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Food: Sips - July 21, 2004
One Man's Wine
By Roger Downey
Suppose that, right out of college, you decide you want to spend your life making wine—your own wine, not someone else's. Your family isn't wealthy, nor does it own vineyards or a winery, both fairly high-capital enterprises. What do you do to break into a very high-stakes game?
Ross Mickel is doing it the hard way. To get a toehold in the business, he worked the harvest in Oregon's Willamette Valley, picking up what he could during the most frenzied weeks in the winemaker's year. With a little experience under his belt, he began apprenticing to established winemakers, trading his labor for their experience. In time, he established an ongoing year-round relationship with Bob Betz, one of the Northwest's most respected wine scientists and educators, and, in a very small way, one of its most respected winemakers as well.
Delivering Betz wines to the specialty shops selected to carry them, Mickel made more connections, so that when, in 2003, he released 250 cases (3,000 bottles) under his own Ross Andrew label, he wasn't just another unknown competing for top retailers' attention and shelf space. Mickel's ongoing association with Betz also helped when buying grapes; his second (2001) release, due out this fall, was composed of fruit from name acreage like Alder Ridge, Boushey, and Hedges.
Many beginning winemakers try to hedge their bets by making half a dozen different wines; often, distracted, they fail to ring the bell with any. For the foreseeable future, Mickel plans to make just one, labeled as cabernet sauvignon but containing a legally permissible admixture of merlot fruit. This choice has both advantages and disadvantages: In Washington, as in California, the cabernet market is dominated by famous labels with long pedigrees and commanding high prices. A newcomer has to price his product modestly enough to persuade sophisticated buyers to experiment (Mickel's '01 Ross Andrew will run $25), but high enough to indicate that he's serious about contending with the big names. (Fair or not, wines priced under $20 rarely develop much buzz where buzz counts.)
A lot of cabernet winemakers go for maximum heft and impact: The result can be impressive but rough, and need a few years in bottle to lose their asperity. Mickel prefers a suaver approach; the wine he's releasing this fall has been a year in bottle to date, but, a distinctive cabernet aroma apart, it's as easy on the palate as wines made mostly from the traditionally softer merlot grape, though the blend is actually four-fifths cab.
Mickel upped his production slightly for the '01, to 350 cases; 425 cases of the '02 are slated for '05 release. When you consider that the '03 Ross Andrew is already waiting to be blended before the '01 is released, you can see why Mickel favors a wine that asks to be drunk right away. "It's a pretty big investment, spending three years making wine before you find out whether anyone likes the style of wine you make."
Food: Sips - August 27, 2003
Meant to Be
By Roger Downey
The ancient folkways of the grape never really took root in North America, so it's understandable if our winemakers' tales are fraught with epiphanies: sudden midlife course corrections, abrupt trade-ins of hot urban concrete for cool Mother Earth. Maybe it's a sign that wine has finally gone native that an easygoing Bellevue boy could drift into winemaking as if it were the most natural move in the world.
An English major at the University of Washington, Ross Mickel had his first brush with the wine game when a childhood friend suggested he work as a wine waiter at the friend's family's restaurant. Since the childhood friend was Mark Canlis, Mickel abruptly found himself counseling some of the region's wealthiest and most knowledgeable wine consumers on their beverage choices before he was all that secure in the subject himself.
Once in the wine bag, Mickel got serious, flying to UC Davis for weekend winemaking classes, with luck and contacts at home ensuring that theory got blended with practice. A college classmate working at Woodinville's DeLille Cellars introduced Mickel to DeLille winemaker Chris Upchurch, who put him to work as a "rat" around the winery. In another lucky twist, Ste. Michelle winemaker Bob Betz was using DeLille's plant to produce his own wines, and Mickel soon found himself assisting one of America's most admired winemakers in crafting his spare-no-expense boutique syrahs and Bordeaux-style blends. In 1999, Mickel produced his first solo wine from the 2000 harvest, a fairly standard "meritage" blend of 55 percent cabernet sauvignon grapes, 40 percent merlot, and 5 percent cabernet franc. But thanks to his reflected credibility from Master of Wine Betz, Mickel was able to procure grapes from some of Washington's best growing sites, including Alder Ridge, Milbrandt, and Taptiel.
Briskly tannic without raspiness, refreshingly acidic, the three-year-old wine favors fruitiness over weight, a distinct advantage when most Washington reds, no matter how gnarlyexcuse me, "age-worthy"are consumed the year of their release.
Mickel is delighted at the reception his debutant is getting. "I think people I know who taste it are thinking, 'What can I say nice about it?' because after they do, they say, 'I like it! No, I really like it." He'll have no trouble placing the mere 200 cases made at about $25 per bottle. That won't come close to paying off what Mickel and his partners ("well, parents") have invested in the enterprise so far, but it's a great base to build on.
On the threshold of wider recognition, does he regret not having a more stormy tale of struggle to tell? "Not really; I've been lucky, sure. But looking back, it seems like it was all just meant to be."
Where to buy and drink wine discussed in this week's Sips column:
Ross Andrew 2000 Columbia Valley Red is available on the wine lists of Eva, Chez Shea, Canlis, el Gaucho, Waterfront, and Jack's Steakhouses in Issaquah, West Seattle, and Sand Point. It is also available at retail shops including Pike & Western, McCarthy & Schiering Queen Anne and Roosevelt, and Pete's Wines Eastside and Larry's Market in Bellevue.
