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AS SEEN IN
MArChINg
To His own
drummer
In WashIngton and beyond, Charles smith takes an
eclectIc approach to make WInes people love to drInk
By Harvey Steiman ‡ PHotograPHS By joHn vallS
OCT. 15, 2014 • Wine SpeCTaTOr
75
T
K Vintners began with 330 cases made in the small outbuilding next to the 19th-century farmhouse in Walla Walla where Smith still resides when in the area.
he banker vividly remembers the day Charles Smith applied for his first
business loan. It was 2001 when Smith went to see Matt E. Tucker, commercial vice president of Banner Bank, who deals with agricultural and wine
businesses in eastern Washington. Smith was seeking $250,000 to launch a
winery. “He didn’t look like most vintners, and he didn’t have two pennies
to rub together,” Tucker recalls. “But he had a great idea and great taste in wines.”
“I had a funky business plan,” Smith admits. “It listed the vineyards I was working with and how much I had in bottle. But first
they said they needed to try my wine.”
So Tucker and an associate met with Smith the next day to sample the two bottlings from Smith’s initial vintage, 1999. Smith
poured. The bankers sipped, and nodded to each other. “Your wine’s
great,” Tucker said. “Congratulations, you now have a $250,000
credit line. Your wine is the collateral.”
The bank was taking a risk. Smith had spent 12 years living hand
to mouth, first in Europe representing rock bands and then buying
and running a postage stamp–sized wineshop on Bainbridge Island,
a short ferry ride from Seattle.
“We had faith in him,” says Tucker, “because he not only had
the ability to make really good wines, he could go out and sell them.
Other wineries don’t have a clue about that.”
The bank’s bet paid off handsomely. Smith’s K Vintners, a 330case startup in 2001, has grown to 15,000 cases today. The wines
express power with refinement, with most choices priced in the
$35 to $60 range. Recent examples include the supple, seductive
K Syrah Walla Walla Valley Old Stones 2010 (94 points on the
Wine Spectator 100-point scale, $45).
Beyond K Vintners, the Charles Smith company has grown to
more than 500,000 cases on the raging success of cheekily named
bottlings that deliver a level of quality and character typical of
wines costing much more. Best-known is the delicate, bright and
minerally Kung Fu Girl Riesling, the 2012 vintage of which (90,
$12) ranked No. 51 on Wine Spectator’s Top 100 in 2013. All
130,000 cases of this artistically labeled wine come from one site
in Columbia Valley, Evergreen Vineyard, making it perhaps the
largest-volume single-vineyard bottling anywhere.
The Charles Smith line ranges from rosés and Italian sparkling
wines that go for $11 and $12 to the powerful and seductive $140
Royal City Syrah, the top-rated wine in two recent Wine Spectator
tasting reports on Washington. Charles & Charles, a partnership
with U.S. importer Charles Bieler, focuses on a dry rosé.
Although all these bottlings rely on traditional winemaking
OCT. 15, 2014 • Wine SpeCTaTOr
77
(K Vintners wines are even footstomped and basket-pressed),
Smith’s public persona and business approach defy convention.
His frizzy long blond hair, showing some gray, flails about his boyish face, part Medusa, part Sideshow Bob. At 52, he favors jeans
and T-shirts, some of them artifacts of his decade of work in the
rock ’n’ roll world.
Smith’s unorthodox aura and
brash persona have fueled rumors.
He’s heard that his wealthy family set him up; in another version,
he funded his winery with drug
money. The truth is more prosaic:
starting from scratch with the line
of bank credit; a series of smart
business moves; brilliant labeling
and marketing strategies. Along
the way, business and personal relationships ran aground. But
mostly, Smith has produced a
stunning array of wines with personalities as bold as the guy who
makes them.
Smith with Psyched Up Janis in 1994. The Smith-managed Danish rock group toured widely and released a number of albums.
He would work later at Napa
Valley’s All Seasons Bistro, in
Calistoga, a restaurant which in
1982 won a Wine Spectator Grand
Award for its wine program. “On
our days off, several of us would
troubled child,
spend all our money because we
Smith grew up in
could get anything on the list at
the custody of his
half-off,” he recalls. “I can still tell
divorced mother,
you exactly how the 1977 Diawho moved him around the West
mond Creek wines tasted, the
Coast. When he was 9, he moved
color, the aromas. I was finally a
in with his father, who, Smith
real wine person.”
says, virtually ignored him for
A pattern was emerging, one of
nine more years. At 18 he left
constantly taking on bigger chalhome. Working in restaurants, he Smith, circa 1997–1998, visiting the Mittelrhein region in Germany. The future vintner
lenges. “I always got jobs one step
found a world of hospitality he lived in Europe for nine years, gaining knowledge from winery trips and books.
beyond my skill set,” he admits.
had never experienced.
