Northwest Big Reds Club™
October 2007
Club Selections:
Mark Ryan Dead Horse Red 05
Fielding Hills Cabernet sauvignon 05
Both Mark Ryan and Fielding Hills wineries released some of their first wines around 2001 and have seen a steady and rapid increase in popularity and ratings. Each winery pursues a particular vision of Washington wine. Mark McNeilly, winemaker and owner of Mark Ryan Winery, goes for big, hearty, meaty wines made, for the most part, from Red Mountain appellation fruit. His 2005 Dead Horse is made exclusively from Ciel du Cheval Vineyard fruit. Ciel du Cheval is a highly regarded Red Mountain vineyard.
Mike Wade, winemaker and owner of Fielding Hills Winery, makes red wines from one vineyard, his own Riverbend Vineyard, located in Mattawa, Washington. New to wine making, Mike made a series of increasingly complex wines from his maturing vineyard through the early 2000's. This 2005 vintage shows more of the unique qualities of the vineyard in the wine (terroir) than ever before.
Mark Ryan Winery
Mark McNeilly, owner and winemaker at Mark Ryan Winery, makes Washington wine with a roll and roll sensibility. He and his wine making friends' "Indie" wineries produce huge, raucous, massive red wines with names and flavors inspired by musicians from Spinal Tap to the Afghan Whigs. Some, like Chris Gorman, his partner in the Giant Wine Company, have played in bands to considerable success. McNeilly's love of music shows in his conversation, in his distinctly rockin' tasting room, and in his several homages to favorite rock groups, movies, and songs.
Mark McNeilly is a Washington indie wine star who started making wine in 1999. While Mark is now a seasoned wine industry veteran with eight years of wine making success under his belt and a highly respected winery with well made and highly regarded wines, his love of the rebellious continues to show in the style and substance of his wines.
Rudimentary Wine making - The Early DaysIt’s amazing that Mark McNeilly still makes wine, given his first attempts with a rudimentary wine making kit. “The kit came with grape concentrate in a big juice can. You had to add water and sugar – it was disgusting!” Comparing those results to the great – or even mediocre - wines of France and Italy would have sent most people running for the hills. McNeilly persevered.
Mark McNeilly says he loves to cook but he "followed the money to the front of the house instead." Mostly he says he's happy he stayed away from cooking professionally so that he wouldn't be ruined for cooking at home.
Girlfriend Megan Dunavan, formerly sommelier at Cafe Juanita in Kirkland, Washington was in the restaurant industry herself until she recently took a job with a Seattle wine distributor. "She says she might like to be involved in making the white wines someday," he says. We'll look forward to that collaboration.
Time spent in restaurants waiting tables and bartending led to a sales job for a Seattle wine distributor.
“When I was in sales I was able to taste dozens of wines per week in an analytical situation, where everyone was talking about their perceptions and trying to understand the wine. That really helped my palate.”
“When I was in sales I was able to taste dozens of wines per week in an analytical situation, where everyone was talking about their perceptions and trying to understand the wine. That really helped my palate.”
That, in turn, led to a two year stint as national sales manager for Matthews Cellars in Woodinville, Washington.
Working at Matthews gave me a whole new skill set in selling wine and dealing with distributors,” he says. “It also got me into the cellar where I was working more hands on with wine.”
Those jobs, along with work at Steele Winery in Lake County, California where he worked in the lab, the vineyard and on the crush pad, provided the practical education which culminated in the launching of his own label in 1999.
