D&S
Hi St - I loved your website! Thank you for providing the connection. There’s much fascinating content there and we expect to spend a lot more time exploring it, and learning more about you.
September 21, 2021
When we arrived in the PNW, I realized that my (Anglo) family name is a common one in the Nez Perce tribe, including the recent tribal president and the treasurer. When I was researching the history surrounding the 1877 war I found that in that era there was at least one intermarriage that could account for it- of Chief Red Heart, a ‘treaty Indian’, with one Ruth Moffett. In time we got to know some members of the tribe and had several as students, so we were welcome to visit backstage at the pow-wow they have every year. Our place is located near Wawawai on the Snake River. The name is said to have meant it was a Nez Perce council ground - or it could mean 'place where there are mosquitoes' - which is ironical since I spend the last decade of my research career on an aspect of mosquito physiology. Yes, I agree that we are interlopers on sacred ground. I suspect that the Nez Perce spent most of their time near the riverbanks, though, for we have found but two pieces of worked stone in a quarter century. The original Wawawai was a little town. There was a ferry across the Snake there and many of the settlers that came here took the Washington branch of the Oregon Trail, crossed the river on the ferry, and ascended out of the canyon to take up land on the prairies. All of that area was inundated by the Lower Granite Dam in the early ‘70s. In another irony, there has been a campaign for years to breech the lower Snake River dams to restore salmon runs to a level consistent with the treaty with the Nez Perce that guaranteed their traditional hunting and fishing rights. Our neighbor told us that salmon once spawned in our little creek. When the county paved the road, it set the culvert openings so high up that a salmon would need to be a flying fish to get into our creek to spawn. Our winery tasting room is in Uniontown WA. The area thereabouts was settled by German Catholics who built a charming baroque church that is the oldest sanctified church in Washington. Sometimes the local chorale performs there.
Presently we are in the midst of the wine grape harvest - a little less than half done. It will be an interesting vintage because of the high heat and drought conditions this year, but the syrah that just went to barrel is going to be exceptional. I hope we can share some of this with you, as well as our other creations. It would be fun to hear how your interest in wine developed. We have cabernets franc and sauvignon, and smaller blocks of malbec, petit verdot, carmenere, syrah and sauvignon blanc. We like to blend our reds, but also do make pure cab varietals. The S. blanc is usually dry but in a few high-sugar years we have finished it off-dry, which made it very appealing to women - those off-dry vintages always sold out. Our younger son graduated from the wine program at Walla Walla CC and is a very talented and creative winemaker. He is also mechanically adept and keeps all our vehicles running, as well as the farm equipment.
I promised to send photos. The third one shows our little winery as it was not too long after we built it. Trees have grown up in front of it now and the arbor is overhung with vines, but I like this photo. The fourth one is our house. It’s partly earth-sheltered and heated by a massive Russian stove. The fifth one shows part of a block of cabernet sauvignon. It gives an idea of the landscape here. We were picking there last weekend. The dog on the left is my Ramona - she is about a year old now. Her youth and inexperience certainly show in her face (unlike mine, eh?) The one on the right is Stacia’s Addie - she is about nine years old. They came from the same breeder - we loved Addie’s personality so much we wanted another one like her, after my beloved Airedale Leo died last summer. Yes, poodles are high-maintenance dogs, which is certainly apparent in our area where there are lots of stickers and dirt to collect and revel in. Ramona’s sister belongs to our older son in Seattle. She is a city dog who goes to dog day care and is groomed regularly. We are always surprised by how clean she looks in our weekly Zoom with them.
