Mackey Vineyards

Mackey Vineyards was founded in 2007 when brothers Roger and Philip Mackey left California and revived an established but ailing small farm with apple orchards and grapevines in the Walla Walla Valley. The family-owned estate produces extremely small quantities of estate-grown Bordeaux varietals using French-style production and winemaking methods aimed at expressing terroir. The winery and vineyard lie in a deep canyon on the south fork of the Walla Walla River in the valley's southeast, where river rock-studded soils and higher elevation provide frost protection and moderate temperatures. Fruit for the wines comes in part from Mc B Vineyard near Lowden, Washington, at 550 feet elevation, where warm days and diurnal temperature shifts commonly exceeding 40°F preserve acidity and extend ripening. Its soils are layers of sand and silt deposited by the Ice Age Missoula floods, overlain by wind-deposited loess. Winemaker Billo Naravane, MW, who holds a master's degree in viticulture and winemaking from UC Davis, has been with Mackey since 2007. Visitors can taste the wines at the Mackey Vineyards tasting room and winery on Powerline Road, just north of the Oregon-Washington border.

Written by Ava from public sources. Not written or reviewed by the winery.