Grape Escape

Wine and Dine at Chateau Ste. Michelle

More Than Winemaking Another balance struck is between the wine and the winery experience. The Chateau Ste. Michelle Concert Series runs from June until Labor Day, and this year featured a variety of performers from James Taylor to Earth, Wind and Fire. “There’s a Northwest vibe, rain or shine,” says media director Lynda Eller. The tranquil scenery tempers the blaring music and creates an ambience unusual for a winery. This is just another feature that makes it so much of a destination rather than a factory. Chateau Ste. Michelle also offers membership to the Vintage Club, a select group that regularly tastes wine from lesser-known varieties not available outside the winery, and attends exclusive events. The grounds can also accommodate groups of various sizes in the banquet rooms, and even more intimate gatherings at the Manor House. At corporate events, attendees have the opportunity to fully experience the Chateau, complete with a tour and tasting, and food menus designed by culinary director John Sarich. Having the winery so close to the Seattle area helps bring in more than 300,000 visitors per year. If Chateau Ste. Michelle is looking for balance, they’ve found harmony between the east and west sides of the state. As Rosenthal says, “This company has been a champion for the Washington state wine industry from day one and our large distribution allows us to promote the region. “We have the opportunity to show the world how good the wines in Washington can be, and I think we continue to stand side by side with the most prestigious wines in the world.”

We are notorious for delighting in the fruits of the laborers on the opposing side of the Cascades. Apples, cherries and wine are so ingrained in Western Washington culture; an outsider would think they are actually grown on this side of the divide. It’s no national secret that Washington has become a wine haven, although places like Walla Walla and the Yakima Valley, which produce some of the country’s finest wine, are hardly household names.

But Chateau Ste. Michelle, located a scant 15 miles northeast of Seattle, is one of the nation’s most famous wineries and produces more than 70 percent of the wine made in Washington, despite being distant from a climate conducive to growing grapes. The primary winemaking facility can be found on an old plot of farmland in Woodinville, far from the arid summers of Eastern Washington. Here, winemakers strike a balance, capitalizing upon the climate and grapes east of the mountains on the more populated and wine-thirsty western side.

Founded in 1934, working under the name Chateau Ste. Michelle since 1967, and located in Woodinville since 1972, the winery is built on an old dairy farm, originally called Hollywood Farm. The Manor House, former mansion of lumber baron Frederick Stimson who founded the location in 1912 as a vacation getaway, still stands and is listed on the National Register of Historical Places.

Woodinville has become a destination spot, ideal for day or weekend trips, largely due to the winery and wine culture that seeps from it. Lush fields of grass invite picnickers to mingle with the peacocks that proudly strut about the Chateau. Gourmet restaurants woo wine lovers after long days of touring and tasting. Visitors get a chance to see the bottling line, barrel room and other features of the winery during the free hourly tours, hosted by genial local wine enthusiasts.

The Woodinville facility is just one facet of the Chateau Ste. Michelle franchise, which consists of several different vineyards and brands, each with its own facility, grapes, winemaking staff, and marketing department. There is one sales force and one administrative staff in order to consolidate what is necessary, but each wine is a part of the whole. Being an immense winery with small, self-sustaining vineyards allows the staff to utilize the plentiful resources while maintaining creative and artistic control of the product.

Depending on the time of year, visitors to the winery will witness a robust mechanism engaged in a different process in the life cycle of wine. After the summer concert series ends and the bevy of tourism dissipates, for the majority of the fall it’s harvest season and the juice comes flowing in from across the mountains. “Harvest is a whirlwind of excitement, nervousness and hope,” says enologist, or wine scientist, David Rosenthal.

Only white wine is crafted at the Woodinville facility, and all of the grapes are grown on 3,400 acres of land in the Columbia Valley, the ideal climate for superb fruit. With long days during the growing season, Washington is special because it’s warm during the day and cool at night. This allows the grapes to retain their natural acidity. Those chilly spring nights are the reason the first juice to arrive is from Canoe Ridge Vineyards, where Chateau Ste. Michelle’s red wine facility is located. The early-ripening fruit from Canoe Ridge produces some of the winery’s finest Chardonnay.

Later, juice from the Indian Wells and Horse Heaven Hill vineyards rolls in, and during this time until the end of October, the winery operates nearly 24 hours a day, seven days a week, with frenetic, anxious energy. “Each year is filled with the hope and expectation that the wines we make this year will be the best we have ever made,” says Rosenthal.

The juice is pumped directly from trucks into stainless steel tanks, where aromatic varietals like riesling and gewürztraminer spend their entire lives before bottling. The chardonnays and some sauvignon blancs are eventually transferred into oak barrels. With such a large operation, processes need to be specialized, and Head Winemaker Bob Bertheau spends half his week in Woodinville and half at the red wine facility, overseeing concentrated teams devoted to their juice color.

In Woodinville, Wendy Stuckey oversees white wine operations, with Rosenthal focusing on the wine in barrels and Kara Koh managing the tanks. “At smaller wineries, enologists and wine makers have to wear more hats, but here we can really focus on key parts of our work,” Rosenthal says.

With a lake’s worth of juice on its way, the team faces the hefty task of turning it into well over one million gallons of premium wine. The juice comes in slowly during harvest season, which helps winemakers focus on smaller batches at a time. “We have 1.5 million gallons of juice, but we’re managing it in 3,000 to 11,000 gallon tanks. When they’re at the vineyard, they’re picking different little sections separately, crushing them separately, sending them here separately, and then we ferment them separately. Different parts of the vineyard taste differently, and provide different quality juice,” says Rosenthal.

Chateau Ste. Michelle has the luxury to work on a gigantic scale while functioning like a small boutique winery crafting tiny batches. It is with those small batches that the winemakers concoct their masterpieces. In order to produce different flavor combinations, the wine makers treat shipments of juice differently. “We are always experimenting with new yeasts, different styles of oak barrels, and winemaking techniques in an effort to improve quality,” says Rosenthal. “Then in blending, we have all these different options, or spices to make our dinner with from various parts of the vineyard, with a various ingredients and techniques.”

The winemakers then take the best and use it for their premium wines, which for Riesling is Eroica. Eroica is crafted in partnership with Ernst Loosen, famed German winemaker, and is widely considered the best Riesling in America, winning countless awards.      

The juice that doesn’t stay in the stainless steel tanks is transferred into oak barrels, which is primarily done with the chardonnay. This is where Rosenthal gets to have his fun, as chardonnay is considered a winemaker’s wine, allowing the choices in barrel and yeast to truly impact the wine’s traits. Barrels integrate oak flavors and soften the wine, one of the primary focuses of the winemaking staff, along with balance. It’s these two characteristics toward which the wine makers constantly strive. Rosenthal explains, “With chardonnay, it’s all about balancing how much fruit is in the wine with how much oak is in the wine. Riesling is about balancing the acid in the wine with the sugar.       

“But with this balance we’re always going for softness as well.”
Josh Whitling is a freelance writer who lives in Kirkland.

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