“David was a wonderful fellow, a wonderful winemaster,” Harlan said. Lake was enamored with Otis Vineyard and made celebrated vineyard-designated Cabs and Chardonnays from Otis beginning with the 1981 vintage. In 1979, Harlan met a young winemaker named David Lake, who had just landed in Washington as winemaker for Associated Vintners – later to be renamed Columbia Winery. In my mind, he was the person who was the energy behind getting the wine business going.
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He helped me immensely with what to plant and how to care for them. “He was so generous with his knowledge of the vines and the wines and what he was trying to do and what his dream was. “I was fortunate enough to meet Bill Bridgman,” he said. “It didn’t do well there, so I took it out.”Įarly in his grape-growing career, Harlan met Bridgman, who began planting wine grapes in 1917 and launched his Upland Winery in nearby Sunnyside in 1934 - the year after St. “I did have Riesling at one time,” he said. However, he doesn’t have any Riesling, a peculiarity in the Riesling-heavy Yakima Valley. Today, Otis has old plantings of Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Gris. He slowly replanted the entire vineyard, with the 1956 Cabernet Sauvignon vines now the oldest on the property – and believed to be the oldest commercial Cab vines in Washington. “They were a lot of trouble,” Harlan said of the Zinfandel, adding they were susceptible to bunch rot, so he tore them out after a few years. It was planted mostly to North American and hybrid varieties such as Concord, Campbell’s Early and White Diamond, though it also had a few vinifera vines, including Zinfandel. Needing a steady source of grapes, he bought a vineyard north of Grandview from a man named Ralph Adams. Harlan called his newly acquired winery Alhambra and moved to Yakima in 1952, locating the winery in nearby Selah. Charles building – which Harlan did not purchase – remains today on Stretch Island. Charles launched in 1933 in the Puget Sound town of Grapeview, which is not far from the Hood Canal community of Belfair. Charles Winery, which was Washington state’s first bonded winery after Prohibition. Harlan got into the wine business after purchasing St. (Photo by Andy Perdue/Great Northwest Wine) Charles Winery on Stretch Island in Grapeview, Wash., has been closed since the early 1950s but still stands today. Otis Vineyard tied to state’s first post-Prohibition winery St. The deal was finalized last month, and the Tudors will take over the property in December. At the beginning of this year, Harlan approached the Tudors about purchasing his vineyard. Tom Tudor began planting wine grapes in the 1980s in the Yakima Valley, and he and Sean added vines to property they owned adjacent to Otis Vineyard.
He was the winemaker for Seneca’s Boordy Vineyards until his death in 1976. Rising land prices forced the family to sell the land in the late 1960s, and the Tudors relocated to the Yakima Valley, where Andy Tudor planted 160 acres of Concord grapes and worked for Seneca Foods. Tom’s father, Andy, founded Tudor Hills Vineyard in 1947 in Fontana, Calif., in the Cucamonga Valley east of Los Angeles near San Bernardino.īy the early 1960s, the Tudor family had started a winery with a capacity of 3 million gallons. The father-son team of Tom and Sean Tudor and Sean’s uncle Mark Tudor purchased the historic vineyard along County Line Road, just up the hill from their family’s longtime vineyards. Bridgman, who helped launch the Washington wine industry in 1917, and David Lake, the talented winemaker for Associated Vintners/ Columbia Winery. “I’ve been very fortunate to work with some very good people.” “It was a good ride, a fun ride,” Harlan told Great Northwest Wine. Two years later, he planted a block of Cabernet Sauvignon that is still producing wine grapes today. Harlan, who lives in Yakima and is now in his mid-80s, purchased what became Otis Vineyard in 1954. The owner of Otis Vineyard in the Yakima Valley north of Grandview has sold his land to another longtime winemaking and grape-growing family that plans to re-launch a family business that started in 1946 in Southern California. – For the first time since 1952, Otis Harlan will be out of the wine business. Cabernet Sauvignon vines planted in 1956 at Otis Vineyard in the Yakima Valley are the oldest commercial Cab vines in Washington.
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