Rusty Figgins builds loyalty by bottling great wines

GEORGE — With every bottle of wine made at Cave B Estate Winery, no one is more familiar with what went into producing it than winemaker Rusty Figgins.

He was raised in a grape growing and wine making family that includes other successful winemakers. Figgins' older brother, Gary Figgins, opened Leonetti Cellar in the Walla Walla Valley in 1977. Figgins' maternal grandparents, Frank and Rose Leonetti, the namesake of his brother's winery, were Italian immigrants who settled in the Walla Walla Valley and produced their own wines.

"The whole grape growing and wine making industry was something that I was exposed to from an early age," Figgins said.

So naturally, when Figgins was 13 years old, he went to work for his older brother at Leonetti Cellar.

"I learned a high standard of quality at Leonetti Cellar, but I have had experiences that go way beyond my brother's experiences that have made me a different kind of a winemaker," Figgins said.

Figgins said he is drawn to wine making because of the opportunity to create a broad range of products and the unlimited varieties that are possible in wine making.

"If you have any artistic abilities at all, you have within yourself the need to create something," he said. "You derive great gratification as an artistic person putting the (wine) blends together."

Over the years, Figgins has continued to develop his skills, through experience working and studying in places like Europe and Australia. He eventually earned a bachelor's degree in viticulture and oenology from Charles Sturt University in Australia.

After college, Figgins became a founder of Glen Fiona winery where he worked as a winemaker in the Walla Walla Valley. Glen Fiona has become known for producing an award winning Syrah, which he helped to develop.

In June 2004, Figgins became the winemaker at Cave B, an estate winery where every bottle produced is made from grapes gown on location.

"The thing about Cave B is that we are an estate winery and coming here represents the highest wine making challenge," he said. "Most winemakers will agree that it is the hardest chore to make great wine from just one property and if you succeed at it then you've mastered making complete sense of all the variability that exists on one property," he said.

Despite the difficulty, Figgins said estate wineries are similar to the European model, where those winemakers have been able to make complex wines for centuries using only one property.

Figgins said the wine he is making at Cave B is the best he has ever made. In the future, he said he plans to create more varieties and introduce more vintage wine drinkers to the winery's products.

"Vintage wine drinkers really get into successive vintages, you build brand loyalty through what we're doing right now, personal interaction, one conversation at a time," he said. "I'm not going to do that overnight, but I reach a lot of people this way, everyday. They can bring it home to their nice dinner table … and say, I visited the winemaker there, I tasted the wine and had a great tour. I want next year's vintage, and I hope it is this and that many times better."