Skylite Cellars

With Skylite Cellars, you can double your pleasure. Visit Skylite Cellars at The Winery (main location off old Highway 12 on Campbell Road) and then head to Skylite Cellars at The Gallery in downtown Walla Walla. The winery also produces wine under two different labels: the Skylite Cellars brand and the Hiney Wine label. Two tasting rooms, two labels — but one unifying theme: passion. A love story is behind the creation of Skylite Cellars, that of Tom Hodgins and his focus on growing a radio empire in Eastern Washington and his wife, Cheryl, whose farming background included driving tractors and planting gardens. As divergent as their backgrounds may have, the couple has one vital interest in common, and that is wine.

Skylite Cellars’ main tasting room, just west of town on Campbell Road, is a high-ceilinged space with a spiral staircase taking center stage. Upon walking into this tasting room, your first reaction will likely be “Wow!” It is readily apparent that a lot of creative energy went into this space. There’s ample parking, a peek-a-boo view of the barrel room from an upstairs window, and a terrific mural on an interior wall of the tasting room.

The downtown tasting-room location is on Second Street, down the street from the Marcus Whitman Hotel. Cheryl’s parents — collectors of art and antiques gathered during their extensive globetrotting — started the eclectic antiques/art shop which shares the space with the downtown tasting room. While there, check out the distinctive wine-barrel bar and the surrounding art (particularly the painting of a tasting room scene). Upstairs, you’ll discover a skylight that bathes the upstairs gallery with warm light, the source of the winery’s name.

Winemaker Robert Smasne produces small quantities of “distinctive tasting wines for the discerning wine lover.” The 5-acre Skylite Vineyard supplies the fruit for cabernet sauvignon and merlot, and other varieties are sourced from select vineyards in the Walla Walla and Columbia valleys. But Hiney Wine, Skylite’s second label, is the real attention getter. With its “world famous” red wine and slogans such as “You only go around once in life, so grab all the Hiney Wine you can get!” “Feel my Hiney,” and "Uncork the Hiney,” it’s obvious that Tom and his cohorts don’t take themselves too seriously. They’re all about having a great time while making great wine. Bottoms up!

• 

  Order the book!

  Skylite Cellars was featured in WineTrails of Walla Walla as part of the Walla Walla WineTrail West on page 426!

• 

  Order the book!

  Skylite Cellars was featured in WineTrails of Washington as part of the Walla Walla WineTrail West on page 426!