“I was bound to fail, but it always pushed me forward.”
His wine education began on the shores of Lake Tahoe, at Petit
He followed a Danish girlfriend to Europe in 1990, but despite
Pier restaurant. After closing time, the staff would share leftovers
his restaurant experience no wine importer in Denmark would
of the day’s pours, from an extensive cellar filled with Bordeaux
hire him. He fell in with a rock ’n’ roll crowd. Helping bands get
and Burgundy treasures. The way they talked about the wines imbookings, he made enough money to keep afloat. Seeking gigs in
pressed Smith.
England for groups he was managing, because that’s where the big
“I came from nothing,” he says. “I soaked up everything that was
record labels were, Smith eventually found Craig Leon, an Ameripositive. I was a blank slate. This is what shaped me.”
can record producer there.
He had landed the job in Tahoe only because of a previous, and
”He was very persistent. He got me to go to Copenhagen to hear
unexpected, rise from back waiter to captain at the Caliente Room
this unknown band, Psyched Up Janis, and I thought they were
in Palm Springs, an old-line restaurant favored by mafia types.
very good,” recalls Leon, now a celebrated composer of classical
Hearing a regular customer mention Chicago, Smith had said he
music but at the time a multiple Grammy Award winner, produchad family there, but when the regular asked if Smith’s family
ing records by the likes of The Ramones, Blondie and Climax Blues
owned Caliente, Smith had to admit he was just a back waiter.
Band. Leon produced several recordings with Psyched Up Janis,
The next day, he was promoted to front waiter. A few weeks later,
“all of which were successful in Scandinavia, but not anywhere
serving another visitor from Chicago, a similar scenario played
else,” he says, adding, “In those days there was a prejudice against
out. “Next day,” Smith laughs, “I’m in a tuxedo, a captain making
European rock.”
Caesar salads tableside.”
A
78
Wine SpeCTaTOr • OCT. 15, 2014
Leon and Smith struck up a
friendship that continues to
this day, founded as much on
food and wine as on music.
“Whenever Charles brought
the band from Denmark to record, he and I would cook
dinner and do wine tastings,”
Leon recalls. “He was educating the band in wine.”
A favorite haunt was the
White Horse Inn in Chilgrove,
Sussex. Leon and Smith would
plunder its cellar, then a Wine
Spectator Grand Award winner.
“I remember Charles and I
camping out there and tasting
every vintage of Hanzell [Sonoma] Pinot Noir, going back
20 years,” Leon recalls with relish. “Charles would persuade
[owner Barry Phillips] to uncork them all.”
“I came from nothIng. I soaked
In Seattle, connections
Smith made with other retailers and restaurateurs served
him well when he released K
Vintners’ first wine. When
they asked if they could taste
it, he would say, “I’m just outside, how about now?” And if
they wanted to buy some, he
Charles smith
would deliver the wine from
his van, parked down the
block.
The van held 84 cases “and
could barely keep the front
wheels on the ground,” Smith
says seriously. “Very dangerous.” He would load it up in
Walla Walla, drive the four
and a half hours to Seattle and
call on wineshops and restaurants until it was all gone,
choosing to visit those who
might buy 10 or 20 cases first
“to lighten the load.”
Smith had planned to live
n 1999, back in the
on $87,000 from that 2001
United States with the
loan, but instead used the
members of Psyched Up
money to buy property just
Janis at a restaurant bar Smith’s personal cellar at his Walla Walla home contains about 3,000 bottles, half of them
outside Walla Walla. It had a
in Seattle, Smith struck up a French. He draws inspiration from the diversity and ageability of Châteauneuf-du-Pape.
cottage on it and a ramshackle
conversation with an English
building that could house stacks of barrels. K Vintners was in busiprofessor who owned a tiny wineshop on Bainbridge Island. “It was
ness. “For the next two years, I ate Top Ramen and hit the taco
no bigger than my kitchen,” says Smith. “He and some friends ran
wagon a lot,” Smith says. “I had no place to go back to, so I could
the business so they could buy wine wholesale for themselves.”
only move forward.”
