Leann Stacey

With the rainy, colder winter weather and ongoing COVID-19 restrictions we are limiting our wine tasting to by appointment only. The red wines (6 varietals and a blend) are bottled and available for tasting and purchase! We have a few cases left of the 2019 pinot gris. The 2020 white wines are smelling and tasting lovely. We should be bottling them in the next month or so. We will plan on having a release party sometime in March or April. We’ll keep you posted!!

2020 has definitely been an interesting year for everyone. We want to thank everyone who came out and supported us in our first commercial year. While it wasn’t what we were planning for our winery and tasting room this year, overall it went really well. The slower start was not all a bad thing as it allowed us to get our feet wet with the commercial world.

We got great feedback on our 2019 white wines. The roussanne, sauvignon blanc and viognier have all sold out. We just have a few bottles left of the Sundew White Blend and cab franc rose’. We still have several cases of the pinot gris left as well. Good news is that all of these will be back and in greater amounts with the 2020 vintage. The 2020’s have had their first racking and are smelling and tasting delicious already. They should be ready for release in the spring of 2021!

The biggest feedback we got this summer was “we can’t wait for your reds”. We offered barrel samples of the red blend to rave reviews and requests to buy it now. For a 2019 it is tasting amazing, and will just get better with a little more time. Good news is that we just bottled one barrel of it and all of the other 2019 reds except for the malbec. We want the malbec and the other barrel of the blend to enjoy more time in the barrel. These reds should be available for tasting and purchase in the spring of 2021 along with the whites.

The 2020 reds are also coming along nicely. For this vintage we will have: syrah, cabernet sauvignon, cab franc, merlot, malbec, and petit verdot. We were planning on doing a barbera, but unfortunately due to storm damage and the quickly cooling temps it never fully ripened. We just picked the 2020 red blend thanks to feedback from friends and it’s going in the barrel today! It is a very similar blend to the 2019, but with an increased percentage of petit verdot.

Finally Michael also taught a Zoom class on fruit winemaking this fall. As part of that we also have some raspberry wine that will be available in the spring. The aromas and flavors of fresh raspberry in this are amazing!

We are available for tastings through the winter, but with the current restrictions we have to be outside. Just give us a call or email if you want to come by and taste or pick up some of the remaining white wines. We’ll keep you posted on the plan for release of the 2019 reds and 2020 whites in the spring.

Once again, thank you all for your support. Stay safe and healthy. We hope you have a wonderful holiday season even if we’re “socially distant”.

Cheers! Leann & Michael Stacey

Pierce County is now in phase 2 of reopening. That means our tasting room is open with social distancing requirements. This includes no groups larger than 5 and we will be wearing face coverings. We have plenty of space in the winery and patio to spread out to maintain 6 ft of distance between groups. We are also frequently cleaning down everything in the tasting room/winery.

Fun fact: we can’t use cleaning supplies with bleach in the winery because that can contribute to cork taint (TCA). We are using high level alcohol hand sanitizer to sanitize in the winery.

We are going to be open most Friday evenings, Saturday and Sunday afternoons. We are also open other days by appointment. Our hours are flexible so if you want to come by just give us a call/text or send an email. Michael is the easiest to get a hold of during the week at 253-307-6343. Email is

Michael and Leann have decided to take the plunge and file as a commercial winery! The application has been submitted to the TTB. Hopefully 2019 will be our first commercial vintage and we’ll have some whites and rose available for sale in the spring of 2020!

Hello everyone,

We’re trying to get back in the swing of things with posting more regular updates, but it seems to get away from me.  Today we finished up bottling the 2016 reds. We bottled almost 12 cases (2 bottles short) of the second blend that’s been in our barrel.  This one was 40% cab sauvignon, 40% merlot, and 20% malbec.   The first blend that we bottled a couple of months ago was 40% malbec, 20% cab sauv, and 20% merlot.  Both of them came out very tasty.  While the volume of wine has been a lot this year, its nice to have the amount to let these age another year or 2 and see how they just keep getting better!

Michael is re-filling the barrel as I type with our 2017 reds. It will be a typical Washington Bordeaux Blend.  This will be 33% malbec, 16% merlot, 16% cab franc, 16% petit verdot, and 16% syrah.  No significant amount of cab sauv in this one – but Michael has 5 bottles of the 2016 cab that he is going to use for topping off, so that might equate to 1% cab.  🙂

We still have straight malbec, merlot, syrah, and cab franc in the tanks, plus a carboys of petit verdot and tempranillo.   We likely won’t be bottling these until later in the summer before harvest and we need the space.

We also just got our new labels printed thanks to Lore (Leann’s sister)! She took pictures that Leann had taken of frogs on our plants and turned them into cool looking labels.   She’s still working on our new red wine label – hopefully now that the frogs have come out we’ll get some better pictures for her to work with.  Stay tuned.

Cheers!  Leann & Michael

 

Hi everyone,

I know its been awhile since we posted any updates – but that doesn’t mean we haven’t been busy in the winery.  Today we bottled the 2017 Pinot Gris, Gewurztraminer, and Rose of Cab Franc. We still have a lot of sauvignon blanc and viognier to bottle in the next couple of weeks.  They’re all looking really pretty and are tasty!

We also bottled our first barrel blend a few months ago and it is very nice.  The next blend that is currently in the barrel should be ready to bottle in another month or so – then its on to figuring out our next blend from the 2017s.

Will keep you posted – cheers!