Charles Smith Sales Packet

KUNG FU GIRL Riesling, Ancient Lakes 2015 750/12 107.90$ 10.49$

EVE Chardonnay, Ancient Lakes 2014 750/12 107.90$ 10.49$

THE VELVET DEVIL Merlot, Columbia Valley 2014 750/12 107.90$ 10.19$

BOOM BOOM! Syrah, Columbia Valley 2014 750/12 134.90$ 12.74$

CH SMITH Cabernet Sauvignon, Columbia Valley 2014 750/12 162.00$ 15.00$

CHARLES SMITH WINESPRODUCT PRICING

Charles Smith Wines | charlessmithwines.com | 509.528.5280 | [email protected]

BLEND 100% Riesling

CURRENT & PAST SCORES 90 Points, Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate “Juicy and lively, with lots citrus blossom, lychee and a touch of lime, the 2015 Riesling Kung Fu Girl is medium-bodied, vibrant and crisp on the palate, with terrific purity, integrated acidity and a great finish. It's a steal at the price and will drink nicely for a year or more.”

90 Points, Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate (v2014) “Always delicious, as well as an insane value, the 2014 Kung Fu Girl Riesling offers lots of exotic citrus, lychee and minty notes in a medium-bodied, delicious, vibrant profile on the palate. Downright gulpable, yet with plenty of classic Riesling flair, buy this beauty by the case and drink it over the coming year or so.”

VINEYARD The vineyards we work with are farmed using the most up to date sustainable practices.

Evergreen: Planted in 1998 by Jerry Milbrandt, the vineyard rows lie along a stretch of steep cliffs above the Columbia River in the state’s newest AVA, Ancient Lakes. A cooler site due to river influence, the soils are composed of fragmented volcanic rock, gravel silt and limestone. As with all of Milbrandt’s vineyards, Evergreen is farmed using sustainable practices. This site produces fruit with sublime mineral character and great acidity, a balance that winemakers adore.

VINTAGE The 2015 Harvest in Washington State started with an early spring bud break and continued into a warm summer. Although, it started early and was a very warm year, the fall turned out to be long and temperate, which gave great ripening to our fruit, bright acid, low alcohol and beautiful complexity.

APPELLATION Ancient Lakes

WINE ANALYSIS 8.0 g/L Titratable Acidity 1.4% Residual Sugar g/100mL 3.05 pH 12% Alcohol

2015 KUNG FU GIRL RIESLING Yet another terrific vintage. Pure, focused and mouthwatering. Citrus blossom, lime leaf, white peach intermingle with mineral that fills the palate. Carries on to a long refreshing finish.

PRODUCTION 100% Whole Clustered PressYeast: RHST, Vin 13, Native 2 Months Barrel-Aged on Lees

UPC 184745000041

mailto:[email protected]


BLEND 100% Chardonnay

CURRENT & PAST SCORES 88 Points, Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate “Giving up plenty of citrus blossom, white peach and apple fruit, the 2014 Charles Smith Chardonnay Eve is medium-bodied, nicely textured and balanced, with topnotch purity and nicely integrated acidity. It's a clean, classy, value-priced white to enjoy over the coming year or so."

VINEYARD The vineyards we work with are farmed using the most up to date sustainable practices.

Evergreen: Planted in 1998 by Jerry Milbrandt, the vineyard rows lie along a stretch of steep cliffs above the Columbia River in the state’s newest AVA, Ancient Lakes. A cooler site due to river influence, the soils are composed of fragmented basalt, gravel silt, and caliche deposited during ice age floods. As with all of Milbrandt’s vineyards, Evergreen is farmed using sustainable practices. This site produces fruit with sublime mineral character and great acidity, a balance that winemakers adore.

VINTAGE 2014 started out uneven, but eventually turned out to be one of the more beautiful years. Like the proverbial ugly duckling, it became a swan. As the season progressed, the nights got cooler and the days got longer and everything evened out, making for beautiful fruit. As usual, we were happy to be in the cooler and more unique sites in the states for this vintage.

APPELLATION Ancient Lakes

WINE ANALYSIS 5.5 g/L Titratable Acidity 3.54 pH 13.5% Alcohol

2014 EVE CHARDONNAY A shimmering, brilliant, green golden of a wine. Aromatic pear, tangerine, guava, but more than anything, TRUE CHARDONNAY FLAVOR. Add a vein of minerality running through the middle. Long and satisfying.

PRODUCTION Whole-Cluster Pressed Fermented on Lees Yeast: Partially Native 20% Malolactic Fermentation No New Oak 5 Months Barrel-Aged on Lees

UPC 184745000201

mailto:[email protected]

2014 th e velvet d evi l m er lot

Current & Past Scores89 points, Wine Spectator (2013 Vintage)“Fresh, vivid and appealing, with floral overtones around a polished core of currant and cranberry flavors, lingering deftly. Drink now through 2019.”

87 points, Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate (2013 Vintage)“Another good value that will certainly deliver for mid-week drinking, the 2013 Charles Smith The Velvet Devil Merlot has lots of plummy fruit, cedary spice and hints of wild herbs in a medium-bodied, deliciously quaffable package. It’s well-made, easy-drinking and best consumed over the coming year or two.”

VineyardSSundance: One of the oldest vineyards on the Wahluke Slope, planted in 1997. The site is topsoil over gravel, sand and broken down basalt with more caliche than other sites in the Wahluke. The vineyard, because of its aspect, is also a later ripening site allowing for great concentration.

Art Den Hoed: 250 acres over the south slope of the Rattlesnake Mountains in the Yakima AVA at 1300 feet elevation. The excellent air drainage and higher elevation work to preserve the natural acids in the grapes while flavors mature.

Goose Ridge: This 2,200 acre vineyard receives less than 8 inches of rainfall annually. It is a gently sloped, south-facing site adjacent to Red Mountain. Long, warm summer days and cool nights produce grapes noted for their ripe, rich character.

