Cellar on top

Fries entering 20 years with White Heron label

QUINCY — From atop Cameron Fries' property, the White Heron Cellars owner can cast his view out upon acres and acres of grapes.

That wasn't always the case. When he and wife Phyllis planted the first vines on their property overlooking the Columbia River and Crescent Bar Resort, those acres were nothing but vacant land and sage.

"When we moved here, this was sage brush," Cameron said. The family has since planted more than 10,000 plants surrounding their home, and built a tasting room for their White Heron Cellars label.

Twenty years ago, White Heron produced its first wine, a Pinot Noir made from fruit purchased in the Yakima Valley. Today, Cameron continues to be involved in every aspect of the business, from offering up a sip in the White Heron tasting room, to spending a morning pruning vines this time of year. He smiles as he is able to say a bottle of wine from White Heron has not left the hillside until it is shipped off to market.

"The nice thing about being in the wine business," Cameron said, "you're taking the plants and you're creating a finished product."

For Cameron, the goal is to be able to pursue all avenues of the business, while still having time to take part in activities like pruning. Cameron is both the vineyard manager and wine maker. He remains involved with all aspects of the trade, from working with nature to donning a tie to pour wine in a fancy restaurant, "You're running the whole gamut of the experience," he said.

Winemaking has become a way of life for Cameron, whose father was a French chef and taught him to appreciate wine at an early age.

"He said, 'above all, don't get into the restaurant business,' and I guess the winery business was the other option," Cameron said of his father's advice.

Cameron went to Pacific Lutheran University, where he met Phyllis, and graduated with a degree in English. The two then traveled to Switzerland, where Cameron spent five years studying at wine making and viticultural schools before returning home to Washington to practice his craft.

"For them, winemaking is a trade, like carpentry or brick laying," Cameron said of the Swiss.

He came back from Switzerland with the idea of planting grapes in western Washington, but a job as wine maker for Worden's winery in Spokane and later the former Champs de Brionne winery in Quincy brought him to the eastern part of the state.

"Our climate for grapes is really wide open," he said of the Columbia Basin. "Whereas when you go into a cooler climate you're really more limited in what you can do."

Today the once vacant landscape has been surrounded by growth. For a number of years White Heron Cellars was the only winery in the area, but a number of wineries have since cropped up throughout the different viticultural areas nearby.

Grant County has always grown a large number of grapes, but Cameron said it has only been recently that those grapes have begun to draw tourists to the area. Due to winery events and the continuing growth of different wineries throughout the area, White Heron saw more visitors in its tasting room last year than it ever had before.

"On the bigger scale it's a business, money to be made," he said, "on the smaller scale, it's a lifestyle you're pursuing."

In the 20 years the Fries family has been in the Basin, he said he has noticed the area has not only become a wine producing state, but a wine drinking state as well. He said Washington residents have become more aware of wine.

And Phyllis has been instrumental in the success of the winery, Cameron said. Their two kids have been involved in the business as well. Phyllis, who also works as a nurse for the Ephrata School District, said she helps out whenever she can.

"It's very nice to just come out and prune, that's very nice in that way," Phyllis said of the wine business. "And the variety of people you can run into is really nice, all varieties of people, all walks of life."

Making wine is something Phyllis said her husband has always wanted to pursue. She describes him as a "Renaissance man," who in addition to concentrating on wines, reads French Scientific Journals and was the first president of the Columbia Cascade Wine Association.

White Heron has decided to limit itself to French varieties. The French are into blending their wine, Cameron said, in which a number of grape varieties go into one wine.

"Blending allows you to produce complexity of flavor," he said. "And complexity of flavor is the holy grail of the wine maker."

The problem and the pleasure of wine tasting, Cameron acknowledges, is no one ever knows everything. The tastebuds are different depending on the person, and one person might have a different feeling toward red wine with steak than another.

Cameron himself doesn't have a favorite variety, excepting the type of food he is having or the circumstance. He said many people do have a favorite variety of wine, but their like or dislike of a particular wine is going to depend on a number of factors.

"It's kind of an art statement so to speak," he said. "It's an art that goes on the tongue."