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Prosser grape grower, Harold Pleasant, originally brought me two bins of this Swiss clone of Pinot called Klevner Mariafeld in 1989 and asked me to see what it made. I wasn't really interested in this variety, but thought I'd better humor him and went through the motions of making a medium, bodied red wine. Six or eight months later I was sampling it from the barrel and found it had some real possibilities, a clean taste from ample acid, adequate but not too much tannin and a nice strawberry/farmyard flavor- a pleasant barnyard aroma, of horse lather, fermenting hay and fruit. All in all, a very good food wine- in fact, we drink this at home several times a week- it really goes well with a lot of foods- our favorite is linguini with smoked salmon and pesto and we also enjoy it with Red beans and Rice. I haven't made any of this since '92 and will be sad when this lot is gone- so had better make some this year.

production of this wine is based on a wine made at the early California missions in the 1800's from the Mission grape variety. We don't grow Mission here, but I liked the concept and decided to experiment with Gewurztraminer to see what would happen - the results are exceptionally flavorful. This is an easy wine to make: Pick Gewurz at 23.5 + sugar, crush the grapes and leave them overnight on the skins, press them, add yeast, when 1-2% of sugar has fermented out, add brandy and stop the fermentation. Put the wine in stainless barrels outside, allow it to chill during the winter- so it settles clear.- and after 8-10 months, bottle it. It will bottle age and continue to gain richness and complexity for many years.

Ashfall White is our very popular blend of Riesling and Gewurztraminer. Its name dates back to 1980, when Mt. St. Helens blew its top. The citrus fruit of Riesling is augmented by a note of spiciness from Gewurz. This wine is well balanced with a hint of sweetness and is a great sipping wine. It goes well with fish and is especially good with crab.

I like to make Cabernet for long term bottle aging so most of them, despite long barrel aging, are not ready to drink for ten years or more. The grapes are usually fermented on the skins to dryness and aged about three years in a mixture of new (10-20%) and old American and French oak barrels. When needed, I blend 10-20% Merlot for complexity If you visit the winery, you will usually be able to taste four or five vintages - currently (8/98) you can taste 79, 83, 87, 88, 89, and 94 vintages-some for a fee - but if you mention our web page, free- if it's the busy time of the year, you may have to ask.

Is our Muscat dessert wine- made much like ports, i.e. by harvesting extra ripe grapes and stopping the fermentation with brandy addition. Collage is a barrel aged blend of three muscat varieties, early muscat, muscat canelli, and orange muscat. It's much like the aged Moscato of the Iberian Penninsula and has that wonderful complex peachy muscat aroma with overtones of nuts and a residual sugar of about 10%. This wine is wonderful just sipping- a small glass well chilled, maybe with some fruit. Or try pouring some over pound cake and topping with raspberries and whip cream. Also great as a marinade for melons- you can throw away the melons and drink the juice. I like to use it to sauté and caramelize vegetables- even the most committed carnivore will rave.

Made in the Alsatian style this wine has a distinct spicy- ginger/jasmine/orange peel aroma with a crisp finish. Yes, it is absolutely bone dry and a good accompaniment to curried dishes and many oriental foods. A bonus with this wine is that it will age very well- gaining additional spiciness and smoothness- the current release is '97 vintage, which should be drinking perfectly 2002-05

I've had a somewhat tempestuous relationship with this variety over the years- but one thing I can say is that I've never made a wimpy one-they've always been monsters. The currently available versions are no exception, lots of fruit, tannin, and alcohol - both are good matches for lamb or richer ( read fatter) cuts of beef. I treat Merlot pretyy much the same as Cabernet, but usually shorten the time in barresls. I've been using Merlot for port and haven't made a table wine since '92. As you may know, the winter or 95-96 did a lot of damage to Merlot vines and the supply will probably be limited for a year or two more:

This is a classic fino style sherry. The wine is mostly Riesling that was inoculated with Flor Sherry Yeast several years back. Flor Yeast forms a film over the wine during or after fermentation. The Yeast protects the wine from being acetified-turning to vinegar- and at the same time, slowly oxidizes the wine giving it that characteristic nutty flavor while preserving a fair amount of the grape aroma. The upshot of all this is a chillable, delicate aperitif style wine that is perfect pre-dinner or late afternoon with cashews, smoky cheeses or pate'.

Rainy Day Fine Tawny Port- I began adding to the solera with the 1989 vintage, laying down a total of seven barrels including the original two barrels (or what was left of them) from '82. The predominant port added that year was Cabernet, but there was also some Lembereger, Merlot, and some odds and ends of previous table wines that fit in well. The Solera now has three tiers, with a total of 15 and 1/2 barrels. Rainy Day is bottled the first week of November each year. All 7-1/2 barrels from the oldest tier are blended, the equivalent of two barrels (about 50 cases) are then drawn off and bottled. An equivalent of two barrels from the second tier are then used to replenish tier 1 and so on. This solera method of blending and aging gives the wine a consistent quality each year as no one wine influences the flavors or the final product. Rainy Day is very smooth and complex with a distinct nutty quality, some chocolate and cherry overtones and of course a tawny color derived from long barrel aging- it's a little drier that our other ports and is excellent just sipping on it's own, maybe with some walnuts and cheese.

Rouge - our everyday red quaffing wine blend- the Brits would call it "plonk", I prefer Plonque. I've made this from Cabernet and Merlot, Lemberger, and even a little Pinot noir. The current release (4/3/99 ) is mostly the Gamya Beaujolais clone of Pinot noir form Frank Olmstead's Vineyard with little Cab blended in .It's in a Chianti style, light with a somewhat sweet/tart cherry quality- the perfect match for Sloppy Joes. Caution: Do not contemplate a bust of Plato with this wine.

Three Muses Ruby Port- this port is also in a solera, but much younger than the tawny solera and with only two tiers . Ruby Port is meant to be grapey and heartwarming, so when we bottle three muses from the solera- usually in the spring- we add one barrel of port from the most recent vintage to each four barrels from the solera. The Solera contains ports from Cabernet, Merlot and Lemberger-hence, 3 muses ( how many muses can you name?) The wine gets its complexity from blending and aging in the solera and its freshness from young port. Great with cheese and/or not-too-sweet chocolate. I like it with a medium robusto out on the patio with my dogs almost any evening.

Vintage Port is supposed to be the winemaker's idea of perfection. Many vintage ports are capable of , and in fact, demand long bottle aging- 15-25 years is not unusual. I've made vintage ports in '89, '90, and 94 All of these wines are decidedly heavier than the ruby or tawny- but are probably going to be at their best somewhere between 10 and 15 years of age- based on this prediction, I probably should qualify them as "ports of the vintage" rather than "vintage ports"- this may seem like a fine distinction, but it is one them informs you not to try to lay them down for 20 years. All are fairly drinkable now- especially with some good cheeses like Stilton or other blue cheeses, aged extra sharp with Walnut's or some of the chocolate Chukar Cherry products work well too