned a MBA at the Uni versity of Oregon — and his late father, Ed King Jr. They launched King Estate in 1991 and opened their restaurant 15 years later. Of the 1,033 acres, 465 acres are in vines and 26 acres grow produce and fruit for the restaurant.

“All of our produce that’s here today in the restaurant is 40 minutes out of the ground,” Hobbs said. “My team is

— 471 cases, 14% alc.

One of the most historic vineyards that King Estate has pulled from is Hyland, the oldest commercial planting in the McMinnville American Viticultural Area.

For some reason, Hyland — established in 1971 — hasn’t received the widespread acclaim it deserves, yet Brent Stone casts a worthy spotlight here.

“It’s certainly got a great reputation among winemakers, and it’s one of the team favorites,” says winemaker Brent Stone. “McMinnville has been known for some rustic Pinot Noir, but from Hyland it’s been one of the more elegant, Bur gundian-style of Pinots we would make — and we loved it for that. You could always pick out the Hyland in the lineup.”

Hyland Vineyard raised the profile of what would become the McMinnville AVA through the showing of Oregon wines at the 1985 Burgundy Challenge in Paris.

A Pinot Noir from the 1983 vintage by upstart Yamhill Val ley Vineyards finished first out of 17 entries. Sokol Blosser Winery in Dundee was No. 2. Both used fruit from Hyland to impress the New York-area judges. Fortunately, a group led by longtime Oregon winemaker Laurent Montalieu and his NW Wine Co., purchased Hyland in 2007 and continues its stewardship of the 185-acre site that’s rather unique in the McMinnville AVA because of its uniformly volcanic soil profile.

Starting with the 2003 vintage, King Estate produced a vineyard-designate Pinot Noir from Hyland for a dozen years. Throughout the Northwest, the 2015 growing season broke records for warmth, ripening much earlier than usual.

“I remember the heat of 2015, similar to 2014,” Stone says. “It was a very hot and dry growing season. A lot different than what Oregon was used to.”

As a result, this bottling from Wädenswil clone and 828 — a “suitcase” clone known unofficially in Oregon as “the Coury clone” — is loaded with dark red fruit akin to black cherry, dark strawberry and boysenberry. A result of the vin tage is that this example of Hyland embraces the 14-month program in 25% new French oak barrels.

Warmer vintages often lead to higher ripeness levels, more sugar, increased alcohol levels and reduced acidity. King Estate’s fruit would come from a lower and cooler portion of Hyland, which allowed Stone’s team to better manage the resulting alcohol.

“The 2014 and 2015 vintages were when we had to learn how to make warmer-climate Pinot,” Stone says. “We were getting Pinot that was 25 and 26 Brix, which was unheard of for us. In 2011, our highest Brix for Pinot was probably about 20.”

Tower Club members receive first crack at the vine yard-designate bottlings prior to their arrival at the tasting room and restaurant. The continued growth of Montalieu’s work prompted him to pull back some fruit that his group previously sold to other wineries — including King Estate.

“This year was the last year we made a Hyland Pinot Noir. That makes it an extra-special library release,” Stone said. “It was a great vintage and from a great site.”

FEATURE| Match Maker

King Estate Winery 2015 Hyland Vineyard Pinot Noir, Willamette Valley, $86

Fall 2022 • Great Northwest Wine | 47

A coveted restaurant patio seat offers expansive views of the vast and stunning King Estate vineyards.

Two of the much-acclaimed King Estate wine list: King Estate Winery 2019 Steiner Block Estate Biodynamic Pinot Gris and King Estate Winery 2015 Hyland Vineyard Pinot Noir.

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picked leaves and herbs such as tarra gon, chervil, parsley, lovage for garnish at plating

Chef’s note: A total of ½ pounds of fresh Pacific dulse seaweed will be enough for the tapenade and for the fried seaweed used for plating.

Method for Lobster Glace

1. Begin to prepare the lobster stock by heating the grapeseed oil in a medium stock pot over medium-high heat.

2. Add carrot, onion, leek, fennel and bay to the pot and sauté until caramelization begins, about 5 minutes.

3. Be sure to stir often to avoid scorching.

4. Add Pernod — the acclaimed French-made anise liqueur — and deglaze the pan. Reduce Pernod by half. Add the lobster bodies and cover with water.

cooking the coolest food in the state — bar none.”

