Our Story
In 2005, Kevin Lantz of Lantz Cellars helped owners, Bob and Roxanne Sage, make their first Cab blend. The blend, a mix of Cabernet and Syrah, was named the Summer Solstice Red and was used for their daughter’s wedding wine on Lopez Island.
Summer Solstice Red still remains in our line-up, but has morphed into a Cab/Malbec/Syrah blend that has won four medals in its first two vintages: one double-gold and three silvers.
We made our own versions of garage wines that were all well accepted and enjoyed by friends and family. Drinking the same wines everyday became a bit boring, however, so we began to expand our garage-made varietals.
Fast-forward to today, and we now offer 11 wines to our tasting room guests and friends. This includes 2 dry whites, 8 reds and a recently released Port style dessert wine.
Plain Cellars grew in leaps and bounds in a relatively short amount of time, from just a few hundred cases to full capacity of approx. 2,000 cases in just a couple of years. We strive and seek out the best sources of fruit for each varietal we bring to the winery.
Plain Cellars is extremely fortunate to work with the best growers in Washington State:
Our Riesling comes from the Entiat area in North Central Washington, grown by the winemaker himself.
Our Chardonnay is grown by Todd Newhouse of Upland Vineyard.
We source our red grapes from Tedd Wildman of Stone Tree Vineyard, Colin Morrel of Lonesome Springs Ranch and Marshal Edwards of Dick Shaw Vineyards on Red Mountain.
These are extremely well-known growers and the best at what they do. They make the winemaking easier for us with all the hard work they do with their vines throughout the year.
Our Process
Once we get the grapes in the cellar it’s a very hands-on process, with every grape cluster being inspected before it’s processed. All lots are small and fermentations are performed in 1-ton bins, allowing for a variety of yeast and extraction methods to be done on our reds. Our Riesling is mostly native fermentation in neutral French oak barrels on their lees. Chardonnay is native fermented in 100% French Oak with around 20% new and left on their lees, stirred weekly and being put through full ML secondary fermentation.
Our whites receive a light fining and are filtered before bottling. After fermentation, nearly all of our red wines go into French oak barrels, with a small percentage receiving some Bulgarian oak. Depending on the year and varietal, new oak could be 30-65%. They stay in the barrel room for 18-24 months to allow the magic to do its work. All of our red wines are unfined and unfiltered.
Regardless of style or vintage, at Plain Cellars we strive to respect and showcase our wine’s terroir and the hard work of the growers involved. Our hope is that these wines continue to live on and evolve for years, enjoyed on land or on a boat, around the BBQ or the dinner table.and be able to be enjoyed whether out on the boat, sitting at the dock, around the BBQ or at the dinner table. Regardless of where you are and who you’re with, it’s an honor that you would choose our wines to be a part of your moments and memories.