Weyns: Located in the Royal Slope area, which is part of the Columbia Valley AVA. It is about 1,000 ft elevation on sandy loam soils.

Hawk: 150 acres in the Wahluke Slope that was planted in 2010. The site has an elevation of 750-850 feet with a gentle southwest slope and has alluvial, sandy soils.

Oasis: Located in the Yakima Valley, this higher elevation site is located on the north edge of Yakima Valley. It has sandy, limestone soils.

Purple Sage: Located on the Wahluke Slope, this site is made up of sandy, alluvial soils.

This little devil is wrapped in a velvet robe. Full with density and bursting with flavor. Dark fruit, cherry, blackberry. Brimming with cedar, pipe tobacco and earth. Truth in a name: Velvet.

Blend94% Merlot, 3% Cabernet Sauvignon, 2% Malbec, 1% Cabernet Franc

AppelLationColumbia Valley

Production Whole Berry FermentationYeast: Partially Native30% New French Oak10 Months Barrel-Aged on Lees

Wine Analysis5.1 grams/L Total Acidity3.82 pH13.6% Alcohol

UPc184745000195


2014 b o o m b o o m! syra h

Current & Past Scores87 Points, Wine Spectator“Fresh and supple, with a beet salad edge to the berry and lime flavors, finishing light and persistent. Drink now!”

VineyardSThe vineyards we work with are farmed using the most up to date sustainable practices.

Art Den Hoed: The vineyard stretches for 250 acres over the south slope of the Rattlesnake Mountains in the Yakima AVA at 1300 feet elevation. The excellent air drainage and higher elevation work to preserve the natural acids in the grapes while flavors mature, making this site ideal for Syrah.

Pheasant: Planted in 2000, it is known for large areas of well-drained, sandy gravelly soils deposited by ancient glacial floods. Located in the Wahluke Slope, the soil is Quincy loamy fine sand - a sandy loam over sand. It’s sandy, get it? Pheasant Vineyard is owned and sustainably farmed by brothers Butch and Jerry Milbrandt.

Weyns: Located in the Royal Slope area which is part of the Columbia Valley AVA. It is about 1000 ft elevation on sandy loam soils. The vineyard was planted in 1980.

Arete: Columbia Valley AVA, this site is notably cooler than other Washington vineyards. It is high above a valley on the crest of a hill, at an elevation of 1,300 feet. This ideal climate is similar to European vineyards, allowing the grapes to hang on the vine until they are at full maturity. The result is grapes that produce intense color and flavor. Arete Vineyards is 45% organic.

Gamache: Planted in 1982, it is gradual south-facing, located in the White Bluffs area near Basin City in the Columbia Valley AVA. Soils vary, from a sandy-loam mix to areas strewn with caliche, allowing for varietal block plantings matched to ideal soil types.

I can tell you this. It is the best Boom Boom! thus far. Complexity, tannins inferior to none. Blackberry, boysenberry, dry-hung meat, white pepper, savory herbs, crushed granite. Need I say more? I think not.

Blend97% Syrah, 3% Viognier


production 30% Whole ClusterYeast: ActiveCo-fermented with 3% Viognier 25 Days on SkinsNo new oakBarrel-Aged on Lees

Wine Analysis.51 g/100ml Total Acidity3.89 pH13.5% Alcohol

UPc184745000072


2014 chateau sm ith ca b er n et sauvi g n o n

Current & Past Scores89 Points, Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate (2013 Vintage)“My favorite of the Charles Smith releases, the 2013 Charles Smith Chateau Smith Cabernet Sauvignon is rock solid, with classic violets, plum, licorice, earth and spring flower notes giving way to a medium-bodied juicy, balanced feel on the palate. It’s another terrific value that over delivers. I’d drink it over the coming year or two, but I see no reason it won’t hold longer.”

VineyardSArt Den Hoed: The vineyard stretches for 250 acres over the south slope of the Rattlesnake Mountains in the Yakima AVA at 1300 feet elevation. The excellent air drainage and higher elevation work to preserve the natural acids in the grapes while flavors mature, making this site ideal for Syrah.

Hawk: 150 acres in the Wahluke Slope that was planted in 2010. The site has an elevation of 750-850 feet with a gentle slope to the southwest and has alluvial, sandy soils.

Roza Hills: At an elevation of 1350 feet above sea level the vineyard is in a natural southern sloping bowl that sits on the southern slope of the Rattlesnake Hills. Temperatures, which are among the most moderate in the state, provide consistent ripening. Soils are characterized by their fine texture.

Wahluke Slope: Located on the very eastern edge of the Wahluke Slope AVA. This higher elevation site is made of of limestone, volcanic soils.

Don Talcott: Planted in 1998 and just five miles southeast of Mattawa, the 60 planted acres of this vineyard are composed of Merlot, Syrah, Cabernet Sauvignon, Zinfandel, Viognier and Sangiovese. This site produces fruit with sublime mineral character and great acidity, a balance that winemaker’s adore.

Clifton Bluff: Located on the Wahluke Slope’s southern slope next to Clifton Hills Vineyard, Clifton Bluff is made up of sandy, alluvial soils.

If you like Cabernet dark and rich, this is your sexy beast. Chocolate, dark cherries, tobacco leaf. It continues with earth and stone on an infinite finish.

Blend96% Cabernet Sauvignon, 4% Merlot


production Whole-Berry FermentationYeast: Native25 Days on Skins40% New French OakBarrel Aged for 10 months on Lees

Wine Analysis5.5 g/L Total Acidity3.81 pH13.5% Alcohol

UPc184745000126


The BounTy of Spain What to Buynew Zealand Pinot noir Comes of ageChriSTophe roumier Burgundy mastera perfeCT maTCh short riBs and syrah

An InsIder’s GuIde from

WhIsky expert dAve Broom

The expanding World of

ScoTchwww.winespectator.com

AS SEEN IN

OCT. 15, 2014 • Wine SpeCTaTOr 75

In WashIngton and beyond, Charles smith takes an eclectIc approach to make WInes people love to drInk

By Harvey Steiman ‡ PHotograPHS By joHn vallS

MArChINgdrummer

To His own


In WashIngton and beyond, Charles smith takes an eclectIc approach to make WInes people love to drInk

By Harvey Steiman ‡ PHotograPHS By joHn vallS

MArChINgdrummer

To His own


“I had a funky business plan,” Smith admits. “It listed the vine-yards I was working with and how much I had in bottle. But first they said they needed to try my wine.”

