Our Future

Our goal is to make some of the finest wine in Washington State, and do so at a fair price. We also strive to be a good neighbor and an active participant in the Methow Valley Community, as well as carry the tradition of helpfulness and support which has made our entry into the Washington wine industry such a positive experience.

There are no vineyards in our immediate future. We plan to leave this to our growers most of whom are exclusively viticulturalists and not winemakers. We believe this yields two benefits. First it allows us to source fruit from the best growers throughout a diverse selection of Washington terroir. Second it allows us to focus on improving our art of winemaking, and selecting the finest inputs for our wines.

We hope you will join us on our Journey.

Our History

In 2001 John Morgan and Barbara House took the plunge and moved from Bellingham to the home they had begun building in Mazama in 1994. The move involved a career change for John who had been a civil engineer specializing in road and bridge construction in Whatcom County.

It was the culmination of a path started when John’s father was a young man, collecting wines from Bordeaux, Burgundy and early producers in the Napa Valley. These wines were trotted out at family dinners over the ensuing decades, giving a glimpse into the alchemy of aged fine wines.

The dream of the winery took form on Napa Valley’s Silverado trail where a laid back and friendly winemaker gave a glimpse of the typical people involved in the production side of the wine industry. The more John looked into wine making as a possible career choice, the more he reasoned that if he could learn pre-stressed concrete design on his own, then maybe…

After a commercial-scale test batch and coursework at U.C. Davis, we were off! John started the winery building design in January of 2002 with three feet of snow on the ground. By March we were chomping at the bit and snow was still falling. Six months later the requisite locks were in place to “protect the revenue” of the federal government. While talking on his cell phone to regulators, John waited in line at a truck scale with freshly harvested grapes on board, hoping to have the operating permit arrive at the winery before the grapes did. Turns out pre-stressed concrete design didn’t help much, however, all those years of working with permits and red tape sure did.

The rest of the 2002 vintage was a bit smoother with Syrah, Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon all successfully put to bed in the cellar. A tiny amount of Pinot Gris was finished and used for winery tasting events. A test barrel of Semillon was judged less than excellent, and went the way of the Dodo bird.

Our first commercial release: the 2002 Walla Walla Valley Syrah was bottled a tad late due to a local forest fire in the late summer of 2003 (during which time it stayed with friends in a Chelan barrel cellar). It debuted in December of 2003 and later won a Silver Medal at the 2004 Los Angeles county Fair, which we hope is an indication of good things to come.

The final pieces of the puzzle fit into place with the arrival of Barb’s son Liam in April of 2004, fresh from the Connecticut restaurant industry, to head up sales and marketing at the winery. Being a native of the Olympic Peninsula, and an avid snowboarder and steelhead fisherman, we knew Liam wasn’t the East Coast type at heart. Nevertheless we were still glad to have him around more than just at crush time. The roster is filled out by friend, neighbor, and youthful retiree Don Klein, who is still trying to figure out why a cellar rat doesn’t get the same respect as a police officer.