Smith offered $5,000 down, “the rest to be paid in wine.” When
the professor accepted, Smith begged a friend to lend him the money.
On the days the shop was closed, Smith climbed into his 1987
ight away, Smith showed an uncanny ability to find
Chevy Astro van and drove out to eastern Washington to buy new
vineyards and growers in Washington who could proand exciting wines directly from producers. He convinced vintners
duce something distinctive. A roster of favored vineto sell him large-format bottles and older vintages. “People were
yards went into small-volume bottlings that made K
really into it on Bainbridge Island,” Smith says. “They would buy
Vintners a classic boutique startup, where an ambitious winemaker
out every wine. It had heart, what I was doing.”
buys a few tons of grapes to fashion artisanal wines.
He always headed straight to Walla Walla. “You had pioneers
Then came a winter freeze in 2003–2004. Walla Walla would
like Leonetti and Woodward Canyon,” he says, “and the next wave
have virtually no grapes to sell in 2004. “I needed to bottle wine
that started in the mid- to late-’90s, like Walla Walla Vintners and
to sell until we could get to 2005,” Smith explains. He followed up
Cayuse. Washington wine was just coming on, and I started to unon an ad offering a tank of 2001 Seven Hills Vineyard Syrah, a
derstand it.”
Walla Walla wine from an excellent vineyard he’d not previously
In Walla Walla the unconventional Smith met a kindred iconoused. He liked the Syrah, bought the lot and aged it in barrels, proclast, a brash young Frenchman named Christophe Baron, whose
ducing what is known as a cash-flow cuvée. This one was far betvineyards, planted in 1997, were producing distinctive, personalityter than most. Sold as K Vintners Lucky No. 7 2001, it became
rich red wines under the Cayuse Vineyard label. He encouraged
something of a collector’s item.
Smith to make wine in Walla Walla and even sold Smith grapes to
Almost as an afterthought, the same winery offered Smith a 2002
help get K Vintners started. Syrah from Baron’s Cailloux Vineyard
Columbia Valley Cabernet Sauvignon, originally made for an upmade one of the 1999 wines that got Smith that bank loan. For
scale label, at $8 a gallon. “I asked if I could get it for $7.50 if I bought
years the two nonconformists hung out together constantly, until
all 35,000 gallons.” To his surprise, they said yes. But how would he
a falling-out ended their friendship in 2007. Although neither will
sell it? The wine would not fit into the K Vintners portfolio.
discuss details for the record, Smith says he bears no malice toward
He took two sample bottles home and drew a label by hand:
Baron, adding, “It makes me teary thinking about it.”
“House Wine,” in 2-inch-high capital letters, illustrated with a
up everythIng that was
posItIve. I was a blank slate.
thIs Is what shaped me.”
I
R
80
Wine SpeCTaTOr • OCT. 15, 2014
Left: Designer Rikke Korff, circa 1996. Right: Charles Smith wines boast distinctive black-and-white labels and encompass a range of styles and varieties, from Riesling to Cabernet.
simple sketch of a peak-roofed house. His Chicago distributor tasted
the wine and agreed it was really good. He took the other bottle
to Costco’s offices in Issaquah, in suburban Seattle, the hand-drawn
label glue-sticked on. The Costco buyer liked the wine, thought
the label was cool and agreed to take 7,000 cases. Back at the bank,
Smith talked Tucker into lending him $100,000 in time to buy and
bottle the wine.
“I hyperventilated for two days,” Smith recalls. “I had never
made more than $15,000 in my life. Right then I made $210,000
profit on a phone call.”
Even after the big buy by Costco, 7,000 cases remained. “I crossed
myself and realized that if I didn’t sell this I’m done. I traveled the
country relentlessly. It was gone in six weeks, and the profit from
that was a half a million dollars. I had no employees. I had a cellar
rat just coming on, and a part-time person in the office. This was
fun. Give me the drugs, the alcohol and the women!”
And just like that, he was in the négociant business. The Magnificent Wine Company was born, eventually expanding into labels such as Steak House Red (a Cabernet) and Fish House White
(a Sauvignon Blanc). After four vintages the fast-growing Precept
Brands became a partner, adding needed capital and distribution,
and eventually bought it all in 2011. Precept is now the No. 2
wine company in Washington.
Magnificent Wine Company taught Smith that a smart, eyecatching label can make consumers pick up the bottle, and that
if it’s backed up by good wine, “there’s no reason they won’t buy
it again.”
