Fort Walla Walla Cellars maintains a tasting room in downtown Walla Walla, while the actual winery is located outside of town. The tasting room is housed in what was once a corner gas station, although you wouldn’t know it from either the outside or inside. I learned this from Terry, their tasting room manager, who also informed me that Fort Walla Walla Cellars’ name was chosen due to the two founders, Cliff Kontos and Jim Moyer, being history buffs.

I enjoyed meeting Terry and hearing his stories about the winery's founders, why they got into the business, and how they approach the winemaking process. The winery’s production is small (2,000 cases) relative to others in the valley, with them focusing on Rhone and Bordeaux style red wines only. I was glad to see that there were no tasting fee signs posted nor any mention of having to pay for the 3 wines (a cab/merlot blend, a syrah, and a bordeaux blend) available for sampling.

Terry shared how Fort Walla Walla Cellars sources all of its fruit from the Walla Walla Valley, except for the 2004 vintage, which was comprised of Columbia Valley grapes due to the freeze. Similar to my experience at Amavi Cellars, I was excited to discover wines that not only expressed the local terroir, but were food friendly as well. In fact, Terry referred to one of their wines, Trapper Red, as a “spaghetti wine”, implying that it’s suitable for pairing with everyday food.

My only disappointment was when Terry started citing the Wine Spectator scores their wines had received. Similar to my experience visiting Pepper Bridge winery, Terry unfortunately assumed I needed validation from Wine Spectator that their wines were good. To be fair, there are clearly folks that are influenced by ratings, which is why so many wineries and winemakers get caught up in the hoopla of a 90+ point review. It's unfortunate some establishments are uncomfortable letting their wines speak for themselves.

Their focus on ratings aside, I recommend visiting Fort Walla Walla Cellars, as they not only distinguish themselves by focusing solely on Walla Walla Valley fruit, but also for providing a non-winery tasting room experience that goes beyond the bottle.

Terry’s knowledge, experience, and passion for their wines is an exception to the rule amongst many of the tasting rooms located in downtown Walla Walla. If you have visited enough of these, then you would find the focus is mostly on pouring wine and ringing up sales. In fact, these non-winery tasting rooms would be better classified as a retail outlet similar to a wine bar, since most charge fees for sampling wine and offer little in terms of going beyond the bottle to connect customers to their winery.

Fort Walla Walla Cellars clearly strives to connect visitors to the people and places behind their wines, making this place a definite stop on anyone’s list of tasting rooms to visit in downtown Walla Walla.

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