Hobby vintners doing quality work, going commercial
Bruce Durkee has seen, sniffed and sipped it all as organizer of an annual homemade-wine competition in the seaside town of Newport, Ore.
"We get a lot of weird ones once in a while," he said. He's seen celery wine, potato wine, beet wine and his least favorite — cabbage wine — all entered in the specialty category, designed for sparkling wines and ports.
"It came with a note for the judges: 'Try not to inhale. Good with German food,' " said Durkee, chief wrangler of wine entries from non-commercial vintners around the Northwest for the Newport Seafood & Wine's Amateur Winemakers Tournament.
But those are the exceptions. Mostly, with a little cash — in some cases, a lot of cash — and sweat equity, home winemakers from Walla Walla to the Puget Sound are filling their cellars with European-style wines they've made to their own tastes.
In the eight years he's been in charge of the Newport festival, Durkee has seen entries increase from 40 winemakers offering 70 wines to 65 winemakers entering 130 wines.
And quality has improved along with quantity.
"Amateur winemakers are taking it a little more seriously," he said, adding that more hobbyists are forsaking fruit and berry wines for those made from vinifera grapes grown in Washington and Oregon. Improvements in commercially available hobby kits using juice concentrates have also attracted more home vintners.
Federal law permits hobbyists to make up to 100 tax-free gallons per year — 200 gallons for families — to be consumed privately and not sold.
That's enough for winemakers such as Al "Red" Golden, who says he's in it only for the fun and camaraderie.
"You'd be surprised how many friends you make when you have free wine," said Golden, a Walla Walla lawyer who with three partners divvies up common vats of fermented cabernet sauvignon, merlot and syrah juices to make their own wines at home.
Some hobbyists have turned their avocation into a business enterprise, while others say losing amateur status would replace the fun with marketing worries and hassles of handling regulatory paperwork and inspections.
"If you're commercial, you're just scared to death something will go wrong," said Mike McDonnell, a retired Walla Walla lumber-store co-owner and one of Golden's winemaking partners since 1982. "If it goes wrong here, it's, 'What the hell, we'll try again next year.' "
Across town, retired civil engineer Jim Moyer and wheat rancher Cliff Kontos say they've had a lot of fun together as hobby vintners and are continuing to do so as they work on their first commercial release of Fort Walla Walla Cellars varietals.
"We can't tell you how many people wanted to buy our wine, but we couldn't sell it," said Kontos, who with Moyer split from a group of 11 hobbyists who shared equipment when they decided to go into business together.
"This isn't supposed to be a career change; it's supposed to be something to do in our retirement," said Moyer. "The biggest thing we've disagreed on so far is the music we listen to. I like country, he likes rock. So we listen to oldies."
Their first release of about 1,600 cases of cabernet sauvignon, merlot and syrah is planned for fall 2003.
The two figure they'll have about $250,000 invested in their commercial facility, equipment and the 1,600 cases of red wines now aging in oak barrels before they sell their first bottle. They buy their grapes from vineyards in the Yakima and Walla Walla valleys. They also plan to do their own marketing.
Steve Snyder, a Microsoft database engineer who lives in Bellevue, is considering the possibility of going commercial. He's one of a minority of hobby winemakers who has his own vineyard.
He and friend Jeff Jernegan tend their vines on the southern tip of Maury Island, where they grow cool-weather grapes such as pinot noir, Müller-Thurgau, madeleine angevine, siegerebbe and chardonnay.
"I only make a total of about 60 to 70 gallons a year," said Snyder. Grapes from older vines on their five acres also are sold to other home winemakers. Newer plantings they plan to sell to Vashon Island Winery have yet to reach productive maturity.
Snyder uses large food-grade Rubbermaid trash cans to ferment juices he and Jernegan extract with a $400 de-stemmer and crusher they bought from a local winemaking-supply shop and a second-hand bladder press bought from an Oregon winery for $400.
They transfer their shares of the fermented juice into 5-gallon glass jugs called carboys for further processing and aging at their own homes. Although Snyder does the grape crushing and pressing in his driveway, he has dedicated a room to serve as his workshop for the rest of the process.
Sharing equipment cuts their costs, while applying their individual techniques and tastes to aging and other winemaking processes allows each to practice his own craftsmanship.
Snyder spends four or five days a month in his vineyard, trellising vines, pruning, mowing and spraying. Harvesting and winemaking requires a few days a year of intensive work, then routine monitoring of the wine-filled carboys.
This year, he and Jernegan have received fresh incentive to go the extra mile in their focus on quality.
"We both won bronzes at the Newport wine festival," Snyder said, adding that the February event was the first time either he or Jernegan had entered wines for judging.
Golden, McDonnell and two other partners, Dick Gray and Jerry Stalder, have become so good at making wine that they stopped competing in the annual Walla Walla County Fair to give other hobbyists a chance to win.
Indeed, some of the many newer commercial winemakers in the Walla Walla Valley have come to the foursome for advice on techniques or to bounce off an idea. They say they are more than glad to impart their wisdom. They consider it paying forward on the startup help with equipment, wine chemistry and technique tips they've received over the years from Walla Walla vintners Martin Clubb of L'Ecole No. 41, Gary Figgins of Leonetti Cellar, Eric Rindal of Waterbrook and Rick Small of Woodward Canyon Winery.
"They taste it, test it and tell us what we did wrong, and they'll help us fix it," Gray said.
The three said they're sticking to making reds, buying their grapes from Gordon Brothers Winery vineyards along the Snake River near Pasco.
"We don't make very much, but it's a premium-quality product," added McDonnell.
Thomas P. Skeen, a regional wine writer, can be reached at 509-525-3300 or by e-mail at tskeen@ubnet.com.