Featured Wine Professional Member: Mike Conway of Latah Creek Wine Cellars

The Conway Family:  Ellena, Natalie and Mike

At our ZINO Life Investment Forum last week at the beautiful Pan Pacific Hotel, during the Awards Reception, we featured ZINO Society Wine Professional Member, Latah Creek Wine Cellars pouring a selection of their current releases. I particularly liked the Monarch Red Blend.  I asked Mike Conway, the Winemaker/Owner to answer a few questions about Latah Creek Wine Cellars that I would like to share with you here:

• How long has your winery been in business?  First production was in 1982 – opened our tasting room in 1983
• How many total wine cases did you produce last year? 16,000 cases
• What style(s) of wine do you produce?  70% off our production is light and fruity whites: Riesling, Muscat and Pinot Gris and Chardonnay. The balance is reds primarily Sangiovese and Merlot with a new Monarch Red blend and a few, small lot Monarch Series Reserve Reds.
• What made you decide to get into the wine business?  My first experience in wine dates back to 1972. After departing the Air Force, I restarted my college studies in central California, this time majoring in Microbiology. At the same time I was able to get a night shift job at the Gallo Winery in their Microbiology lab. My job there was to monitor the bottling lines and finished products for sterility. At this time in the wine industry there was a change going on; pasteurization and preservatives were being replaced by the brand new technology of sterile microfiltration. Three years later, with degree in hand, I accepted a position at the neighboring Franzia Bros. Winery and eventually became their head Microbiologist. The experience gained over the past five years gave me the confidence and opportunity to move northward to the Parducci Winery in Mendocino County where I oversaw the installation and use of their first sterile filtration system. It was during my three years at Parducci that I actually got involved in winemaking and where I realized a future in wine was possible. In 1980 my wife and I decided to make a bold move; go even further north to an almost unknown wine region - Washington State. At that time this fledgling wine industry had only 18 wineries. The rest is history.
• Share a funny, real life experience you have faced in the wine business.  I have this happen all the time, the last time just a few nights ago. We were at a nice restaurant in town and ordered an unknown-to-us bottle of wine from their “specials” list. The waitress brought the wine, unscrewed the top, and served me an “approval” sample. It was quite nice but I made the mistake of making a “screw top” comment. She went on for about five minutes elaborating on the benefits of screw tops: the wines age better, they are easier to open, etc., etc., etc. Not wanting to embarrass her, nothing was said about our being in the wine business. Unfortunately there was a friend of ours at the same restaurant who told her who we were. She came back to us with her shoulders shrugged, apologizing profusely for her misinformation. We have decided we should now have a “winemaker dining here” disclaimer when we first sit down at a restaurant.

• What ratings have any of your wines received? And from which experts?  Latah Creek’s wines have received numerous awards and accolades over the years, the most prestigious being three different Latah Creek wines selected in The Wine Spectator Magazine’s TOP 100 Wines of the Year in a three year period. We have also been given recognition as producing one of the Best Rieslings in the state year after year.