A crunch into a sweet Nantes carrot from one of Greene’s greenhous es is closer to biting into a piece of fruit than eating a vegetable. She gushes about squash blossoms, is a geek for chicory, refers to Italian peppers as “fancy” and raves about the “fantastic” fresh berries.

Seemingly every kernel of her story makes Greene a natural fit for this property that earned its Demeter certification for strict Biodynamics in 2016.

“My Mom was pregnant while roofing our cabin,” Greene says. “We had a big vegetable garden, a milking goat and honeybees. I grew up a quarter of a mile from the beach, surrounded by forest, and I won salm on derbies as a kid. I started my first business when I was 8 growing cut flowers for the Thriftway on Vashon. I was very driven.”

An interest in Biodynamic farming took Greene to Emerson College in England from 2007 to 2009. The school began in 1962, and its found er credited the father of the Biodynamic movement — the late Rudolf Steiner — with inspiration.

“Conventional agriculture is basically mining nutrients from the soil. Organics is recycling,” she says. “In Biodynamics, you are recycling and adding on. You are leaving the soil better.”

Upon her return, Greene spent four years at prized Monteillet From agerie in the Walla Walla Valley and learned about cheese while starting a side hustle selling vegetables to wine country chefs. Later, she worked at Riverdog Farm, a certified organic operation west of Sacramento. The 2022 growing season marks her fourth at King Estate, and she would like to see more women helping to steer the Biodynamic movement.

“I think Biodynamic farming benefits from feminine energy and femi nine input,” Greene says.

The Beef Ribeye with Uni Butter, Pacific Dulse and Lobster Glace matches well with King Estate Winery 2015 Hyland Vineyard Pinot Noir made by winemaker Brent Stone.

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Ribeye Recipe Continued

5. Bring to a gentle simmer and cook for 3 hours. Care fully strain and transfer to a clean pot.

6. Reduce over medium-low heat by 90%, whisking occasionally. Remove from heat and cool.

Chef’s note: The lobster glace should be prepared the day before.

Method for Uni Butter

1. Combine the uni, the softened butter and salt into a food processor and mix until well combined and smooth.

2. Transfer to a piece of plastic film. Roll into a log about 2-3 inches in diameter and twist the ends closed. Refrigerate until fully cooled.

Method for the Pacific dulse tapenade

1. Combine all ingredients in the food processor and pulse for 1-2 minutes until ingredients come together. Store in an airtight container refrigerated until ready to use.

Method for fried seaweed

1. Heat 4 cups of frying oil to 375 F. Pat dry the 2 cups of fresh seaweed as best you can. Carefully place the seaweed into the oil and fry for 1-2 minutes until crispy.

2. Remove seaweed from oil and transfer to a small baking sheet lined with paper towels. Season lightly with salt.

Chef’s note: Only fill the pot half way with oil because there will be splashing and overflow.

Final prep

1. Get steaks to room temperature for at least 15 minutes prior to cooking. Season generously with salt and pepper, and preheat the grill.

2. In a small sauce pot, place 2 ounces of the reduced lobster stock, add heavy cream and bring to a gentle simmer.

3. Slowly whisk in butter, one pad at a time, until all but ter has been incorporated. Season lightly with salt and fresh lemon juice. Hold over low heat until ready to use.

4. Place the steaks on the grill and cook to desired temperature. Remove steaks from grill and allow to rest for 4 minutes.

5. Remove the uni butter from the refrigerator, slice about ½-inch thick and place on each dish.

6. Place the ribeye onto a plate off-set. Using two spoons, make a quenelle of the Pacific Dulse Tapenade. Place onto the far side of the plate. Top the quenelle with a small piece of fried seaweed.

7. Top the ribeye with a disk of the uni butter and gar nish with additional fried seaweed, assorted herbs and fleur de sel.

8. Serve with Lobster Glace on the side or sauce as desired.

9. Serve immediately.

Fall 2022 • Great Northwest Wine

Dusk on the patio of the King Estate restaurant combines colorful skies with culinary excellence.

