Fidelitas: Ascent To Red Mountain

Veteran winemaker Charlie Hoppes has an unceasing thirst for constantly improving on Fidelitas’ terroir-driven, Bordeaux varietal wines

Reprinted from the Summer 2018 print issue of Washington Tasting Room Magazine

It’s 2018—Charlie Hoppes’ 31st vintage in Washington State—and the prolific winemaker shows no signs of slowing down. Rather, the good-natured, likeable owner of Fidelitas has more oenophile irons in the fire than ever: expansion of his Estate Vineyard, innovations in the cellar, a shift to using 100% Red Mountain AVA fruit, plus a thriving consulting business. Oh, and oodles of accolades—most recently, Hoppes was named 2018 Honorary Vintner by the Auction of Washington Wines, a cause he has donated select barrels to every year.

“It is great to get recognized by one’s peers,” Charlie says in response to the designation. “Children’s Hospital and WSU Wine Science are two very worthy organizations doing great work and if I can help move the cause forward a little bit, then I am more than happy to help as the honorary vintner.”

“Charlie reflects what makes the Washington wine community so special,” says Shelley Tomberg, executive director of Auction of Washington Wines. “Over his years in the industry, he has shared his expertise and built relationships with so many winemakers across our state. His efforts have resulted in top-notch, innovative, premium Washington wines that influence the industry on a global scale.”

The Road To Red Mountain

With a degree in economics, Hoppes spent five years at Boeing but his agricultural roots were calling and he answered by attending the much-touted winemaking program at UC Davis.

The central Washington native has fond memories of growing up in a small agricultural community. “I worked in vineyards, I picked watermelons,” says Hoppes, noting that as a white person in Wapato, he was a minority. “It was a great place to learn about diversity and other people’s perspective.” Years later, this would serve him well in the wine industry, which he entered with humility and respect, his sleeves rolled up ready for hard work. “It is agriculture. It is farming,” Hoppes says, refusing to glamorize it.

It was June 11, 1989. Hoppes was pouring wines at Kiona for Lemberger Days (yes, Lemberger was a big deal back then when growers were told the hardy vines could survive the cold winters of Eastern Washington).

“We drove on that dirt road and I remember telling my wife that it’d be so great to be up here on Red Mountain someday,” he recalls. “She looked at me like, are you sure? It was a dusty, hot spot but I thought, the wines they can make up here are so awesome.” He remembers the exact date because it was also the sweet day his daughter was born.

After stints at Snoqualmie Winery (prior to being bought by Ste. Michelle) and later Waterbrook Winery, Charlie became head red winemaker for Chateau Ste. Michelle’s newest facility, Canoe Ridge, in 1993. That was a game-changer, where he had the chance to make some exceptional reds, including working with the Antinori family on several early vintages of Col Solare. Hoppes was looking to break out on his own, and while working with the startup at Three Rivers Winery from 1999 to 2002, he was able to launch Fidelitas in 2000—gaining traction with its inaugural release of Optu Red Wine, which remains popular in the portfolio.

Turning Point

Charlie’s strong relationships with key winegrape growers quickly led to success early on with access to fruit from top sites, like Champoux Vineyard in the Horse Heaven Hills AVA and Gamache Vineyard in the Yakima Valley AVA.

Fidelitas started producing Red Mountain AVA designated wines with the 2005 vintage. The bonds to Red Mountain continued to strengthen and grow—the late great Stan Clarke, a legendary pioneer in the wine industry, sold Hoppes five acres of tumbleweed-covered land on Sunset Road on which he cleared and constructed a modern style tasting room in May 2007. The rest of the land was used to plant three acres of Bordeaux grape varietals the following spring, thus Fidelitas Estate Vineyard was born, bearing fruit for the winery’s first vineyard-designate in 2012. Charlie decided it was time to go all-in on Red Mountain.

“In the vast market of wine, everyone that is successful, in my estimation, is a good storyteller,” he says. “We wanted to be able to tell the story that Fidelitas makes wine just from Red Mountain.” He knew the incredible diversity available of the appellation, with soil and geological conditions capable of changing less than ten feet from one another. “It was kind of this backwater eddy where the soil was swirling,” Hoppes says, referring to the ancient cataclysmic flood events known as the Missoula Floods. “Things settled so differently here, unlike other growing regions which are more uniform.”

