Jason Fox and Todd Bernave of Lagana Cellars
Jason Fox and Todd Bernave ended up making wine together in Walla Walla after years of doing other things—Jason restaurant jobs in Indiana and Todd fine arts and culinary work. Jason and a friend came to Washington in 2011 to get involved in the wine industry, which for Jason meant studying winemaking at the Walla Walla Community College. After he graduated in 2013, he opened Lagana Cellars with a focus on white wines. Todd had been working at Walla Walla Vintners with his dad, honing his skills in making red wine. When he joined Jason at Lagana as co-owner and winemaker in 2017, the winery was re-envisioned to focus on a variety of red and white wines from the Walla Walla and Columbia Valleys. Lagana means bread in Latin, and the name and the Latin phrases on the back of each wine bottle reflect Jason’s Latin studies that accompanied his astrophysics and anthropology majors in college.
Most current Lagana wines are single varietal ones designed to really highlight each grape variety’s character. They are also terroir driven, with the white wines sourced from select vineyards in the Columbia Valley and the reds sourced from vineyards in 4 different parts of the Walla Walla Valley. Lagana wines really showcase just how diverse the Walla Walla Valley is when it comes to elevation, rainfall, climate, soils and so forth. The best selling wine is the Lagana Pinot Noir, which is a wine not often seen in Walla Walla. There are other delightful surprises at Lagana such as wines on Coravin, screwcaps on all bottles, art by Todd on labels and tasting room walls, and rarely seen woods used in winemaking. Visitors will soon be treated to a Lagana Viognier influenced by a small amount Lenga wood from Patagonia. Learn about these unique aspects of Lagana and much more from this interview.
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