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petite yellow celery leaf

Method for the corn filling

1. In a medium-sized rondeau pan, combine the corn kernels, butter and onion. Sweat gently until the onions are translucent over medium heat, stirring often to avoid any browning. Reduce heat and cook for 20 minutes.

2. Remove the corn mixture from the stove and transfer to a blender. Blend on high for 2-3 minutes until a very smooth purée forms. Season with kosher salt.

3. Transfer the mixture back to a clean rondeau and reduce over medium-low heat for 1 hour, stir ring often with a rubber spatula as to not scorch.

50 | greatnorthwestwine.com

When there is an excess or an opportunity to help, Greene or Hobbs will act. This sum mer, Greene donated 1,000 pounds of blueberries and 600 pounds of cucumbers to Food for Lane County. Soon after Hobbs arrived, he was planning his first menu for a Food for Lane County fundraiser and asked Ed King how much to budget.

“He told me, ‘Blow the doors off, man!’ ” Hobbs says. “That was cool to hear — so we did.”

It’s a 30-minute ride from Eugene along windy country roads. Hobbs will take his Indian Scout Bobber motorbike to work if he leaves his 1970 Camaro Z/28 at home. His left arm features artwork that symbolizes species of trees where he’s lived. On his right forearm are words he lives by — “Rooted in the craft of my industry, driven by princi ples of sustainability and inspired by modern cooking.”

Hobbs credits renowned chef Paul McCabe for much of his development, having spent seven years working for him in Phoenix and San Diego. There’s also been Lee Hillson, who has appeared on Iron Chef America, at Royal Palms Resort and Spa in Phoenix, Jean-Claud Plihon at the Michelin-starred Blue Duck Tavern in Washington, D.C., and Paley.

“I was lucky they saw something in me,” Hobbs said. “I would not be who I am or where I am without a few key gentlemen.”

The year after Blue Duck merited its Michelin star is when Hobbs landed in PDX. In the early days of the pandemic, he signed up for the graveyard shift at Zupan’s Markets to butcher meat “and keep those skills sharp.” Along the way, he launched PDX Hot Sauce Co. — which he continues to own — and was working for Christiann Koepke’s acclaimed food studio and her NORR Kitchen concept when he got the tip from Paley.

“The hot sauce was a hobby that blew up,” Hobbs says. “Within three weeks, I was in my apartment hand-labeling 4,000 bottles for orders.”

One of his projects is to collaborate with Stone’s team on special fermentations for the organic hot sauce and have bottles on tables for guests when Sunday brunch returns to King Estate Restaurant.

No taste sacrifice for the vegetarian: Corn Agnolotti with Chanterelle Mushroom, Roasted Corn, Black Truffle and Citrus Brown Butter is perfectly suited for the King Estate Winery 2019 Steiner Block Estate Biodynamic Pinot Gris. RICHARD DUVAL IMAGES

“I’ve never done anything but work in kitchens since I was 15, and I never wanted to do anything else,” says Hobbs, an avid reader of the works of George Orwell. “I went to college for a while and studied music theory, mathematics and architecture, but I like to work with my hands and help teach people. If I could be here 10 years and put out 50 su per-quality cooks, that’s legacy — and its’ how you affect the industry.”

This summer, Eugene provided the stage for some of the planet’s top athletes as historic Hayward Field played host to the World Athletics Championships. It was the first time that the track and field community brought its finals to the U.S., and three world records fell. Those two weeks garnered some international attention for King Estate, the event’s VIP wine vendor, and prompted a number of attendees to see and taste the work of Stone, Hobbs and Greene.

“I think it’s really cool that all those people from around the world tried our wines,” Stone said. “We even got the Brut Cuvée into what they called ‘The Finish Line’ — the suite for the athletes after they run.”

Among the treats that come with dining at King Estate is the oppor tunity to experience a few of the library wines and Tower Club bottlings that are otherwise limited to members. For this Match Maker project, we sought two of those — the 2019 Steiner Block Estate Pinot Gris and the 2015 Hyland Vineyard Pinot Noir. Both offer a taste of history — one from the estate and the other off one of Oregon’s oldest vineyards.

Hobbs paired the Pinot Gris with a dish that’s a remarkable example of his flair for vegetarian fare — Corn Agnolotti with Chanterelle Mush room, Roasted Corn, Black Truffle and Citrus Brown Butter.

