Published in The South County Sun Success Supplement -  Feb. 14, 2007

New winery to open in Mattawa

Barrel tasting event planned for this spring

By Phillip Leitz

        A third Mattawa winery will soon be joining long-time player Fox Estates and relative newcomer Wahluke Wine Company.
        Mike Thiede’s tasting room for his family’s fledgling Ginkgo Forest Winery isn’t finished and ready for business quite yet, but Thiede is determined to have a barrel-tasting event still this spring. Originally he’d set the date for March or April, but now figures he’d better wait until May. He plans for the public tasting portion of the winery to be open for business this fall.   
        Thiede has plans to bottle about 200 cases each of his 2005 vintage Cabernet-Sauvignon, Syrah and Merlot. Just this past year, Thiede began working with consulting winemaker Greg Chappell, who also crafts wines as associate winemaker for Silver Lake Winery in the Yakima Valley’s Rattlesnake Hills American Viticultural Area (AVA).
        Thiede plans to keep the winery in the 1000 to 1200 case per year production range, at least initially. It’s a volume he feels he can handle without too much more stress being added to his 20-acre wine grape operation. Eventually, he hopes to reach the 5000 case level of wine production.
        When the 20 acres are in full production, Thiede said he plans for three to four tons of grapes per acre, with a return of 160 to 180 gallons of wine per ton of grapes. That translates to 1100 to 1500 potential cases of wine. “Quality is important and we want to remain small,” he said.
        But Thiede’s current 3200-square foot facility is already a bit too small, especially since the winery changed to oak barrels for aging at the request of winemaker Greg Chappell. Thiede is convinced the toasted American oak barrels make a vast improvement in the flavor of his red wines.
        Thiede has been a full-time orchardist for more than a dozen years now, with orchard situated about halfway between Mattawa and Desert Aire and also directly west of the winery for a total of about 120 acres of trees.
        He began the planting of his twenty acres of wine grapes seven years ago and in addition to merlot, cabernet-sauvignon and syrah varieties, he has some producing “blending” varieties. Thiede also sees some promise for some Barbera and Malbec varieties he has on his vineyard as limited vintage stand-alones. He also was very positive about how Pinot-Noir 777 was shaping up in his plantings.
        “As a small winery we’ll be in a unique situation where we can bottle up just a few barrels of a wine and make it work,” said Thiede.
        Before Mike and his wife Lois took on agriculture full-time, they both worked on the Hanford Project. Mike has an undergraduate degree in botany and a Master’s of Science degree in Radiological Science. He worked on the Arid Lands Ecology project for ten years creating their initial eco-risk assessment models.
        From a combination laboratory-field science background like that, it’s not much stretch to the chemistry and biological processes found in wine-making.
        Thiede is also set up to do maturity testing on grapes, so growers and winemakers can make sound harvest decisions. He’s already been doing brix analysis and other maturity testing for fellow growers in the area.
        “I like to experiment and I really do like trying new things,” said Mike of the wine-making adventure. “And the economics made a lot of sense to me.”
        With over 5200 acres of wine grape vineyards, the Wahluke Slope produces about one-fourth of Washington State’s grapes for use in winemaking. The area has been quietly instrumental in establishing the state’s reputation as a producer of consistently high-quality wines. Rosebud Ranches was among the first pioneers to plant grapes on the Wahluke Slope, beginning their vineyard located fairly high on the slope and tucked just below the main Wahluke Branch Canal about ten miles northeast of Mattawa in 1978. That was about the same time German wine-making behemoth F.W. Langguth established a winery specializing in Reisling-style wine production out further east on the slope. After some success, the firm abandoned production at the site.
        That’s why it’s nice to see that long-time operators of the Rosebud Vineyard Roy and Sharon Dobson recently got a little recognition for their efforts. It turns out the well-established Stimson Lane winery announced last December that they were designating one of their Snoqualmie Vineyard red wines the ‘Rosebud Vineyard 2001 Cabernet Sauvignon.’
         And it’s a real bargain at just $16 a bottle.
        That’s putting Rosebud grapes in the same class as the long-recognized and named Chateau Ste. Michelle ‘Indian Wells’ Cabernet. (That one’s made from grapes ‘just down the road’ between Mattawa and Desert Aire, by the way.)
        And Milbrandt brothers Butch and Jerry have garnered a lot of mention for the grapes that they grow near Mattawa for winemakers from Walla Walla to Prosser.
        It’s nice to get some recognition when you’re doing something right. About a year ago the Mattawa area got that recognition when they received designation as the Wahluke Slope AVA. The area encompasses about 81,000 total acres of which over 5000 are planted to wine grapes. Long used to blend rich and desired characteristics into wines produced from Port Townsend to Walla Walla—and in fact helping to establish and cement some very fine wine-making reputations in the state—the Mattawa area has at long-last been recognized for the quality characteristics its grapes churn out year after year.
        Mike Thiede is acutely aware of his winery-tasting room venture opening up what is nearly virgin territory in the area.
        The current climate has seen the Fries family—those of Dundee, Oregon’s Duck Pond fame—build their Washington winery, Desert Wind Winery, in Prosser. Owners Doug and Jo Ann Fries, their two sons, Matt and Greg Fries, and daughter Lisa Jenkins and her husband Scott are all partners in the Desert Wind project, which is slated for a February 17 grand opening.
        The Fries family has over 400 acres of producing grapes in the Wahluke AVA, but will turn those grapes into wine and entertain tourists in Prosser.
        As will Butch and Jerry Milbrandt, who just recently announced their plans to build a winery and tasting room in Prosser also.
        The Milbrandts do operate a sizable winery, Wahluke Wine Company, just west of Mattawa in a Port of Mattawa industrial park. But Wahluke Wine is a custom-crush facility where bulk wine is made for growers and other wineries. The Milbrandt winery in Prosser will turn out quality wines from their Sundance Vineyard and Katherine Leone Vineyard in the Wahluke AVA as well as from the brothers’ 400-plus acre Evergreen Vineyard situated near the Gorge amphitheatre.
        But Thiede wants to join Fox Estate Winery in remaining active in the commerce of the Mattawa area community. Fox Estates, which is currently listed in the trade information as bottling in excess of 5000 cases of wine annually, has a tasting room and has held their Bratfest at the winery for the past few years.
        “I much prefer doing business out of the winery,” said Thiede of his plans. “I really want to produce a really good local wine and build a reputation for quality.”
        But Thiede noted that it’s also a scary prospect.  “No one’s really selling wine out of a tasting room,” he said, describing the marketing situation in the whole of the Wahluke AVA. “No one knows what the potential is here along the highway.”
        Thiede said Ginkgo Forest has benefited a great deal from the support and help of neighbors and friends. “The Port continues developing parcels of ground here,” he said, referring not only to the lot he purchased from the Port of Mattawa that his current winery building stands on, but to the nearly 160 acres the Port more recently purchased from Taylor Orchards to develop for commercial use. The port commissioners’ initial plans are to offer the lots abutting the highway to wine interests for wineries and tasting rooms.
        “We have the potential to make as good if not better wines than the Prosser area,” said Thiede. And it’s apparent that Thiede must suspect that the area has the long-term potential to rival the Prosser area as a destination for wine touristas also.
        Thiede is targeting his production at this point for the $25-30 dollar a bottle range.
        In 2004, sales of Washington wines had a retail value of $684.9 million. A quarter of that—arguably the new Wahluke AVA’s contribution to that total—is over $170 million. That’s a worthwhile contribution to Washington State’s economic engine.
        It’s nice to see people like Mike and Lois Thiede taking chances and trying to keep some of that money local, where it does us all the most good.
        Mike and Lois Thiede’s Ginkgo Forest Winery is located at 22904 Rd. T.7 SW just northwest of Mattawa and just west of  SR 243 in the Port of Mattawa industrial park

