Lowden Hills Winery

Lowden Hills’ 2006 “See You There” Syrah grabbed my attention with its label, which bears the photo of a smartly dressed, confident young woman waving from her perch on the front of a Model T. A quick perusal of the tasting notes revealed that this northern Rhône-style blend consists of 92 percent syrah co-fermented with 8 percent viognier. I had to try it. Perhaps it was my “puppy dog with an empty belly” approach to asking for a sample, but I lucked out with a generous pour of dark, inky blue wine. A rapid swirl and sniff gave way to dark fruit and spicy notes on the palate.

As I sampled this delicious treat, I could not help but reflect on my first visit to Lowden Hills Winery in 2007, when the winery and tasting room were shoehorned into an old barn on Spitzenburg Road in Walla Walla. As I noted in WineTrails of Washington, “The original barn, built in 1938 by Emilio Gugliemelli Sr., stored vegetables and other crops. As Jim [Henderson, Sonja’s husband and winery co-owner] notes, ‘What once housed workhorses and livestock is now the main-floor barrel room.’ The foundation footprint is rather small, but a cellar door leads down a steep set of stairs to the barrel room below. It’s in these tight quarters that Jim plays Tetris with the barrels, racking and topping off the barrels as needed.” In relation to the old digs, the new space, west of downtown Walla Walla on Pine Street, is colossal in size.

To understand Lowden Hills Winery is to appreciate family history. The Hendersons’ vineyard, Win Chester Vineyard, is located on Woodward Canyon Road just outside the small town of Lowden. On these 18 acres, they grow merlot, cabernet sauvignon, syrah, and viognier. The vineyard’s name honors Sonja’s mother, Susanne Estes, and her mother’s late husband, Win Chester Estes. Win was a well-respected wheat farmer with a true pioneering spirit, and his family homesteaded in the Clyde area of Walla Walla County in the 1860s. A picture of Win Chester Estes is on the wall at the winery. It turns out that the aforementioned picture of the woman on the “See You There” Syrah is Sonja’s mom, Susanne. A nice touch.

Honoring the past with the great wines of today is the driving force behind Jim and Sonja’s labor of familial love.