Distinctive black-and-white graphics make his wines instantly
identifiable on the shelf. “At my little wineshop, people would
come in and ask, ‘I had a great Cabernet last night, you have it?’ ”
Smith says. “Well, what was it called? ‘I dunno, River, Sky, Canyon, something like that.’ They couldn’t even describe what it
looked like. My customers could not get what they wanted, the
winery wasn’t selling their wine, and I couldn’t sell something I
knew they liked.”
That simple label style started with his first wines at K Vintners,
the front panel filled with a large K. “It’s something anyone could
recognize, and I wanted it to be American. I thought of the branding on livestock, the Lazy S and everything. The K is a solid symbol, but I didn’t want it to be Western-y, but modern.”
Danish designer Rikke Korff has fashioned the images for all of
Smith’s labels. For those first ones, she made the block K look as
if it had been sketched, not quite filling it in, giving the image a
modern feel. Wines grown outside Walla Walla got a different K,
without serifs, the frayed ends looking as if they had been brushed
instead of stamped. The distinctions are a subtle signal to those
who might want to know such details, without making the labels
seem intimidating.
Smith met Korff early in his nine years in Scandinavia. The talented young designer had just started at Levi’s, where she went on
to create the Levi’s Red and Vintage collections, credited with reinvigorating the clothing company’s image. She also helped Smith
by designing album covers for Psyched Up Janis.
“We became very good friends quickly,” says Korff, who now
lives in Venice, Calif., consults with large clothing manufacturers
and makes and markets two brands of her own—The Furies and
Skagørn. “Whenever he crashed with me, we drank a lot of wine
together, and we always talked about wine,” she says. It felt to her
like an important friendship. “Over time we became more like family than friends.”
O
ne night in 2006, Smith and Korff were watching the
Kill Bill movies on TV. Smith, having learned about
Riesling’s affinity for Asian food from dining at Wild
Ginger, a Grand Award–winning restaurant in Seattle,
was pouring “copious amounts of minerally Riesling” for them to
OCT. 15, 2014 • Wine SpeCTaTOr
81
drink with their takeout Chinese food. During the
climactic sword fight, in which a white-robed Lucy
Liu has her balletic showdown with Uma Thurman, it occurred to Smith that he wanted to make
a Riesling—and call it Kung Fu Girl.
He had just sampled a Riesling at Milbrandt,
the 750,000 case–capacity winery at Wahluke
Slope where he had been making the Magnificent Wine Company wines. The Riesling came
from Evergreen Vineyard, farmed by the Milbrandt brothers, situated in a cooler, more northerly region littered with white limestone rocks.
Smith wanted to make his own Riesling from
Evergreen, custom-crushing it at the winery he
was already using.
Some years earlier he had suggested the Kung
Fu Girl name for a line of T-shirts Korff was
planning, coined after she had made a fashionable kimono from a raunchy shirt of Smith’s with
an image of a naked Japanese woman on it. Although the rock band Kung Fu Girls had already
trademarked the name for clothing, it was still
out there for wine.
Korff’s label is deceptively simple. Hands in silhouette, poised for combat, clearly feminine,
draped with oversized sleeves of a Chinese robe.
The image extends to the the label’s edges. Streaky
hair frames a stylized pair of lips and a collar. A
tree’s branches extend across the top, framing the
vertically stacked words “Kung Fu Girl” rendered
in a simple all-caps type that evokes bamboo
shapes. The wine is identified with the vintage
and “Riesling Washington State.”
Smith has created a series of such simple, direct
labels. The front labels don’t include “Charles
Smith Wines,” just the name of the bottling in startling graphics: Eve Chardonnay with its bitten apple Andrew Latta (left), Smith’s assistant winemaker since 2005, and Brennon Leighton, late of Efeste Cellars,
label; Velvet Devil Merlot and its pitchfork; and collaborate with Smith on a host of projects and are launching their own labels with their boss’ support.
Boom Boom Syrah and its spherical bomb with a
lit fuse. ViNO—the “I” in ViNo a wine bottle and floating cork—is
arly on, before a lineup of compelling wines proved his
a Pinot Grigio, grown at Evergreen Vineyard, like the Riesling.
winemaking bona fides (see “The Winemaking Behind
Smith argues that such graphics do not dumb down the image
Charles Smith’s Brands,” page 89), Smith made up a
of the brands. “It’s smartening it up to speak directly to the people
story about growing up with French parents who made
who you want to buy your wine,” he insists. “The labels say pick
wine. “I lied,” he shrugs. “I knew nobody would believe me if I told
me, pick me. When people drink it they feel good about what they
them the truth.”
bought. It’s not about me, it’s about everyone else.”
