Tuesday, May. 01, 2001

Whidbey Island Vineyards & Winery

By Nick Tomassi

Whidbey Island Vineyards & Winery is one of a growing number of Western Washington wineries to specialize in estate-grown grapes.

Owners Greg and Elizabeth Osenbach share the many jobs involved with vineyard production, winemaking and sales, and much of their wine is sold through the tasting room near scenic Langley.

Greg, who grew up near Philadelphia, got his first exposure to winery operations in the early 1970s as a graduate student in the Finger Lakes area of New York.

“That was the seed that started me quietly on the path to winemaking," he says.

The Osenbachs moved to the Pacific Northwest in 1975, where they met Gerard Bentryn at Bainbridge Island Winery and Al Straton at Mount Baker Winery — about the only people growing grapes west of the Cascades. Always avid gardeners, the Osenbachs saw winemaking as the culmination of many interests. They decided to give it a try on Whidbey Island, which seemed like a combination of good business location, decent vineyard site and a great place to live and build their winery.

The vineyard was planted in 1986 with Madeline Angevine, Madeline Sylvaner, Müller-Thurgau and siegerrebe. Starting with two acres at the winery, they now have seven acres total on three sites around the island and even have a little pinot noir. This cooler climate produces delicate wines with nuance and fragrance, not the big, powerful wines that critics often notice.

Current production is about 2,500 cases annually and includes wines from the estate vineyards, as well as chardonnay, cabernet sauvignon, merlot, pinot gris and lemberger from vineyards in Eastern Washington.

The Osenbachs have built the business slowly and are at about the level they want to be. Greg believes there is a great future in the Puget Sound appellation and wants to experiment with grape growing and winemaking from grapes throughout the state. The future may also see a Whidbey Island Winery port, probably using lemberger.

The Osenbachs also are involved in a research project with Washington State University, bringing in a number of varieties from a British Columbia research effort. There are a couple of promising red wine grapes in that group, as well as some interesting whites. The grape varieties they're working with now are the result of research WSU did at its Mount Vernon facility in the 1970s.

"Recently, a number of interesting varieties have come out of Eastern Europe that were not accessible before the fall of the Iron Curtain," Greg says.

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