Serendipity is as good a way as any to find a talented producer. My long-term plan included having at least one or two Washington State wineries in the portfolio, though I expected not to add them until sometime later. The usual way of "discovering" an established, though unheralded, producer typically involves lots of research and tasting. In the case of Domaine Pouillon, I did neither. Instead, we were brought together by way of an e-mail I received last spring from the former co-director of the small private school I went to in Washington, D.C. Dick Roth, a man who, as I have learned over the course of the 28 years since I graduated from high school, likes his wine, told me that he had just visited an alum in Washington State who makes wine and that I might consider contacting him. I sent Alexis Pouillon (Edmund Burke Class of 1985) an e-mail introducing myself and telling him about Dick's message to me. After some back and forth, the Pouillons (Juliet is the other half of the husband-and-wife Domaine Pouillon team) sent me six wines to try. They were terrific all the way around.

Visitors have come from far and wide to taste Domaine Pouillon's wares, though New Yorker's won't have to travel to the Columbia Gorge to do so now.

At about the same time, Domaine Pouillon was included in a short travel article in The New York Times, which resulted in a few more pins being stuck in the tasting room map showing where visitors had come from to try their wine. As might be expected, distribution is weighted heavily toward the Pacific Northwest. Their charming wines ("country bumpkin" was how Juliet referred to them when she sent them to me) seemed to me to be ideal for the New York market simply because they aren't the same old thing. Instead, blends are composed of partners I wouldn't have thought belonged together; no attempt is made to push up alcohol levels; there is a palpable sense of restraint to them making them, first and foremost, food wines.

There is an overriding sense of individuality in the wines of Domaine Pouillon. That is no doubt a reflection of the Pouillons themselves. While drawing a barrel sample, Alexis said, “I want to get rid of all the barrels and do cement tanks.” Further evidence that as a winemaker, he is an acolyte of no school.

But like all too many small producers who have not been anointed by the wine press—read: Robert Parker and/or The Wine Spectator—the odds of getting distribution in non-local major wine markets are daunting at best.

T-Bone—the "requisite winery dog," according to Juliet—surveys the foreboding lay of the land at Domaine Pouillon. Violent seismic activity millions of years ago has rendered the Columbia Gorge as difficult to navigate as it is promising for wine grapes.

Though perhaps not as daunting as just making wine in this part of the world. The Columbia Gorge is the product of cataclysmic seismic activity millions of years ago. What is above ground now was likely under the ocean then resulting in one of the wine world's most complex collection of soils, sediments, exposures and micro-climates. The gorge makes the rest of Eastern Washington wine country look positively barren by comparison.

Cross sections of the Columbia Gorge's crazy quilt of rocky soils are often conveniently available for observation thanks to winding mountain roads being carved right through them.

The plan is to have 7 of their 20 acres under vine. Currently, two acres of very young vines are planted. For now, the Pouillons get all their fruit from carefully chosen vineyards on both sides of the Columbia River. The decision to settle down in the Columbia Gorge is intriguing, though Alexis says simply, "I wanted four seasons, not California prices.” A drive up the mountain in Lyle ("There's one traffic light here," Alexis says.) to get to Domaine Pouillon offers no hint that there is an emerging world-class wine region here. I saw one winery as I drove, and it seemed better suited to be a survivalist compound than a place where wine tourism might flourish. There were also no vineyards in sight. “We’re like Napa years ago,” Alexis says.

Despite the look of things at the end of August, it rains about 20 inches a year here (which is considerably more than in other parts of Eastern Washington). "We'd like to move to dry farming," says Alexis of their young estate vines.

THE REST OF THE STORY COMING SOON!