So Tucker and an associate met with Smith the next day to sam-ple the two bottlings from Smith’s initial vintage, 1999. Smith poured. The bankers sipped, and nodded to each other. “Your wine’s great,” Tucker said. “Congratulations, you now have a $250,000 credit line. Your wine is the collateral.”

The bank was taking a risk. Smith had spent 12 years living hand to mouth, first in Europe representing rock bands and then buying and running a postage stamp–sized wineshop on Bainbridge Island, a short ferry ride from Seattle.

“We had faith in him,” says Tucker, “because he not only had the ability to make really good wines, he could go out and sell them. Other wineries don’t have a clue about that.”

The bank’s bet paid off handsomely. Smith’s K Vintners, a 330-case startup in 2001, has grown to 15,000 cases today. The wines express power with refinement, with most choices priced in the

$35 to $60 range. Recent examples include the supple, seductive K Syrah Walla Walla Valley Old Stones 2010 (94 points on the Wine Spectator 100-point scale, $45).

Beyond K Vintners, the Charles Smith company has grown to more than 500,000 cases on the raging success of cheekily named bottlings that deliver a level of quality and character typical of wines costing much more. Best-known is the delicate, bright and minerally Kung Fu Girl Riesling, the 2012 vintage of which (90, $12) ranked No. 51 on Wine Spectator’s Top 100 in 2013. All 130,000 cases of this artistically labeled wine come from one site in Columbia Valley, Evergreen Vineyard, making it perhaps the largest-volume single-vineyard bottling anywhere.

The Charles Smith line ranges from rosés and Italian sparkling wines that go for $11 and $12 to the powerful and seductive $140 Royal City Syrah, the top-rated wine in two recent Wine Spectator tasting reports on Washington. Charles & Charles, a partnership with U.S. importer Charles Bieler, focuses on a dry rosé.

Although all these bottlings rely on traditional winemaking

K Vintners began with 330 cases made in the small outbuilding next to the 19th-century farmhouse in Walla Walla where Smith still resides when in the area.

The banker vividly remembers the day Charles Smith applied for his first business loan. It was 2001 when Smith went to see Matt E. Tucker, commer-cial vice president of Banner Bank, who deals with agricultural and wine businesses in eastern Washington. Smith was seeking $250,000 to launch a winery. “He didn’t look like most vintners, and he didn’t have two pennies

to rub together,” Tucker recalls. “But he had a great idea and great taste in wines.”

78 Wine SpeCTaTOr • OCT. 15, 2014

(K Vintners wines are even foot-stomped and basket-pressed), Smith’s public persona and busi-ness approach defy convention. His frizzy long blond hair, show-ing some gray, flails about his boy-ish face, part Medusa, part Side-show Bob. At 52, he favors jeans and T-shirts, some of them arti-facts of his decade of work in the rock ’n’ roll world.

Smith’s unorthodox aura and brash persona have fueled rumors. He’s heard that his wealthy fam-ily set him up; in another version, he funded his winery with drug money. The truth is more prosaic: starting from scratch with the line of bank credit; a series of smart business moves; brilliant labeling and marketing strategies. Along the way, business and personal re-lationships ran aground. But mostly, Smith has produced a stunning array of wines with per-sonalities as bold as the guy who makes them.

A troubled child, Smith grew up in the custody of his divorced mother,

who moved him around the West Coast. When he was 9, he moved in with his father, who, Smith says, virtually ignored him for nine more years. At 18 he left home. Working in restaurants, he found a world of hospitality he had never experienced.

His wine education began on the shores of Lake Tahoe, at Petit Pier restaurant. After closing time, the staff would share leftovers of the day’s pours, from an extensive cellar filled with Bordeaux and Burgundy treasures. The way they talked about the wines im-pressed Smith.

“I came from nothing,” he says. “I soaked up everything that was positive. I was a blank slate. This is what shaped me.”

He had landed the job in Tahoe only because of a previous, and unexpected, rise from back waiter to captain at the Caliente Room in Palm Springs, an old-line restaurant favored by mafia types. Hearing a regular customer mention Chicago, Smith had said he had family there, but when the regular asked if Smith’s family owned Caliente, Smith had to admit he was just a back waiter. The next day, he was promoted to front waiter. A few weeks later, serving another visitor from Chicago, a similar scenario played out. “Next day,” Smith laughs, “I’m in a tuxedo, a captain making Caesar salads tableside.”

He would work later at Napa Valley’s All Seasons Bistro, in Calistoga, a restaurant which in 1982 won a Wine Spectator Grand Award for its wine program. “On our days off, several of us would spend all our money because we could get anything on the list at half-off,” he recalls. “I can still tell you exactly how the 1977 Dia-mond Creek wines tasted, the color, the aromas. I was finally a real wine person.”

A pattern was emerging, one of constantly taking on bigger chal-lenges. “I always got jobs one step beyond my skill set,” he admits.

“I was bound to fail, but it always pushed me forward.”He followed a Danish girlfriend to Europe in 1990, but despite

his restaurant experience no wine importer in Denmark would hire him. He fell in with a rock ’n’ roll crowd. Helping bands get bookings, he made enough money to keep afloat. Seeking gigs in England for groups he was managing, because that’s where the big record labels were, Smith eventually found Craig Leon, an Ameri-can record producer there.

”He was very persistent. He got me to go to Copenhagen to hear this unknown band, Psyched Up Janis, and I thought they were very good,” recalls Leon, now a celebrated composer of classical music but at the time a multiple Grammy Award winner, produc-ing records by the likes of The Ramones, Blondie and Climax Blues Band. Leon produced several recordings with Psyched Up Janis, “all of which were successful in Scandinavia, but not anywhere else,” he says, adding, “In those days there was a prejudice against European rock.”

