I. Meet The Color Collector
Because I love high-acid, low alcohol wines that make you feel good, I have been working with Gamay from the Pacific Northwest since 2015. I believe, the secret magic of wine lies in its ability to tell a story: to translate a growing season into the tangible sensory experience of a sip.
I work gently and slowly. I de-stem by hand and rely on native yeast and the natural chemistry of ripe wine grapes in my fermentations. I don't own a pump so gravity is my only force for movement. When fermentation is complete, I use a traditional wooden basket press and finally age my wine in neutral oak.
II. Wild Success
My production quantity is small and since I do everything by hand, it's (shhh) relatively inefficient. But my definition of success does not include optimization. I am devoted to craft.
I succeed if my wine brings joy and nourishment, if it gets to be a gift of welcome, a form of celebration, or a slow unwinding at the end of a long week. I dream it will flow at rowdy dinner tables and bonfires under the stars and that it will spark levity and love and good conversation.
III. Where to Find Color Collector (with a philosophical tangent)
I am fascinated that wine has survived, relatively unchanged, for 8,000 or 9,000 years. I attribute this fact to two things: wine is craft, and wine is a companion to human gathering.
For many years, I focused exclusively on fine tuning the craft, but in 2022, I created a space for gathering. You can find Color Collector and hundreds of wines that inspire me at Soča, my wine shop & bar in White Salmon, WA. We are open Thursday - Sunday 2-8 p.m. and offer wine by the glass as well as a menu of small plates and carefully selected retail bottles. Color Collector is always available by the glass and on the shelf when it is in stock.
I am also able to ship to most states, so if a visit to the Columbia Gorge isn't on the schedule, current release wines are available here.
