Mark Ryan purchases full ownership of Underground Wine Project

This week Mark Ryan Winery announced it had purchased full ownership of Underground Wine Project. The dual project between Woodinville’s Mark Ryan Winery and Walla Walla’s Sleight of Hand Cellars began in 2014.

“I love Underground Wine Project, but it’s never been a top priority for either side,” says Mark Ryan founder and winemaker Mark McNeilly. “This was a good business decision for us, and I also think it was a good business decision for them.”

Underground Wine Project includes Mr. Pink Rosé, Idle Hands Red Blend, and Devil’s Playground Cabernet Sauvignon. All three wines will now be folded into the Mark Ryan portfolio, which includes Mark Ryan Winery, Board Track Racer, Lu & Oly, Flowerhead, and Megan Anne Cellars. Of the three Underground wines, Mr. Pink is the driver at 15,000 cases in the last vintage. McNeilly anticipates broadening that wine’s reach.

“Rosé is such a hot SKU right now,” he says. “I suspect we can grow Mr. Pink. It's got a lot of potential.” McNeilly anticipates Idle Hands and Devil’s Playground might also grow.

“I want me and my team to step back and look at all the Mark Ryan family of wines and see where the Devil's Playground and Idle Hands fit in, but I think they’re very viable and we’ve had great success with them,” he says. “I think we can go a little bit more broad in distribution for all these SKUs.” Of note, McNeilly says Underground’s commitment to philanthropy will continue.

The 2021 vintage of Mr. Pink, due out in February, will be the first release of Underground Wine Project under Mark Ryan.

Image courtesy of Mark Ryan Winery. 

Walla Walla outpost coming to Woodinville

 L’Ecole No. 41, Valdemar Estates, Walla Walla Steak Co., and Crossbuck Brewing to open in Woodinville’s new Schoolhouse District in 2022

Woodinville is about to get a new wine tasting and culinary destination with a Walla Walla flair. L’Ecole No. 41, one of Walla Walla valley’s oldest and most venerated wineries, announced today it will be opening a tasting room in Woodinville. The tasting room – the winery’s first outside Walla Walla Valley – will be part of Woodinville’s new Schoolhouse District. The area will also be home to Walla Walla’s Valdemar Estates, Walla Walla Steak Co., and Crossbuck Brewing.

“It’s something we’ve been approached about for decades,” L’Ecole co-owner and managing winemaker Marty Clubb says of opening a satellite tasting room in Woodinville. “We always wanted to make sure we were pursuing the right opportunity.” For a winery located in a historic schoolhouse whose name means “the school” in French, what better opportunity could there be than opening in Woodinville’s nascent Schoolhouse District?

This downtown area gets its name from Woodinville Schoolhouse No. 23, which was built in 1909. The brick building has been vacant for more than a decade and is currently being renovated to house Walla Walla Steak Co. and Crossbuck Brewing.

The district will include a “wine walk,” which L’Ecole and Valdemar will be part of, retail spaces, 261 residential units, and 30,000 square feet of public outdoor space. It will also include a renovated YMCA and on-site parking. With the City of Woodinville and HAL Real Estate as its partners, MainStreet Property Group completed The Schoolhouse District project with GenCap Construction Corp. as the general contractor. It is now fully managed by Insite Property Solutions.

L’Ecole’s tasting room will be 1,400 square feet, with the design done by Seattle-based Boxwood. Rebecca Clubb-Olson, Marty Clubb’s daughter, serves as design consultant. The target date for opening is June.

“It’s a whole new enclave in downtown Woodinville,” Clubb says. “It was the Schoolhouse District, by the Woodinville schoolhouse. It all added up for us.”

Valdemar Estates meanwhile will be located around the corner from L’Ecole. The winery was founded in Walla Walla in 2019 by a fifth generation Spanish winemaking family that also has a winery in Rioja.

