Tefft Cellars Winery

Launched in 1991 by Joel Tefft, Tefft Cellars is one of the older wineries in Washington. Joel relied, for the most part, on his own 12-acre vineyard for fruit making a full range of estate and Yakima Valley reds, whites and dessert wines. Annoyed with the dreaded “cork taint” monster Joel used various methods to seal the wine including screw caps and boxed wines which might not please everyone’s need to hear the cork pop from the bottle but he was innovative. I say, “was” because in 2007 Joel sold Tefft Cellars to its current owners Paul Tollner and Rhonda Taylor.

Keeping the Tefft Cellars name and associated branding (I really like the stately blue heron on the label) Paul and Rhonda have gone about a facelift of sorts to the winery. For example, using considerable elbow grease and an eye for design, they opened up a tasting room studio in well-populated Woodinville in 2009, enhanced the grounds and tasting room of their flagship Outlook winery and tasting room site and more recently hired an experienced winemaker in Brian Wavernek.

However, fans of Tefft Cellars can rejoice in the fact that Tefft Cellars still maintains a fairly large collection of wines including traditional as-you-would expect reds (cabernet, merlot, syrah) and whites (chardonnay, gewürztraminer, and pinot grigio) as well as dessert wines with can’t forget names like Black Ice and Starboard.

The Tefft Cellars Estate Nebbiolo is noteworthy because of the 40,000+ acres of grapes grown in Washington few acres are planted in nebbiolo. It's rare to see this grape outside its home base of Italy's Piedmont region. Whether or not Tefft Cellars’ nebbiolo can compete with the great nebbiolo-based Barolos or Barbarescos of Piedmont is a fair question. However, just having an opportunity to taste this magnificent noble grape variety is reason enough to visit Tefft Cellars.

If you didn’t notice the outside mural on your way into the Outlook tasting room, make sure you pause and experience it on your way out. The mural depicts various wine-related scenes, from crush to spring barrel tasting. Despite the bright sun, the mural’s vibrant colors invite the viewer to be drawn into the scene. It makes you want to stomp some grapes!

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  Tefft Cellars Winery was featured in WineTrails of Washington as part of the Rattlesnake Hills WineTrail South on page 314!