Cheers, D&S
September 21, 2021
When we arrived in the PNW, I realized that my (Anglo) family name is a common one in the Nez Perce tribe, including the recent tribal president and the treasurer. When I was researching the history surrounding the 1877 war I found that in that era there was at least one intermarriage that could account for it- of Chief Red Heart, a ‘treaty Indian’, with one Ruth Moffett. In time we got to know some members of the tribe and had several as students, so we were welcome to visit backstage at the pow-wow they have every year. Our place is located near Wawawai on the Snake River. The name is said to have meant it was a Nez Perce council ground - or it could mean 'place where there are mosquitoes' - which is ironical since I spend the last decade of my research career on an aspect of mosquito physiology. Yes, I agree that we are interlopers on sacred ground. I suspect that the Nez Perce spent most of their time near the riverbanks, though, for we have found but two pieces of worked stone in a quarter century. The original Wawawai was a little town. There was a ferry across the Snake there and many of the settlers that came here took the Washington branch of the Oregon Trail, crossed the river on the ferry, and ascended out of the canyon to take up land on the prairies. All of that area was inundated by the Lower Granite Dam in the early ‘70s. In another irony, there has been a campaign for years to breech the lower Snake River dams to restore salmon runs to a level consistent with the treaty with the Nez Perce that guaranteed their traditional hunting and fishing rights. Our neighbor told us that salmon once spawned in our little creek. When the county paved the road, it set the culvert openings so high up that a salmon would need to be a flying fish to get into our creek to spawn. Our winery tasting room is in Uniontown WA. The area thereabouts was settled by German Catholics who built a charming baroque church that is the oldest sanctified church in Washington. Sometimes the local chorale performs there.
Presently we are in the midst of the wine grape harvest - a little less than half done. It will be an interesting vintage because of the high heat and drought conditions this year, but the syrah that just went to barrel is going to be exceptional. I hope we can share some of this with you, as well as our other creations. It would be fun to hear how your interest in wine developed. We have cabernets franc and sauvignon, and smaller blocks of malbec, petit verdot, carmenere, syrah and sauvignon blanc. We like to blend our reds, but also do make pure cab varietals. The S. blanc is usually dry but in a few high-sugar years we have finished it off-dry, which made it very appealing to women - those off-dry vintages always sold out. Our younger son graduated from the wine program at Walla Walla CC and is a very talented and creative winemaker. He is also mechanically adept and keeps all our vehicles running, as well as the farm equipment.
I promised to send photos. The third one shows our little winery as it was not too long after we built it. Trees have grown up in front of it now and the arbor is overhung with vines, but I like this photo. The fourth one is our house. It’s partly earth-sheltered and heated by a massive Russian stove. The fifth one shows part of a block of cabernet sauvignon. It gives an idea of the landscape here. We were picking there last weekend. The dog on the left is my Ramona - she is about a year old now. Her youth and inexperience certainly show in her face (unlike mine, eh?) The one on the right is Stacia’s Addie - she is about nine years old. They came from the same breeder - we loved Addie’s personality so much we wanted another one like her, after my beloved Airedale Leo died last summer. Yes, poodles are high-maintenance dogs, which is certainly apparent in our area where there are lots of stickers and dirt to collect and revel in. Ramona’s sister belongs to our older son in Seattle. She is a city dog who goes to dog day care and is groomed regularly. We are always surprised by how clean she looks in our weekly Zoom with them.
Cheers, D&S
September 21, 2021
Hello, St,
I have been delving into your website and wanted to let you know how it delighted me. So glad to have this activism and appreciation of the issues presented so beautifully. You are in touch with my husband D, so I wanted to reach out to you as well. He says you like wine -- this is the time of year when we are able to drink in the aromas of the fermenting grapes -- a lovely experience. We are still facing the bulk of the picking, and the drought brought extremes of heat that interfered with the ripening, despite the fact that we could water the vines. Still, it is a lovely time to be in Wawawai canyon, and we are telling ourselves to appreciate the beautiful evenings, when we can take the dogs to the winery and sit on the deck and read (David reads aloud a book that we have picked).
Cheers!
S
Hello, St,
I have been delving into your website and wanted to let you know how it delighted me. So glad to have this activism and appreciation of the issues presented so beautifully. You are in touch with my husband D, so I wanted to reach out to you as well. He says you like wine -- this is the time of year when we are able to drink in the aromas of the fermenting grapes -- a lovely experience. We are still facing the bulk of the picking, and the drought brought extremes of heat that interfered with the ripening, despite the fact that we could water the vines. Still, it is a lovely time to be in Wawawai canyon, and we are telling ourselves to appreciate the beautiful evenings, when we can take the dogs to the winery and sit on the deck and read (David reads aloud a book that we have picked).
Cheers!
S
September 22, 2021
D,
Qe’ci’yew’yew’ for this email. I’m touched that you took the time to write so, at length. I understand that you are harvesting grapes. I wish I were there to help. What an experience that would be. I wrote Stacia about how I became interested in wine and I guess she’ll share with you.