Smith with Psyched Up Janis in 1994. The Smith-managed Danish rock group toured widely and released a number of albums.

Smith, circa 1997–1998, visiting the Mittelrhein region in Germany. The future vintner lived in Europe for nine years, gaining knowledge from winery trips and books.


Leon and Smith struck up a friendship that continues to this day, founded as much on food and wine as on music. “Whenever Charles brought the band from Denmark to re-cord, he and I would cook dinner and do wine tastings,” Leon recalls. “He was educat-ing the band in wine.”

A favorite haunt was the White Horse Inn in Chilgrove, Sussex. Leon and Smith would plunder its cellar, then a Wine Spectator Grand Award winner. “I remember Charles and I camping out there and tasting every vintage of Hanzell [So-noma] Pinot Noir, going back 20 years,” Leon recalls with rel-ish. “Charles would persuade [owner Barry Phillips] to un-cork them all.”

In 1999, back in the United States with the members of Psyched Up Janis at a restaurant bar

in Seattle, Smith struck up a conversation with an English professor who owned a tiny wineshop on Bainbridge Island. “It was no bigger than my kitchen,” says Smith. “He and some friends ran the business so they could buy wine wholesale for themselves.” Smith offered $5,000 down, “the rest to be paid in wine.” When the professor accepted, Smith begged a friend to lend him the money.

On the days the shop was closed, Smith climbed into his 1987 Chevy Astro van and drove out to eastern Washington to buy new and exciting wines directly from producers. He convinced vintners to sell him large-format bottles and older vintages. “People were really into it on Bainbridge Island,” Smith says. “They would buy out every wine. It had heart, what I was doing.”

He always headed straight to Walla Walla. “You had pioneers like Leonetti and Woodward Canyon,” he says, “and the next wave that started in the mid- to late-’90s, like Walla Walla Vintners and Cayuse. Washington wine was just coming on, and I started to un-derstand it.”

In Walla Walla the unconventional Smith met a kindred icono-clast, a brash young Frenchman named Christophe Baron, whose vineyards, planted in 1997, were producing distinctive, personality-rich red wines under the Cayuse Vineyard label. He encouraged Smith to make wine in Walla Walla and even sold Smith grapes to help get K Vintners started. Syrah from Baron’s Cailloux Vineyard made one of the 1999 wines that got Smith that bank loan. For years the two nonconformists hung out together constantly, until a falling-out ended their friendship in 2007. Although neither will discuss details for the record, Smith says he bears no malice toward Baron, adding, “It makes me teary thinking about it.”

In Seattle, connections Smith made with other retail-ers and restaurateurs served him well when he released K Vintners’ first wine. When they asked if they could taste it, he would say, “I’m just out-side, how about now?” And if they wanted to buy some, he would deliver the wine from his van, parked down the block.

The van held 84 cases “and could barely keep the front wheels on the ground,” Smith says seriously. “Very danger-ous.” He would load it up in Walla Walla, drive the four and a half hours to Seattle and call on wineshops and restau-rants until it was all gone, choosing to visit those who might buy 10 or 20 cases first “to lighten the load.”

Smith had planned to live on $87,000 from that 2001 loan, but instead used the money to buy property just outside Walla Walla. It had a cottage on it and a ramshackle

building that could house stacks of barrels. K Vintners was in busi-ness. “For the next two years, I ate Top Ramen and hit the taco wagon a lot,” Smith says. “I had no place to go back to, so I could only move forward.”

Right away, Smith showed an uncanny ability to find vineyards and growers in Washington who could pro-duce something distinctive. A roster of favored vine-yards went into small-volume bottlings that made K

Vintners a classic boutique startup, where an ambitious winemaker buys a few tons of grapes to fashion artisanal wines.

Then came a winter freeze in 2003–2004. Walla Walla would have virtually no grapes to sell in 2004. “I needed to bottle wine to sell until we could get to 2005,” Smith explains. He followed up on an ad offering a tank of 2001 Seven Hills Vineyard Syrah, a Walla Walla wine from an excellent vineyard he’d not previously used. He liked the Syrah, bought the lot and aged it in barrels, pro-ducing what is known as a cash-flow cuvée. This one was far bet-ter than most. Sold as K Vintners Lucky No. 7 2001, it became something of a collector’s item.

Almost as an afterthought, the same winery offered Smith a 2002 Columbia Valley Cabernet Sauvignon, originally made for an up-scale label, at $8 a gallon. “I asked if I could get it for $7.50 if I bought all 35,000 gallons.” To his surprise, they said yes. But how would he sell it? The wine would not fit into the K Vintners portfolio.

He took two sample bottles home and drew a label by hand: “House Wine,” in 2-inch-high capital letters, illustrated with a

“I came from nothIng. I soaked

up everythIng that was

posItIve. I was a blank slate.

thIs Is what shaped me.”

Charles smith

Smith’s personal cellar at his Walla Walla home contains about 3,000 bottles, half of them French. He draws inspiration from the diversity and ageability of Châteauneuf-du-Pape.


simple sketch of a peak-roofed house. His Chicago distributor tasted the wine and agreed it was really good. He took the other bottle to Costco’s offices in Issaquah, in suburban Seattle, the hand-drawn label glue-sticked on. The Costco buyer liked the wine, thought the label was cool and agreed to take 7,000 cases. Back at the bank, Smith talked Tucker into lending him $100,000 in time to buy and bottle the wine.

“I hyperventilated for two days,” Smith recalls. “I had never made more than $15,000 in my life. Right then I made $210,000 profit on a phone call.”

Even after the big buy by Costco, 7,000 cases remained. “I crossed myself and realized that if I didn’t sell this I’m done. I traveled the country relentlessly. It was gone in six weeks, and the profit from that was a half a million dollars. I had no employees. I had a cellar rat just coming on, and a part-time person in the office. This was fun. Give me the drugs, the alcohol and the women!”

