Upland Vineyard has been a well-kept family secret for nearly a century—but that’s all changing as grapes from this superhero vineyard are being transformed into wines of marvel
Climbing west from Sunnyside on Interstate 82, you are briefly aimed at a water tank perched near the eastern summit of Snipes Mountain, and where the highway twists closest, you espy a Superman logo emblazoned on its concrete flanks. What sort of heroics go on here?
The logo was painted by Todd Newhouse’s younger brother, Alex, and a friend while in their early teens some twenty years ago. “My brother had an affinity for comic books at that age and he was a good artist,” explains Newhouse, who manages Upland Vineyard. “So he and a buddy came up here and slapped it on.”
Though there’s no kryptonite in the soil, it’s still unusual, once subject to superhuman stresses. Before the ice age, the Columbia River flowed here, laying down a thin sheet of alluvial soil and river rock over a deep layer of basalt. A tectonic upheaval hefted these two strata above the valley, randomly folding them into each other. Thus, Snipes Mountain stood above the Great Missoula Floods that fertilized Yakima Valley as the ice age ended.
Near the top of Upland Vineyard on the south side, a road cut exposes the result of the ancient titanic violence: an irregular honeycomb of large basalt chunks separated by a dried paste of colorful cobbles and smaller fragments.
Upland covers the east two-thirds of the mountain, and features a warm southern exposure, and a cooler northern one. The long baking above the floods left Upland’s soils with little organic matter, and grapes struggle—as they should when quality fruit is desired. A few have struggled for nearly a century, such as the Muscat vines still standing from William Bridgman’s pioneering planting of vinifera grapes. Others have merely struggled for a few decades, including some of the state’s oldest Cabernet Sauvignon.
Dr. Wade Wolfe of Thurston Wolfe is one of dozens of winemakers who admire these exertions. “Upland and Snipes Mountain possess the ideal characteristics for premium wine growing in this state,” says Wolfe. “These characteristics provide a long growing season with sufficiently high heat units and balanced canopy to fully ripen any grape variety to optimal quality, including late ripening ones like Cabernet Sauvignon.”
Bridgman founded the Upland Winery in the 1930’s and had been farming 165 acres of wines grapes until two tough winters in the late 1940s inflicted considerable financial damage, and he sold these holdings. The Newhouse family homesteaded at the base of Snipes Mountain all through this time, and Todd’s grandfather Alfred steadily bought parcels as they became available and planted them with trees and grapes. He planted his first vinifera grapes in 1968, and in 1972 bought the Upland Vineyard. No wine industry existed in the state but Alfred knew he could sell the grapes in Canada.
“Grandpa had a good contact who worked with quite a few growers and wineries up there. That lasted a couple of years,” recounts Todd, “and then Columbia and Chateau Ste. Michelle came along and started buying our grapes.” The vineyard’s client list runs from the largest wineries—which now also includes Hogue—to boutique outfits such as Thurston Wolfe, Smasne Cellars, DeLille Cellars, Bunnell Family Cellars, Robert Ramsay, Maison Bleue, Rolling Bay Winery, Rotie Cellars and others.
Like Alfred, Todd’s father Steve has worked this dirt all his life. “He lives, breathes, and sweats the farm. Always has,” notes Todd. Steve catered to the larger growers, but eventually Todd did the heavy lifting to establish the Snipes Mountain AVA, and began marketing to the smaller outfits to build the vineyard brand. “I like to dabble with many different varieties. Selling fruit to 35-plus wineries poses different demands than farming for the big guys, but the challenges can be highly rewarding.”
Less Technology, More Hands On
The vineyard is mostly drip irrigated, with occasional supplementation by sprinklers, to help keep growth consistent. How to determine what gets how much water, or pruning, or thinning? Rather than deploy sensing networks and a few people, the Newhouse’s deploy more people, feeling that in most cases, that approach yields better fruit.
“We’re pretty hands on,” says Todd. “My dad, two brothers Keith and Nic, and I and our irrigator crew, are always out digging and feeling the moisture on our fingers, and making our decisions based on that. As far as mechanization goes, we’ve done it where we had to, but we still do almost everything by hand. We don’t pre-prune anything, and that’s unheard of now, especially for our size.”
Though Newhouse might not espouse the latest technology, he does support the trend towards sustainability. “I’ve looked into it, and have implemented certain parts of Vinewise.” This program is administered by the Washington Association of Wine Grape Growers, and employs many of the same practices as Vinea and Salmon Safe. He aims to fully implement it in years ahead, but it’s a challenge for Upland. “For the guy who has ten acres of wine grapes, it’s a piece of cake. When you have 900 acres of grapes, and that’s surrounded by 600 acres of fruit trees, it’s pretty daunting.”
Old Vines & Old Friendships
One of the parcels Todd’s grandfather bought, previously owned by Columbia Winery, is called Harrison Hill. More Bridgman plantings are here, alongside Cabernet Sauvignon planted in 1962. The grapes were sold under contract to Chateau Ste. Michelle and blended into larger lots. Chris Upchurch of DeLille Cellars had early help from Columbia’s David Lake, and it was Lake that alerted Upchurch to the vineyard. “Somebody should take this over,” hinted Lake.
In the early 1990’s, Upchurch, a self-professed “big fan of old vines” convinced Chateau Ste. Michelle to release the vineyard. The vines, trained onto double bilateral cordons for high yields, were retrained onto single cordons for lower yields of better quality. Simultaneously, they replaced some non-Bordeaux varietals with Merlot and Cabernet Franc, which unite with Cabernet Sauvignon to make DeLille’s premium Harrison Hill wine. As with the rest of Upland, the air drainage is very good. “I’ve never had anything really freeze there,” says Upchurch.
Cabernet Sauvignon from the old block in the main vineyard also disappeared into large blends, and Robert Smasne of Smasne Cellars, like Upchurch, felt that something special could be done with it. Smasne and Todd Newhouse had known each other since high school, but Smasne’s early enological career took him away from the area. He’d used Upland fruit at his prior job in 1998.
Ready to start his own label, he moved back, and soon ran into his old schoolmate at an industry meeting. Looking for good fruit, he asked for, among other things, some of that old vine Cabernet Sauvignon. When Todd tasted the resulting wine, he gave Smasne more of it. Smasne says he’s worked with 26 varietals from Upland.
“I work with four of the best vineyards in Washington. If I had to pick one to concentrate on and continue to work with, it would definitely be Upland,” says Smasne. He also likes the responsiveness. “If I say, ‘Hey, Todd, the Syrah block is looking a little heavy,’ the next day that fruit is where I want it.”
Todd Newhouse hasn’t been caught wearing a cape, but has anyone spotted him near a phone booth?
Written by Tuck Russell