Not only has he no French ancestry, Smith never spent a day in
“Most people don’t speak wine,” he adds. “The simplicity of the
college studying winemaking or apprenticing at wineries. Instead
label is almost like a courtesy. You’re going to help me pay my bills
he soaked up all the technical lore he could from winemaking textand survive, and I’m going to talk over you? No, I’m going to combooks and through years of visits to wineries in France, Germany
municate in your language. The packaging tells the story.” And
and Washington. He asked pointed questions, and when he finally
the appellation says Washington State. “I don’t want people to buy
shepherded his first loads of grapes through winemaking at K Vintit because they think it’s from California,” he insists.
ners, the results were satisfying.
Smith acknowledges that his labels were inspired in part by
“It’s like cooking,” he says. “I’ve always had this sense of how to
Bonny Doon, the California winery where in the 1980s proprietor
balance flavors and textures. And you don’t have the time pressure
Randall Grahm came up with witty names and used offbeat drawwith winemaking that you do with cooking. I decided not to be
ings by Ralph Steadman to create eye-catching labels. “The ideas
afraid.”
were marketing genius,” Smith says.
Two accomplished winemakers now work with him. Andrew
E
82
Wine SpeCTaTOr • OCT. 15, 2014
Smith’s large tasting room, situated in a former auto repair workshop in Walla Walla, was designed by architect Tom Kundig, work for which he won AIA national honors in 2013.
Latta has been Smith’s assistant winemaker since 2005. Brennon
Leighton, former winemaker for Efeste Cellars and hired by Smith
in 2012, oversees the Charles Smith Wines production in Columbia Valley and adds expertise to the winemaking at K Vintners.
“The idea is to elevate all our wines,” Smith says.
Both are also partners in a Chardonnay winery, the newest project. It’s called Sixto, after Sixto Rodriguez, the musician featured
in the Oscar-winning documentary film Searching for Sugar Man.
“It resonates with me,” Smith says, “because, like Rodriguez, a great
Washington Chardonnay was here all along, we just need to discover it.”
Smith can be extraordinarily generous. He is backing Latta and
Leighton as they launch their own labels, selecting grapes already
coming into the winery. But he also has a reputation as a tough boss.
“Charles is a lot of things, but suffering fools around his wines is
not one of his traits,” says Latta. “During the first six months, I
would tell my girlfriend at the time, ‘If I’m ever home from work
before you, know that I punched Charles in the face and walked
out.’ I’m a nonviolent person but it was a tense trial period for both
of us until I earned his respect.”
The business continues to expand in other ways. Smith commissioned award-winning architect Tom Kundig to reshape a vast auto
repair warehouse he bought in downtown Walla Walla into a spacious public tasting room and offices; the project won Kundig AIA
national honors in 2013. And in 2011, Smith bought the Anchor
Bar in Waitsburg, a short drive from Walla Walla.
Smith had built everything from the ground up until last year,
when he bought Wines of Substance, his only brand acquisition.
Substance, a Walla Walla partnership started by Waters Winery and
Gramercy Cellars to make and market moderately priced négociant
wines, was not included in the sale when Waters Winery was sold.
With its “periodic table of wines” (Cs for Cabernet Sauvignon, Me
for Merlot, Sg for Sangiovese, etc., emblazoned on simple front labels), Substance was right in Smith’s wheelhouse. He aims to focus
on Cabernet Sauvignon and improve quality without increasing
prices, which hover around $15, and introduce a new brand, Super
Substance, for small lots of less-common varietals.
The acquisition also led Smith to lease two big warehouse spaces
in Georgetown, an emerging commercial area near Boeing Field,
south of downtown Seattle, for a new winery and tasting room.
“That area has such heart and soul,” he says. “It’s a historic settlement in Seattle, only 10 minutes from downtown. This puts me
where I really want to be. We outgrew the winery in Walla Walla.”