“It was not in our short-term plans to open a second location, but I heard about this project, and I fell in love with it,” says CEO and owner Jesús Martínez Bujanda Mora. Valdemar will occupy approximately 2,800 square feet of interior space, plus 1,500 square feet of outdoor patio space.

“We’re hoping to replicate what we're doing in Walla Walla,” Martínez Bujanda says. “So it's going to be Spanish food, Rioja wines of Valdemar, and then our Washington wines.”

Boxwood is also working with Valdemar on this design. As with its facilities in Rioja and Walla Walla, Valdemar is working to make the tasting room 100% inclusive and accessible.

“Whether that's going to be in place since day one or two months after we open, I don't know yet,” says Martínez Bujanda. “But we are working really hard to try to have it by the date we open.”

Walla Walla Steak Co. and Crossbuck Brewing meanwhile will occupy two floors in the renovated schoolhouse. The steak house and brewery opened their first location in Walla Walla in October 2018 in a brick-lined former train depot. The new location’s brick façade will not only give it a similar look, the interior will have similar design concepts.

“You will be able to walk into the historic schoolhouse, see the kitchen, and you can go left to the tap room or right to the steak room,” says managing partner Dan Thiessen. “That's proven to be sort of a magic formula for our concept in Walla Walla.”

Thiessen says both restaurants will have a “come as you are and blue jean comfort.” As in Walla Walla, the same food will be available at both the steakhouse and brewery.

“If you want to sit in the tap room, watch the game, and have a prime New York [steak], you can do that,” Thiessen says. “You want to sit in the bar of the steakhouse and have a Crossbuck burger, you can do that too.” Crossbuck’s beer will continue to be brewed in Walla Walla, but Thiessen says the restaurant will have a similar “tap room feel” as its other location.

With many businesses facing supply chain issues, Thiessen says an opening date hasn’t been determined. “I can guarantee you that we're going to open on a Thursday in ’22,” he says with a laugh.

According to the Schoolhouse District website, other tenants will be Ballard Pizza Company, Café Dupar, and McQueen Champagne Bar. Other wineries on the wine walk have yet to be announced.

The downtown area of Woodinville has been transformed into a wine tasting destination of late. A number of wineries have opened tasting rooms in the new Woodin Creek Village development. Some of these, such as Rocky Pond and Bayernmoor, have already opened. Others, such as Brian Carter Cellars, which is crowdsourcing funding for its new tasting room, are coming. With the Schoolhouse District development a seven minute walk and shorter drive from Woodin Creek, downtown Woodinville suddenly looks primed for tasting and noshing.

This post has been updated. 

California coup for Rocky Pond Winery

Rocky Pond Winery in Orondo, Washington announced today the hiring of Elizabeth Keyser as winemaker. Keyser had previously been assistant winemaker for California’s HALL Family Wines, which includes HALL, Walt, and Baca.

“I'm at my point in my career where I am ready and looking for more creative license and the opportunity to take more ownership in the [winemaking] process,” Keyser says of joining Rocky Pond. “I'm really excited to be moving to Washington.”

Keyser’s appointment follows Rocky Pond’s hiring of renowned Napa Valley consultant Steve Leveque in 2020. Leveque has worked with a who’s who list of clients that includes Chalk Hill, Opus One, Robert Mondavi, and HALL. Keyser’s connection to Leveque while at HALL is part of what drew her to Rocky Pond.

“I’ve benefited so much from having Steve as a mentor,” Keyser says. The pairing now gives Rocky Pond a formidable duo.

Rocky Pond was founded in 2013 by David and Michelle Dufenhorst, who planted the first vineyard in the proposed Rocky Reach appellation that same year. They subsequently planted a second vineyard starting in 2018. Rocky Reach is now home to seven vineyards in addition to a large amount of tree fruit acreage. Rocky Pond is currently the only winery in the proposed appellation.

Keyser says the youth of this nascent wine area was part of the appeal. “One of the things that attracted me most to Rocky Pond is we are truly pioneers of this region,” she says. “We have the opportunity to take almost a blank slate and work on the best set of varietals for the region and define this special piece of land.”

