Idaho’s Indian Creek: 2008 Winery of the Year

By Paul Hosefros, 4-02-09

The Year of Drinking Locally by Alan Minskoff

Dubbed the godfather of Idaho wine industry, Bill Stowe, the founder and longtime winemaker at Indian Creek, has influenced some of the state’s most significant vintners and grape growers. Brad Pintler, longtime winemaker at his own winery and subsequently at Sawtooth, and Greg Koenig, who creates his own wines and is the winemaker for 3 Horse and Williamson, both worked at Indian Creek.

An Idaho native and Air Force veteran, Stowe traces his interest in grape growing and wine making to a stint in Germany. There he learned about the art of creating handcrafted wines while in the service. He even worked a couple of crushes and the seeds were sown for his passionate pursuit of making wines in his home state.

In the 80s Bill and his wife Mui bought more than 20 acres in Kuna while he was stationed at Mountain Home Air Force Base. As the story goes, he drove the same red International Harvester tractor that he still rides up from Mountain Home to his vineyard near Indian Creek. That was a quarter of a century ago.

Stowe’s admirers say he could grow grapes on a slab of stone, and his vineyard in Kuna is one of the oldest and best established in southwest Idaho. He readily admits that Kuna may not the warmest spot in the valley, but adds that the climate and limestone laden soil has been more than hospitable to wine grapes.

Growing pinot noir grapes made his early reputation. A notoriously difficult varietal that thrives in the moister Willamette Valley—and was famously touted on film in “Sideways” —Stowe’s Indian Creek Pinot Noirs have won major accolades from the outset. His 1988 Pinot Noir took the best red wine award (out of 889) from the San Diego National Wine Competition in 1990.

Stowe founded the winery with his brother Mike and Rich Ostrogorsky. Mike Stowe taught school and took wine classes in America’s academic wine capital - Davis, California. They planted grapes in the mid-eighties but suffered a killing frost in the winter of 1985-86, so the winery dates to 1987. A man of weaker constitution might have packed in his dream of making wine in Kuna after frosts nearly destroyed three of the first five crops, but Stowe persevered, the next twenty years the weather cooperated, and Indian Creek now produces just under five thousand cases of about a dozen wines.

At elevation 2,626 this high altitude vineyard and winery produces a rich palate of varietals and blends that include Syrah, Pinot Noir, Malbec, Star Garnet, Cabernet, and Ruby Port and white wines Chardonnay, Mountain Syringa, White Riesling, the unique white Pinot Noir and a Rosé.

Winepress Northwest named Indian Creek Idaho Winery of the Year in 2008. Stowe and family continue to innovate; last year they produced a small batch of 100 percent Petit Verdot. 

Indian Creek is now a multi-generational enterprise. Stowe, now 70, turned the family business over to his daughter and son-in-law. Daughter Tammy designs wine labels, takes care of the website and manages events (weddings are popular) and her husband Mike McClure recently became the winemaker. Everyone still works the soil and the vines.

Not to worry.  Bill is still around, riding his tractor, dispensing wisdom and Idaho wine lore. 

Alan Minskoff teaches journalism at the College of Idaho, doesn’t own a tractor and has already misplaced his “wineaux” hat.

Vantage Point by Paul Hosefros

Anticipation. Vineyard mystery, ancient ritual and magical obligation-- the time for Bud Break is looming.

Snowflakes Sunday suddenly drift to the ground, as if teasing the palpable anticipation in the vineyards and among winemakers for bud break, that semi-spiritual, magical time signaling the “awakening of the vineyard.” It is the time when pruned vines, sharply cropped like Army recruits, start sending their tender wisps of green skyward. With luck, another growing season begins in earnest. Yet amidst the mysterious optimism that is purely American, it is a time of peril. There is a sense of “holding one’s breath.” And Bill Stowe, the pioneer winemaker of Indian Creek explains, “because, if a late frost kills the buds, during or just after bud break…there’s no crop.” That’s why they try to prune as late as possible…so the buds will sneak past any wanton frost. For Bill, the recent late frost in March, 2007, still seems to sting, to haunt his memory: “It didn’t happen.  My heart sank, oh yeah, pretty good.” But his spirit is undaunted.

It was Bill who first made me aware of the importance of bud break.

Even in the midst of grooming the vineyard, riding tall on his faded red International Harvester, Bill seems to find the discussion of bud break a welcome distraction. The tractor purring, at first he exhales, “I got no time to talk.” But he relents.  Besides, a set of wayward keys need finding. He reconsiders my questions. A wary smile breaks the tanned landscape of his angular face. The smile seems to escape, as if no longer able to keep his optimism about bud break in check.  “Do you check every day, minute, every hour?” I ask.

“No, not me.” But there was a time…. Is it spiritual? In a non-religious, inner-moment kind of way?  “it used to be…a long time ago.” Deep inside, perhaps, memories of frosts and loss contend with the warmth and optimism of today; he knows bud break is looming and with it the game again is on.  As for all of us, there are times when we know without absolutely knowing, that another chance to succeed is coming our way.  Are we ready?

Bill seems momentarily wistful, looking beyond his tractor, beyond the pruned rows of patient earth and tawny sticks.  He sees a “line of green, and with the “sun over there” raking across the lines of stretched vines, “it’s quite pretty, a neat time.”

Paul Hosefros took photographs for the New York Times for three decades, owns an old house in Caldwell and exists in an uneasy truce with the Internet.