When Tres Heffron first decided to try making wine at his Bainbridge Island home, he figured he’d start small. “I thought I’d go with about fifty pounds of grapes,” he said. Instead, seven hundred pounds of cabernet sauvignon grapes were delivered last week to Heffron’s virgin winery—a section of his garage he has painstakingly enclosed, insulated, and climate controlled.
Heffron’s escalation from approaching winemaking as hobby to winemaking as potential livelihood began last summer. Several weeks after tasting a wine from local Victor Alexander Winery at an informal work gathering, he found himself in the winery’s tasting room, face-to-face with winemaker Charlie Merrill. For over an hour they discussed the technical, and not so technical, aspects of winemaking. Heffron began visiting him weekly.
“I was kind of stalking him,” he said. Heffron quickly realized that winemaking was something he wanted to do more than just part-time—it was something he was passionate about. “Winemaking has a bit of everything. It is very cerebral at times, but there is also a lot of physical labor,” a combination lacking in his current job as a tax software engineer.
When he approached Merrill with the idea of ordering a small amount of grapes during this harvest season, the winemaker encouraged him to think bigger. It didn’t take much prodding to convince Heffron to purchase one third of the cabernet sauvignon grapes destined for Victor Alexander Winery, along with several winemaking books, a brand new stainless steel variable volume tank, a used American oak barrel, and enough lab equipment to make any high school chemistry teacher jealous.
Heffron’s two-feet in approach is strikingly similar to that of Matt Albee, owner of Bainbridge Island’s Eleven Winery. In the late 1990s, Albee was immersed in the world of software, but longing for a different profession. He had moved to Northern California to pursue his dream of professional bicycle racing. “You have to be genetically gifted to make it as a professional bike racer. And I had reached the limit of my genetic ability.”
Albee found himself working as a software product manager and touring Napa’s wineries in his free time. He began visiting a small local spot—Page Hill Winery—every day for a week during the early part of harvest season. The winemaker recognized Albee’s relentless enthusiasm and encouraged him to consider making his own barrel. With only two weeks left of harvest, Albee was forced to make a quick, and life-changing, decision. If he didn’t strike now, he’d have to wait another year. He struck.
Over the next three years, Albee continued working at the winery in his spare time, learning through both observation and hands-on experience. By the end of his third season at Page Hill Winery, Albee had made fifteen barrels of wine, and sealed his fate. He was officially a winemaker.
In 2001 Albee relocated to Bainbridge Island. Over the past ten years, he has grown as both a winemaker and as a businessman. “It is really easy to not make a profit,” Albee said. “Your ability to succeed in the winemaking industry depends on your ability to also assume the role of businessman.”
Eleven Winery’s steady expansion is evidence that Albee has managed to do just that. In the past decade, he has opened two tasting rooms, one on Bainbridge Island and one in downtown Poulsbo. He was also instrumental in forming the Winery Alliance of Bainbridge Island, a union of seven wineries focused on promoting the island’s budding wine industry. On November 11 (yes, 11/11/11), Eleven Winery officially moved from Albee’s 400 square foot garage to a new 4,000 square foot building complete with an office, a tasting bar, space for events, and enough storage for his own barreled and bottled wine as well as other wineries on the island.
For freshman winemakers like Heffron, Eleven Winery’s success is good news. “I would love for this to be my life,” Heffron said while standing over his stainless steel tank, stirring his fermenting grapes inside his small garage winery. In the meantime, he looks forward to the multiple lab tests he has in store for the next several months. “I’ve spent eighteen years fighting the computer geek image. Turns out, I might actually be a geek.”
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