And just like that, he was in the négociant business. The Mag-nificent Wine Company was born, eventually expanding into la-bels such as Steak House Red (a Cabernet) and Fish House White (a Sauvignon Blanc). After four vintages the fast-growing Precept Brands became a partner, adding needed capital and distribution, and eventually bought it all in 2011. Precept is now the No. 2 wine company in Washington.

Magnificent Wine Company taught Smith that a smart, eye-catching label can make consumers pick up the bottle, and that if it’s backed up by good wine, “there’s no reason they won’t buy it again.”

Distinctive black-and-white graphics make his wines instantly identifiable on the shelf. “At my little wineshop, people would come in and ask, ‘I had a great Cabernet last night, you have it?’ ” Smith says. “Well, what was it called? ‘I dunno, River, Sky, Can-yon, something like that.’ They couldn’t even describe what it looked like. My customers could not get what they wanted, the

winery wasn’t selling their wine, and I couldn’t sell something I knew they liked.”

That simple label style started with his first wines at K Vintners, the front panel filled with a large K. “It’s something anyone could recognize, and I wanted it to be American. I thought of the brand-ing on livestock, the Lazy S and everything. The K is a solid sym-bol, but I didn’t want it to be Western-y, but modern.”

Danish designer Rikke Korff has fashioned the images for all of Smith’s labels. For those first ones, she made the block K look as if it had been sketched, not quite filling it in, giving the image a modern feel. Wines grown outside Walla Walla got a different K, without serifs, the frayed ends looking as if they had been brushed instead of stamped. The distinctions are a subtle signal to those who might want to know such details, without making the labels seem intimidating.

Smith met Korff early in his nine years in Scandinavia. The tal-ented young designer had just started at Levi’s, where she went on to create the Levi’s Red and Vintage collections, credited with re-invigorating the clothing company’s image. She also helped Smith by designing album covers for Psyched Up Janis.

“We became very good friends quickly,” says Korff, who now lives in Venice, Calif., consults with large clothing manufacturers and makes and markets two brands of her own—The Furies and Skagørn. “Whenever he crashed with me, we drank a lot of wine together, and we always talked about wine,” she says. It felt to her like an important friendship. “Over time we became more like fam-ily than friends.”

One night in 2006, Smith and Korff were watching the Kill Bill movies on TV. Smith, having learned about Riesling’s affinity for Asian food from dining at Wild Ginger, a Grand Award–winning restaurant in Seattle,

was pouring “copious amounts of minerally Riesling” for them to

Left: Designer Rikke Korff, circa 1996. Right: Charles Smith wines boast distinctive black-and-white labels and encompass a range of styles and varieties, from Riesling to Cabernet.


Early on, before a lineup of compelling wines proved his winemaking bona fides (see “The Winemaking Behind Charles Smith’s Brands,” page 89), Smith made up a story about growing up with French parents who made

wine. “I lied,” he shrugs. “I knew nobody would believe me if I told them the truth.”

Not only has he no French ancestry, Smith never spent a day in college studying winemaking or apprenticing at wineries. Instead he soaked up all the technical lore he could from winemaking text-books and through years of visits to wineries in France, Germany and Washington. He asked pointed questions, and when he finally shepherded his first loads of grapes through winemaking at K Vint-ners, the results were satisfying.

“It’s like cooking,” he says. “I’ve always had this sense of how to balance flavors and textures. And you don’t have the time pressure with winemaking that you do with cooking. I decided not to be afraid.”

Two accomplished winemakers now work with him. Andrew

drink with their takeout Chinese food. During the climactic sword fight, in which a white-robed Lucy Liu has her balletic showdown with Uma Thur-man, it occurred to Smith that he wanted to make a Riesling—and call it Kung Fu Girl.

He had just sampled a Riesling at Milbrandt, the 750,000 case–capacity winery at Wahluke Slope where he had been making the Magnifi-cent Wine Company wines. The Riesling came from Evergreen Vineyard, farmed by the Mil-brandt brothers, situated in a cooler, more north-erly region littered with white limestone rocks. Smith wanted to make his own Riesling from Evergreen, custom-crushing it at the winery he was already using.

Some years earlier he had suggested the Kung Fu Girl name for a line of T-shirts Korff was planning, coined after she had made a fashion-able kimono from a raunchy shirt of Smith’s with an image of a naked Japanese woman on it. Al-though the rock band Kung Fu Girls had already trademarked the name for clothing, it was still out there for wine.

Korff’s label is deceptively simple. Hands in sil-houette, poised for combat, clearly feminine, draped with oversized sleeves of a Chinese robe. The image extends to the the label’s edges. Streaky hair frames a stylized pair of lips and a collar. A tree’s branches extend across the top, framing the vertically stacked words “Kung Fu Girl” rendered in a simple all-caps type that evokes bamboo shapes. The wine is identified with the vintage and “Riesling Washington State.”

Smith has created a series of such simple, direct labels. The front labels don’t include “Charles Smith Wines,” just the name of the bottling in star-tling graphics: Eve Chardonnay with its bitten apple label; Velvet Devil Merlot and its pitchfork; and Boom Boom Syrah and its spherical bomb with a lit fuse. ViNO—the “I” in ViNo a wine bottle and floating cork—is a Pinot Grigio, grown at Evergreen Vineyard, like the Riesling.

Smith argues that such graphics do not dumb down the image of the brands. “It’s smartening it up to speak directly to the people who you want to buy your wine,” he insists. “The labels say pick me, pick me. When people drink it they feel good about what they bought. It’s not about me, it’s about everyone else.”

“Most people don’t speak wine,” he adds. “The simplicity of the label is almost like a courtesy. You’re going to help me pay my bills and survive, and I’m going to talk over you? No, I’m going to com-municate in your language. The packaging tells the story.” And the appellation says Washington State. “I don’t want people to buy it because they think it’s from California,” he insists.