Keyser grew up in the suburbs of New York City and attended Miami University, focusing on communication and marketing. After graduation, she initially looked to work in those areas.

“At that point in time in my life, I never thought that I’d be working with an agricultural product or wanting to be a winemaker,” Keyser says. “I thought that I wanted to maybe go into PR for a fashion house or something along those lines.”

However, after attending a wine tasting with her parents at a local retailer, she was offered a seasonal job at the company. Keyser subsequently spent three years working for Zachy’s Wine & Liquor in Scarsdale, New York.

“For the first time, it was like everything was aligning in terms of my intellectual curiosity and my hunger for more knowledge around wine,” Keyser says.

In 2014 she worked as a harvest intern and production assistant at Cedar Creek Ranch & Vineyards in California. She subsequently worked as a cellar assistant at Hermann J. Wiemer Vineyard in Dundee, New York and as a harvest laboratory technician at A to Z Wineworks in Newberg, Oregon.

From there, Keyser spent a harvest at Hardys Tintara in Australia’s McLaren Vale region before returning to California to intern at Cliff Lede in Napa Valley. She joined HALL Family Wines in 2017. Along the way, Keyser obtained a master’s degree in enology from Cornell University.

In recent years, the Dufenhorsts have moved aggressively to establish Rocky Pond’s presence. They planted two vineyards in Rocky Reach and a third in the nearby Lake Chelan viticultural area. In 2020, they hired John Ware as president. Ware had spent 20 years at Quilceda Creek, most recently as vice president and general manager.

Though Rocky Reach is young as a wine growing region, the area shows great promise. Its bedrock and soils are distinctive from most other areas of the Columbia Valley. It is also considerably warmer than the surrounding regions, allowing a wide assortment of varieties to ripen. Leveque says the area’s “rare combination” of factors is what attracted him to consult for Rocky Pond.

“All of these special and unique attributes provide grapes with complexity, concentration and vineyard-derived personalities that I have not seen anywhere else within the greater California-Oregon-Washington Pacific stretch,” says Leveque.

With the announcement, former winemaker Shane Collins, who has been with Rocky Pond since 2017, will become director of viticulture. Keyser will begin working at Rocky Pond February 1st.

Image of Elizabeth Keyser courtesy of Rocky Pond Winery.  

Take the 2022 Northwest Chardonnay Challenge!

Okay folks, another year, another challenge. The variety for 2022 will be Chardonnay!

In recognition of my new role at Wine Enthusiast covering Oregon and Canada in addition to Washington and Idaho, I’m expanding the challenge to include the entire Pacific Northwest – Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and British Columbia.

Why Chardonnay? Because although it is ubiquitous, it is also a somewhat underappreciated grape variety.

In Washington, it’s the state’s second most produced grape variety, yet never quite gets its due. There’s also been increased interest in working with Chardonnay from producers around the state lately. Meanwhile what’s happening with Willamette Valley Chardonnay is in my opinion the most exciting story in American wine in the last decade. The variety is also quite popular in Idaho and British Columbia.

You’re welcome to focus on one particular state or area or explore the region in full as you see fit. As in previous challenges, I invite everyone to explore and taste beyond your usual favorite producers.

If you’re up for the challenge, leave a comment here or on my Washington Wine Report Facebook page stating, “I accept the 2022 Northwest Chardonnay Challenge.” During the month, have at least one bottle of Northwest Chardonnay of your choice. At the end of each month/beginning of the next, I will post to my Facebook page asking what wine people had to keep us all accountable.

Here’s to more Northwest Chardonnay in 2022! Who’s with me?

Image by Richard Duval.

Walla Walla’s Buty Winery to close

On Monday Nina Buty, co-founder of Buty Winery in Walla Walla, announced that the winery would be closing. News of the winery's “retirement” came in an email to list members.

“The decision was personal,” Buty says of closing the winery. “There is a point where you intuitively know it's time, and I felt very clear about that.”

