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Seattle

It's hard to say when it all started. Maybe it was back in 1874, when Washington's first winery opened in Wenatchee. But then Prohibition forced that winery and its neighbors to close their doors.

Maybe it was in the late 1930s, when wine in the state rebounded, peaking at 42 wineries in 1937. That lasted until a succession of disastrous freezes wiped out the grape crops.

Maybe it was in the 1960s, when Washington State University researchers convinced fruit farmers in the Yakima Valley they could successfully grow wine grapes.

But for our story, perhaps the best place to start is 30 years ago when Washingtonians were learning to drink and appreciate wine. It was August 1975, in a white brick house on Queen Anne Hill. A small group gathered for an impartial judging of Northwest wines. There were five experts: Stan Reed, a food writer from the Post Intelligencer, wine writer Leon Adams, German grape breeder Helmut Becker, Seattle Times wine writer Tom Stockley, and Chas Nagel, the food scientist and bacteriologist who made the first wines to be tested at Washington State University.

"Chas was a good judge," says Glenn White, one of the founding members of the Northwest Enological Society and host to the private tasting. "He can identify every chemical in a wine." He taught many others, including some of today's winemakers, to do the same.

The judging started in the afternoon around the walnut dining room table. White, future winemaker Mike Wallace, and just a few others looked on. The living room offered a spectacular view over the Seattle Center to downtown and Elliott Bay. But the judges were focused on the glasses in front of them.

"There were some pretty bad wines in that group," says Nagel, noting that more than a couple samples had sulfide problems, which meant a rotten egg taste. But others were good. Nagel, excited by what he was tasting, tried talking with Becker. But the German expert diverted him, lest the discussion mar the judging. "Near the end, he started showing me glasses and giving me the thumbs up," says Nagel. "I realized he wasn't spitting it all out."

Did these people at the house on Queen Anne know they were at the beginning of something big? "It sure was momentous to me," says Nagel. "In this group of experts, I felt like a rookie." As they swished and swirled, it was clear Washington had arrived on the wine scene. "You could sense things were going to pop," says Wallace, who, already infected with wine fever, started Hinzerling Winery in Prosser the next year.

Several weeks later, the group presented the winners of their tasting at the very first wine festival of the Northwest Enological Society, which, to their surprise, drew a crowd of more than 300. Alongside a sumptuous dinner prepared by Seattle chefs Francois Kissel and Robert Rosellini, the guests tasted some of the winning wines from Associated Vintners, the forebear of Columbia Winery, a '71 chardonnay from Boordy Vineyards in Prosser-which closed in '75-and a '74 Johannesberg Riesling and '72 Cabernet Sauvignon from Ste. Michelle Vineyards, now a major force in the American wine industry.

Washingtonians learned to grow wine grapes through the efforts of WSU researcher Walter Clore. But equally important is the man who taught Washington how to make and taste wine. Remember, 1975 was a time when Americans drank light European rosés, or possibly something more fortified. There were only six wineries in the state, and of them, only two survived.

Clore looked to Chas Nagel to turn the early grape efforts into wine and to encourage others to do the same. Nagel made the first two vintages in 1964 and '65 and then oversaw George Carter's winemaking at WSU's Prosser Research Station. At the same time, Nagel organized tasting panels in Pullman, training graduate students and community members, many of whom didn't drink wine at home, to find and diagnose the problems in the local vintages. Winemakers often turned to Nagel for advice. In fact, the plans for Arbor Crest Winery in Spokane were hatched by WSU alums C. Harold Mielke and his brother David at Nagel's dining room table. "We spent a lot of time with Chas," says C. Harold Mielke ('58 Zoology). "I would always bring the latest and greatest chardonnay and cracked crab, and we would talk about the wine business."

Nagel took his expertise to the west side of the state, becoming one of the founding members of the Seattle-based Northwest Enological Society and offering courses on how to taste wine. He was very particular about how it should be done.

"Honey, he never even let you wear perfume or lipstick to the tasting," says his wife, Bea.

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Continued

Winter 2005-06

Click here to read "Cataclysm, Light, & Passion: How Washington Came to Produce Some of the World's Greatest Wines," from WSM's inaugural issue, November 2001.

Who better to give tips on wine tasting than WSU's own original wine maker, tasting expert, and Supreme Knight of the Vine, Chas Nagel? Here is his advice.

Continued