Boise News

Idaho Grape-Growing Heaven

Location, Location, Location: Williamson Wine at Sunny Slope

By Alan Minskoff & Paul Hosefros, 4-26-09

photos by Paul Hosefros

The Year of Drinking Locally: Fruit Forward by Alan Minskoff
When Roger and John Williamson, who run Williamson Orchards and Vineyards, gather their broods for a group photo at their Sunny Slope orchard, vineyard or fruit stand, it takes a wide-angle lens. For this picture includes three generations of fruit growers, farmers, cider producers and in the last decade one of Idaho’s premier grape growers. Their award-winning wines begin with their south-facing, gently sloped vineyards.  If it all starts in the vineyards, as many wine lovers and vintners claim, then the Williamson vines and trees have a legitimate claim to one of the best locations for growing grapes—not to forget apricots, peaches, apples, cherries and plums—anywhere in the 43rd state.

The Williamsons have been growing, packing and selling fruit for decades. Locals swear by their apple cider, which is entirely derived from Criterion apples; making it keeps this family enterprise busy in the winter months when the fruit stand is closed and the trees and vines are dormant; the wines aging in bottles and barrels.

Roger and John’s great aunt and uncle planted the first apple trees here a century ago. The Williamson’s original Sunny Slope homestead was 80 acres. The orchards, vineyards and row crops now cover 700; about 35 acres are currently planted in grapes. Roger runs the vineyards. The family got in the wine grape business more than a decade ago when they contracted to grow grapes for Ste. Chapelle.  They grow Viognier, Syrah, Riesling and Cabernet grapes and split their produce between themselves and other wineries. 

A West Point grad, Roger Williamson and his brother John, who got a degree in agriculture from Idaho, share the responsibility for the multifaceted business. Both their wives work with them, and their children have not only grown up among the fruit trees and vines, they’re now integral parts of the enterprise. Susan, Roger’s wife, is in charge of the produce and Ilene, John’s spouse, tends the garden. Roger’s son Mike works in the orchards and his daughter Beverly works on the marketing side of the business. And John’s son Pat is studying viniculture at WSU. 

Roger Williamson’s knowledge of fruit has informed his grape growing, and he agrees that the Williamson’s location has distinct advantages: “It has good air drainage, is one of the warmest sites in the region. The soil is little sticky lower down and sandy higher on the hills--syrah grow well here. The vineyards are easy to take care of.” Set beneath the Canyon County Chalk Hills, Williamson considered naming his wines after the geological feature but reconsidered because there’s already a Chalk Hills winery in Sonoma.

Roger believes that their wines benefit from their experience with orchard management. He prefers fruit-forward wines that are less tannic.  He oversees the management of the vineyards and supervises the pruning, leaf stripping, shoot thinning and all the stages from bud break to harvest and beyond.

Always innovative, Williamson Orchards and Vineyards introduced Criterion and
Honey Crisp apples to Idaho; they also were the first to produce pluots—a cross between apricots and plums—and they’re now adding some new varietals to their grape production with Mourvedre and Sangiovese. Up until now their wines have essentially been single varietals, but blending is in their future. Their neighbor Greg Koenig makes the wines and is also one of their customers. They sell grapes to Davis Creek, Cinder and Ste. Chapelle too. 

In the warm months heading into the harvest, produce is sold the day it’s picked. The fruit is among the most flavorful around and the wine, already award winning, is getting better and better.  They may only sell around a thousand cases of wine a year but their vineyards are producing wine grapes for many of the region’s best wines. 

The Williamson Fruit Stand and Tasting Room is a must stop for anyone interested in how one family farm has developed and evolved. The history of the place can be seen on the side of the building where a living museum of agricultural tools hangs, a testimony to where they have been. Roger adds that having a fruit stand that is open daily helps them sell wine, because a lot of wineries are only open on weekends. Williamsons Tasting Room with its distinctive walnut counter is just steps away from the fruit stand. 

Alan Minskoff teaches Journalism at the College of Idaho, still can’t locate his Wineaux hat and is entering his fourth month as a semi-professional wine, um, taster.

VantagePoint - on Pruning by Paul Hosefros

Embrace contradictions.  Sounds more like a Lao Tzu mantra than a grape grower’s guideline. But to make the vines and grapes grow productively, cutting them to what seems within an inch of their stick-like lives is really the only way growers have to help the fruiting buds stay young.  Gardeners around the world are on intimate terms with this ancient principle: getting rid of the old in a progression of renewal, lightening the winter’s burden of straggly, spindly brown, left-over vines. The robust work ahead of bearing pendulous bunches of grapes is left to fruiting buds, encouraged to stay young.

Roger Williamson of Williamson Orchards & Vineyards takes the pruning season in early spring very seriously.  Out early with his patient, purposeful field crew among the Mourvedre vines, he shares the repetitive task.  Both hands gripping the wooden handles of super-sharp pruning shears, he snips the vines like a barber, cutting back the vines that seem more like crab legs run amok than docile grape vines.  Vines wild from winter’s dormancy, now seem shorn like Army recruits and ready for action.  “It’s a necessity,” he says, showing the crew chief Javier Moreno how closely he wants the vines to be cut.

It goes to the matter of quality.  Relatively smaller crop yields invariably produce better grapes.  And, in return, better grapes lead to better vintages, better wine.

But the labor-intensive hand-cutting of the vines—even at warp speed, a good pruner can only clip ¾ of an acre in a day-- also plays a role later in the growing season.  Now cut, the plants are balanced, not too many tendrils, and roots forced to plunge deeper into the crumbly, volcanic soil.  Later, pruning thins the leaves so sunlight can cascade down through the plant allowing for the right intensity of sugar.

But that’s later.  For now, the vines are cut and poised for action. 

Paul Hosefros, besides taking pictures from time to time, prunes like Edward Scissorhands.

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