DUNGENESS — Work is Tom Miller’s idea of fun. The Scotland-born veterinarian is on the growing edge of the North Olympic Peninsula’s agriventure: wine grapes.
His Dungeness Bay Vineyard, at a mere three quarters of an acre, just provided some fancy juice for Olympic Cellars, the popular winery 9 miles to the west on U.S. Highway 101.
Olympic’s Kathy Charlton and Libby Sweetser hand-picked grapes in late September for what will be their first truly local blend.
Dungeness Bay Vineyard’s Madeleine angevine and Madeleine sylvaner, both white wine varietals, were crushed and pressed for the maiden vintage from the Sequim area.
Olympic will bottle about 50 cases of the blend, said Charlton, the winery’s majority owner and manager.
“It’s not a lot. But it makes a statement,” she said.
Western grapes
Like the vast majority of the more than 400 wineries in Washington, Olympic Cellars has for years bought its grapes from Eastern Washington growers.
But Charlton wanted to dig into what’s known as the Puget Sound appellation — the grape-growing region cooled by marine breezes.
Wines from this place will have a distinctive flavor, she and the growers believe.
Olympic’s just-picked Madeleines will be bottled for release late this year or in spring 2007, Charlton said.
She’s still mulling whether to produce a nouveau in November or wait until next June.
Charlton has tasted previous Madeleine vintages with Miller and his wife, Isobel.
“We enjoyed the wine. We’re excited,” she said.
Madeleines resemble rieslings, and the angevine has a grapefruitlike flavor, Miller added.
First vines in 2000
Educated in Glasgow, Scotland, he moved to Missouri when a company there hired him to develop a vaccine for canine hookworm.
“Just for fun,” he later planted 5 acres of wine grapes, and took a university course in viticulture.
When his daughter moved to Kent, King County, in 1989, he discovered Western Washington.
Then he heard about Bainbridge Island Vineyards, which has been producing wine grapes for three decades.
Owner Jo Ann Bentryn said her winery has harvested 30 tons of fruit from its 9-acre vineyard.
This region’s grape growers “are a tightly knit group,” that shares cuttings and knowledge, Miller said.
He planted his first vines in 2000, and studied with Bainbridge’s Gerard Bentryn, another energetic promoter of wine grapes grown in Western Washington.