Starting in 2015, the new winery in the larger 32,000-squarefoot space will make the high-end wines for K Vintners, Charles
Smith, Sixto and Super Substance, plus Leighton’s and Latta’s personal brands. A two-level tasting room, designed by Kundig, will
offer those brands and a restaurant called Jet City. A second tasting room two blocks away will focus on the Charles & Charles
wines plus Leighton’s and Latta’s bottlings (and include a second
restaurant). The original K Vintners barn in Walla Walla will be
converted to bottle storage and a tasting room.
“The majority of my grapes are at the halfway point between
Walla Walla and Seattle,” Smith adds, noting that several of the
state’s most celebrated wineries ship their grapes to Woodinville,
just north of Seattle, to be vinified. “Agriculturally, we are at ground
OCT. 15, 2014 • Wine SpeCTaTOr
85
zero of where we want to be in Walla
Walla. But it’s 287 miles from the population center.”
He’s also rented a condo in downtown
Seattle so that he can spend time in the
city with his wife, Ginevra, and their
1-year-old daughter, Charlotte.
86
Wine SpeCTaTOr • OCT. 15, 2014
BoB Whittaker
G
inevra Casa first came into
Smith’s life in Denver,
where the Rome-born
beauty was the Italian
wine specialist for the distributor of
Smith’s wines. She relates the story often. Wearing a form-fitting short white
cashmere dress, she had walked past him
at a sales meeting. “He grabbed my butt,”
she recounts. ”He said he couldn’t help
it, it was like two poodles fighting under
my dress.”
“I’m really not that kind of guy,” Smith Smith with his wife, Ginevra, and daughter, Charlotte. Known for a no-nonsense demeanor at work, Smith is a softie at home.
says, looking somewhat abashed. “If I
were in a bar, I wouldn’t walk up to a woman and say, ‘Hey baby,
to producer, and I like the versatility with food. Some of them are
can I buy you a drink?’ But something made me say, ‘I just have to
unctuous, others are very refined, some elegant, some rustic.”
touch you, you’re so smooth.’ I’m not proud of it, but that’s what
The remainder of the collection comprises mostly Italian bothappened.”
tlings (reflecting Ginevra’s passion for older Italian wines), along
“Something about it was kind of childish but also cute,” says
with a mix of Spanish, German and Austrian wines. “I am inGinevra, who was married at the time. The distributor had assigned
spired by European wines that have nerve, that have minerality,”
her to shepherd Smith, who had a reputation for sometimes veerSmith muses, standing on the gravel floor of the cellar. “I want
ing off course. “There was never a hand held or kiss shared until
to make wines that have that electricity and are going to be alive
she was divorced,” he insists, and Ginevra confirms. But four years
10, 15, 20 years down the road.”
later, after her divorce, they got together again. “It was three months
Ever since he discovered good wine in the back rooms of the
from first kiss to wedding,” she smiles.
restaurants where he worked in his 20s, he knew he needed to
They were married in 2009, a second marriage for both. Smith’s
make wine someday. “My hope was to make a couple thousand
first, which came in his 20s, lasted only a year. The Brazilian woman
cases of wine a year, maybe earn $100,000 a year, meet a girl, start
(who now handles visa requests at the Brazilian consulate in Los
a family.
Angeles) is Facebook friends with Ginevra. They connect regu“When I am 87 years old I want to be the old guy sitting on the
larly. “I have no idea what they talk about,” Smith shrugs. “They
bench on Main Street with my cane, like those old French winewon’t tell me.”
makers who had socks that didn’t match their pants, which don’t
The Smiths live much of the time in the farmhouse outside Walla
match their shirt, or their jacket, and they look cool as hell. You
Walla that came along with the structure Charles purchased in
know? I didn’t know where that was going to be, but I wanted to
2001 to age the K Vintners wines. The house, built in 1872, has
be that guy.”
since been extensively remodeled, including a state-of-the-art
People strolling by might remember this codger as the winery
kitchen for Ginevra, an accomplished cook who makes an extraorowner who did unconventional things such as distributing extra
dinary risotto Bolognese.
income from private-label wines to his employees. “He has a big
Smith, who can be curt during business hours, becomes a marshheart,” says Charles Bieler, Smith’s partner in Charles & Charles.
mallow around Charlotte. “He cried for two weeks when she was
“He treats his team well and they operate like a family.”
born,” Ginevra smiles. “I can be very weepy,” he acknowledges,
One year, Smith used a $73,000 windfall (from selling a private
“maybe because my life as a child was kind of rough.” Ginevra and
cuvée to a U.K. chain) to pay for an eight-day trip to New Orleans
her Roman family insisted that Charlotte be baptized at St. Peter’s
for his entire 11-person staff. You can hear the enthusiasm as he
Basilica. Smith loves to show off the photo book.