I’m pleased that you like the website. It’s a bit disorganized, but the bibliography is at least complete. I’m going to add a First Nations > Northern Plateau/Nimiipuu page this evening. It will serve as a repository for the research you have inspired me to do, beginning with the details you’ve written. I’ve been thinking about going to the Northwest Plateau to learn about and experience Nez Perce culture, since I saw the marker three years ago about Chief Joseph and the Nez Perce, in Yellowstone’s Hayden Valley. I want to backtrack the Nez Perce trail from Yellowstone as my geographical route to and through the Northwest Plateau.
I’ve spent the last few years, before COVID, in the Sioux Plains, on the Colorado Plateau, and in the Southeast. I track the Sioux wars on the plains geographically. I love the Northwest and want to return there with more of a purpose. I always planned to travel in retirement and be an activist, but I never imagined the affinity for Native Americans that’s there, and the opportunity to learn and use Native American earth based spiritual and practical knowledge in environmental and social justice activism. Today, I found the “Camas to Condors Whole-Systems Restoration for Resilience, Justice, and Cultural Survival” (Tamalik), at NEZ PERCE WALLOWA HOMELAND for example. Everywhere I go I try to meet The Warriors and Storytellers.
Your place is beautiful! You, Stacia, and Ben seem so centered there. Thank you for the pictures. I’m deeply touched by your personal pictures and narrative, and by what Stacia has written. Stacia wrote me about your evenings on the deck at the winery with Ramona and Addie, reading aloud. Exquisite. I told her, ‘Tis what loving partners and their dogs do, yes?
Wawawai Canyon Winery is beautiful.
I suspect my writing is a bit disjointed and stilted, so I end here. My head is still foggy. I can tell that you and St are retired professors and that you are talented and loving people from your emails and what’s on your website and facebook page. I’m excited to get the bottle of 2008 Merlot.
Again - Qe’ci’yew’yew’,
S
D,
Qe’ci’yew’yew’ for this email. I’m touched that you took the time to write so, at length. I understand that you are harvesting grapes. I wish I were there to help. What an experience that would be. I wrote Stacia about how I became interested in wine and I guess she’ll share with you.
I’m pleased that you like the website. It’s a bit disorganized, but the bibliography is at least complete. I’m going to add a First Nations > Northern Plateau/Nimiipuu page this evening. It will serve as a repository for the research you have inspired me to do, beginning with the details you’ve written. I’ve been thinking about going to the Northwest Plateau to learn about and experience Nez Perce culture, since I saw the marker three years ago about Chief Joseph and the Nez Perce, in Yellowstone’s Hayden Valley. I want to backtrack the Nez Perce trail from Yellowstone as my geographical route to and through the Northwest Plateau.
I’ve spent the last few years, before COVID, in the Sioux Plains, on the Colorado Plateau, and in the Southeast. I track the Sioux wars on the plains geographically. I love the Northwest and want to return there with more of a purpose. I always planned to travel in retirement and be an activist, but I never imagined the affinity for Native Americans that’s there, and the opportunity to learn and use Native American earth based spiritual and practical knowledge in environmental and social justice activism. Today, I found the “Camas to Condors Whole-Systems Restoration for Resilience, Justice, and Cultural Survival” (Tamalik), at NEZ PERCE WALLOWA HOMELAND for example. Everywhere I go I try to meet The Warriors and Storytellers.
Your place is beautiful! You, Stacia, and Ben seem so centered there. Thank you for the pictures. I’m deeply touched by your personal pictures and narrative, and by what Stacia has written. Stacia wrote me about your evenings on the deck at the winery with Ramona and Addie, reading aloud. Exquisite. I told her, ‘Tis what loving partners and their dogs do, yes?
Wawawai Canyon Winery is beautiful.
I suspect my writing is a bit disjointed and stilted, so I end here. My head is still foggy. I can tell that you and St are retired professors and that you are talented and loving people from your emails and what’s on your website and facebook page. I’m excited to get the bottle of 2008 Merlot.
