The Process

In mid- to late-August, Fall Line's winemaker/owner Tim Sorenson starts racking up the miles. A typical day-trip to the vineyards begins around 5:30 a.m. Coffee in tow, it's into car, over the Cascades, through Cle Elum and Ellensburg, up the Manastash Ridge and over the Umtanum Ridge, and into Yakima Valley.

From there the circuit varies from trip to trip, but a stop at each vineyard is always on the schedule. By early evening or so when Tim arrives at the winery back in Seattle, he has typically logged about 500 miles. All in the pursuit of 'perfect fruit,' Tim makes this trip every week, and sometimes more often, from late-August through the end of the harvest season.

As is standard in working with Washington's premier vineyards, the winemaker decides when to pick the fruit. Seeking to craft well-balanced wines that are enjoyable on their own and with fine food, Fall Line aims to harvest when the fruit is physiologically ripe but without excessive sugar accumulation. It is an annual balancing act—achieving phenolic ripeness without too-high potential alcohol—that challenges even the most dedicated and experienced winemakers.

Meanwhile back at the winery, as the fruit matures on the vine, preparations for crush begin in earnest. Equipment is inspected and sanitized. Water filters are installed anew. Floors and drains are given their final pre-crush scrubs. And volunteers are called to the fore.

As soon as it is harvested, the fruit is loaded onto refrigerated trucks and transported directly to the winery by a commercial trucking company. Typically arriving by early evening or so, the bins of fruit are offloaded and stored overnight in a temperature-controlled room. When morning arrives, crush commences!

All fruit is hand sorted and fed into the winery's de-stemmer/crusher, where it is first de-stemmed and then gently crushed. There is no pumping at this stage: the fruit falls directly into small, open-top fermentors. The must is cold-soaked for a brief period, then each fermentor is inoculated with a selected yeast strain. Primary fermentations take place over a period of about two weeks. Caps are punched down by hand multiple times daily over the duration of the fermentations. Upon completion of primary fermentation, free-run juice is transferred into a mix of new and used 225-liter French oak barrels, and the pomace is gently pressed using a stainless steel basket press. The wine completes a secondary, malolactic, fermentation in barrel.

Fall Line ages its wines exclusively in premium-quality French oak barrels for approximately 18 months. The wines are racked about every four months, and blends are prepared about two-thirds of the way through the aging regime.

Preparations for bottling, which takes place in April, begin in January. Bottle, capsule, and closure requirements need to be estimated; and orders need to be submitted to ensure timely delivery. Label modifications are determined at this time, any design changes are made, label approval applications are prepared, and printing runs are scheduled.

And then, come April, bottling...and labeling...and labeling...and labeling. Once again, the winery calls on its invaluable corps of volunteers for session after session of packaging activities. Owning its own bottling, capsuling, and labeling equipment, Fall Line exercises complete control over the packaging process. Bottling generally takes place over three or four weekends of Saturday-Sunday multiple shifts of six crew members. During these sessions the wines find their final resting place in bottles secured by natural cork closures of the highest grade. Once all the bottling sessions are completed, the bottled wines are capsuled and labeled over the ensuing few weeks.