The Wine Knows

Precept Brands announced today that it will build a 53,000-square-foot winery west of Walla Walla called Walla Walla Wine Works.

It will be built in time for this fall's harvest and will have a capacity to produce up to 250,000 cases of wine.

I first heard about this a couple of months ago on the Walla Walla Wine News site, and Precept affirmed the news today in a press release.

Precept is an amazing company. It was launched by Andrew Browne, who was CEO of Corus Brands until most of that company was sold to Constellation in 2001. Most of his business model has been as a negociant, purchasing wine from wineries and rebottling it under such brands as Avery Lane, Pine & Post, WAWA and Barrelstone. The company has since purchased such respected longtime wineries as Washington Hills in Sunnyside and Waterbrook in Walla Walla. It also bottles wines from Europe and Australia.

Precept already has built itself into one of the major players in Washington with about 600,000 cases of wine last year.

It would be difficult for Precept to make 250,000 cases of wine strictly from Walla Walla Valley grapes, since the appellation doesn't have enough available fruit to support that. However, Precept has purchased a 500-acre vineyard in the Yakima Vally and has contracts for other grapes. Thus, Precept is quickly moving from strictly a negociant-based company to a wine producer.