Again - Qe’ci’yew’yew’,
S
September 23, 2021
Well, St, you gave us a vote of confidence by ordering a bottle of Merlot. B is at the UPS now, sending it off. This is perhaps the most intense wine we have ever made, and it has stood up well in long aging. It’s literally a reserve wine in that we didn’t bottle all of it at its first maturity, so what you are getting has gotten some additional good years of barrel aging. Our vines weren’t in full production at the time we made it, so we were getting grapes from a number of Columbia Valley vineyards. I think this merlot was from Rosebud Ranches near Mattawa WA. That area used to be desert but there was a giant irrigation project that resulted in square miles of every kind of agriculture, from apples to onions. On balance, I’m glad that we no longer have to contract for grapes. We had many adventures trucking around the state for grapes, and not all of them were fun.
We expect to get started on the cabernets this weekend. There will probably be only three of us working this time. Last weekend there were eight. It all depends on how many friends can be roped in. Last weekend, we had one guy who was getting paid in money. The others were all work friends of Ben’s GF#1. We paid them off in wine and garden vegetables. I do enjoy the harvest. After a year of fixing leaks, training vines, mowing, spraying (organic or minimal impact fungicide), etc, and trying to fend off deer, it’s nice to see the bins fill up with fruit. Probably we will be finishing in October. I’d like to get it done before the deer season opens. The deer in eastern WA are said to de dying like flies this year from the blue tongue, but you wouldn’t know it from the damage they did in the vineyard.
B has three main GFs - they all know each other and are friends. He is a bigger success at polyamory than we are. We feel he needs to settle in with one primary. GF#1 is, we feel, the best prospect. She is a farm girl who has a MS in math and a job at the University of Idaho. Ben is very good at some things, but those things don’t include finances (he has no interest in money), keeping records, filing reports and paying taxes (very important for a winery). We believe she would do this. S. has been doing it year after year and is getting tired of it. It can be a hassle. In a recent interchange with WA employment security she could not access the agency’s website. She made a call to them and was informed that “Internet Explorer does work well on that website”. A browser that no one has used for 10 years? Yes, because the state’s computer resources are antique, and the ones the Feds use even antiquier. And this in the state that spawned Microsoft. At the same time, they will not accept a paper document. Go figure. Papyrus has been working well for millennia.
Harvest work is grueling but bearable because it does not go for many days at a time. We have been confining it to weekends because that is when help is most available. Pruning can be a knee-killer if done day after day. Last fall we took up an intern who needed 90 hours of work for her credit. She had to start in November and be finished by January. I felt I needed to work with her, so I could hope to teach her something, and in case of an accident. Also, solo vineyard work is lonely. Toward the end of her work period my knees couldn’t take another day of it. I played soccer until I was 50 and tennis lifelong until the pandemic came, so I have a lot of mileage on them - I have one titanium knee now and hope to slip by on the other one because knee replacement is very uncomfortable and life-disruptive. On the other hand, you wouldn’t want to be lying on the slab and have someone come by and say, Hey, look at this old guy … most of him is pretty worn-out, but his knees look brand new.
If you visit here (please!) we should be able to connect you with the Nimiipuu in the reservation around Lapwai. One of S's former students is a nurse and she and her husband, who is a forester, are pillars of the tribe. The Nimiipuu are a relatively well organized tribe and now manage the steelhead fishery on the Clearwater and their reservation forests. Yes, they do have a casino. One of the books we read last winter sitting around the Russian stove was The Dying Grass by William Vollman. It is a novelistic account of the 1877 war. It was intensively researched and footnoted and I believe it is quite accurate. It greatly diminishes the importance of Chief Joseph compared with what you learn about him in popular histories. One thing that struck us was the immensity of the geography over which the Nimiipuu held sway. It reached from the Wallowas in eastern Oregon almost to the Canadian border. It is a beautiful area with every kind of landscape - deep canyons, forested mountains that are high enough to have a subalpine zone, shortgrass prairies, the Snake River and its many tributaries. Like all humans, the indigenous peoples of this area exploited environmental resources - but their populations were so small and their technology so appropriate that they were in balance with their environments for thousands of years. There were those days when spawned-out salmon littered the banks of the Columbia and Snake, delivering nutrients from the Pacific Ocean to the Bitterroots. Now the nutrients flow in the opposite direction, in the form of sewage, fertilizer run-off and logging waste.
I’m happy that you and S connected. It can be tedious to try to keep up with the two of us independently. You can write to either of us with the expectation that we will share the message. In any case, I hope there will be many more.