Smith acknowledges that his labels were inspired in part by Bonny Doon, the California winery where in the 1980s proprietor Randall Grahm came up with witty names and used offbeat draw-ings by Ralph Steadman to create eye-catching labels. “The ideas were marketing genius,” Smith says.

Andrew Latta (left), Smith’s assistant winemaker since 2005, and Brennon Leighton, late of Efeste Cellars, collaborate with Smith on a host of projects and are launching their own labels with their boss’ support.


Substance, a Walla Walla partnership started by Waters Winery and Gramercy Cellars to make and market moderately priced négociant wines, was not included in the sale when Waters Winery was sold. With its “periodic table of wines” (Cs for Cabernet Sauvignon, Me for Merlot, Sg for Sangiovese, etc., emblazoned on simple front la-bels), Substance was right in Smith’s wheelhouse. He aims to focus on Cabernet Sauvignon and improve quality without increasing prices, which hover around $15, and introduce a new brand, Super Substance, for small lots of less-common varietals.

The acquisition also led Smith to lease two big warehouse spaces in Georgetown, an emerging commercial area near Boeing Field, south of downtown Seattle, for a new winery and tasting room. “That area has such heart and soul,” he says. “It’s a historic settle-ment in Seattle, only 10 minutes from downtown. This puts me where I really want to be. We outgrew the winery in Walla Walla.”

Starting in 2015, the new winery in the larger 32,000-square-foot space will make the high-end wines for K Vintners, Charles Smith, Sixto and Super Substance, plus Leighton’s and Latta’s per-sonal brands. A two-level tasting room, designed by Kundig, will offer those brands and a restaurant called Jet City. A second tast-ing room two blocks away will focus on the Charles & Charles wines plus Leighton’s and Latta’s bottlings (and include a second restaurant). The original K Vintners barn in Walla Walla will be converted to bottle storage and a tasting room.

“The majority of my grapes are at the halfway point between Walla Walla and Seattle,” Smith adds, noting that several of the state’s most celebrated wineries ship their grapes to Woodinville, just north of Seattle, to be vinified. “Agriculturally, we are at ground

Latta has been Smith’s assistant winemaker since 2005. Brennon Leighton, former winemaker for Efeste Cellars and hired by Smith in 2012, oversees the Charles Smith Wines production in Colum-bia Valley and adds expertise to the winemaking at K Vintners. “The idea is to elevate all our wines,” Smith says.

Both are also partners in a Chardonnay winery, the newest proj-ect. It’s called Sixto, after Sixto Rodriguez, the musician featured in the Oscar-winning documentary film Searching for Sugar Man. “It resonates with me,” Smith says, “because, like Rodriguez, a great Washington Chardonnay was here all along, we just need to dis-cover it.”

Smith can be extraordinarily generous. He is backing Latta and Leighton as they launch their own labels, selecting grapes already coming into the winery. But he also has a reputation as a tough boss.

“Charles is a lot of things, but suffering fools around his wines is not one of his traits,” says Latta. “During the first six months, I would tell my girlfriend at the time, ‘If I’m ever home from work before you, know that I punched Charles in the face and walked out.’ I’m a nonviolent person but it was a tense trial period for both of us until I earned his respect.”

The business continues to expand in other ways. Smith commis-sioned award-winning architect Tom Kundig to reshape a vast auto repair warehouse he bought in downtown Walla Walla into a spa-cious public tasting room and offices; the project won Kundig AIA national honors in 2013. And in 2011, Smith bought the Anchor Bar in Waitsburg, a short drive from Walla Walla.

Smith had built everything from the ground up until last year, when he bought Wines of Substance, his only brand acquisition.

Smith’s large tasting room, situated in a former auto repair workshop in Walla Walla, was designed by architect Tom Kundig, work for which he won AIA national honors in 2013.


BoB

Whi

ttak

er

to producer, and I like the versatility with food. Some of them are unctuous, others are very refined, some elegant, some rustic.”

The remainder of the collection comprises mostly Italian bot-tlings (reflecting Ginevra’s passion for older Italian wines), along with a mix of Spanish, German and Austrian wines. “I am in-spired by European wines that have nerve, that have minerality,” Smith muses, standing on the gravel floor of the cellar. “I want to make wines that have that electricity and are going to be alive 10, 15, 20 years down the road.”

Ever since he discovered good wine in the back rooms of the restaurants where he worked in his 20s, he knew he needed to make wine someday. “My hope was to make a couple thousand cases of wine a year, maybe earn $100,000 a year, meet a girl, start a family.

“When I am 87 years old I want to be the old guy sitting on the bench on Main Street with my cane, like those old French wine-makers who had socks that didn’t match their pants, which don’t match their shirt, or their jacket, and they look cool as hell. You know? I didn’t know where that was going to be, but I wanted to be that guy.”

People strolling by might remember this codger as the winery owner who did unconventional things such as distributing extra income from private-label wines to his employees. “He has a big heart,” says Charles Bieler, Smith’s partner in Charles & Charles. “He treats his team well and they operate like a family.”

One year, Smith used a $73,000 windfall (from selling a private cuvée to a U.K. chain) to pay for an eight-day trip to New Orleans for his entire 11-person staff. You can hear the enthusiasm as he describes the trip. “We did everything together—a seven-hour lunch at Galatoire’s, an all-day excursion in the bayou. We’re drink-ing jereboams of Hommage à Jacques Perrin at Commander’s Pal-ace. I told them there was $73,000, there’s 11 of us, and we have to spend it all.

“It was one of the best trips I’ve ever had. I felt like I had a fam-ily of 11 people.”

zero of where we want to be in Walla Walla. But it’s 287 miles from the popu-lation center.”

He’s also rented a condo in downtown Seattle so that he can spend time in the city with his wife, Ginevra, and their 1-year-old daughter, Charlotte.

Ginevra Casa first came into Smith’s life in Denver, where the Rome-born beauty was the Italian

wine specialist for the distributor of Smith’s wines. She relates the story of-ten. Wearing a form-fitting short white cashmere dress, she had walked past him at a sales meeting. “He grabbed my butt,” she recounts. ”He said he couldn’t help it, it was like two poodles fighting under my dress.”