Wineries in the Wahluke Slope AVA: Fox Estate Winery; The Wahluke Wine Company; Ginkgo Forest Winery, Coventry Vale.

 Selected Vineyards in the Wahluke Slope AVA: Lucky Bohemian Farms, 260 acres (Mike and Laura Mrachek of Saint Laurent Winery, owners); Indian Wells Vineyard (Chateau Ste Michelle); Rosebud Vineyard (Roy and Sharon Dobson); Fox Estate Vineyard; Stone Tree Vineyard; Clifton Vineyard, Katherine Leone Vineyard and Sundance Vineyard (Butch and Jerry Milbrandt; Desert Wind Vineyard, 540 acres (Doug and Jo Ann Fries and family, Duck Pond Cellars and Desert Wind Winery); Winebau Vineyard (Sagemoor Farms); Wahluke Slope Vineyard;  Dick Shaw Vineyards;  and, Jack Jones Vineyards.

Partial list of wineries using Wahluke Slope AVA grapes: Bergevin Lane, Chateau Ste. Michelle, Chatter Creek, Columbia Crest,  Desert Wind, Duck Pond Cellars (Oregon), Hogue Cellars, Isenhower Cellars, K Cellars, Latah Creek, Lost River Winery, Northstar, Sagelands, Snoqualmie Vineyards,  St. Laurent Winery , Syncline Cellars, Three Rivers Winery, Methow Valley Winery and many more.

Outstanding grape varietals grown in the Wahluke Slope AVA: Merlot, Syrah, Cabernet Sauvignon, Riesling, Chardonnay, and Chenin Blanc. (Barbera, Mourvèdre, Primitivo, Malbec, and Petit Verdot, relatively new varietals to Pacific Northwest wine regions, are all planted on Wahluke Slope.)