Buty co-founded the winery with Caleb Foster in 2000, when she was a 24-year old graduate from Walla Walla’s Whitman College. The winery was at the very front end of a wave of new producers in Walla Walla, which is now home to over 120 wineries and tasting rooms.

“Wine is one of the reasons that so many other things have flourished in Walla Walla and that there's such a bigger breadth and depth of options of things to create in this little town,” Buty says of watching the community’s growth over the last 22 years.

Buty pioneered and helped popularize Cabernet Sauvignon-Syrah blends in Washington, with its first vintage of those wines in 2001. The winery focused on two areas, the Rocks District, which it used for its Rediviva of the Stones, and Horse Heaven Hills, which it used for its Columbia Rediviva. While intentionally made Cabernet-Syrah blends are now relatively common in the state, Buty still sees room for exploration.

“I think there is such a beautiful possibility for that blend in Washington,” she says.

Buty was also one of the first wineries beyond Cayuse Vineyards to work with Rocks District fruit, initially sourcing from Cayuse’s Cailloux Vineyard starting in 2000. The winery subsequently planted its own site, Rockgarden Estate, in the Rocks District in 2008. The area is now a hot bed of activity and received appellation status in 2015. Meanwhile Phinny Hill Vineyard in the Horse Heavens, where the winery sourced fruit for its Columbia Rediviva, is now considered one of the state's top sites for Cabernet Sauvignon.

Buty has been at the forefront of using Muscadelle in its Bordeaux blanc-style wine, something few other Washington wineries have explored to date despite Buty’s success. “Historically, when I would blind taste white Bordeaux, it was the ones that contained the Muscadelle that I gravitated toward,” explains Buty.

While the pandemic has put a lot of stress on small family wineries, particularly in Walla Walla where many wineries rely on seasonal tourism, Buty says the winery closing is unrelated. “It is a personal choice that I made. At the same time, the pandemic, of course, has had an influence on the how.”

The winery is already far along the path of winding down. Buty sold its Rockgarden Estate Vineyard to Mike Martin (The Walls) in early 2020. The winery did a sale of library wine last fall. Buty stopped producing wine in 2018, and the winery will be sold out and fully buttoned up shortly.

“It'll be this January,” Buty says. “Maybe even in a week.”

Team members at Buty have also moved on. Co-founder Caleb Foster left the winery a decade ago. Long-time winemaker Chris Dowsett took a position as production winemaker at Dusted Valley prior to last year’s harvest. Paul Boen joined him at Dusted Valley as cellar master. Lindsey Dennis is now working on the administrative team at Pepper Bridge Winery. Tyson Crudup has started Sage Brewing Company in the Tri-Cities.

“I care a great deal about my team. I wanted people to know where to find them,” she says of listing their current jobs in the email announcement.

And what does Buty have planned next for herself? “I know what my threads are, but I'm not sure what the next endeavor will be,” she says. “And it might not materialize right away. But I know there are other things on my path, and it's time to move towards those.”

Image of Nina Buty by Richard Duval.

Change in responsibilities at Wine Enthusiast

I am thrilled to announce today an expansion of my responsibilities at Wine Enthusiast. As of the beginning of this year, I will be covering Oregon and Canada for the magazine, in addition to my current responsibilities of Washington and Idaho. I am truly excited for the opportunity to cover the Pacific Northwest and Canada in full.

Let me start by saying that I have a great admiration for Oregon wines and winemakers. I have tasted and enjoyed the state’s wines for many years. In fact, some of my earliest wine inspirations two decades ago came from Oregon. I also briefly reviewed Southern Oregon wines for Wine Enthusiast from 2013 to 2014, and I covered Oregon wine as part of my beat as Northwest correspondent for Vineyard & Winery Management magazine from 2013 to 2017. I have previously attended IPNC, ¡Salud!, and the Oregon Wine Symposium. I have spent a good deal of time in the state with winegrowers. I am excited to spend more time there in the coming years and to focus on the region, its producers, and its wines more intently. I firmly believe Oregon is making some of the highest quality wines in the world and that the region has accomplished as much as any American wine region. It will be an honor to cover all parts of the state the state, to review the wines, and to help tell the story.