describes the trip. “We did everything together—a seven-hour
Another prize in the home is a 3,000-bottle capacity wine cellunch at Galatoire’s, an all-day excursion in the bayou. We’re drinklar, fashioned from a large, unused space beneath the house. None
ing jereboams of Hommage à Jacques Perrin at Commander’s Palof its current contents are from Smiths’ own winery, but still reace. I told them there was $73,000, there’s 11 of us, and we have
flect his eclectic tastes. “It’s only for personal consumption,” he
to spend it all.
says. “I would say it’s about 50 percent French, more Châteauneuf“It was one of the best trips I’ve ever had. I felt like I had a famdu-Pape than anything else, because it’s so varied from producer
ily of 11 people.”
Wahluke Slope’s Clifton Hill vineyard
The Winemaking behind
Charles smiTh’s brands
C
harles Smith lifts the tarp draped over a cubeshaped fermentor and peers into a mass of
Cabernet Sauvignon grapes. White pellets of
dry ice protrude from the barely crushed dark
blue clusters, blanketing the must with carbon dioxide and protecting it from air as its
own yeasts begin the fermentation.
Rows of these fermentors—the same 2.5ton containers that transported the grapes from the vineyards—
bubble away in a 15,000-square-foot winery in Walla Walla, a town
that has established itself as wine central for Washington. Already,
60 of these bins have been sandwiched into the space. Outside in
the crisp October sunlight, a sorting line picks through additional
bins, scrutinizing Syrah, Grenache, Cabernet Sauvignon and other
grape varieties hand-picked the previous day from some of the best
vineyards in the state. It’s harvesttime at K Vintners.
MilBrandt Vineyards
K Vintners
Smith’s first label, founded with the 2001 vintage, makes distinctly
artisanal wines, mostly priced $35 to $50. The label began with and
continues to deliver Syrahs and Cabernets that show precise and expressive fruit character, often finishing with trails of spice, leather and
black olive, on muscular but lithe frames. These small-volume reds,
such as those from Morrison Lane vineyard in Walla Walla or Northridge, high in Wahluke Slope, are “for people who want young, powerful wine, with balance, not overripe, but still with extra oomph,”
says Smith. The K lineup also includes Merlot, Sangiovese, a Grenache blend, and most recently, a Sauvignon Blanc.
Charles Smith Wines
The Charles Smith brand was launched in 2006 to showcase wines
that were easy for consumers to understand and that could be drunk
young. Behind their eye-catching labels, the modestly priced Charles
Smith wines are mostly “straight down the middle,” he says, “not
superpowerful.” Chateau Smith, $20, is a complex and expansive
Cabernet Sauvignon concealed behind a vulgar label intended to
poke fun at wineries that take themselves too seriously.
Smith long ago stopped blending his large-selling wines from surplus lots purchased in bulk, as he did with Magnificent Wine Co.
(founded in 2004, sold in 2011). Instead they are grown under longterm-contracts, even those priced $12 to $20 a bottle. The grapes for
Charles Smith wines are crushed, fermented and bottled at the Milbrandt winery in Mattawa, Wash., and the Goose Ridge winery facility in Richland. A new winery is being built in the Ancient Lakes
AVA to handle the grapes from Evergreen Vineyard starting in 2015.
“People who can afford $12 for one of my wines deserve the
OCT. 15, 2014 • Wine SpeCTaTOr
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Wine SpeCTaTOr • OCT. 15, 2014
don’t have any of the harsh character that can occur when fermenting with stems. Without the stems, Smith notes, “there would be a
hole.” As fermentation and maceration continue for 28 to 35 days,
the wines pass through a funky stage, but they emerge with polished
textures, along with more interesting aromas and flavors.
Charles & Charles
A collaboration with New York wine importer and entrepreneur
Charles Bieler, the Charles & Charles label is best-known for its
rosé. When Bieler, the son of a Provençal winegrower, approached
him in 2010 to make the vivid, bone-dry rosé, Smith turned to a
vineyard growing Syrah deemed too light for his own red wine style.
