Andrew Gerow, Gabriel Crowell and Matthew Doutney of Tirriddis Sparkling Wine
13 March 2023
Thanks to our sponsor: Best West Plus, Inn of Horse Heaven in Prosser
Andrew Gerow, Gabriel Crowell and Matthew Doutney came to Washington State University from Michigan, Cyprus and New York to enroll in the Viticulture and Enology Program. During the course of their studies, they enjoyed many sparkling wines together, especially with simple foods such as fried chicken and potato chips. Their friendship and love of bubbly grew to the point that they decided to partner in a sparkling wine venture that would help to develop Washington state as a world-class region for this type of wine. Because they graduated during the height of the pandemic when opening a tasting room was difficult, they first opened NV Wines in Richland, WA—a wine shop offering international wines at reasonable prices. In fall 2022, their sparkling project came to fruition with the opening in Prosser, WA of a tasting room for Tirriddis Sparkling Wine.
Tirriddis is not derived from a combination of their names, but rather from the three key stages of the traditional, or champagne, method of making sparkling wine: tirage, riddle, disgorge. The three winemakers are dedicated to this challenging process, which involves a natural second fermentation in the bottle that produces bubbles and unites their different wines. They make both non vintage and vintage sparkling wines mostly with grapes sourced from the Rattlesnake Hills AVA. It’s pretty much a blank slate, they say, regarding which Washington grape varieties and vineyards are best for sparkling wine. They see Tirriddis as an experimental project designed to discover the ideal elements for making WA sparkling wine. If you want excellent dry sparkling wines at reasonable prices, Tirriddis is the place for you!!
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