Best, D
Well, St, you gave us a vote of confidence by ordering a bottle of Merlot. B is at the UPS now, sending it off. This is perhaps the most intense wine we have ever made, and it has stood up well in long aging. It’s literally a reserve wine in that we didn’t bottle all of it at its first maturity, so what you are getting has gotten some additional good years of barrel aging. Our vines weren’t in full production at the time we made it, so we were getting grapes from a number of Columbia Valley vineyards. I think this merlot was from Rosebud Ranches near Mattawa WA. That area used to be desert but there was a giant irrigation project that resulted in square miles of every kind of agriculture, from apples to onions. On balance, I’m glad that we no longer have to contract for grapes. We had many adventures trucking around the state for grapes, and not all of them were fun.
We expect to get started on the cabernets this weekend. There will probably be only three of us working this time. Last weekend there were eight. It all depends on how many friends can be roped in. Last weekend, we had one guy who was getting paid in money. The others were all work friends of Ben’s GF#1. We paid them off in wine and garden vegetables. I do enjoy the harvest. After a year of fixing leaks, training vines, mowing, spraying (organic or minimal impact fungicide), etc, and trying to fend off deer, it’s nice to see the bins fill up with fruit. Probably we will be finishing in October. I’d like to get it done before the deer season opens. The deer in eastern WA are said to de dying like flies this year from the blue tongue, but you wouldn’t know it from the damage they did in the vineyard.
B has three main GFs - they all know each other and are friends. He is a bigger success at polyamory than we are. We feel he needs to settle in with one primary. GF#1 is, we feel, the best prospect. She is a farm girl who has a MS in math and a job at the University of Idaho. Ben is very good at some things, but those things don’t include finances (he has no interest in money), keeping records, filing reports and paying taxes (very important for a winery). We believe she would do this. S. has been doing it year after year and is getting tired of it. It can be a hassle. In a recent interchange with WA employment security she could not access the agency’s website. She made a call to them and was informed that “Internet Explorer does work well on that website”. A browser that no one has used for 10 years? Yes, because the state’s computer resources are antique, and the ones the Feds use even antiquier. And this in the state that spawned Microsoft. At the same time, they will not accept a paper document. Go figure. Papyrus has been working well for millennia.
Harvest work is grueling but bearable because it does not go for many days at a time. We have been confining it to weekends because that is when help is most available. Pruning can be a knee-killer if done day after day. Last fall we took up an intern who needed 90 hours of work for her credit. She had to start in November and be finished by January. I felt I needed to work with her, so I could hope to teach her something, and in case of an accident. Also, solo vineyard work is lonely. Toward the end of her work period my knees couldn’t take another day of it. I played soccer until I was 50 and tennis lifelong until the pandemic came, so I have a lot of mileage on them - I have one titanium knee now and hope to slip by on the other one because knee replacement is very uncomfortable and life-disruptive. On the other hand, you wouldn’t want to be lying on the slab and have someone come by and say, Hey, look at this old guy … most of him is pretty worn-out, but his knees look brand new.
If you visit here (please!) we should be able to connect you with the Nimiipuu in the reservation around Lapwai. One of S's former students is a nurse and she and her husband, who is a forester, are pillars of the tribe. The Nimiipuu are a relatively well organized tribe and now manage the steelhead fishery on the Clearwater and their reservation forests. Yes, they do have a casino. One of the books we read last winter sitting around the Russian stove was The Dying Grass by William Vollman. It is a novelistic account of the 1877 war. It was intensively researched and footnoted and I believe it is quite accurate. It greatly diminishes the importance of Chief Joseph compared with what you learn about him in popular histories. One thing that struck us was the immensity of the geography over which the Nimiipuu held sway. It reached from the Wallowas in eastern Oregon almost to the Canadian border. It is a beautiful area with every kind of landscape - deep canyons, forested mountains that are high enough to have a subalpine zone, shortgrass prairies, the Snake River and its many tributaries. Like all humans, the indigenous peoples of this area exploited environmental resources - but their populations were so small and their technology so appropriate that they were in balance with their environments for thousands of years. There were those days when spawned-out salmon littered the banks of the Columbia and Snake, delivering nutrients from the Pacific Ocean to the Bitterroots. Now the nutrients flow in the opposite direction, in the form of sewage, fertilizer run-off and logging waste.
