Andante Vineyard Q and A with Owner Karen Saul

KS: I would say that music and wine both originate from a primordial human urge to enjoy and express ourselves. They require thoughtful effort and time to produce, and yet they can foster such spontaneous delight. They enhance our experiences, inspire and comfort us, and many people consider them essential to celebrating life.

KS: Our signature wine must be the Sauvignon blanc, although I love all of them! I’m lucky to be married to a very talented pianist who plays for me nearly every day. Among my favorite pieces that Joe plays is Scott Joplin’s “Solace,” which is set to a sexy, slow Tango rhythm. I highly recommend pouring a glass and listening to the music to see if you agree!

KS: In addition to all of the required measures for spacing, sanitation, and face coverings, we adopted a “by appointment” system for wine tasting. We plan to keep it that way after COVID. We believe our guests come here to relax and unwind, which is only possible if they’re confident we’ll provide a safe and enjoyable experience each time they visit. We want our staff to feel safe and enjoy their work at Andante. The appointment system ensures we won’t be overrun by an unexpected surge and each guest will receive the right amount of time and attention on every visit.

KS: At the most fundamental level, we start with good farming practices that produce high-quality fruit and we carefully turn it into premium wine. At the next level, we provide a unique and enjoyable experience for guests who visit Andante. We offer beautiful wines in a relaxed environment in the place where everything is grown and made. We don’t do much advertising, other than some social media posts, so most of our guests come to us on word-of-mouth referrals from their friends and family. Every guest can become an ambassador for the business if they’ve had a great experience here.

KS: Our winemaking team is near and dear to me. They’re almost like mid-wives bringing our fruit to the glasses we pour for our guests and at our own table. I particularly love the way in which our farming and our winemaking operations are so closely integrated at Andante. We have regular meetings to discuss the vine-to-wine continuum (and we even have an employee whose job title is “vine-to-wine principal”). I personally participate in every aspect of the process, under their guidance of course. I’m there with them when the fruit arrives from our vines to the winery scale, through the three months of crush in the fall, winter barrel maintenance and springtime bottling, summer monitoring of growth and fruit sampling as harvest approaches. They are trusted colleagues and true professionals, as well as friends.

KS: Most PNW wines express the place where they originate and many PNW wineries are comparatively small, so the wines are not intended to follow a formula to taste the same every vintage. Our farming is still mostly done by hand. We use tractors of course, but Andante’s fruit is hand-tended and picked like in most small PNW vineyards. We’re fortunate to live in an area conducive to wine-growing and work in an industry that has a strong sense of community, as well as a healthy sense of competition that fosters the pursuit of excellence.

KS: No other place can be Andante, any more than we can be anyone but ourselves. We embrace that truth. We chose our site, planted all of our vines, designed our own buildings to suit their surroundings, and consider ourselves the hosts of every guest who comes to visit. We grow all the fruit that goes into our wine and participate in every aspect of our operations, from farming, through winemaking, through tasting and sales. It’s personal from start to finish.

KS: Oh, there are so many! But a memory that immediately springs to mind is being in our vineyard during a pick at the end of harvest season. It had finally started raining after a dry fall. Our Chehulpum soil (marine sedimentary) immediately went from firm to slippery mud. We were throwing tarps over picking bins and dealing with a slow leak in a tractor tire. I was soaking wet and reveling in the sense of life-lived-large. I knew then that I had found my nirvana and I’d never return to working indoors in high-heeled shoes!

KS: Pretending to be an “expert” (although a few people really are experts) and missing the chance to just relax and experience something wonderful while learning something new.

KS: I want to name one of our future wines after my mother. Her name was Celesta and she passed away before we founded Andante. It will have to be a very, very special wine and probably a white varietal, because that is what she liked best.