Canadian wine meanwhile is, for many Americans, a gem that remains hidden. For a variety of reasons, few of the country’s wines are imported to the US. That is a shame, as there are wonderful wines being made in Canada. I have traveled to Canadian wine country previously and have tried many of the wines. I also reviewed Canada for Wine Enthusiast briefly from 2013 to 2014. I look forward to peeling back the curtain on the exciting wine being made there.

For people and producers in those regions who may not be familiar with me, I grew up on the east coast and moved to Seattle, Washington in 2000. It was at that time that I became interested in wine. I started Washington Wine Report as a friends and family email list in 2005, reviewing and writing about the state’s wines and wine regions. I launched Washington Wine Report as an on-line site in 2007 – fifteen years ago this year. I left the corporate world (biotech and software) at the end of 2009 to dedicate myself to writing about wine full-time. I began writing for Seattle Metropolitan magazine late the following year and started writing for Wine Enthusiast at the beginning of 2013. I continue to write for both magazines. During that time, I have reviewed almost 15,000 wines and have written over 400 articles. I have also written over 1,800 blog posts for my own site.

Prior to coming to the west coast, my background was in science and research. Both very much inform how I approach tasting and reviewing wine. They also inform how I think about the subject more generally. My goal in reviewing wine is to be objective as one can be, to provide consistency in approach, and to give every wine the exact same shot as every other wine. To accomplish this, all wines I review for Wine Enthusiast are sampled blind in varietal sets without exception. In these tastings, I do not sort by any other factor than variety, including price, appellation, or vintage (read more about how I taste wine here).

In writing about and reviewing wine, I also believe that it’s important to be regionally based and to spend time in wine country. It’s important to kick the dirt, to have one’s finger on the pulse, and to get to fully know the producers, their history, and their wines. I look forward to doing each of these things in my new coverage areas. I will try and represent these regions as fully and as passionately as I can. In addition to spending time in the regions I cover, I also always have an ‘open door’ policy. That is to say, I am always happy to meet with producers, talk with them on the phone, and, in today’s world, Zoom with them to get to know them and their wines more fully.

For those who are already familiar with my work and are wondering how this change might impact what I currently do, I do not anticipate making any changes in the approach I have had at Wine Enthusiast for the last nine years. In terms of reviewing, I have typically tasted approximately 1,400 wines per year for Wine Enthusiast, which is nowhere near my capacity. I will have some assistance in processing samples (specifically opening boxes and sorting wines), which will assist with throughput. Otherwise the way that I taste and review wines will remain unchanged. The effort that I have put into covering Washington and Idaho will remain unchanged. If anything, I expect that covering other regions will add to the perspective I bring, which will benefit all.

I have long said that this is the Golden Age for wine in the Pacific Northwest. I believe that with all of my heart. I look forward to continuing to cover this unique period of time in this area and to now cover the region in full.

A look at Washington's 2018 and 2019 vintages

The following was published in the December 31st issue of Wine Enthusiast.

One of the hallmarks of Washington wine is consistency.

Part of the state’s recipe for success is ever-warm summers in the Columbia Valley, where grapes always ripen. The desert-dry conditions also mean irrigation is required, giving growers control over the timing and amount of water vines receive. Combined with cool nights that retain acidity, these factors have led to quality so consistently high some have questioned whether Washington truly has vintage variation.

Though the answer has always been yes, the qualitative range from year to year is surely narrower than many other viticultural regions. Recent years, however, have shown more readily apparent differences across vintages, as growers and vintners grapple with a rapidly changing climate.

Quality has remained high throughout, but contrasts in style can be sharp, as shown in two recent years, 2018 and 2019.

Read the full story here.