Business community tour wineries

Chamber hosts visit to White Heron, Cave B

MOSES LAKE — Both ends of the winery spectrum got the spotlight when the Moses Lake Chamber of Commerce offered its annual agricultural tour.

With a Moses Lake School District bus acting as transportation unit, about 40 tour participants visited White Heron Cellars Winery and Cave B Estates Winery Tuesday, and heard from the wineries' respective owners, Cameron Fries and Vince and Carol Bryan, about their operations and their visions for their operations.

"We do the ag tour in order to expose the business community to different aspects of ag in our community," explained Debbie Doran, vice president of agricultural affairs for the chamber. Previous tours have been to processing plants, hay growing operations and the potato industry. "This time, we wanted to really explore the winemaking because it is becoming so popular, and the fact that we have a wonderful resource right here in our own backyard, with fabulous wineries and very knowledgeable people."

Chamber manager Karen Wagner noted that the chamber's visit to Cave B came with the added opportunity to visit the Cave B Inn at SageCliffe and the Tendrils restaurant.

"We're kind of doing a two-fold tour this year, visiting wineries and seeing a new industry for us," Wagner said. "Tourism is really becoming an industry unto its own, and this is a destination resort that's going to be a wonderful asset to Grant County."

At the tour's conclusion, Doran said she was getting many positive comments.

"We had a diverse exposure," she said. "We saw a very small operation and then we saw the much larger scale at Cave B, but I think everybody came away thoroughly pleased and had a good afternoon."

Grant County Public Utility District industrial and energy services manager Lon Topaz said he participated in the tour as a chamber board member, and finds it to be an interesting opportunity to get out and see the agricultural base.

"It's very interesting to see the contrast between the little family vineyard and what goes on here at Cave B," he said, noting that he has interacted with Vince Bryan in the past. "His vision of what goes on out here is really quite different than what most people in Grant County either know about or might necessarily even support, in some cases. I think it's fascinating; this is the future of Grant County."

During Bryan's presentation to the tour at Tendrils, Topaz had asked how it would be possible to translate the attention-grabbing activities of the resort winery to Moses Lake.

"I think maybe the answer is to go to something that works off of our ag heritage in Moses Lake and tries to draw people over," Topaz opined. "We can't be who we aren't, so maybe we just need to figure out how to get people from here over to Moses Lake. It's a great opportunity, because there's a lot of people coming here."

Cindy Hoehn participated in the tour as part of her job doing agricultural budgeting as a credit analyst for Washington Trust Bank.

"I was surprised there was this much out here that drew enough people to get something like this going," Hoehn said.

Jim McCullough said he needs to know what's going on in the agriculture community as part of his job with Agri Com Appraisals.

"It's fabulous, I love it, I think it's great," he said of Cave B. "I think it's wonderful for the community and for Grant County especially. I would love to see more projects like this. I know it's a really expensive-type project, but everybody is only going to benefit from it, and I hope it succeeds and I hope to see more it in the future."

Of Fries, McCullough also had only praise.

"He kept everything interesting and I hope the best for him," he said. "I hope that he can expand and get to reach his goal as well. Having an interesting character like himself there running it, hands-on, it would be a good experience for people to check it out."