So, with the 2013 vintage Fidelitas planted their flag squarely on Red Mountain (the one exception being Champoux Vineyard, which ended in 2014 when longtime vineyard manager Paul Champoux retired).
Hoppes has stayed true to Red Mountain, sourcing from choice vineyards like Quintessence, Ciel du Cheval, Klipsun, The Canyons, Blackwood and Fidelitas Estate.

Charlie continues to push boundaries in the vineyard and in the cellar, putting his encyclopedic knowledge of clones to use. “We want to do more than just make great wine,” Hoppes explains. “We’re trying to constantly improve. I never feel like we have a recipe.”

The brand is now laser-focused, not just on making vineyard-designate wines of the same varietal, but on making wines using different clones within the same vineyard. “For example, the Blackwood Canyon Vineyard Cabernet that we make is old vine planted in 1984 and is Clone 8,” says Hoppes. “But we’re making another Cabernet from less than 100 yards away and it is Clone 2 and 6. You can taste the differences.”

The expansion of the Fidelitas Estate Vineyard will change the winery’s direction as well. Hoppes purchased an additional ten acres from Stan Clarke’s widow, Carol Clarke, in 2015. He planted new Cabernet Sauvignon clones of 412, 33, 169, along with more of clones 2 and 6. Merlot, Petit Verdot, Malbec and Cabernet Franc will also hit their third leaf with the 2018 harvest.

“We’ll eventually bring in as much as 40 tons of fruit, which is 2,500 cases of wine,” says Hoppes. “It’s going to become a big part of our production and we have control of it.”

Cellar Innovator

Hoppes is constantly experimenting in the cellar, such as fermenting more and more with direct contact with wood; he’s using everything from 500-liter to 40-ton oak upright tanks. “There just seems to be a difference in the flavor profile,” says Charlie, referring to the comparison to other types of fermentation tanks, like stainless steel.

He believes the white wines are reaching a new level of quality with the use of a new oak egg; Hoppes is also aging some in a concrete egg. “It’s good to stay current on trends,” he says. “It adds to the texture and flavors.”

Averaging between 6,500-7,500 cases per year, Fidelitas has the enviable position of being direct-to-consumer driven, with approximately 90% of sales through their wine club and walk-in traffic to the two tasting rooms, one on Red Mountain and another in Woodinville.

The winery was ahead of the game in offering wine club members an opportunity to customize their allocations. “We’ve really listened to feedback from our members,” says Hoppes. “We meet two times a year and let people try the wines and if there’s something they don’t like, they don’t have to take it.”

Wine Boss

Hoppes, along with associate winemakers Mitch Venohr and Hillary Sjolund, operate a custom crush pad—called Wine Boss—out of a 30,000-square-foot former Budweiser plant in Richland. Among their clients are Henry Earl, Frichette Cellars, Anelare, Archeus Wines, Noviello Vineyards, Gamache, Hamilton Cellars and Cote de Ciel, as well as doing “bits and pieces” for others.

Charlie’s winemaking team still makes the M100 line (named after Charlie’s Grandma Mary when she turned 100) for his distributor. With those kind of family genes, perhaps 30 harvests are just scratching the surface for Hoppes. The legal name for the business is Vinaceous, which Charlie’s brother, Loren, a marketing wiz for Nike and part owner of Fidelitas, says sounds like a foot disease.

At Wine Boss, Hoppes makes sure to execute what winemakers want stylistically for their wines. “We are clear to differentiate all the brands,” Hoppes says. “I didn’t want Fidelitas to creep into everything.”
But if he had a hashtag, it might easily be #imwithcharlie.

Written by Kirsten Telander and Photographed by Tegra Stone Nuess

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Tour & Taste

Red Mountain
 Winery & Tasting Room
51810 N Sunset Rd, Benton City
, WA
PH: 509-588-3469
Open daily, 11am-5pm

Woodinville Tasting Room
14467 Woodinville-Redmond Rd NE
Woodinville
, WA
PH: 425-558-9001
Open daily, 11am-5pm

www.fidelitaswines.com