DavenLore Winery

Gordon Taylor of DavenLore Winery

For as long as he can remember, Gordon Taylor has been involved in agricultural work, starting with stall cleaning and tractor driving on his family’s Canadian beef farm.   In college he developed a passion for agricultural research, which led him to a job with Ocean Spray Cranberry where he helped to develop craisins.   When the company sent him from the East coast to Prosser, WA, he realized that he had landed in one of the top wine regions of the world.  His job involved many non-alcoholic juices, but the attention to detail, emphasis on cleanliness, and knowledge of equipment required to produce quality fruit juice were all good training for making wine.    He went commercial with DavenLore wines in 2005, with one of the most memorable and mysterious logos in the business.   You need to visit the winery to explore the mystery of Petro.

Gordon favors blended rather than 100% single varietal wines, but there are no rules at DavenLore that can’t be broken when necessary.  For example, Gordon said for years that he’d never make an Italian style wine, but just recently he made a Barbera.  He also makes a very nice non-traditional SVP blend – Sangiovese and Petit Verdot.  His best known blend is Aridisol, an anagram of arid soil that is typically a Rhone style wine.   Although you can find Petite Sirah at a handful of other WA wineries, DavenLore is the only one that uses the original French name “Durif” for this varietal and wine, one of DavenLore’s best sellers.   Listen here to find out more about Durif, the virtues of blending, why Syrah is the winemaker’s dream varietal, how many cases can be produced from a barrel of wine, and much more.

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