“I’m really not that kind of guy,” Smith says, looking somewhat abashed. “If I were in a bar, I wouldn’t walk up to a woman and say, ‘Hey baby, can I buy you a drink?’ But something made me say, ‘I just have to touch you, you’re so smooth.’ I’m not proud of it, but that’s what happened.”

“Something about it was kind of childish but also cute,” says Ginevra, who was married at the time. The distributor had assigned her to shepherd Smith, who had a reputation for sometimes veer-ing off course. “There was never a hand held or kiss shared until she was divorced,” he insists, and Ginevra confirms. But four years later, after her divorce, they got together again. “It was three months from first kiss to wedding,” she smiles.

They were married in 2009, a second marriage for both. Smith’s first, which came in his 20s, lasted only a year. The Brazilian woman (who now handles visa requests at the Brazilian consulate in Los Angeles) is Facebook friends with Ginevra. They connect regu-larly. “I have no idea what they talk about,” Smith shrugs. “They won’t tell me.”

The Smiths live much of the time in the farmhouse outside Walla Walla that came along with the structure Charles purchased in 2001 to age the K Vintners wines. The house, built in 1872, has since been extensively remodeled, including a state-of-the-art kitchen for Ginevra, an accomplished cook who makes an extraor-dinary risotto Bolognese.

Smith, who can be curt during business hours, becomes a marsh-mallow around Charlotte. “He cried for two weeks when she was born,” Ginevra smiles. “I can be very weepy,” he acknowledges, “maybe because my life as a child was kind of rough.” Ginevra and her Roman family insisted that Charlotte be baptized at St. Peter’s Basilica. Smith loves to show off the photo book.

Another prize in the home is a 3,000-bottle capacity wine cel-lar, fashioned from a large, unused space beneath the house. None of its current contents are from Smiths’ own winery, but still re-flect his eclectic tastes. “It’s only for personal consumption,” he says. “I would say it’s about 50 percent French, more Châteauneuf-du-Pape than anything else, because it’s so varied from producer

Smith with his wife, Ginevra, and daughter, Charlotte. Known for a no-nonsense demeanor at work, Smith is a softie at home.


Mil

Bran

dt V

iney

ards

Wahluke Slope’s Clifton Hill vineyard

Charles Smith lifts the tarp draped over a cube-shaped fermentor and peers into a mass of Cabernet Sauvignon grapes. White pellets of dry ice protrude from the barely crushed dark blue clusters, blanketing the must with car-bon dioxide and protecting it from air as its own yeasts begin the fermentation.

Rows of these fermentors—the same 2.5-ton containers that transported the grapes from the vineyards—bubble away in a 15,000-square-foot winery in Walla Walla, a town that has established itself as wine central for Washington. Already, 60 of these bins have been sandwiched into the space. Outside in the crisp October sunlight, a sorting line picks through additional bins, scrutinizing Syrah, Grenache, Cabernet Sauvignon and other grape varieties hand-picked the previous day from some of the best vineyards in the state. It’s harvesttime at K Vintners.

K VintnersSmith’s first label, founded with the 2001 vintage, makes distinctly artisanal wines, mostly priced $35 to $50. The label began with and continues to deliver Syrahs and Cabernets that show precise and ex-pressive fruit character, often finishing with trails of spice, leather and black olive, on muscular but lithe frames. These small-volume reds,

such as those from Morrison Lane vineyard in Walla Walla or North-ridge, high in Wahluke Slope, are “for people who want young, pow-erful wine, with balance, not overripe, but still with extra oomph,” says Smith. The K lineup also includes Merlot, Sangiovese, a Gre-nache blend, and most recently, a Sauvignon Blanc.

Charles Smith WinesThe Charles Smith brand was launched in 2006 to showcase wines that were easy for consumers to understand and that could be drunk young. Behind their eye-catching labels, the modestly priced Charles Smith wines are mostly “straight down the middle,” he says, “not superpowerful.” Chateau Smith, $20, is a complex and expansive Cabernet Sauvignon concealed behind a vulgar label intended to poke fun at wineries that take themselves too seriously.

Smith long ago stopped blending his large-selling wines from sur-plus lots purchased in bulk, as he did with Magnificent Wine Co. (founded in 2004, sold in 2011). Instead they are grown under long-term-contracts, even those priced $12 to $20 a bottle. The grapes for Charles Smith wines are crushed, fermented and bottled at the Mil-brandt winery in Mattawa, Wash., and the Goose Ridge winery facil-ity in Richland. A new winery is being built in the Ancient Lakes AVA to handle the grapes from Evergreen Vineyard starting in 2015.

“People who can afford $12 for one of my wines deserve the

The Winemaking behind Charles smiTh’s brands


BoB

Whi

ttak

er

don’t have any of the harsh character that can occur when ferment-ing with stems. Without the stems, Smith notes, “there would be a hole.” As fermentation and maceration continue for 28 to 35 days, the wines pass through a funky stage, but they emerge with polished textures, along with more interesting aromas and flavors.

Charles & CharlesA collaboration with New York wine importer and entrepreneur Charles Bieler, the Charles & Charles label is best-known for its rosé. When Bieler, the son of a Provençal winegrower, approached him in 2010 to make the vivid, bone-dry rosé, Smith turned to a vineyard growing Syrah deemed too light for his own red wine style.

The first rosé, a 2008, was an eye-opener. The $12 bottling, its label sporting sketches of the long-haired partners against a hand-

drawn American flag, earned 90 points for its crisp texture and pomegranate and mineral flavors. The 2011 rose to the No. 42 spot on the Top 100 of 2012, and with 2013, the bottling grew to 48,000 cases, with sales and marketing handled by wine giant Trinchero.

