Refreshing recycling

The owners of Davenlore Winery in Prosser, Washington understand one of the basic truths of wine – it’s all about making friends. Gordon Taylor and his wife Joan Davenport both have a background in agriculturally related sciences (she is a soil researcher at Washington State University, he is a process engineer with a background in fruit juice production), and they bottle some lovely wines at their winery in the hills overlooking Prosser. Like all small producers, they face the challenge of moving those wines into the consumers’ hands. You can do this a couple of different ways – through a tasting room, for example, or at wine festivals. Restaurant sales account for a lot of Davenlore’s distribution. Look for their wines at local restaurants like Tuscany Italian Bistro and Picazo 7Seventeen.

Davenlore staff happily sells

Recovery Red in reusable

bottles at area farmers markets.

But one of the best ways to drink Davenlore Wines is from the refillable bottles Gordon sells at local farmer’s markets. Yep, refillable. From May through October, you can find him at the markets in Prosser and nearby Richland, where he sells a full array of Davenlore wines, including Recovery Red, a value-priced blend sold in reusable bottles. The first bottle costs around $20. Take it home, drink it, clean the bottle, then return to the farmers market the next week to trade the empty bottle for a new one, for about half the price. You can also replace it at Davenlore’s tasting room.  The blend is also available in a traditional bottle for $15.

There are a lot of fun things about this kind of marketing. The recyclable bottles are interesting – different, without the questionable aura surrounding boxed wines, for example. And of course, they are eco-friendly. But mostly it’s a kick to chat with Gordon. Getting to know your winemaker in a down-to-earth setting like a farmers market is just plain nice.

Taylor's big red wines carry discernible oak balancing the fruit flavors. He and Davenport tend a tiny vineyard at their property, but they source most of their fruit from the Horse Heaven Hills, including the Alder Ridge, Zephyr Canyon and Double Canyon vineyards, where Taylor finds the hefty tannins and structure he loves, along with good fruit integration. But he’s equally as excited about his dry Riesling, a German-style wine with no residual sugars.

Recovery Red is the only wine Davenlore sells in the reusable bottles, but their list includes a wide array of varieties, including Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah, Merlot, Durif (also known as Petite Syrah, a variety not related to Syrah) and Riesling, along with a Syrah port and another blend called Red Tale.

It's all about the blends

Bunnell Family Cellar bottled its first vintage in 2004, but the expertise behind the labels has been a force in Washington wines for a long time. Ron Bunnell served as winemaker at Chateau Ste. Michelle for many years before opening his own boutique winery in Prosser, after stints at other industry giants like Kendall Jackson and Beringer. And the expertise he honed over the years making huge quantities of wines for big corporations translates nicely at his hands-on venture. Bunnell makes around 250 cases of each wine he bottles, for a total production in the neighborhood of 6,000 cases.

You can taste Bunnell Family Cellar wines, along with RiverAerie, their second label, at the tasting room inside the Bunnells’ other venture, the Wine O’Clock Wine Bar, in Prosser’s Vintner’s Village. But I’d recommend instead that you spend a little money for a tasty lunch and a flight of Bunnell’s Rhone blends. Ron’s wife Susan and chef Laurie Kennedy create delightful artisan pizzas, cooked in a wood-fired oven and served up in a lovely dining room or on the patio, where you can enjoy beautiful views of the Horse Heaven Hills. Order a flight of wines to accompany your lunch, then sit back and enjoy some of the only food available in the Village, while making a relaxed comparison between some of Bunnell’s fabulous blends.

I recently spent a lovely summer afternoon there with two of my favorite people. We shared a pizza, and a flight of the Rhone Chorus – three blends, including Lia (50% Grenache, 20% Syrah, 10% Cinsault, Mourvedre and Petite Sirah), á Pic (52% Syrah, 18% Cinsault, 18% Mourvedre, and 12% Grenache), and Vif (60 % Syrah, 30% Mourvedre, and 10% Petit Verdot). Notice any similarities? Overlapping contents create a category for these wines. But don’t be fooled into thinking the similarity between the blends dominates. Each highlights different qualities, ranging from the softness of Lia to the spicy fruits of Vif. My favorite – á Pic, with its rich toasty aromas and flavors of dark fruit and mocha.
 But, as always, the best part of the wines was the discovery, an afternoon spent under warm sunshine, enjoying two of my favorite people, and sipping delicious wines.