Wine Growing - Winemaking

Founded by Dick Doré and Bill Wathen in 1985.
Sustainable wine-growers. Solar-powered winery.

Wine Growing - Winemaking

Winemaking

Bill Wathen and David Whitehair are an unstoppable force in the winemaking industry. They have a sustainable, straightforward, and honest approach to winemaking. David has been the Assistant Winemaker under Billy for the past 7 years. The intimacy and training that David has received over the years has lead to the two of them being able to work seamlessly together, and to create excellent quality wines.

Bill's winemaking philosophy is straightforward, honest and sustainable. His focus is always on the grape as it arrives on our crush pad during harvest. Bill strives to honor each vineyard site with our finished wine. And to that end, his winemaking process always attempts to have the least amount of intervention possible. From our gentle de-stemmer and press, to the yeasts we use, to our choice of barrels, and to the lack of fining and filtering of our red wines, all of which lend themselves to honor the grape and its vineyard site. As Bill explains, "The job of the winegrower is to record the organoleptic history of the vineyard year in the bottle, with as little fingerprint as possible. If I can accomplish this each vintage, then I have rewarded myself.”