“The flavor of corn is maxed out, and I think the contrast works with the buttery notes,” Hobbs said. “The Pinot Gris obviously brings the acid ity, so you are cutting the richness of the corn and the fat in the sauce.”

On the wine’s first sip, Bosc pear and Pink Lady apple take the early lead before they are joined by tropical tones of guava.

Agnolotti Recipe Continued

The mixture should be a thick paste.

4. Transfer the corn filling to a shallow metal container and cool fully.

Chef’s note: Make the filling the day prior to save time and have a very workable filling.

Method for the pasta

1. On a clean work surface or in a large bowl, combine both flours. Make a well in the center; add eggs and yolks, 1 tablespoon warm water, and oil. Using a fork and whisking outward from the center of well, gradually incorporate flour mixture into egg mixture until a ragged dough forms.

2. Transfer to a lightly floured work surface and knead until dough is smooth and springs back when pressed with a finger, 8 to 10 minutes. While kneading, add more water — 1 tablespoon at a time — if the dough feels too dry. Add more flour — 1 tablespoon at a time — if the dough feels too sticky.

3. Divide the dough in half. Pat each half into an approximately 1-inch-thick square; tightly wrap in plastic and let stand at least 1 hour and up to 3 hours before using.

4. Using a pasta machine, roll out the pasta into long rectangle sheets to the No. 2 setting. The pasta should almost be translucent. Be sure to dust the working surface lightly with semolina flour.

5. Using a piping bag filled with corn filling, run a straight-line down pasta sheet about 1 inch from the edge. Fold the pasta over itself created a tube of the filling. Using your fingers to lightly seal the and form the tube.

6. Use your finger to press a small pillow square — roughly one halfinch in size. Seal on both ends of each pillow and well as the top of the pillow.

7. Use a crimped edge pasta cutter to cut a straight line horizontal ly, leaving about 1 ½” from the pillows. Discard the trimmed pasta.

8. Carefully using your hands stand the pillows upright by 45 de grees. Using the crimped pasta cutter begin to cut your individual pillows. Place the pasta onto a baking sheet lined with parchment and lightly dusted with semolina. Repeat until all agnolotti are made. Store uncovered in the refrigerator until ready for use.

Method for the Citrus Brown Butter

1. Place the hot reduced orange juice into a blender. Gradually emulsify the warm brown butter into the orange juice on medi um-high speed. Once emulsified, add the lemon juice, xanthan gum and season with salt. Blend on high for 30 seconds. Reserve in a small sauce pot to keep warm over very low heat.

2. To prepare the pasta dish: Bring a large pot of salted water to a rolling boil.

3. In a large sauté pan heat the grapeseed oil over medium-high heat. Add the chanterelles and cook for 1 minute. Add shallot, gar lic and thyme. Season with salt and black pepper.

4. Add the corn and chives. Reduce heat to medium-low.

5. Drop your pasta into the boiling water. Once they begin to float (about 3 minutes) strain and transfer them to the mushroom and corn mixture.

6. Add ¼ cup of the pasta water to the pan then add your butter piece by piece, gently stirring to glaze the pasta and vegetables. Season again with kosher salt as desired.

7. Remove pasta from heat and add 2-3 tablespoons of the citrus brown butter, toss gently. Transfer pasta and mushroom mixture to individual bowls or a family-style bowl.

8. Sauce the pasta as desired and garnish with freshly grated black truffle, freeze-dried corn, and freshly picked yellow celery leaves.

9. Serve immediately.

Fall 2022 • Great Northwest Wine | 51

A native of Washington’s Vashon Island, culinary gardens manager Erin Greene comes by her green thumb in a most natural fashion. RICHARD DUVAL IMAGES

— 100 cases, 12.5% alc.

In some ways, Steiner Block Pinot Gris serves as the quintessential example of King Estate, a wine that comes from a heritage planting by the King family and a unique project by the team responsible for pro ducing more Pinot Gris than anyone else in the Pacific Northwest.

“Internally, it’s a winemaker’s favorite for sure,” Brent Stone says with a smile. “It’s such a cool story from where we pull the fruit from to how we make it. It’s the oldest block on the property and still own-rooted, planted in 1992 vines.

