Small Town News

Local group hopes to start vineyard, winery

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Venture will start slowly

Soon a whole new industry will spring up in the Grand Coulee area.

Alan Cain told chamber of commerce members last Thursday that Spring Canyon Vineyards will plant the first four acres of an anticipated 20 acres with wine-quality grape plants this spring.

Cain spoke for an investment group, friends that came together after visiting wineries in Canada about three years ago, and decided they could pursue that goal here.

Cain and his wife, Dawn Lovelace; Wendy and Rob Hughes; and Rick and Jamie King have pooled resources in the venture.

Cain, the manager of the venture, is finishing up formal education in enology, the science of making wine, at Washington State University, where Wendy Hughes is also in the viticulture (wine-grape growing) program.

The group owns 113 acres, not all of it suitable for growing grapes. They look to eventually have 40 acres of grapes.

Their land is located on a high bench overlooking Lake Roosevelt from the south side of SR-174 near Lakeview Terrace Mobile Home Park.

Cain told the group the state of Washington has more than 600 wineries. "Washington wines are the best in the world," Cain said. "Nowhere else in the world has anything on us."

The factors that make a difference range from the soil and weather to local disease processes (which can be good or bad).

"It's amazing how simple the process is, yet how complicated," Cain said.

He projected that the vines will produce about 80 percent by their third year and fully produce wine grapes by the fourth year.

"This time next year, we'll be spending a lot of trimming time in the vineyard," Cain said.

Spring Canyon Vineyards is already producing wine, but not yet in quantity, buying grapes from other producers.

Eight acres, when fully producing, could generate enough grapes for 2,000 cases of wine.

Cain outlined concerns about deer and about farmers spraying their crops atop the canyon rim.

"Overcoming what deer can do to grape growing is going to be a big expense," he noted.

Also he indicated some concern about the possibility of spray drifting from farmers crops above down into the canyon and onto delicate vine leaves, but he expects good cooperation.

"We have good relations with the farmers, and they understand our concern," he said.

A public tasting room may be in the mix, sometime in the future, possibly in Cain's building at the edge of Grand Coulee that once housed his former business, big-dam.net, one of the first Internet service providers in the area. The wine entrepreneurs are taking each step carefully.

"We want to go slowly, we want to go carefully and waste as little money as we can," Cain said. They plan to start by planting up to four acres this spring, then add a few acres each year.

The winery could become another place for visitors to go, and could start a whole new industry in the area.

"I truly thing that this is going to become a premium wine grape area," Cain said.



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© 2010 The Star Grand Coulee, Washington. All Rights Reserved. This content, including derivations, may not be stored or distributed in any manner, disseminated, published, broadcast, rewritten or reproduced without express, written consent from DAS.

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