Northstar Winery

Northstar’s focus is on merlot. Not just your garden-variety merlot, but ultrapremium merlot sourced from the best vineyards in Washington using their finest grapes. Merlot, a black-skinned grape that originated in France back in the 1700s, is often called Bordeaux’s other red-wine grape, cabernet sauvignon being the signature grape of the region. However, here’s a little secret that tends to raises an eyebrow or two: The number-one grape produced in Bordeaux is merlot, not cabernet sauvignon.

Sporting tinted glasses and a hair style reminiscent of U2’s Bono, winemaker David “Merf” Merfeld meets the challenge of blending the best-of-the-best merlot grapes with other Bordeaux-derived varieties, including cabernet sauvignon, petit verdot, and cabernet franc, to produce 90+ point award winners. Words such as “intense,” “muscular,” “chocolate,” and “licorice” come to mind when I taste Northstar’s prized merlots. It’s all in the blending, and Merf draws upon what he dubs a “spice rack” of varieties to create merlot-based wines. "Declassified" wines bearing the Stella Maris label are sold at more wallet-friendly prices. Northstar’s lone white wine, a semillon affectionately known to locals as “Stella,” bears the Stella Blanca label.

Located just south of Walla Walla, within a stone’s throw of Pepper Bridge Winery and Tertulia Cellars, Northstar offers a commanding view of the distant Blue Mountains. These mountains provide most of the water for the valley’s 1,200 acres of Vitis vinifera, including the 14 acres of grapes growing next to the winery (take a wild guess at the variety). Ste. Michelle Wine Estates, the parent company of Northstar, is all about elegance, and this is in evidence in Northstar’s stylish tasting room and state-of-the-art production facility. The commodious tasting room offers plenty of space to mingle with side doors leading outside to a spacious patio, where live music often fills the air during event weekends.

Be sure to ask a staff person if you can take a peek at Northstar’s production area. From a side door, you look down into the winemaking area. By most standards, the facility is huge, with mammoth stainless steel tanks lining the walls like sentinel soldiers. From this vantage point, it’s easy to imagine Merf and his production team blending great wines from their industrial-size spice racks. It’s also kept as spotless and well organized as a hospital operating room. Why, you could eat off the floor … but don’t. They’d have to “cut you off” back in the tasting room.

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  Order the book!

  Northstar Winery was featured in WineTrails of Walla Walla as part of the Walla Walla WineTrail South on page 522!

• 

  Order the book!

  Northstar Winery was featured in WineTrails of Washington as part of the Walla Walla WineTrail South on page 522!