The first rosé, a 2008, was an eye-opener. The $12 bottling, its
label sporting sketches of the long-haired partners against a hand-
Charles Bieler (left) is Smith’s partner in the Charles & Charles label
drawn American flag, earned 90 points for its crisp texture and
pomegranate and mineral flavors. The 2011 rose to the No. 42 spot
on the Top 100 of 2012, and with 2013, the bottling grew to 48,000
cases, with sales and marketing handled by wine giant Trinchero.
Secco Bubbles
Secco emerged from a project of Smith’s wife and her two sisters.
In 2009, new rules for Prosecco required the wine contain at least
85 percent Glera (the historic name for the Prosecco grape), leaving growers of non-DOC approved varieties without buyers. The
blends for Secco Bianco and Secco Rosé vary yearly, but typically
include Chardonnay, Raboso Piave, Pinot Noir and others. It’s a
win for the growers, the co-op that makes these bottlings and for
consumers who like fresh, unpretentious fizz. The label, a pattern
of yellow dots that become progressively paler in color, is a simple
graphic representation of sparkling wine.
Clearly, Smith is driven to get it right. “Did we phone it in, or
did we really do it?” he asks rhetorically. “Did we make that extra
trip to the vineyard, or did we try to get it over with as soon as possible? Did we have the difficult conversations with the grower or
the production partner that you really didn’t want to have, but
[that are] necessary if you’re going to do what you really want to
do? I want to be able to sleep at night.”
BoB Whittaker
same attention I give to wines that cost more,” he says. “My model
is a chef like Daniel Boulud, a three-star who also has a great burger
restaurant. He believes everyone should have access to good food. I
love it.” In that vein, sources for the $12 Eve Chardonnay include
the Evergreen, Ancient Lakes and Roza Hill vineyards, this last a
34-year-old site in Yakima Valley. These cooler-climate spots are full
of limestone, Smith notes. “We ferment some of it in barrels, the rest
in concrete. We keep lots of solids in the wine to build mouthfeel.”
Although there’s no mention of it on the label, the $15 Boom
Boom Syrah gets its lively feel and deft balance from 3 percent Viognier co-fermented with Syrah from vineyards in the Wahluke Slope
and Horse Heaven Hills AVAs. And ViNO, the $11 Pinot Grigio,
comes entirely from Ancient Lakes to emphasize minerally flavors
and crisp acidity over blatant fruit
The most profound and impressive bottling thus
far, however, is the Charles Smith Syrah Royal City,
whose 2008 and 2009 versions topped our Washington tasting reports in 2011 and 2012, respectively,
with classic scores. The wine represents a deeper,
richer and more explosive style than K’s, the label
likewise more elaborate and edgy.
The story behind Royal City reflects Smith’s willingness to take chances in search of something
unique, both on the business side and in winemaking. On a tip from a grower, he went to see a littleknown vineyard outside Royal City, in Columbia
Valley. “There were like 65 acres of vines here. The
vines are lying all sprawled,” he says of Stoneridge
Vineyard in 2005. “It’s January and the fruit is on the
ground. Turned out the owner had died the previous
year, and the family couldn’t harvest it.”
Smith kicked around the rocky soils, liked the lay of
the land and decided to take all 11 acres of the Syrah,
paying $7,500 an acre if the family would do the work
as he outlined. “They did it, we made the wine, and it was really powerful,” he says. Surveying the vineyard a week before harvest, he saw
the grapes ripening unevenly. “The stems from the south part were
dark. Where they started to get green, I would tie a ribbon.” He had
the pickers stop at the ribbon, then return for the rest when fully ripe.
The grapes from Stoneridge’s lower section were destemmed for
one wine, with the upper section left as whole clusters to ferment
another. Both wines were aged in small neutral barrels, and a third
wine blending the two lots aged in larger, also neutral, 500-liter
puncheons. “These three wines were distinctly different,” Smith
says, “like Kurobuta pork three ways.” Heart, the destemmed wine,
and Skull, from whole clusters, were named after a pair of lithographs that Smith owns (“Heirloom,” by Jim Dine). Old Bones,
the wine from the puncheons, is the nickname of a neighbor.
As good as these wines were, the revelation came the next year,
a less powerful vintage. Adding stems from the lower section to
the fermenting vats of the top section to create greater depth also
produced a surprisingly glassy-smooth texture. That wine became
Royal City, rated 97 points in the 2006 vintage, and again in 2009
and 2010. The supple, complex and majestic 2009 is typical, with
floral, mineral and exotic spice character around a core of meaty
black cherry, licorice and maple flavors.
Smith now uses stems extensively in all his reds, but the wines