Seattle Magazine, November 2008

Six years ago, after igniting a love affair with winegrowing and winemaking while working in the Napa vineyard owned by a friend, 32-year-old former San Francisco financial planner Mike Berghan, his wife, Melissa, and his parents, Peter and Stephanie, started new lives as Washington winegrowers. The family purchased a 10-acre, 3-year-old vineyard south of Walla Walla and began selling grapes to other wineries. Berghan attended Walla Walla Community College’s Center for Viticulture and Enology for one semester to learn more about his new passion, and never looked back. Eager to follow the grape from budbreak to bottle, he, with his family as partners, established Gifford Hirlinger winery in 2005, building a compact but gorgeous little winery at the base of the rolling hills of his vineyard.

This year, for the first time, Gifford Hirlinger’s current releases (the winery’s third vintage), including a Cabernet Sauvignon, a Merlot and a red blend, are completely estate grown—made with grapes grown on their own land rather than purchased from other vineyards, as many other wineries do. Berghan wanted to be involved in the whole process, and to have more control of how his grapes were grown and harvested.

As with any farming, it’s not an approach without risks: Weather conditions (a freeze, for example) and disease (such as powdery mildew) may mean a harvest of grapes unsuitable for winemaking.

“We are very vigilant in our viticulture practices,” Berghan says about watching for signs of pests that might affect the grapes. “We work hard to prevent anything like that.”

In addition, where other wineries often source fruit from various vineyards in order to bring the particular characteristics that they are looking for to the wine (for instance, Merlot from a cooler site might add more acidity to a wine than Merlot from a warmer site), Berghan must create well-balanced wines within the limitations of his own fruit. Fortunately for him, this small vineyard has slopes facing various directions, giving him a range of temperatures and ripening times throughout the season, adding complexity to the grapes.

“We do all the work ourselves,” says Berghan. “I’m out there in the vineyard, thinning shoots or managing the canopy, so I can control some of the outcome.”

He is both farmer and winemaker—his family runs the business side and helps out in the tasting room, but steers clear of winemaking details—so the decisions about how long to let the fruit hang and when to pick, how to blend and when to bottle all fall on his shoulders. Because of the challenge of these decisions, he often consults other winemakers in this tight-knit community (some of the state’s most established vineyards, such as Pepper Bridge Winery and Va Piano, are just down the road). But when Berghan gets into the winery, he tries to let the fruit speak for itself.

Gifford Hirlinger 2005 Cabernet Sauvignon ($28)
A ripe, dark wine balanced by earthiness and acidity shows black plum and dark cherry fruit, leather, sweet spice and dried herb aromas are followed by rich berry flavors. Pairs with: Grilled tenderloin with horseradish mashed potatoes.

Gifford Hirlinger 2005 Merlot ($26)
This Merlot-based blend comes from the cooler north-facing slope of the vineyard, and is aged in 60 percent new oak for an underlying lush blanket of vanilla and spice that’s not overwhelming. Pairs with: Roasted pork loin with roasted garlic zucchini.

Gifford Hirlinger 2005 Stateline Red ($22)
A blend of Merlot (80 percent) and Cab-ernet Sauvignon (20 percent), this is the lightest of all their wines, with more acidity and fewer oak flavors. Pairs with: Pasta Bolognese with sweet Italian sausage.

Gifford Hirlinger 2004 Eighteen Below ($30)
Named for the freeze of 2004, the Cabernet Sauvignon (70 percent) and Merlot (30 percent) blend is full of dark cherry fruit and chocolate, with a solid tannin structure. (It’s sold out at the winery, but available at a few restaurants and wine shops, including Waterfront Seafood Grill and Esquin Wine Merchants.) Pairs with: Grilled rib-eye steak and sweet potatoes.

Gifford Hirlinger 2006 LV ($38)
This Cabernet Sauvignon is actually made from Napa Valley grapes from Lewelling Vineyard (where Berghan first worked), hence LV. Berghan calls this a “super-flashy session wine” with ripe dark berry fruit and silky tannins. Pairs with: Fennel-spiked salami and blue-cheese plate.

 

• Previous: Wine Spectator, July 2008
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