Fujishin Family Cellars

“Eighteen degrees brix,” exclaimed Martin Fujishin after popping a syrah grape in his mouth. It was late August, and his gleeful smile said it all: Harvest was just around the corner. We were standing between one of many well-pruned rows of the 110-acre Bitner Vineyards, which Martin manages. He was giving me a two-minute viticulture drill on canopy management, and it was clear he cares about every vine.

Given Martin’s callused hands and deep viticultural understanding, I believe he will make a fine instructor at the fledging Treasure Valley Community College viticulture program, where he began teaching in the fall of 2009. Of course, I had to ask, “Would you want to have your own vineyard?” “Oh, heck no,” was his quick response. “There’s no time for that. I work five jobs!”

Martin beat me to the punch before I could inquire about those five jobs, He explained that he also works part-time for the Idaho Department of Agriculture, spending a couple of days a week inspecting vineyards in the Snake River AVA. Such work brings him in close contact with other wine growers, with whom conversations about mildew and mealy bugs might leave other mortals yawning, but not Martin.

He’s also the assistant winemaker at Koenig Distillery & Winery, where for several years now, Martin has learned first-hand from one of Idaho’s premier winemakers, Greg Koenig. This experience has informed him in the craft of winemaking and shaped his winemaking style — a style that relies more on art than science, as well as on trust in his own palate. It has also taught him that winemaking is just half the battle of running a successful winery. The other half is marketing. Fortunately for Martin, his girlfriend and business partner, Teresa Moye, takes on the all-important role of marketing person and tasting-room coordinator for Fujishin Family Cellars.

In Caldwell’s Urban Renewal District, at Fujishin’s new tasting room, dubbed Coyotes, visitors can sample Martin’s wines, poured from bottles adorned with his family crest. For those with a penchant for Rhône-style wines — syrah and viognier — you are in luck. These are Martin’s favorites, and his description of viognier’s “bright floral notes” had me drooling.

Vineyard manager, winemaker, winery owner, agriculture inspector, college instructor — how’s that for a résumé? I was exhausted just contemplating this human version of the Energizer bunny. But with apologies to Robert Frost, at 30 years of age, Martin has many vintages to go before he sleeps.