“It’s the last block to come into the winery because it’s old and own-rooted, so you get a ton of hangtime on it and complexity out of it, but the alcohol in the wine is only 12.5%,” he added. “It’s along the lines of a traditional Alsatian profile.”

Stone, the chief operating officer and lead wine maker, takes pride in producing wines from the largest Biodynamic certified vineyard on the continent.

“I would say that about 25% of our wines carry the Biodynamic label,” he says.

This section of the vineyard is named for Rudolf Steiner, viewed as the father of the Biodynamic movement he developed after World War I. Dismayed by the increased use of chemicals and mechanization, the Austrian — who warned Europe about the rise of Nazism and became a target of Hitler — encouraged farmers to adopt homeopathic treatments to their fields. The Biodynamic Association refers to it as “a spiritual-scientific approach.”

Vineyard manager Meliton Martinez, who has been in his position since 1999, started at King Estate the year after the Steiner Block was established. Plant pathologist Raymond Nuclo began working at King Estate in 2011 — the same year Stone arrived — and now serves as the director of viticulture.

Ed King and his late father transitioned their 1,033 acres to certified organic in 2002. And in 2016, King Estate achieved its Demeter certification. That means there are no herbicides, synthetic fertilizers or pesticides applied to the property. Instead, Martinez and his crew spread more than 1,000 tons of compost across the 460 acres of vines. Pinot Gris accounts for nearly two-thirds of that acreage.

Among the King family’s recent investments in the cellar has been the introduction of a concrete egg fermenter.

“When we were first talking about what to put in the egg — ‘What would be really unique and really awesome every year, what comes in really late?’ — we narrowed it down to this block,” Stone says.

Steiner Block Pinot Gris is hand-harvested, crushed and then fermented in the concrete egg. Winemakers report a gentle “convection current” produced during

| greatnorthwestwine.com

FEATURE| Match Maker

King Estate Winery 2019 Steiner Block Estate Biodynamic Pinot Gris, Willamette Valley, $28

“I personally really like this wine,” Stone says. “We did a dinner with (wine critic) James Suckling, and they let us pick one wine. I picked this one because it’s fun and unique.”

As for the 2015 Hyland Vineyard Pinot Noir, there’s a greeting of dark and dusty red fruit that’s accompanied by earthiness and savoriness. It evolves in the glass and complements what Hobbs’s team play fully refers to “reef and beef” — Beef Ribeye with Uni Butter, Pacific Dulse and Lobster Glace. At the restaurant, the beef comes from the Northern Arizona com munity Hobbs stays connected to after graduating from Prescott High in 2007.

“Copper State Ranch is one of the oldest cattle companies in the country, and my family has lived there since the 1860s,” Hobbs said. “We look at inno vative ways to weave our stories into the story of King Estate, and Ed has allowed me to weave a little bit of mine into our menu here.”

King Estate Winery, 80854 Terri torial Highway, Eugene, OR 97405, KingEstate.com, (541) 685-5189.

FEATURE| Match Maker

fermentation moves the lees during its six months in the egg.

“There’s brightness, but you get a certain amount of softening on the palate from the concrete,” Stone explains.

Other descriptors include honeysuckle, kiwi fruit and peach skin, backed by pleasing acidity and a fas cinating sense of minerality accented by the concrete egg fermentation.

The Steiner Block is on the southeastern-most tip of the estate a stone’s throw from Territorial Road. While the vines are soldiering on, entering their fourth decade of life, this block of Pinot Gris typically comes in at just 2 tons per acre — a level of produc tion below many high-end Pinot Noir vines.

That wouldn’t pencil out at the vast majority of wineries. Here, that’s not a factor for King Estate. It’s among the Tower Club member wines, but occasion ally a few bottles of those wines make their way into the tasting room and the restaurant wine list. It’s an ideal match for seafood and cream-based pasta dishes.

“It’s a wine you can only find here,” Stone says with pride. “And it’s a Pinot Gris, which we have a pretty good reputation for.”

Fall 2022 Great Northwest Wine 53

Winemaker Brent Stone oversees a wide range of wines that rotate in and out of the restaurant menu based on executive chef Matt Hobb's seasonal menu selections.

Almost seamless by design, the restaurant surrounds the tasting gallery at King Estate Winery.

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