Secco Bubbles Secco emerged from a project of Smith’s wife and her two sisters. In 2009, new rules for Prosecco required the wine contain at least 85 percent Glera (the historic name for the Prosecco grape), leav-ing growers of non-DOC approved varieties without buyers. The blends for Secco Bianco and Secco Rosé vary yearly, but typically include Chardonnay, Raboso Piave, Pinot Noir and others. It’s a win for the growers, the co-op that makes these bottlings and for consumers who like fresh, unpretentious fizz. The label, a pattern of yellow dots that become progressively paler in color, is a simple graphic representation of sparkling wine.

Clearly, Smith is driven to get it right. “Did we phone it in, or did we really do it?” he asks rhetorically. “Did we make that extra trip to the vineyard, or did we try to get it over with as soon as pos-sible? Did we have the difficult conversations with the grower or the production partner that you really didn’t want to have, but [that are] necessary if you’re going to do what you really want to do? I want to be able to sleep at night.”

same attention I give to wines that cost more,” he says. “My model is a chef like Daniel Boulud, a three-star who also has a great burger restaurant. He believes everyone should have access to good food. I love it.” In that vein, sources for the $12 Eve Chardonnay include the Evergreen, Ancient Lakes and Roza Hill vineyards, this last a 34-year-old site in Yakima Valley. These cooler-climate spots are full of limestone, Smith notes. “We ferment some of it in barrels, the rest in concrete. We keep lots of solids in the wine to build mouthfeel.”

Although there’s no mention of it on the label, the $15 Boom Boom Syrah gets its lively feel and deft balance from 3 percent Viog-nier co-fermented with Syrah from vineyards in the Wahluke Slope and Horse Heaven Hills AVAs. And ViNO, the $11 Pinot Grigio, comes entirely from Ancient Lakes to emphasize minerally flavors and crisp acidity over blatant fruit

The most profound and impressive bottling thus far, however, is the Charles Smith Syrah Royal City, whose 2008 and 2009 versions topped our Washing-ton tasting reports in 2011 and 2012, respectively, with classic scores. The wine represents a deeper, richer and more explosive style than K’s, the label likewise more elaborate and edgy.

The story behind Royal City reflects Smith’s will-ingness to take chances in search of something unique, both on the business side and in winemak-ing. On a tip from a grower, he went to see a little-known vineyard outside Royal City, in Columbia Valley. “There were like 65 acres of vines here. The vines are lying all sprawled,” he says of Stoneridge Vineyard in 2005. “It’s January and the fruit is on the ground. Turned out the owner had died the previous year, and the family couldn’t harvest it.”

Smith kicked around the rocky soils, liked the lay of the land and decided to take all 11 acres of the Syrah, paying $7,500 an acre if the family would do the work as he outlined. “They did it, we made the wine, and it was really pow-erful,” he says. Surveying the vineyard a week before harvest, he saw the grapes ripening unevenly. “The stems from the south part were dark. Where they started to get green, I would tie a ribbon.” He had the pickers stop at the ribbon, then return for the rest when fully ripe.

The grapes from Stoneridge’s lower section were destemmed for one wine, with the upper section left as whole clusters to ferment another. Both wines were aged in small neutral barrels, and a third wine blending the two lots aged in larger, also neutral, 500-liter puncheons. “These three wines were distinctly different,” Smith says, “like Kurobuta pork three ways.” Heart, the destemmed wine, and Skull, from whole clusters, were named after a pair of litho-graphs that Smith owns (“Heirloom,” by Jim Dine). Old Bones, the wine from the puncheons, is the nickname of a neighbor.

As good as these wines were, the revelation came the next year, a less powerful vintage. Adding stems from the lower section to the fermenting vats of the top section to create greater depth also produced a surprisingly glassy-smooth texture. That wine became Royal City, rated 97 points in the 2006 vintage, and again in 2009 and 2010. The supple, complex and majestic 2009 is typical, with floral, mineral and exotic spice character around a core of meaty black cherry, licorice and maple flavors.

Smith now uses stems extensively in all his reds, but the wines

Charles Bieler (left) is Smith’s partner in the Charles & Charles label

CHARLES SMITH PRESENTATION

WINE INFORMATION BOOKLETTHE CURTIS

SEPTEMBER 9, 2016

{ ADDITIONAL INFORMATION }▶ Charles Smith Wines is one of only four Washington State wineries who have received a 100-point score from the world’s leading wine publications (Wine Advocate, Wine Spectator, Wine Enthusiast, Wine & Spirits). Quilceda Creek, Cayuse and Leonetti are the other three.

▶ Charles is also the only winemaker to receive the “Winemaker of the Year” award from both Wine Enthusiast (2014) and Food & Wine magazine (2009).

▶ Charles has received over 85 scores of 95 points and above, and over 350 scores of 90 points above, from the leading wine publications (Wine Advocate, Wine Spectator, Wine Enthusiast, Wine & Spirits).

▶ Recently featured on Fox Business News, Saveur Magazine and the New York Times, Charles Smith Wines is the largest independent and winemaker-owned winery in Washington State with wines sold in all fifty states and twenty-three countries worldwide.

“One of the highlight (and largest) tastings for this report, the team at

K Vintners consists of wild man himself, Charles Smith and Brennon

Leighton. Despite the rock star persona, when it comes to the wines,

these guys are dead serious, source grapes from some of the top sites,

and simply get out of the way once they’re in the winery.”

- Jeb Dunnuck, Robert Parker’s The Wine Advocate (June 2014)

FEBRUARY 3, 2017

2015 Kung Fu Girl Riesling, Ancient Lakes__________________________________________________________________________________

2014 Eve Chardonnay, Ancient Lakes__________________________________________________________________________________

2014 The Velvet Devil Merlot, Columbia Valley__________________________________________________________________________________

2014 Boom Boom! Syrah, Columbia Valley__________________________________________________________________________________

2014 Chateau Smith Cabernet Sauvignon, Columbia Valley__________________________________________________________________________________

Date post:	07-Feb-2017
Category:	Sales
Upload:	gena-feldmann
View:	13 times
Download:	0 times