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The way things are going in Washington these days, the above headline needs a bit more information - because it seems like a Walla Walla winery is opening a second tasting room in Woodinville about every other week.
ROHNERT PARK, Calif. — Northwest wineries fared well at the 2010 Grand Harvest Awards, an international wine competition staged by Vineyard & Winery Management magazine.
Pend d'Oreille Winery is Idaho's northernmost wine producer.
And while the climate in Sandpoint prohibits Stephen Meyer from producing his award-winning wines from estate grapes, it offers him a special quality of life.
"If there's 6 inches of fresh snow, I'm not working. I'm skiing," Meyer said. "That's me and the banker and the doctor and the carpenter who pretty much follow that rule."
Before starting the winery in 1995, he paid the bills as an accountant, but he long seemed destined to become a winemaker in North Idaho. His wife, Julie, is from Sandpoint, and they met through a ski club while at Cabrillo College in Santa Cruz, Calif. So by 1982, he'd learned how to say "Pond d'Oreille" (Pond o-RAY) and paid his first visit to Schweitzer Mountain Resort, a 20-minute drive from where he'd later start up the winery.
His real start in the wine industry came in 1985, when he visited a friend in France during harvest. "I had my skis with me and a one-way ticket with the intention of visiting the Alps," he said. "They took me under their wings and I ended up staying there for six months."
Upon his return, he went to the University of California at Davis and later became assistant winemaker at Roudon-Smith Winery in Santa Cruz, Calif.
"It was in the plans to open a winery at some point in Oregon or Washington, but family interests won out in the long run, and there's recreation and a nice quality of life here," he said.
The Meyers, parents of two children, help promote both Artwalk — the Pend d'Oreille Arts Council's annual art show — and the Festival at Sandpoint (www.festivalatsandpoint.com), a nine-day musical festival series in August highlighted by several Grammy Award-winning recording artists. The final evening is kicked off by the "Taste of the Stars," an event featuring Northwest wines.
"I hold wine tastings at Schweitzer and try to meld the wine with what people are coming here for — the lake, skiing and golf, the arts," Meyer said.
He's also developed relationships with the area's finest restaurants, including the City Beach Bistro.
"We're looking for wines that complement food rather than dominate the table," Meyer said.
Production is small at 2,200 cases, yet varied: cabernet sauvignon, cabernet franc, chardonnay, merlot, pinot gris, syrah and his highly popular Bistro table wines. The '98 Bistro Rouge won gold at the 2000 Tri-Cities Wine Festival.
While he sources most of his grapes from the Yakima Valley, his 2000 riesling and 1999 chardonnay feature "Idaho" as the appellation.
"The two white wines come from a pair of small vineyards in the Lewiston area," Meyer said. "These are the first commercially produced wines from this area since pre-Prohibition days."
The chardonnay from the Clearwater Canyon Vineyard is his first vineyard-designated wine. However, he's fostered a longtime friendship with Kirby Vickers, grower-winemaker at Vickers Vineyards in Caldwell, west of Boise.
"Kirby was one of the first people we visited to buy grapes," Meyer said. "At the time, there was not a huge interest in Idaho grapes, but he would not sell the grapes to just anybody."
Meyer put Pend d'Oreille Winery on the map at the 1997 NorthWest Wine Summit when his '95 cabernet franc was judged "Best Idaho Wine." Commercial success began after his '95 merlot won gold at the 1997 Tri-Cities Wine Festival.
"After that, it was a lot easier to call up people," he said.
While Sandpoint is the end of the road for Idaho wines, it's considered the starting point for The International Selkirk Loop, named as "Best New Scenic Drive in 2000" by Sunset Magazine. The 280-mile drive includes Washington and B.C., and circles the Selkirk Mountains. And Pend d'Oreille Winery has become a destination for some.
"People are actually coming to Sandpoint to visit the winery, which is what I had hoped for," he said. "Anytime, but especially in October, they can find out what's going on in our winery. It's so pretty up here then with all the trees turning color, but we're just one of the stops they can make along the way."
1067 Baldy Industrial Park, P.O. Box 1821, Sandpoint, Idaho, www.powine.com
Eric Degerman is Wine Press Northwest's associate editor.
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