I’m happy that you and S connected. It can be tedious to try to keep up with the two of us independently. You can write to either of us with the expectation that we will share the message. In any case, I hope there will be many more.
Best, D
September 23, 2021
St --
Your bottle of Merlot should be on its way. It is one of our older reds, although we like to sometimes blend different vintages together to get the complexity of the older wine combined with the fresh fruit aromas.
We have come into the making of wine from the ground up -- not from the cork down! Growing up in Tennessee and North Carolina (I and D, respectively) we were not exposed to good wines, both because our families were not educated and because there was little to get excited about coming out of New York State then...In Miami we discovered cheap Boone's Farm and imported Mateus (for the cure little bottles) and the only way out of that was up. Still, we were going to grow organic garlic as our justification for owning 100+ acres of land, and the need to pay taxes on said land. That proved to be labor-intensive and attracted gophers, but a neighbor pointed out that a Frenchman had visited and announced his judgment that classic wine grapes should be grown on the canyon slopes. The perfect high desert climate, with hot days and chilly nights to ripen while retaining the acidity that is so important for longevity. We planted our vineyard before we had ever stepped into a vineyard, and got a lot of things wrong -- spacing, fencing, irrigation, trellising. Grapes are admirable plants, however, and they want to live, no matter what. Our big breakthrough came when our son Ben joined the enterprise by entering the charter class of the wine program at the community college in Walla Walla. Not that the classes were all that good, but it was hands-on, which Ben liked. They planted a vineyard and laid out the irrigation, picked, processed grapes into wine and learned the intricacies of trellising and pruning. None of that accounts for Ben's instincts. He has my mother's good nose -- I wish she could have lived to taste his wines -- and he has a feeling for the grapes and fermentation process that is uncanny.
So you have a much better background in wine appreciation than David and I came into this business possessing, but we have enjoyed the ride!
I think that D may write about the Nez Perce in our area and acquaintance. I will close here to get ready to shut up shop -- have been running the tasting room for 6 hours for one customer and a couple of locals who came in for a glass of wine and talk. The wines are good and it is a shame that we are so far from a public who knows wines.
But still cheer for the blue skies and beautiful change of seasons!
S
St --
Your bottle of Merlot should be on its way. It is one of our older reds, although we like to sometimes blend different vintages together to get the complexity of the older wine combined with the fresh fruit aromas.
We have come into the making of wine from the ground up -- not from the cork down! Growing up in Tennessee and North Carolina (I and D, respectively) we were not exposed to good wines, both because our families were not educated and because there was little to get excited about coming out of New York State then...In Miami we discovered cheap Boone's Farm and imported Mateus (for the cure little bottles) and the only way out of that was up. Still, we were going to grow organic garlic as our justification for owning 100+ acres of land, and the need to pay taxes on said land. That proved to be labor-intensive and attracted gophers, but a neighbor pointed out that a Frenchman had visited and announced his judgment that classic wine grapes should be grown on the canyon slopes. The perfect high desert climate, with hot days and chilly nights to ripen while retaining the acidity that is so important for longevity. We planted our vineyard before we had ever stepped into a vineyard, and got a lot of things wrong -- spacing, fencing, irrigation, trellising. Grapes are admirable plants, however, and they want to live, no matter what. Our big breakthrough came when our son Ben joined the enterprise by entering the charter class of the wine program at the community college in Walla Walla. Not that the classes were all that good, but it was hands-on, which Ben liked. They planted a vineyard and laid out the irrigation, picked, processed grapes into wine and learned the intricacies of trellising and pruning. None of that accounts for Ben's instincts. He has my mother's good nose -- I wish she could have lived to taste his wines -- and he has a feeling for the grapes and fermentation process that is uncanny.
So you have a much better background in wine appreciation than David and I came into this business possessing, but we have enjoyed the ride!
I think that D may write about the Nez Perce in our area and acquaintance. I will close here to get ready to shut up shop -- have been running the tasting room for 6 hours for one customer and a couple of locals who came in for a glass of wine and talk. The wines are good and it is a shame that we are so far from a public who knows wines.
But still cheer for the blue skies and beautiful change of seasons!
S