Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/859549
{ SOMMjournal.com } 57 At the helm of Ste. Michelle Wine Estates is President and CEO Ted Baseler. Respected as a visionary and champion of Washington State's wine industry, Baseler comes across as soft-spoken and pragmatic. He's been with the winery for over three decades—long before either the state or the chateau was on the map. "It's quite an astonishing achieve- ment," Baseler admits. He pauses for a moment to collect his thoughts. "Last year was Mondavi's 50th, and now it's ours. In 1967, there were just 27 wineries in California as compared to 12 in Washington. And you think, wow. We joke with our friends at Antinori about turning 50—Piero likes to tell us they have hoses in their cellars that are older than that." Then named Ste. Michelle Vintners, the winery's inaugural 1967 vintage—an eclectic if somewhat experimental portfolio of Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinot Noir, Sémillon and Grenache Rosé—amounted to 6,000 cases. André Tchelistcheff had been enlisted as a consultant. "André gave us a lot of time," says Baseler. "We're thankful he came to America. He was really big on hygiene in the winery, and he liked lower alcohol levels. He wouldn't have approved of 14.5 percent; he kept us right at 12–12.5 percent. That was his style. He was here when we were just a small sales force; he was with us till the early '90s." We pause to look at a lineup of the estate's bottles, the oldest dating back to 1969, many of them signed by Tchelistcheff. "In the early days, Bob Betz would talk about the challenges of marketing Washington wines. People have this image of the state as cold and wet, or hot and dry east of the Cascades. I think we finally turned the corner in the early 1990s. People started discovering remarkable wines from Leonetti and Quilceda Creek, and the attitude started to shift. Here, we have 300 days of sunlight, and thanks to our latitude, our summer days are two hours longer than California's. We've got mostly well- drained soils, and we think there's a benefit to the vines growing on their own roots. Over the years site selection has evolved, too. A lot of the vineyards in Yakima were planted with red varieties—it's almost always too cool to fully ripen reds there. We started shift - ing them to places where winter damage is less of an issue, which I think is essential." Add all of these ingredients together—or what Baseler referred to as kaizen: little steps, continuous improvement—and you have a recipe for success. Today, Chateau Ste. Michelle produces an astonishing 3.4 million cases. It has edged into the number-two spot as the most-sold premium domestic wine brand in the United States by case volume, with wines available in all 50 states and more than 100 countries. In 2016, Chateau Ste. Michelle had been named in Wine & Spirits magazine's "Top 100 Wineries of the Year" for the 22nd time, more than any other producer in the United States. A lineup of current releases from Chateau Ste. Michelle: Eroica Riesling, made in cooperation with Dr. Loosen of Germany; Cold Creek Vineyard Chardonnay; Canoe Ridge Estate Cabernet Sauvignon; Artist Series Red Wine; and Eroica Riesling Ice Wine. "The focus has always been on making wine in a classic fashion," says Baseler. Chateau Ste. Michelle Head Winemaker Bob Bertheau.